The Steve Dangle Podcast - Confronting the But | November 1, 2017

Episode Date: November 1, 2017

On this episode, Adam has a terrible pun (00:00), the Leafs has new line combinations (01:00), are we happy that Tyler Bozak is on the fourth line? (09:00), looks like the Leafs will sing Russian free agent Igor Ozhiganov in the summer (28:00), Vadim Shipachyov is headed back to the KHL (37:00), the Oilers are looking for offensive wingers (42:00), the Rangers are struggling (50:00), let's go through the current NHL standings (1:01:00), is tanking bad? (1:10:00), the NHL's goaltending supervisor is in trouble with the law (1:27:00), and the Press Conference (1:30:00). Originally aired: November 1, 2017 Watch the full episode here: Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Panago Pizza presents S.C.P. The Steve Dangle Podcast with your hosts, Steve Dangle and Adam Wilde. So, I was at the ACC today. For what? I was recording the other show that I do. You know. What? That other show.

The show that I'm cheating on you with. How dare you? The Blue Line Podcast with Adam Wilde and Sasky Stewart. It's okay, I'll be your seven day fool. to be found at Leafs Nation Network. But, so I walk in the door to the office, and the office door is basically one of the gates. So if you were, it's one of the, like, platinum gates.

So if you're a very wealthy ticket holder, you walk in the platinum seat gates, and that's where you walk in if you're during normal business hours. So the spinny door is a gate to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've always wondered what it'd be like to go in there. I haven't gone in there.

It's not that exciting. If you haven't noticed by now, Steve is sick. Yeah, Steve's sick. No, no, but what's important is that I went to the security there, because, of course, there's security there, and I said, so, I'm here to work, which is super cool to say. I'm here to work. I'm here with the Leafs Nation Network.

It was kind of neat to say. That's what you say on the first day at a new job. I'm here to work. I'm here to work. That's exactly what your boss wants to hear. But what I realized as I was talking to the security guard is he is sort of a police officer for the Leafs. So that makes him a Po-Leafs officer. Oh, God.

Right? Why did I tell that whole story just to say that? Yeah, he's a Po-Leafs officer. I'm sick. I don't want to be here. I don't want to have to deal with that. Why has nobody come up? Why has nobody said that?

Why aren't they called Po-Leafs officers? I was pretty proud last night, because James Reimer and his wife, April, went as Jack and Jill for Halloween. Nursery Rhyme. Because it's his name. Nursery Rhyme. And I tweeted, I respected that tweet. I thought that was great. I thought it was fantastic. Some of your best stuff. Nursery Rhyme. Yeah, right?

Dog dad jokes. So you are feeling sick. Yeah, whatever. We had to push back yesterday's show, but whatever. Whatever. People get sick. I'm not going to man-flu it. mansplain and man flu and anything. Be a man.

No, I feel... Man, nose spray? Big fan. My fiance loves that stuff, too. Oh, it's like napalming your nose. I'm not going to lie, it kind of hurts. You love the smell of nose spray in the morning? No, it smells and tastes awful,

but it just fixes the problem. Amazing. Don't want to be stuffed up anymore. So, because the Leafs get a loss in San Jose, and not a good loss. By the way, that happened Not a good loss The Leafs finally, finally

Get some new lines And they are almost the optimal lines You would hope for Almost Yeah, I saw some people complaining about it It's like, look, you want to change You don't always get to pick what the change is In fact, you never get to pick what the change is

You're not the head coach But Carrick for Polak Given what the team currently has Let's start with the forwards I want to start with the forwards Sure, sure, sure Let's start with forwards I'm going to run down the line

So the one line that has been Consistently awesome Is Hyman, Matthews, Nylander That won't change Line two looks like Right now Komarov, Kadri, Levo What's wrong with that?

That's cool That is Boy Josh Levo Is going to have The game of his life tonight Or at least he better He's never going to get A better shot than that

This is his chance The next shot he gets As good as this one Will be with another team The third line And I love It's a good point The third line is my favorite, and we'll talk about why in a second.

This is odd. JVR, Marleau, Connor Brown. As in Marleau at center. Yes, that's a very good line, but Babcock said in the past, and he reiterated it when Marleau was doing line rushes. He goes, we didn't get Marleau to play center. Okay, so why is he center? I know it's a temporary thing. Was Moore that bad?

Well, I was reading. He wasn't good, for sure. Here's what the fourth line is, by the way. And I think this is a definite improvement over the fourth line that they've had. And you know what? I think on most nights, that fourth line's been pretty good. Yeah, I would say so, too. With Brown and Moore, at least.

That's why I felt bad picking on Martin. So do I. He had a very bad game. He had a bad game against San Jose. But for the most part, this season, he hasn't been nearly as bad as people say. Martin, Bozak, Marner. That's a pretty good fourth line. I mean, that's almost the Leafs' second line last year.

Yeah. Except Martin for JVR. Here's the thing. JVR-ton. What was I going to say? With Marleau at center, he's been a center a good chunk of his career. And even when he wasn't playing center, he took a lot of face-offs. Why not?

Why not? That means the Leafs' top three centers are Matthews, Caudry, Marleau. Marleau. That's pretty awesome. And then Bozak on a fourth. Now, the reason that I think Dominic Moore is sitting now is because him and Martin, I think their Corsi was zero against San Jose. So was Browns.

Zero. What I said in my last video was, like, look at the Leafs forwards. Just look at them. If you can't kill penalties, be on the power play, or both, you need to get off the roster. There's no space for you. Well, that's exactly what Mike Babcock said to Chris Johnston in his article. He said this. He hinted that specialty teams' balances played a role in Levo only dressing once so far.

He said, should he be in every day? You guys can debate that all you want. The reality is you need a certain amount of power plays, a certain amount of penalty kills, power play guys, that is, a certain amount of penalty kill guys, and enough speed in your lineup. He's coming in Wednesday, which is today, obviously. He's going to get a good opportunity. The opportunity is now to grab hold of it And make it as hard on me as possible And take someone's job

When you get the chance, take someone's job If you're the odd man out And a power play specialist on this team That's a hard Hard way to make a living It's a hard way to get in the lineup With all due respect to Nikita Soshnikov I think Levo's probably a better NHL player

But Sosh kills penalties That's why he won And this is where I wanted to bring up Nazem Khadri because Dominic Moore is one of the main centers that does the penalty kill, right? He's one of the main penalty kill guys. Why yet is Nazem Khadri not? If that guy wants, if he says, if that's Selke,

remember we were talking about the Selke thing last year? We talked about that last year. What, if that is actually going to happen, if he's still committed to that, what's the holdup? And is he that bad defensively that they couldn't give him a shot? I don't know. Maybe they're trying to keep him fresh five on five. but like

because his line is usually the shutdown line but I don't know it doesn't look like it to me tonight anyway what I was saying in the summer was maybe Babcock doesn't trust him on the penalty kill because he's historically bad at faceoffs he's not anymore no this season he's made

a bunch of improvements I'm just looking at the roster really hard right now and trying to figure out who the least penalty killers are Hyman is definitely Komarov is definitely and he'll probably take draws Connor Brown is definitely

and then who's the other center I wonder if Kadri gets that shot because I don't think it's going to be Bozak I mean the best answer would be we won't find out because the Leafs will not take a penalty just like the Sharks and I saw some people complaining about that by the way the Leafs didn't have the puck

against the Sharks that's why they didn't get a call there should have been one call against the Sharks but I don't know it's a difference of one. Right. Exactly. And you know what? It's funny. It was really, I mean, it was an ugly loss, but it was still 3-2 at the end of the game.

3-2, they almost tied it. You could argue that Babcock pulled Anderson way too early. It looked like they were about to tie it. I thought he was pulled too early. And you could say maybe part of the reason that Moore is scratched today,

although I don't know if Babcock would have admitted it, is Moore sort of cost him the game. Now, he got hit from behind. I don't remember who it was by. And then he retaliated with a cross check in front of the net. Now, he had every right to be pissed off. That should have been called.

100%. But you do not retaliate. No, and not with a tied game that you definitely should be losing in the third period. As one of the penalty killers, Dom. 37 years old, 855 career NHL games. He has to know better. He deserves to sit tonight. It was dumb.

Like, he's not a solidified player on this team. The other concerning thing with Dominic Moore, and a lot of Leaf fans really celebrated his signing, including, I think, all of us. Yeah, it seemed... Listen, it was a definite improvement over what we had last year, which was Ben Smith. That doesn't mean it's good.

And no offense to Ben Smith. No, but, like, Berkshire, the second that signing happened, I was talking to him, I'm like, how about Don Moore, huh? How about Don Moore? He's an improvement, right? He goes, well, he's an improvement. But, according to the numbers, he's still supposedly one of the worst regular centers in the NHL.

Wow. That's what Berkshire said. I don't remember what numbers he used for that, and I don't know if he's written about it. Yeah, and, you know, he seemed as though he was sort of like a face-off specialist sort of penalty kill guy. A typical Jay McClement, Dave Steckle kind of guy. And he's got three goals. Mm-hmm. He's got three goals.

And he's had bright spots. I mean, like, just because we're in a bit of a downspout right now doesn't mean we can't say we haven't been impressed sometimes with Dominic Moore's play. Totally. He's had a handful of bad games. That's about it. Now, on defense, and this is what you were talking about,

it's Riley Hainsey, which has pretty much been the same all year and looked pretty good. I don't know. They're the Leafs' one rock back there, I would say. Gardner Carrick. That was a pairing last season. Last season. I mean, it's...

It was their 3-4 last season. That's right. It's Babcock playing to Carrick's strengths. I like that. So tell me about that. Basically, he's going, you don't need to babysit the rookie as the sophomore. Yeah. Like, I don't think that's fair to him, although he's doing the exact same thing to Zaitsev.

Zaitsev's a little older. There's already chemistry there. And when you're Jake Gardner's defense partner, your life is just a little simpler. You don't need to carry the puck. You just kind of cover for him. Jake's had some real Jake Gardner moments, and I don't mean that unfortunately.

I mean, there are Jake Gardner moments that are positive. I mean some negative Jake Gardner moments. Boys, he has the biggest cajones on the entire team. Yes. There are so many plays where I'm like, and this is where you pass it. Pass it. Jake, for the love of God, pass it.

Wow, he's just carrying it in front of the net. Poise I guess you might call that But sometimes you just go Where did the poise go I think he's been much better at it this season But there are moments where there are giveaways And I think that just comes with a player like Jake Gardner there are going to be some spectacular

Spectacular plays Most of the time pretty good but then Holy shit sometimes you're going to Terrible giveaways and that's unfortunately I think the reputation he holds Even though the numbers don't support that he does it All the time people tend to remember the bad giveaways.

Well, it's like a little bit like Marincin. Yes. Jake Gardner does all this stuff that makes you go, all right, well,

you can stay. Yeah. Marincin doesn't. So Gardner-Kerrick will be interesting to see them back together. And then you've got Nikita Zaitsev,

another sophomore, but I mean, he's like 26, and Andreas Borgman. And honestly, Andreas Borgman, to me, first goal.

First goal. First goal. Has looked better and better and better. He's had rough games, but he's 21, 22. He's 22. Um, boy, has he been getting blown up a lot.

Like, teams really seem to target him when it comes to physicality. And he does seem to average one pretty bad giveaway a game. But, uh, he does seem more confident. I liked, I liked in the final six, seven minutes when the Leafs were losing against San Jose. I, like, I think Borgman is the offensive guy. I don't think he's the big, bad stalwart that they seem to be trying to make him. He's the offensive guy. He rushes it.

You know, the defensive Matthews in that he's the big guy who takes it to you. I'm very interested to see how he and Zaitsev play out. Because I'm trying to figure out whose role is what. It's probably smart in terms of managing Zaitsev's minutes. He's going to play a crap ton anyway. He's going to play on both special teams. So that's an interesting case of, you know, putting a guy on the third pair and still using him a lot. Right.

Yeah, because I don't think third pair doesn't mean third pair on this team. You know what I mean? No, well, it's like how, you know, third line or fourth line, like Marner being on the fourth line, really. If he's on the power play and everything. Is JVR on the fourth line tonight? No, he's on the third. No, it's Bozak, sorry. I mean, Bozak, I assume, will still be...

I assume both those guys will still be on the power play, so it's a big deal. And you know what? In criticizing Moore, we forgot that Bozak's in the doghouse. Well, so let's talk about him. Because, again, people are jumping on the trade Tyler Bozak train when he's literally at his lowest value, again. The time to trade Tyler Bozak is the middle of last year

when he's flying high and scoring a bunch of goals. In fairness, a lot of people said that. The time to trade Bozak was 2012, 2013, Kessel, JVR, and Bozak. That's when it was time to trade. He was first line center, Tyler Bozak. With Tyler Bozak right now, is it a lack of confidence and the weaknesses that he's always had just seem bigger? Is it the line just isn't working anymore?

What is it with him specifically? he just it's almost like when he it's almost like he's it's not that he is but every time the puck seems to get to him it's like he's standing still do you know what i mean like they're just there isn't that creativity and fire power that jvr marner and bozak brought last year you know i feel like marner kind of stirred that drink um and maybe his struggles have had something to do with this um what's been crazy what's been weird to me and i'm gonna go to marner but we'll get back to Bozak. Doesn't it seem like he's just flying around out there trying

shit? Like he's just pass, spin pass. He's a weird player to watch. Like really watch guys like Nylander and Matthews who are so robotic and then you watch Marner. It's almost weird that they're all put

in the same category. That's going to be a fascinating contract negotiation. But he just seems to be out there trying shit. He needs to be put out there with two veterans, I think, who aren't named Tyler Bozak or JVR because those guys are just historically bad at defense.

It's weird. That was his rookie year in the NHL. He played on a line with two guys who are known to be bad defensively and weirdly were unsatisfied with how Marner is defensively. See how that works? Yeah. See how that works?

I'm not sure how much this is his fault. I'm surprised that, given that there's a line with Komarov and Kadri, who can score, that you wouldn't put Marner with them. The other issue is you've got a guy like Connor Brown, who is good. Who is extremely good. But he's good defensively.

Exactly, and he can score. But what I mean is, does that not balance out a Bozak JVR? It's very strange, because you're trying to develop these players, and you're trying to win hockey games. The Leafs have a weird Franken-rebuild now. I think if they were not expecting to make the playoffs, maybe they'd play Marner higher up and maybe they would try that line more regularly

and also the line rushes don't really matter so often in a game we've seen Babcock completely change the lines and Marner gets to play with Kadri and Marleau gets switched to center and it's just that that's how they're starting the game, it's a story

today, no one really talked about they did it at the end of the Sharks game because they lost imagine if they had come back and won with Marleau at center I think Marleau being at center might be a bigger story today. Well, I was thinking about that, and I thought, okay, fine, they didn't get him to play at center. It doesn't mean they shouldn't.

And here's my reasoning for this. The Leafs are very powerful and very deep up the wing, right? We've got room. The one thing that they do kind of struggle with depth-wise, center. Can I throw this out there? I was thinking this. Should Bozak be a winger? uh well i i think the reason he stayed where he is is because historically had a great

face-off percentage right um but he can't defend like whoever why is that why is that is it effort i don't skill like you can't tell me that he's it might be effort it might be like when i like how sometimes babcock says things where i'm just like you don't believe that like when he said hyman's one of the best four checkers in the league i was like that's his boy that's a little bit hyperbole but that yeah like you said that's his boy really likes him he plays with austin matthews and william nylander it's one of the best lines in hockey okay i i understand a couple weeks ago or a week ago or whatever when the leafs were six games above 500 or whatever he said bozak has elite hockey sense no he very doesn't it's elite in the sense that he's an nhl

player and no NHL players suck none of them every single NHL player very good at hockey including Matt Martin would destroy the whole dirty lot of you in mensley no especially Matt Martin would destroy you oh my god yeah literally destroy you he'd walk all over you oh my god it probably could skate skate circles around you it's what I feel like I've told this story before and it was it was a good lesson for a young, ignorant reporter, but I got to cover the Marlies when they had Ryan Hulwig. Remember Ryan Hulwig?

I do. He was a fighter. Wouldn't he come from Dallas? I don't remember. No, I think you might be thinking of Nathan Parrott. I remember him too, but I remember Hulwig. Hulwig was like Philly. From the Rangers. He was the guy who got two hands slashed in the face by Chris Simon. Right.

I remember him. So he came to the Leafs. He was one of Burke's acquisitions. I think he was a He was truculent. He was very truculent. He helped Thomas Cabralet peel his teeth out of the boards for revenue. Classic middleweight. Yes. A guy like Zenon Kanatka.

And when he was with the Marlies, he had a two-goal game. And I asked him about... Wow. I know. I asked him about... Frazier McLaren had a four-goal career. Oh, my God. I think you're right.

Is that accurate? I'm pretty sure it is. Yeah, look it up. I remember making a joke when Jay Rosehill was on the Leafs that, well, you can't punch the puck into the net. And then during a game, he actually had a goal of his called back because he punched it into the net. That's amazing.

But anyway, sorry. Ryan Holwick. Ryan Holwick. He had a two-goal game, and I asked him about it, and I was like, you know, what happened there? Like, where did this offensive explosion come from? And he's like, well, I scored in junior. like it's and it's

he was very professional about it and like saw how green I was but it's true like every single guy even the goons like scored in junior it's very rare that you have a guy who like just their career

they fought their way up like John Scott that's it even Wade Belak was a prolific scorer in junior top 10 pick I believe I think he was top 10 or top 5. I want to say 12th overall in 1994, ahead of Patrick Elias. Every professional athlete at every point in their career growing up

is the best player in their league, no matter what sport they're playing. True. And they're talented in every aspect. They're better than you. There's a reason they're professionals. Yeah, it's why they make millions of dollars, for fun? No, because it's extraordinarily hard to do. Millionaires don't want to give you their money.

But I mean, also for fun. When was Wade Belak drafted? What, sorry? When was Wade Belak drafted? 1994. By the Flames? No, by the Nordiques. 12th overall.

12th overall, drafted by the Quebec Nordiques. Woo! In 1994. Wow! Now, the Leafs got him off waivers from Calgary. What's 12 divided by 12? One. Okay.

Excellent. You always say you can't long divide. There you go. I mean, that's 12 times 12. Very simple division. 12 times 12. That is 144. Hey, all right.

All right, all right. Okay, now ask me anything above the 12 times tables, and I'm screwed. So anyway, yes, all the players in the NHL are stars, the best in the world, but Bozak having elite hockey sense. Kiprios was taking some flack, I think, because the Leafs play one of their worst games

against the season against the Sharks, and they look terrible and he's raving about how Matthews is going to be considered for and probably win the Selke Award at a bunch of different points in his career to that I would say one, not before Kadri, two

no, he's definitely going to win before Kadri, I'm sorry, it was a fun bit but like, it's funny Matthews is what, 20? 19? 20? Yeah, 20 Bozak should be watching him Bozak should be watching what he does every show

But Bozak's not going to get better at this point. This is what I'm saying. He's too old to get better. Now, I know we've talked about him as... We talked about him, Komarov, and JVR as rentals. As your playoff rentals. So, in that sense, is he best served as your fourth line center? Because on a team that is so good offensively,

I'm not 100% certain he makes your team better. Well, I think the thing is that he's a guy that eventually will get going, right? It's not like he's done. Okay, well, after these, you know, he's had a bad seven games. He's going to get back to his

average eventually. I don't need him to score goals. I don't need him to score goals. But Steve, I think the point I'm trying to make here is that I don't think that you can operate a playoff-bound team or a team that you want to be playoff-bound by putting guys in

spots so that it's easy to trade them away. I think that you have to, like, yes, Bozak, if you want to maximize your value on Bozak, you don't have him on the fourth line. But I don't think that's how the Leafs are thinking. The Leafs are not thinking about Bozak's maximum value. They're thinking about how do we make the playoffs? And how do we

go far in the playoffs? This is what I'm saying. I think Bozak on the fourth line helps you make the playoffs because you're masking his defensive shortcomings. Yes, you put him, JVR, and Marner together, they will all eventually recover. And, I mean, Marner's probably good for 20 goals, Bozak 15-20, and JVR 25-30. But it's the amount. It's the amount they allow.

If the other team scores more, it doesn't matter. It's like that JVR-Bozak-Kessel line. They scored the most on the team, but the reason they didn't make the playoffs is because they allowed more than they scored. Wow. You know what I'm saying? So I'm not trying to dump on the guy, but it's like Jesse said, what is he going to do, get better? Right.

I don't know. I don't know. You did have a nice season last year. And again, I guess we'll see. Maybe we're overreacting. Well, for sure we are. But that's how we do it. I mean, that's what you do.

I mean, we're talking about sports day to day, right? You kind of have to talk about it in the moment. And part of that is overreacting to things. And I think my thing is this. I love the move Marleau to center. I love it. Permanently. I hope it stays that way.

And the reason I hope that is because I love a Matthews, Kadri, Marleau, Bozak center. And then, of course, we have three or four NHL-ready wingers that are not currently with the team. There are not many teams that can say that. Move the guy who's got 500 career goals, and he's your third-line center? And he can still skate like the wind?

We've been talking about this probably since, like, last Stanley Cup final. moving one of your wingers who can play center to center and developing them there could solve a lot of problems for the Leafs.

Or having a guy that's already done it. Which they do. Which is perfect. Like Komarov, a lot of people think he can just step into center and that's it.

Not necessarily. Nylander, well, you've got to take him away from Matthews. Why split up the best line in hockey? Yeah, how much do you really want to do that?

but Marleau, like you said, has played there. And he's a career over 50% face-off man. And that's important. We didn't get him to play there, no, until he kicks ass at center. Like, if he completely kicks ass at center, like, this is the perfect night for that kind of experiment, by the way.

Well, and hopefully you listen to it before the game. But the Leafs play the Ducks tonight, who are without Ryan Getzlaff and Ryan Kessler. By the way, I saw Ryan Getzlaff. It said on Sportsnet It had on the ticker Ryan Getzlaff Out

And then face In brackets I'm like oh That sucks Face It's usually like hamstring Lower body Face

Look up the Ducks On daily face off Okay It is It's such a shame Because they head into the season With such bad Defensive injuries

And then they get these Center injuries Like that is a Cup contending team Yes And they will still contend But boy do they look like crap Right now

By the way Randy Carlisle Had a nice little snide remark Yesterday in Anaheim He said Have they figured out their identity yet? Is that what he said? Yep. Yes.

You have to understand Randy's sense of humor, right? He's a sarcastic guy. So I'm sure he said it in good fun, but he also meant it. Yeah, totally. I think there's a reason why he got such an easy ride in the city from a lot of people. I couldn't stand his coaching style, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't like him. I think I would enjoy him immensely. He seems like a funny guy.

No, one thing that I really respected about Randy Carlisle is, remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? Yeah, and he had Kadri do it? Oh, I think, yeah. Because Kadri was in the doghouse? That's right, but wasn't Kadri driving the truck or something? Yes, yeah. Something along those lines. But Nikolai Kuliman and Mikhail Grabovsky are the guys who nominated Carlisle.

for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge on social media. And this was after Kuhlman and Grabowski had left the team. So it was a shot at them. Kuhlman did it, and then Grabowski comes out of the pool in his Islanders gear, and he goes, I nominate Randy Carlisle and Dave Nones. And then Carlisle did it, and he goes, I'm doing this for my friend who has ALS, and da-da-da-da-da.

Yeah, he made it into this whole thing. I think Kadri was involved. Yeah, Kadri, I think, dumped it on him. I think you're right. So that really turned me on him as a guy. Coach, eh. Yeah. Yeah, do you want Anaheim's line combination?

Yeah, it's still good, but... You got Congliano, Raquel, Silverberg. So Ricard, Raquel is their top center right now. Yeah. He scored 30 goals last year, though, didn't he? He's a great player. Andre Case, Antoine Vermette, and Corey Perry. Case is a new guy, but he's pretty good.

And Vermette is their second center. Yes, and their third line center is Derek Grant. Ooh, never heard of him. I feel like he was a waiver claim by the Sabres last year or something like that. And their fourth line center is Cale Kosilla? Sure, I believe you. That's a guy. No, I think I remember seeing he was called up.

So there's a minor leaguer. Do we have the best fourth line center in the NHL? In Tyler Bozak? Yeah, yes. So what's the problem? It's pretty good. Well, this is what I'm saying. No, I agree.

I'm with you. If he's a buy, we don't care what his cap hit is. Like, $4.25 million is insane to spend on your fourth line center, but he's already on your team. Leave him there. Who cares? He's also not holding us back. You know, that was the thing that was frustrating when he was the number one center.

It's like, okay, we're paying this guy, and we're playing him in a position he shouldn't be in, and he's making $4.2 million or whatever. The Leafs still have a ton of cap room. They're going to be fine with LTIR space, of course. But I think I really think that it's it's nice to know because people have been screaming and yelling and banging their heads off the walls about changing up the lines. And I I mean, it's to me, it's encouraging. And as much as it's not the lines that the Internet would put together and not the lines that I would necessarily put together, it's pretty darn close. And it does show that they do recognize they're not just going to stand pat and do whatever they're going to adjust as they see fit.

but they're going to do it at a slow pace which by the way you know i know i know we all on twitter and nhl 18 and that sort of thing all like to make a change instantaneously but in real life you have to take things a bit slower and it's not because of personalities it's because you have to hockey is creativity as much as its numbers and creativity takes time and you can't split it would be like steve if you and i had started this show done it for three weeks and then someone had flipped out at me for another co-host and then flipped me out again. And you know what I mean? Like, how could you ever gain a balance,

right? And we're thankful that it worked, but you know what I mean? It's, it's, you, you gotta have some sort of, um, you gotta give something a try for three or four games before you really know. In NHL, you can just keep swapping guys and sometimes it works.

This is, this is the most important question to me. So, let's say the Leafs lose tonight. Does Babcock just go, Welp, Levo gone. Like, if Levo is a healthy scratch against the Kings, trade him.

Trade him. What's the point? No, that's not true. Because again, if a winger gets hurt, you need him. But is this a one game experiment? I hope not. Yeah. I hope not. Well, and they're in the middle of an extremely difficult road trip. You got the Sharks,

Ducks, who are luckily for the Leafs anyway, injured. The Kings who are still hot even though the Leafs beat them. And then they end it on the against the Blues. That's kind of lost. The Blues who are first in the West right now. Exactly. Well, and people were criticizing us for not talking about them. We're going to.

Yeah, that's an awful road trip. And then it's going to be very interesting to see what the Vegas goaltending situation is like because the Leafs' first home game when they get back is Vegas I believe. And that's, is it Monday or

Tuesday. I want to say Monday. And Oscar Dansk is now injured too? That's insane. Are you a goalie in the desert? You're hurt. That's such a low, rough stretch. You go Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday.

And it's all travel days. It's crazy. A name to be looking out for, and this kind of just broke for the last couple days, is a guy named Igor Orzhanov out of the KHL. We heard about that in the summer, I think. Did we? So we now know a little bit more But we do know that, according to Elliot Friedman on 30 Thoughts Today, he said that they're definitely interested.

He said the wild thing about it is they already have 10 defensemen between their NHL and AHL rosters under contract for next year and four more are restricted free agents. But Lou Lamorello and Mike Babcock went to visit Oshiganoff face-to-face, and he was impressed by that. Other clubs are trying to recruit him, but they are not optimistic about it. So he's got a contract that takes him to the end of the KHL season this year. Leafs probably will sign him in the summer. And then, you know, he'll fight for a spot next year. And apparently he's, you know, if you look at his numbers, it's a bit, it's a bit, they do a really good 4-1-1 on him on Sportsnet. What does he play for?

Let me look it up. But basically. There is something we need to talk about. He's got a booming, booming shot. And so Rory Boylan did a thing. He plays for CSKA Moscow. Okay. and the thing about

the ice in the KHL is it's international size yes so there are less bombs from the point that make it in some guys can

freaking wire it though the KHL has some bombs some crazy shots right really hard shots also playing at a point per game

in the KHL is literally almost impossible for certain players like it is there are certain players that do it but it's like you have to be the best

of the best something we gotta talk about for sure well why don't we talk about it you wanna talk about it right now yeah let's talk about it Well, it ties into Shipachov, and I don't know when you were... Well, we can bring him up next.

I have a question about this. So what's, like, the rights the Leeds have to him? None. None. It's Zaitsev all over again. It's basically, they have a scout over there, and the Toronto Sun actually did an article about this, about how they got Nikita Zaitsev.

They've got a scout over there that goes and he sees these guys, and he goes and he talks to them, and he develops relationships with them, like, over the course of years. Zaitsev, I think, was two years in the making. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what really sold Nikita Zaitsev on Toronto was that Mike Babcock and Lou Amorello flew over and met him.

And that's the same thing with Ogiganov, apparently. And I hope I'm saying that right. Most teams will just send a scout over and go, yeah, take him out for dinner and hopefully he signs with us. The Leafs go, no, no, no, we'll come over. And that's how Rosen and Borgman ended up with the Leafs organization, too. Yeah. Dave Nones went over.

Going back to Dave Nones, yeah. So there's no guarantee Igor signs with us, though. No guarantee, but everybody... He can sign with anybody else if he wants. What they're telling L.A. at Friedman is that all the other recruiting teams are like, we're not optimistic. Seems like he wants to go to Toronto. Which is exactly Zaitsev all over again. Yeah, and Zaitsev came and worked out here and that sort of thing.

I'm going to dig up that Toronto Sun article. I think that's worth including. Why don't you say he worked with Gary Roberts? He did. Yeah, he did. And so I think Chris Johnson, it was Chris Johnson that said earlier this season on our show, is that he said, I think they found a, I forget how he framed it, but basically a market there to help your defense out without having to go through the draft or trades or free agency.

It's sort of like free agency part two. It's Brian Burke's free wallet comment. It's like a free wallet. I mean, it's true. Well, and what's funny is even though you've got to spend money signing this guy, it's actually cost effective for the richest team in hockey because think of how much money. Like, let's say you draft a player and it takes them four years to make the NHL.

You spent money and resources on developing that player for four years. That's not cheap. That's not cheap at all. They play in your minor league system. They work with all your coaches and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, before they even have a game played on your NHL team. Then you sign a guy like Zaitsev, and yeah, you've got to maybe pay him a little more than a rookie, but it just comes right in.

and he was a useful player. Absolutely. And I think that's what they're looking for. It's that it's even if if Oshiganov comes in and he is a third third pairing defenseman that is steady, you've won. You've won. It doesn't like it really. You don't need him to come in.

Nikita Zaitsev, I think, is not. I think he's the exception, not the rule. As in he came in and was pretty good right away. Right. Yeah, they got pretty lucky. Yeah, I don't think that that's going to be what this guy is, but if he is... He might not make the team. He might not, but if he is Andreas Borgman, then you've won.

Well, and what does it do for Andreas Borgman? Or Callie Rosen. Right. Callie Rosen's got to be like, ah. They've got to fight. Ah, we have too many good guys. No, no. Oh, yeah, no, this is the thing.

It's the player's problem. Yeah. It's not the Leafs' problem. Like, okay, you'll have some unhappy guys. Leave. Yeah. Like Shibachov. Leave.

Now, this is getting weird because of the whole repaying of the signing bonus and whatever. But before we even get there, there are numbers out there that basically go, okay, if you scored this many points in the KHL, here's how many points that is converted to the NHL. League-adjusted scoring. Kind of. No, actually not kind of. Exactly. That is what it is. I have a problem with that

When it comes to the KHL I don't think it is It obviously can't be 100% accurate But I think it is teetering on useless Because that I mean the NHL is very even Except for the Coyotes And the

KHL is very Very very very not Not even no It's a little bit more like It's almost like EPL where there's like four or five teams that spend $100 billion and then there's like, here's little Leicester City coming along and oh, we won a championship and we suck the next year

because we can't outspend Manchester and Arsenal and all the other teams, right? Go to en.khl.ru. It's the English. Wait, do that for me again. En.khl. By the way, I hope you're doing this at home. .ru. Yes.

In the car. Pull out your laptop. And go to the standings. CSKA Moscow who Ozhiganov is on I think is either tied with or just ahead of SKA St. Petersburg

in the KHL standings SKA St. Petersburg, last I checked, has more than twice as many goals for as against I don't want to touch your computer but, no, okay SKA Moscow, sorry SKA St. Petersburg has

100, no, that can't be right Seriously? Those are points Yeah, no No, that In 29 games They have 126 goals for 44 against

That can't be right Is that last year? Oh my god Yeah, there's 29 games Oh, so I was wrong They have lost Four times Which

In 29 games I'm surprised they've even lost four times And two of them are in In overtime How many They have zero regulation losses Oh, shit They've played 29 games, zero regulation losses.

And then CSKA Moscow, which is slightly more mortal. But they've played three last games, too. That's true. Their standings are weird. 15 wins, four overtime wins, two shootout wins, zero shootout losses, one overtime loss, four regulation losses. Their website's a little meh. But, I mean, I think they have the three-point system, if I'm not mistaken.

But CSKA Moscow has 83 goals for and 43 against That's still ridiculous Compare that to Dynamo Riga Who's at the bottom What is it? One win all year? They have one straight up win And four overtime wins

They have 14 points In the standings To SKA's 79 And 41 goals for 83 against But I think this is just one conference Jesse, can you go to the other one? because I think it's even worse.

Let's go to league. Yeah, go to league. Okay, so SK is still in charge with 79 points. Go to the very bottom. Oh, no, it's still Riga in last. Well, and Lata sucks too. They got 23 points, 50 goals for, 71 against. If you're looking at this,

the goal differential is interesting with Dynamo Riga. 41 goals for the entire season and 83 against. 41 goals for compared to SKA who has... 126. 126. That's insane So you have So is it a little bit easier to judge with something like

Say the SHL Sorry to cut you off there But Shibachov I believe Is going back to SKA Well he's good enough to play on them They need him like they need a hole in the head That's crazy

Sorry what were you saying You talk about like adjusted Stats for the KHL And how it might be a little bit Is the SHL, like the Swedish Elite League, is that better? I don't know. Let's check. Is the Swiss Elite League better? Well, no, let's not check now. That's boring.

Let's not do that again. But I just wondered if those stats are a little bit more even because there isn't as much money in Swedish hockey as there is in Russian. Yeah, but they have relegation and a much smaller league. Right. Is there like eight teams in the top? It's like a dozen, 15, something like that. But yeah, they have relegation.

I think if you're one of the bottom three teams, kind of like soccer, You get knocked down to the Allsvenska or whatever it is. So it's a little more even. But the KHL has a team owned by a gas company and Dynamo Riga. So SKA has Datsuk and Kovalchuk. Yeah, they have Datsuk, Kovalchuk. Yeah, keep thinking it. Why don't we just look it up?

Dahlman, Kevin Dahlman, I want to say, who is a North American who's been playing there like his entire life. And playing really well. He's basically TJ Brennan. But you can get away with it over there. Right. I'm surprised TJ Brennan hasn't given Europe a bigger shot. So, Vatom Ship and Shop, according to Elliott Friedman, has told Vegas he wants his contract terminated so he can go back to Russia. And things will probably head in that direction.

A couple of things have to be cleared up. If he does go back, he's got to repay all but $86,000 of the $2 million signing bonus he got. It's expected he will do that, which has people assuming he already has a KHL job lined up. It will be interesting to see if the Golden Knights ask for a guarantee that he does not sign with any other NHL club after his current contract is terminated. Freed of the two-year $9 million obligation, wouldn't it be a stunner if someone else tried to get him at a lower number? Wouldn't it be? Now, I looked at that and thought, yeah, there's a lot of teams that need center depth. Even if you start him, you warm him up at your third line center and he moves up, what could possibly go wrong?

But you know who needs center depth? Vegas. Yeah. Do they? Yeah. I mean, they keep winning. And they almost, I mean, they almost had the Rangers last night. They were up, I think, 3-1 at one point.

Oh my God, Vino's still getting fired. I don't think it's Vino's fault. We'll get to the Rangers. No, it's definitely not his fault. He's still getting fired. Sorry, I distracted from the original conversation. I don't know. Don't need to give me much of an excuse.

If I'm Shipachov and I'm Shipachov's agent, there's no effing way I give Vegas $2 million back and then sign a guarantee that I can't sign with another NHL club. I just don't give them both. It's one or it's the other. And the other thing is, you know, people are saying he might be too late. So here's what Elliott had to say. He said, what went wrong? More than one executive said Shipachov came over too late, age 30, and he missed his window.

Other Russian players indicated he's not a workout fiend and that might have had him behind when he arrived for camp. A younger player or one without significant KHL options may have gone to the AHL for a while to get up to speed. That's not what he wants. so it will take a few days to negotiate the exit. How many times do I have to tell people that the KHL is a crazy place? It's not the same. It's not. It's just a different place.

And he's not a workout fiend. Yeah, I believe it. That's the league you go to when you have insane talent and don't want to do anything. That's funny. I mean, it's not always the case, but it is often the case. Just saying. Radulov for a couple years

Filatov was a great example and there was a recent article about him where isn't that where Zherdav ended up too? oh and there's there's a fantastic example of all the talent

in the world and it sounded like he was a combination of lazy and nuts well I think he got arrested a couple times

maybe had a couple deweys I don't remember but I don't remember where I was going with that. We're talking about players that aren't necessarily workout fiends.

Oh, yeah. Oh, Filatov, sorry. There was an article written about him recently where he's, like, I think he was just in the KHL All-Star game or something like that

or he was last year and he's, like, he's an adult now. He's not the kid that was drafted in, I want to say 2008. Remember there was a big, when the Leafs traded up

to get Luke Shen, there was this huge debate, oh, they could have had Filatov. Yeah, well. Nikita Gusev, who Vegas has rights to, of the KHL. They do? Yeah. I believe they got that from Tampa.

Oh, that must have been in a trade. Probably now, you've got to think, wouldn't come over, knowing what he knows. Unnecessarily. I mean, I'm confused as to why Vegas made the decision they did, frankly. but um it did seem like even when he signed when chipachov signed that money for that money seemed like a lot i okay here's what vegas deserves to be criticized for one minute he was worth four million what was it four and a half four and a half four and a half million dollars he was worth nine million dollars he was worth it was two years two million dollar

signing bonus at that yes so one day he was worth that and one training camp and three nhl games later he's not he played 32 total minutes in the nhl okay someone should get canned for that not mcfee unless it was his decision but whoever pitched that the hardest should maybe get fired for that that's ridiculous how could he possibly after 32 minutes like you said not be worth four and a half million dollars or even three that's crazy oh he's way past his prime he's this he's that well then why did he get the money that's nuts yeah absolutely if you made a blunder that big if you told kiss oh you gotta sign this guy you gotta give him all this kind of money he's really good and then you bring him in doesn't even know how to operate the board he's not

necessarily a never heard of taylor's not necessarily a prep fiend like he doesn't like to go into a show with any sort of plan. Yeah. You just kind of watch the sports. Some DJs, by the way,

are good enough to do that. I'm not one of them. But they never... The KHLers? But it's interesting, they never seem to last. They're good enough

for a while, but eventually it's like working out. It comes back and it bites you. Mm-hmm. This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying.

I don't understand that. But, I mean, if he was good enough, I think they would've kept him. Right. And it seems like he's clearly not. But if Gusev's good enough, I'm sure Vegas would love to have him.

I'm sure he is. The Leafs got the rights to Taimou Hartikainen from the Oilers in some nothing trade. Hartikainen would have been a Leaf if he was good enough. He wasn't. So, I mean, that's it. It's that simple. Yeah. It's not deterring Ojegana from the Leafs.

Peter Chiarelli. Oh, my God. Is looking for... The best. The most entertaining thing in the league right now, I think. Here's the headline. Peter Chiarelli looking for offensive wingers internally and externally. Have you, you know, it's too bad the Oilers never had offensive wingers.

Say, you know, like Jordan Eberle. No, no, it's funny. What's a more justifiable trade? Taylor Hall for Adam Larson or Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strom? I didn't like either, but Jordan Eberle is, I mean, it gave them some cap relief because they had Leon Dreisaitl coming in with the big money

and it seemed like they weren't going to re-sign him anyway, so Strom kind of gives them an asset that potentially could rebound, but hasn't yet. He's not fast But it made their team that made the second round, almost the third round worse So, with Hall for

Larson, you at least have Adam Larson. Yeah, that's true You at least have a good player at a position of weakness At very least I mean Taylor Hall I would still say is better But at very least you get a player At a position of weakness

Losing Eberle for Strom I don't know if there's much Justification there And talking about moving Nuge No you can't Like you can't afford that You can't afford to lose him at center I mean what might solve a bunch of the

Oilers problems is moving Drysaddle back to center Yeah it might be Honestly, I think so. And now they're talking about Ryan Nugent Hopkins. Like, he's the guy that's next. To get dealt. Yeah. Well, and Yussi Okunin, who they signed in the summer.

And Anton Slepyshev. And they're shopping all these guys. Every single GM in the league should be calling up Peter Chiarelli. Because he looks ready to do something dumb. Something reactionary and dumb. Well, I'm going to throw this at you. For reference, Oilers were supposed to be one of the top teams in the conference, right? Right out of the gate.

That's what people said. They were going to be a Stanley Cup contender. And they are without Andre Sequeira. Fair enough. But being without Andre Sequeira should not sink your whole year. St. Louis has 21 points so far. The Oilers have 7. They've played 10 games.

They are second last in the conference. Only the horrendously bad Arizona Coyotes are worse. Are they even worth talking about? Who, the Coyotes? Yeah. No. Well, it's, you know, I can't believe they're as bad as they are. Well, and did you see the one game that they won?

Yes. Did you? I didn't watch it, no. Why would I watch that game? Fair enough. Yeah. Man, hey, hey. Get out of here.

I got to watch Flyers-Coyotes. No, dude, they're up 3-1 with a minute to go. The Flyers tie it. Oh, no! And it goes to overtime, and I want to say Alex Goligosky won it in overtime. But then they lose the next game. God, the Coyotes could really use a goalie. How much of the Edmonton Oilers' struggles are on Cam Talbot not standing on his head?

I'm glad you added that at the end. How much of the Leafs' struggles are not Frederick Anderson standing on his head? The way the Leafs play defense, man, I'm surprised they've won as many games as they have this year. He had a good game. best game of the season against the Sharks easily it's painful

painful to watch them in their own end so what do the Oilers have three wins three wins six losses one overtime loss I saw one Oilers fan go

well the reason they have three wins is because of Cam Talbot like the reason they have even that many now that's just one and Connor

and yeah and a guy named McDavid who has what how many points does Connor McDavid have I don't know how many points does Connor McDavid have

Connor McDavid has I think he's got like what Five goals? Hold on. I mean, he's no Matthews. He's still, I mean, here's the thing. The team doesn't score goals. They have 22 all year.

And to put that into perspective for you, the last place Arizona Coyotes have 33. You know, I read something. You ever read something you hate so much that you remember it for years? Yes. I believe the internet remembers Phil Kessel hot dog. Connor McDavid has five goals and six assists. He has 11 points in 10 games. That's – wow.

It's amazing. He's above a point a game. That's unbelievable. Now, I read something in the hockey news in, I want to say, 2007. I remember reading it in the stroller rental room at the Toronto Zoo. And it was going through projections of how much each player is going to score. And they went through one player on the Atlanta Thrashers by the name of Mark Savard. Okay.

and they said he's going to be a good player and put up this many points even though he's not that good or something along those lines because even on bad teams, someone has to score was the headline. Even on bad teams, someone has to score. No, they very do not. No, they don't. The reason they're bad is because no one's scoring. I mean, what, is McDavid that guy?

Even on bad teams, someone has to score? McDavid was on the ice, I think, for 30% of the team's goals. And it had something to do with, maybe his points had 30% of the team's goals last year. He is, just his goals alone, he's got five goals. The Oilers have 22 total. So it's about 30%. A little over, actually. So that's interesting, I think.

And, well, no, sorry, it's a little under. That's 25%, so it's maybe, he might have 22% of their goals. But still, anyway, it's kind of crazy. Now, one of the things that Elliott Friedman brought up, and again, because his 30 thoughts just came over, 31 thoughts, I have to bring this up. Pooley-Arvey. Again, they're looking internally and externally for options. He might be, according to Elliott Friedman, Chiarelli's most enticing trade ship. That's a big, big decision, and unless the Oilers are absolutely convinced it won't work for Pooley-Arvey in Edmonton,

And you've got to think the player that gets another NHL shot first. Boy. Can you imagine? Pooley-Arby? Now, people talk about everyone's getting traded by the Leafs and Leaf fans, Leaf fans. Okay, let's take stock of everything we just talked about with the Oilers. Nuge might get traded. Slepyshev might get traded.

Jokinen might get traded. Pooley-Arby might get traded. And that's Elliott Friedman saying, maybe. He's not saying it is. It's just he's saying maybe. I would love to know, because he speculates, but when he's just guessing, he is really careful about going, guys, I'm totally just guessing.

What was his exact wording there? One other big thing about Pui Arvi, he might also be Chiarelli's most enticing trade chip. Because earlier in the paragraph, he talks about how he might get a shot because the Oilers aren't scoring and, you know, he's in the AHL and doing well and that sort of thing. But just based on the wording, that comment is guaranteed based off a conversation he had with at least one person. Has to be. He probably talked to another NHL general manager and said,

okay, if you had to give up an asset to the Oilers, who would you want? You nailed it. And everybody's going to want him. I think you nailed it. I think you got it. That's exactly what happened. And to me— So what shows you the deep shit Shirelli's in,

because if he wants to make his team better this year it's going to cost him a third overall pick I don't think it's going to happen

or a fourth overall if I'm Colorado no nooch for douche the denouche trade so stupid if I'm Colorado I'm looking at that

if I'm Ottawa with what they're going through with tourists which we forgot about tourists

there's some guys that you know even the Leafs like I mean what is it Greg Wyshynski tweeted today he's like they

should do JBR for RNH in a all what do they call that all abbreviation yeah all abbreviation trade

which I thought was hilarious but I mean JBR would look good on a team like that but then who's

yeah Nooch is not coming to the Leafs that's my point it's a joke but it's also like you know they're looking

for guys like that they're looking for rental guys like that I think okay by saying the Oilers biggest trade chip

is a guy like Pugliarvi, you're looking at how incomplete that team is. Right? And you don't trade yourself out of these situations. No. You sit in your mess and deal with it. But if you have Dreisaitl as your second line center, you're looking pretty good.

Because then you go McDavid, Dreisaitl, Hopkins, Strome. How similar are they to Montreal? They got some star power. They got a really good goalie. Suspect defense, but a couple guys who are decent. And a team where you go, if you just put this guy at center,

it might solve some of your problems. It's a very similar team. Oh, and they play in Canada. Let's just keep it going. I think Edmondson's high end is higher than Montreal's. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know. They scored eight goals the other day.

You know who's name has interestingly not come up in trade talks? Milan Lucic. You know why? Because of Grit. Because you can't. No. Because you can't trade that. Steve got it.

Oh, Grit. Yeah. Oh, because Grit. Okay. Yeah. I don't think you can trade that contract, man. No, you can't trade Grit. You can trade a guy like Patrick Maroon.

But then you have a void of Patrick Maroon. People keep asking me, too. I keep getting tweets about... He only cost a third-round pick. Like, that was a fantastic trade by the Oilers. Sure. Yeah. But I might...

Okay, so people are asking me about Tyler Bozak because he's struggling. So, therefore, in Toronto, oh, we've got to trade him. Now, I've never said such a thing. Oh, we've all been there, but whatever. The point with Bozak is people are like, well, could we trade him for a defenseman? No. Okay.

Or another center. Yeah, but who? That's my point. Who? Who? Who's he going to be? And I saw the suggestion, maybe Bozak for Shipachov. Again, because of the KHL numbers, he's literally magic beans.

You don't know what he is. Bozak for Shipachoff. I don't know. He might have NHL talent, but to say for sure he's better or worse than Bozak, how the hell do you know? No, and why would you trade a known commodity for a guy that's on the outs with his team? I'm sorry, that's a risk you just don't need to take. Unless you're really confident in your scouting abilities.

Yeah, I don't know. Would you really go over those 32 minutes? There's very few wins there. And you gotta look at your wins when you're trading Like, here's Bozak, okay So is he underperforming right now? Sure But can he perform like he did last year? Yes, he absolutely can And we've seen that season after season after season

He's good for 50 points This line needs one It's funny that I still refer to it as this line I think they're gonna be together again JVR, Bozak, Marner They need a big game They need one big game Just kinda get that swagger

To your McDavid point and it reminded me of something I saw on Twitter from Third Period Suits. Matthews and Nylander have been on the ice for 44% of Toronto's 5-on-5 goals for. Wow. To contrast, they've been on the ice for 10% of Toronto's 5-on-5 goals against. Wow. They are really good. So we're talking about, I mean, again, it's how many goals you score is great,

but how many goals are scored against when you're on the ice, right? The best offense is a good defense. and the best defense is a good offense. So the message is clear in New York. The Rangers are ready to restock. They've got a bunch of free agents coming up here, including Rick Nash. They traded Derek Stepan and Antti Ranta,

and I guess are excited about a couple things going on. Now, there's talk about Alain Vigneault. That's definitely a great example of a coach getting fired because it just seems like what you do when your team starts bad. I want to talk about that. That's definitely one of the best coaches in the league. Yeah, because here's the thing. I think we all knew the Rangers were going to fall off at some point,

and it doesn't mean they won't come back. No. Oh, come on, we did. For sure. I knew Lundquist was going to fall off. All that needs to happen is for him to fall off, and the team's not good anymore. I guess you're right.

But they got Brendan Smith at the trade deadline last year. They re-signed him, and they signed Kevin Shattenkirk in the summer. They shouldn't be this bad. Almost losing to Vegas' fourth-string goalie bad. They've got 10 points this year. They're 4-7-2. Again, it's game 13 for them. Sorry, you want to talk about the Rangers?

What did you want to go to? Okay, Vegas could really use Calvin Pickard back. How do you think that conversation would go? Hey, we really want our goalie back Okay, well I think they would trade for literally any other goalie We'll take Brendan Leipzig Yeah, wouldn't that be

Wow Although I wouldn't do that because Then he has to clear waivers and then he's sitting on the You know what I mean? Or, you know For them, I would be like, okay, let's talk about Nate Schmidt Well, yeah That's what Justin Bourne said

Could you offer Sparks or Pickard? and get Nate Schmidt in return. I just don't think. I don't think they... Goalies aren't considered valuable enough for that. Like, it would have to be goalie plus. Yeah, I'm fine with goalie plus. Get Nate Schmidt.

The Leafs got Pickard for a sixth and Tobias Lindbergh. They're not getting Nate Schmidt. Come on now. Although, I don't know. Hey, I like the dream too. You guys don't like the dream? I like the dream.

You never stare at the clouds? So, yeah, the Rangers. I feel like, why would you fire Alan Vigneault when you knew, at some point, this was going to end. But again, it's just... That's not... Isn't this just what happens? Yeah, eventually your team starts sucking,

you fire a coach, and then you reset. Unless you're the Montreal Canadiens being stubborn for like five years or something like that with Michel Therrien. I guess my question is, why does it have to be that way when this is very clearly not an Alain Vigneault problem? Hockey is a very stubborn sport, and it's just kind of what happens when you start poorly. Look at the Kings.

Yep. Yeah, but you're right. You know what? And the Kings did need a shake-up. You're right. Shake it up. The Rangers scored. The Rangers had over 100 points last year.

We're 13 games into the season, and now his job's on the line? When the Ducks fired Carlisle, they didn't want to do it. But it's just what you do. Yeah. And now he's back. You know why he's back? Because when they fired him, it's just what you do. See, that's silly to me.

If you have a great asset, like a great coach, that you know it isn't the coach's thing. It's lack of talent. It's talent getting older. It's people leaving in free agency, and you've got to restock. Keep the coach. Yeah, I don't think either of us disagree with it's silly, but it's just the way hockey works.

I think most GMs would tell you it's silly, but they're compelled to do it. It's the turkey dump with coaches. It's when your coach gets dumped, like, in the heart of winter that you can tell something crazy is going on, like Montreal last year, and they won the division somehow, and the Leafs with Carlisle. If you get fired in, like, late December, January, February, something like that, that's kind of crazy. If you get left out on the side of the road and you've got to wait for your Uber while press asks you questions, then there's something wrong. That was a turkey dunk, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was a turkey dunk. That was, like, right around American Thanksgiving. Okay, boy. And he's got to be a frontrunner for the Jack Adams. Oh, this year? Yeah. Well, 13 games. I know.

But, man, if they make the playoffs, how does he not win? If they make the playoffs, how does he not win? Yeah. Matthews should be in the Selke conversation. He should be in the Hart Trophy conversation. Exactly. Why not both? Because it's November 1st.

Yeah, exactly. And we're not... Remember last year, the Leafs had two wins in October. So let's just not get too ahead of ourselves, right? They made the playoffs. It's funny. I hate hockey pools, but I've actually been sort of paying attention a little bit because I helped out Mrs. Dangle with hers.

Stephen Stamkos has over 20 points. Oh, that's insane. stop him and Kucherov together are just lethal lethal we've talked about

Matthews, Nylander and Hyman being the best line in the league one of one of no no no it's that

three headed monster of Stamkos, Kucherov and the luckiest man on earth Vlad Nemestnikov now I wonder if was it the other day you do have in a pool

don't you I do have in my league brilliant bastard that was the first that it's also not pool I don't play hockey pools. I play in a fantasy league.

Yeah. I'm not a teacher at some elementary school. I think it was the other day that it was the first. She got Vasilevsky off waivers. I thought. He's not real. He's got like 11 wins or something. It's ridiculous.

It's hilarious. She got the first goalie pick and you're only allowed to have one. I told her to pick Cam Talbot because I didn't think they'd be this bad. And I'm like, okay, even if Talbot gets back on his feet, he's not going to beat Vasilevsky, so drop him. You only always have one goalie? Yeah, it's not a smart pool and apparently not full of smart people because

Vasilevsky was on waivers not because someone dropped him, but because he was never drafted. Which is ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. Sorry, where were you going? I wanted to say that I think it was the other day was the first game all season that one of Kucherov

and Stamkos didn't score a goal for Tampa. Like I think it took 13 or 14 games For that to happen Isn't that insane You know how good of a goal scorer Kucherov is He turned Stephen Stamkos into a playmaker It's true

He's like one of the league leaders He might be the league leader in assists So I want to talk I want to run through the conferences here for just a second I want to run through the bottom half of the conferences thus far Again we are one Month in I haven't looked at the standings once this season

I'm going to turn this away from you I want you to count the playoff teams That are currently on the outside looking in Right now So at number 9 in the Eastern Conference We have Detroit Number 10 we've got Boston Number 11 Washington

Number 12 Carolina Number 13 New York Rangers Number 14 Florida Panthers Number 15 Montreal Canadiens And last place The Buffalo Shivers So there's four playoff teams looking out on the outside looking in. So let's have a look at the Western Conference.

Okay. Starting at number nine, the still surprising Colorado Avalanche. Yeah, all right. Nashville. There's a playoff team. Chicago. There's a playoff team. Calgary.

Playoff team. Absolutely. Minnesota. Playoff team. Edmonton. Playoff team. And the Coyotes. it's like the NHL

just went okay we're gonna flip everybody now and we're just gonna wow that's nine teams nine playoff teams more than half of the playoff teams

after the first month are not are not in it November November yeah November 1 again I just think

that's I just looked at the standings I was like oh my god no it's pretty crazy well and even a few of the teams who

were off to hot starts I thought or at least surprising starts are on on the outside looking in I'm surprised Colorado is not a playoff spot

It's so funny with the Blues, they're the team that we all thought they were last year, this year. Boy, the Sharks and Blues are just so interchangeable. Like, always a favorite. Yeah. Always. And they never, never. The Sharks at least made the final. Yeah, the Sharks almost made it recently.

And they were the favorite. By the way, where was the Roman Polak video tribute? I think that was awfully rude of San Jose. That was very rude. He took them all the way to the finals. You know what's funny is, I mean, you've got to shoot your shot, right? And Sharks did, and they came very close. But they look poised to maybe make some noise again and potentially go deep again.

You know what would be really nice to have right now if you were the Sharks? Your 2018 and 2019 second-round picks. Did they give those to the Leafs? Or, here, check CapFriendly. I can't remember when it was. But, no, the Leafs got two second-round picks for Polak. Oh, God. That's outstanding.

Really? I know. I know. Well, and then there was that whole thing about, well, just combine the two trades or whatever. Oh, the Freddie Anderson thing. It was either 2017 and 18. No, Freddie Anderson. What am I talking about?

Jesus. 18 and 19. Trying to remember. Jesse's bringing it up. To San Jose was Roman Polak and Nick Spalling. Ah. Leaves great Nick Spalling. To Toronto.

Second round pick. 2017. 2018 second round pick I think did they trade this 2017 second round pick I don't remember I think

didn't that go for Brian Boyle oh maybe somebody drafted Maxime Comtos how do you Comtois

Comtos Comtois Comtois Maxime Comtois oh he's from Quebec that makes sense oh what a shock yes

who did they draft they're looking things up right now Anaheim so we traded away to Anaheim to Freddie For Freddie.

There you go. Oh, and we also got Rafi Torres in that deal. Ah, Leafs great Rafi Torres. Forgot about that. Leafs great. Another interesting team, we've got to give them their shout-outs. Vancouver. Still there.

Still there. And by the way, not still there, fourth in the conference. They're younger, faster. And a coach shake-up. Was it? And a goalie. And a goalie, yeah. Steve, was it you who said that there's just been a bunch of teams that just said,

hey, let's just go young and fast and see how it goes. And New Jersey. And it kind of works. Why not? Like, it's a copycat league. I think, I mean, even though the Leafs didn't actually win anything last year, a bunch of teams went, all right, let's try it. Yeah.

Which, I mean, the Leafs making the playoffs last year was such good news for hockey. Like, in that, like, a lot of teams seem to be reluctant to rebuild because, like, you need to win because you need to... Keep people coming. Yeah, you need to sell tickets. But it was proof that, okay, tough it out, you'll get better. The wins will come. First off, I want to say New Jersey, second in the conference right now behind Tampa Bay.

Have not slowed down. That's crazy. Have not slowed down. That's how it works. Absolutely, it's worked for them. But here's, I have a question about that. The NHL changed the way your percentage points last year of getting the first overall pick. Because it used to be.

They changed it again? Well, yeah, didn't last year it change again? Yeah, so they changed it, and then it gets progressively worse. So it got worse last year, and then this draft will be slightly worse, and that'll be where it's set. We know Vegas is lottery protected, but essentially where the Leafs had a 20% shot at our first overall pick, I think it's going to be like 15%.

By the way, people kept tweeting me they couldn't find evidence that Vegas had a lottery protected pick. No, maybe I'm wrong then. I thought I heard that. No, you did. And I'm pretty sure we all did. I want to say someone came on our show and said it. I want to say CJ.

We'll look that up. Yeah, we will. Okay. So forget I said that because we don't know for sure. Because now I'm doubting myself. It sounds right, though. It does. And if I were Vegas and I paid a billion dollars to get in the league, I would want lottery-protected freaking picks.

Yeah, seriously. But regardless of that, I think I'm really against the NHL stopping rebuilds. The NHL currently is making it harder for you to rebuild. There's been some pretty embarrassing ones in recent memory, though. Just because teams aren't good at it doesn't mean they won't eventually be. But imagine your team just threw dumb bad luck. You know, like, dumb bad luck, or dumb good luck, the Oilers got a billion first round picks. Now, they weren't able to turn those into anything because they couldn't draft anything past the first round.

But, why are we making it hard on a bad team to get good again? and my argument is the longer a bad team is bad the less fan support you're going to have so you want them to be at the bottom of the league the least amount of time possible why are we making it harder who is responsible for lockouts is it players i would say no is it owners well lock walkouts are players like when they strike yeah but an owner that's the thing is it's either a strike because sometimes there's there's a difference right there's a strike and then there's the lockout lockouts owners right so i'm okay well play stoppages okay or work stoppages whatever because i am going somewhere with this a big reason why the nhl makes all these rule

changes and there's lockouts is because gms are crazy now sometimes it's the owner using the gm and going we need to win games and you know so the gm's decisions aren't necessarily theirs But a lot of it is the GMs They're changing the draft rules Because GMs got crazy When it came to the rebuild Who got crazy? Buffalo, Toronto

I'm going to go with Buffalo Even Toronto I mean who got crazy? Two teams? Is that worth it? And that's the thing Let's say you're in a small market Let's say Carolina Not because Carolina hasn't drafted well

They absolutely have And we know that you need to draft beyond the first round to create a great team, which they've done, I think. They haven't proven it fully yet, but I still think they're going to be a very strong, strong team. Their game against the Leafs. Wow. This season, I've looked at teams and gone, wow, they're good. Carolina was the only team I saw where I was like, I want no part of them in a playoff series. Right, right.

So my question is, why are we penalizing teams for building a strategy to rebuild? they finally figured out a strategy to go here's how we can get better faster we're going to have to take one of the dunk tank for a year or two and then all of a sudden we'll get some new exciting young players we'll be able to sell tickets based on hope

and even if we don't make the playoffs, we still have Jack Eichel a lot of teams can't sell tickets based on hope I would think you think the 14-15 Sabres sold tickets? I want to know But the 16-17 Sabres did.

That's my point. One thing I always hear about Vancouver as a city and as a market is when their team's not winning, they don't go. I think if they told them, hey, we're going to go through a rebuild, they won't go to the games. But under this system, they'll be worse longer. We're all in agreeance that tanking and rebuilding is the right move. What's wrong with being business savvy about that? There's a bottom line, and I bet ticket sales tank with the team. Okay, for one year.

But what if they're bad for five? You can't even risk it for the year. You've got to try and make the perception that, okay, we're trying to win all the time. We're trying to go for it. We're trying to win, and that's how you'll sell tickets. See, I totally—I know what you're saying. No, I disagree with what I'm saying, but that's the mind of the owner of the team. You're running a business.

If you have five poor years, it does so much damage to your reputation. We've seen it here. It borderlined, for the first time in my life, on apathy here, which is the worst thing you can have. Oh, there were tons of empty seats in Toronto. They were all spoken for, but there were tons of empty seats. I just don't understand when you have the one tool. You've got one example of a team actually turning it around really quickly, and I think that team's the Leafs. They turn it around quicker than a lot of people thought, than anybody really could have thought.

I wonder how much the Oilers play now. They can't. They can't. The Oilers were already bad. They didn't try to be bad. They were actually trying to be good. They thought they had the talent to be good, but they were terrible. I just think, and that's why they got Connor McDavid.

They got him because they were legitimately bad. Holy smokes, does Rasmus Dahlem look good? He does. I don't understand this from a business perspective. If I'm a team like Detroit, actually Detroit's doing a lot better than we thought. But let's say Detroit is, you know, let's say it all evens out and Detroit's as bad as we think they are. Or Arizona. What if Arizona has to pick 7th or 10th?

What kind of bullshit is that? Well, and they're not even trying to be this bad. No, what hope could they possibly have? And that's the problem. Don't penalize a team that's already bad. On that note, Adam, how long until Arizona talks about firing someone big? Rick Talk had just got there. I think Rick Tockett could easily be the guy that's fired.

It's almost like a Todd Richards situation in Columbus. John Chayka? I don't think he should be. They are so much. I'm still a fan. I don't think Rick Tockett was the right coaching hire. I believe they wanted Sheldon Keefe. He was one of the guys.

One of the guys. I don't think he was the right hire. I don't think he was the right. I mean, it's very clear either his systems haven't taken form or they're not good enough. Either way, that's a failure as a coach. Their goaltending is very bad. Their goaltending's bad.

It wasn't good to begin with, and then guys got hurt. They have 33 goals for, which is somewhat respectable. That's pretty good. Like, the Canucks only have 31 for, but they have 56 scored against. Whoa! So maybe that's the problem right there. You're right. I have a question about rebuilds.

Well, they get Scott Wedgwood and they win a game. So he's... Scott Wedgwood. At one point he was highly touted. Sorry. What if you try and rebuild and it doesn't work? like it didn't work in Edmonton. Because you have to suck, and then you have to suck in the right year.

Then the GM is still ruining the league. At least it's the GM's fault. No, but maybe it's just not his fault because he wasn't bad the right year. No, that's bullshit. There's good players in every draft, right? You're not going to get McDavid or Matthews every single draft, but tanking is always the good idea, and if your scouts are good, you'll always find players.

So if you didn't find players in a particular draft, you know, like teams hiding behind, well, 2012 was a weak draft, and we got Yakupov, and we got Gauch. No, it's your fault. Gauch scored 30 goals. You're mismanaging Gauch. So Edmonton should have been better before McDavid got there. Yes.

Yeah, poor first overall picks. Oh, my God. Edmonton's biggest problem is they couldn't draft outside of the first round. Who did they draft in the second round that ever made the team? Go to HockeyDB and look at their draft record from 2008 onward and how many players played any amount of real NHL games, like 200 NHL game plus. But what's going to be funny is count how many of the guys

played but not for their team. So, yeah, go all the way down to 2008. I don't want to touch your computer. Trust me on that one. So, okay, Everly, 519 games in 2008. Their other guys played one game, two games, and 52 games. One of those being Leaf legend Taimou Hartskainen. Okay, 2009, 10th overall, they get Magnus Pajarvi Svensson,

or Pajarvi, whatever you want to call him. 321 games. I'm pretty sure the majority of those weren't with the Oilers. And in the second round, they got Anton Lander, 215 games, which I'm surprised he's even played that much. Their two third round picks Their two fourth round picks And their fifth round pick

Zero Let's go to 2010 Taylor Hall 463 NHL games Most with the Oilers Tyler Pitt like 70 games Martin Marincin 175

Mostly with the Leafs I think that's half and half Yeah Someone played One game Zero Zero One

And Brandon Davidson And I want to say Half of those are with Montreal Alright let's go to 2011 Their first round pick, Ryan Nugent Hopkins First round picks are easy If you bomb a first round pick, you suck Ryan Nugent Hopkins, 405 games all with the Oilers

Oscar Kleffbaum Also in the first round, 19th overall 199 games, he looks great And then you got Musil at 4 games, 0 games 0 games, 3 games Tobias Reeder, 247 games But he's not with the Oilers anymore

2012 Yakupov, 303 0 Juharkera is at 31 games I mean, he's a new guy We're starting to get to, well They weren't drafted that long ago territory And then Eric Gustafson

I've never even heard of that guy Who's he with? Click on that The Blackhawks, because of course Oh, but he hasn't even, yeah He's played in the NHL, so okay Nuts to that 2013, Darnell Nurse

Now we're really getting into their kind of new territory. And then zero games, one game, 59 games in Slepyshev, who apparently they want to trade, followed by zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, and zero. How many picks do they have in 2013? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That's still, by the way, 2013 is four years ago. Those players are 22 now.

But that's ten players. But if you have a guy, they're playing. Now, 2014, it's starting to get not fair. Because you've got Dreisaitl and then no one else. 2015 you got McDavid and then no one else and then 2016 you get

but still look at some of the names are any of those names highly touted William what is it no but there's like a bunch of second rounders in here is what I'm saying

like they should be highly touted actually what the hell was going on in these years 2015 Caleb Jones they didn't have any seconds or thirds

both years and in 2014 they didn't have any seconds or thirds what the hell happened there I don't know why you're the Oilers in those years

they should have had all the draft picks yeah you sucked That's a 31st pick They traded away That's essentially Well it's now a first rounder but essentially it was a first rounder That's insane This is the kind of stuff that

In the Oilers case The rebuild was the Oilers fault They had terrible management They were run by former players that didn't know what they were doing We know that For 11 years That's not the system cheating you That you stink

So therefore not the reason that the NHL should be changing up the lottery rules. Also, those guys, we're talking about a team like the Coyotes, for example, who could really use the first overall pick, potentially not getting it. The Oilers got it. Four times.

Four times! And they didn't get it right until the fourth time. When it was McDavid. When they didn't have a choice. You couldn't possibly screw this up. Even if you lost your mind and got Jack Eichel, at least you would have Jack Eichel. It's still the Oilers' number one center.

It's crazy. Absolutely not. All I'm saying is that you should, I would want to make a highway to make bad teams good again. As fast as possible. I'd want to put in an express lane. But once a bad team is good, then a good team is bad. Not necessarily. It just might mean the teams are, it's like it's a little bit more competitive this league, I would think.

But how much parity do you want? The NHL seems to want a lot of that. Yeah, that's true. You're battling between business sense, which would be, yes, definitely prop up the bad teams. And also, we've got to remember, it's a sports league, and there's got to be some competitiveness. You know, it can't be, you can't promote, you can't award being shit, which I think is what the NHL is trying to avoid.

That's how the draft is set up, though. Yes, and they're looking at it and going, should we change this? We shouldn't award teams for being shit. Okay, so then you're going to penalize teams for being shit, which is even worse. No, you're not necessarily, no, you're just even playing for them. Okay, when I was in grade one, I was behind on my reading, My kindergarten school didn't teach me how to read, whereas the school I was at, yeah, I didn't know how to read coming out of kindergarten, and apparently you're supposed to do that.

That explains a lot. So the school I went to, the school I went to. I don't know how long divided, have I mentioned that? Leo Komarov scored, sorry. The school I went to realized this and goes, okay, well, we're going to put you in reading recovery, so we're going to get you caught up. Instead of saying, sorry, kid, not only are we not going to teach you to read, we're not even going to give you fucking books.

It's the exact same. No, it's the exact same. This is a pretty good, I think that's a pretty good comparison. No. No. Why is it not? Teaching a child how to read in a professional sports league. Guys, the point is, if there's a team that's behind, if there's a person that's behind,

why wouldn't you let them? Because you're competing against that other person to win a championship and make money. Yeah. Are you competing with the other kids in your class to win the reading championship? Fuck yeah. And I did win it. So fuck you. How many millions are on the line in your reading championship?

Also, I think, no, no, the point... Can you imagine one of Adam's fellow kindergartners being like, uh, why is he getting special treatment? This is bullshit. I'm trying to read better. Excuse me. What is with Adam's special advantage here? But that's my point, is that if...

There's a difference between professional sports and society. If someone's hurting, you should help them. The NHL owners... In professional sports, go fuck yourself. The NHL owners act like a group, right? Or they're supposed to. They're supposed to. At times.

For business things, the point is to have a good business. To have a good business, you want to have a team that at very least you can sell hope. But at the end of the day, your business is yours and you don't really care about the rest of the shell if you're making money. But if you are making money and you're making piles of money, have you ever heard of those equalization payments? Man, I hate making those equalization payments. You know why? Because there's teams that are shit that aren't making money that I have to pay for. I don't think the draft lottery is going to change much of that.

Sorry, Jesse. The reason the Coyotes don't make money and the reason that they haven't been able to make money is because they've never had a good, solid team in a good, solid arena. Give them the opportunity to be good. What I remember a few years ago when Mike Smith decided to destroy Worlds and the Coyotes made the Western Conference final. Yeah, I remember that.

That building was sold out. Absolutely it was. That building was sold out. Also, the correct answer to all of this, you take the teams that didn't make the playoffs and you play a single elimination tournament during the other playoffs and then the winner of that

tournament gets first overall. I love that idea. The KHL tried something like that. And? It was called the Cup of Hope. Really? Yes. Really? Why not? But it had nothing to do with draft picks. It was just I guess it was just games

for... The KHL is bizarre. So your contract runs until the end of April. So if you didn't make the playoffs, there are teams that will make you show up anyway and just practice. Oh, because the contract's still going. Yeah, so I guess they figure well, we're paying these guys. Like, why not

make some ticket sales? And Dynamo Riga won one year. So their final game was a win and had a trophy and they didn't even make the playoffs. See, that's awesome. With starting goalie Michael Telquist. Oh, wow. He's great, Michael

if you have your little tournament to determine the first overall pick you can't suck that much see I love that because you have

to play I am with you I love that idea and at least that it sells more tickets you get to sell fake playoff tickets

dude I love that idea imagine it's like a March Madness oh my god how exciting what player though gives a flying

shit about that they should it's your team it's your team what if I'm a player on an expiring deal call up your

AHL guys I'm sorry, what do you do for a living? Oh, that's right, you fucking play hockey. Strap on your fucking skates and get out there. I agree with you, but a lot of guys... Okay, imagine now. So, okay, the NHL got into a big to-do about the Olympics, and one of the primary reasons was

they send their players over there, John Tavares gets hurt, season-ending injury. Imagine you're a player, and you're set... Imagine the Leafs don't make the playoffs, but JVR still scores 30 goals, and he's heading into the summer, and he's supposed to get this enormous payday

and they're playing in this goofy first overall pick tournament and he blows out his knee. That's how the game works. I'm sorry. He could blow, but he could also blow out

his knee on game 82. Yeah. 81. Yeah, but he didn't. Yeah, and Steve, he's already scored his 30 goals. NHLGMs are dumb.

You just said it. They'll sign him anyway. You're right. We signed Stefan Robida when he'd broken two legs in the previous year. He broke each leg. Each leg.

I always forget. Also, you pay them like it's playoff money. So the further you go, your team gets more money. Because you don't actually get paid for the playoffs. I freaking love that. Absolutely. Polak was the second right-handed defenseman in recent memory where they're like, well, I know he has a broken leg, but he does shoot right.

So we're going to go ahead and bring him on anyway. They're like, we need to get heavier back there. At least they didn't give him a three-year deal. I know. I'm just saying. That, to me, is brilliant. Now, the NHL is a lot of the times anti-entertainment. Even though they're an entertainment league, that's the whole point.

So they would never do that. But I feel like you do that for five years and you sort of normalize that tournament. The first year, there'd be a bunch of uproar. And you keep doing that, though, and it becomes a part of the game. And you give the guys going into the playoffs maybe a week off so they can kind of rest up.

Makes the first round more competitive. So you get the little kind of fun tournament for the first overall pick. And then you go into the playoffs with teams that have had some injuries, and now they're healed up. And now you get a little bit more of a fair fight, too. So the playoff teams love it

because they get time to recover. Dude, this is great. Jesse Blake, you're a genius. Why aren't we running in the NHL? We should be. We'd be in the Olympics. We were running in the NHL. It'd be like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

That would be us running in the NHL. The Leafs seem to win every year. It's almost like it's rigged. The Leafs have 18 straight Stanley Cup. Wait a second. New rule. Leafs always get the first overall pick. Second rule.

The Leafs win. Second rule. imagine you beat the Leafs and you get fined there's a way to make money for the league oh what fined

you beat them 6-3 you're double fined hey do you want to hear something do do do do do do do yes I want to hear something do do do do do do so here's

it's a very NHL thing too Kay Whitmore NHL's goaltending supervisor has been ordered to return $384,000 in profits from a Ponzi scheme what

justice gordon weatherhill also found that whitmore struggled during his cross-examination to provide a logical reason for why he was content to have the repayments of his principal paid directly into his bank account but requested that the fee payments be sent to him in his home in ontario in the form of bank drafts in increments of ten thousand dollars he said it was incomprehensible that whitmore would not have questioned why he received no tax documents from a guy uh he with whom he is making money. So the whole background of this story is really, really interesting. Is it tax evasion? Okay, so who is this guy?

Goaltending? Kate Whitmore was a former Canucks goalie. He's now the head of goaltending at the NHL. Okay. So a guy named... What goes into being that? BC public notary Rashida Samji was sentenced to six years in prison after she was found

guilty on 14 counts of fraud relating to 284 named investors and companies who were led to believe their money was being invested in a winery. Creditors of Sam G's estate, including investors who lost money in the scheme, are now going after those who made money, including Whitmore. According to the B.C. Supreme Court documents, Whitmore, who is now the NHL supervising goaltender, initially invested $600,000 on the premise that it would be a six-month investment that would pay out about 7.5%. He received his first payment of $45,000. Two weeks later, $5,000 in the form of nine bank drafts each.

So $5,000 each. Anyway, so basically, it's very how I get paid by the KHL. It's Ponzi scheme, but he made money off the Ponzi scheme. He's one of the guys that made money because he was actually paid back. But did he know it was a Ponzi scheme? Well, they, okay, so they're saying again, as I read, the justice in the case says he struck, he said, there's no way, he said, I find it incomprehensible that Whitmore would not have questioned why he received money

yet no tax documents. Right? Because you've got to get... If you're making $384,000 in six months, give me some tax documents there. You're going to have to pay some tax, especially in Canada. Especially in BC where the taxes are a little higher. Well, okay. Now, my question is, and maybe you're both about to tell me I do my taxes

wrong, and that would be very concerning, but if you make money and you don't get the documents, when you file your taxes, you just tell them, by the way, I also made X amount of dollars. That's what I did with the KHL. You think they sent me proper documentation?

No, I just didn't want the Canadian government to eventually go, knock, knock, knock, hi, we're going to friggin' audit you and murder your life. That's freelance, yeah, that's okay. So I guess he wasn't doing that either. Yeah, so basically I could have just kept it

and took my chances, but I'm big into not getting punished by the government. I'm really big into not jail. Now, he is super into that. It's a passion of mine. He's one of 70 people that made money off this Ponzi scheme.

Now, it's not clear that he knew it was a Ponzi scheme. So that's let's take that off the table right there. He's pleading ignorance, basically. Yeah. And you know what? The judge is saying bullshit. Well, the judge is saying, how did you not have tax documents associated with this? And I think that I both are fair.

Sometimes people are just they have a lot of money and they aren't great with it. Like, you know, that's possible, too. Has he been fired? No. OK. Because it's not a part of the NHL. approximately 220 people invested in this scheme 150 lost money which means

70 made money which means those 70 people they're going after all of them and going you gotta give back that money this is very Wolf of Wall Street oh it's yeah anyway I just thought how weird is that Rick Westhead was the one who reported on that by the way and then CBC also do you think he keeps his job or do you think he made

public blunder which is I think it's separate from the NHL I mean it doesn't make the NHL look bad so why fire him if he's doing a great it doesn't listen And whatever happened there is separate from what he does with the NHL. If he's doing a great job with the NHL, he's doing a great job. If he ran the Ponzi scheme, then I'm like, dude, you're out. Rick Westhead blocked me.

Why? I don't know. What did you do to Rick Westhead? My best guess is maybe he's friends with Pierre Maguire. But Pierre's not on Twitter. Is Pierre also blocked? Pierre's not on Twitter. He's not on Twitter.

But my best guess is Pierre Maguire used to work at TSN. Rick Westhead works at TSN. I rip Pierre Maguire. I also feel bad about that. I was maybe too hard on him. But it's really fun to yell, I can. But yeah, Rick Westhead. Did you call Pierre Maguire a bad person, though?

I don't think so. See, here, making fun of something that someone says is something we do all the time with each other. Right? There's a big difference between going, Pierre Maguire, I don't like Pierre Maguire's blank. He's an asshole. Yeah, if you call Pierre Maguire an a-hole,

then that's one thing. That's attacking his character. But if you say, I think that was a bad call. I don't know. If you criticize the action, there's nothing wrong with it. That's also a total guess. I don't know. Maybe he just thinks I'm annoying.

So he just went out of his way one day to block you? That guy's annoying, and I hope he never tweets me. Sometimes I'll see someone quote tweet something, and I'll be like, oh, how come it's just a link? I want to know what this person's talking about, and I'll just be blocked. I'm like, oh, what the hell? It's often from Edmonton personalities that I follow. So I think Oilers fans are like, I'm sick of seeing this Dangle guy in my timeline block.

Steve, you should be proud that you've done enough things in your life to be blocked by people. No, I don't think you should ever be proud of being blocked. You should be proud. Because if you were truly a nobody, they wouldn't even block you. Because they wouldn't even see you. So be proud that you're somebody who can be blocked. Phil Kessel, Tyler Bozak, Rick Westhead, Evander Kane, thanks for making me proud.

And no longer the Knights, was it? Spitfires. Spitfires. That was bizarre. I have a question with regards to, you know, I forgot my question. I had something, and now I've totally forgotten it. Damn! Doesn't matter.

Let's get to actual question period. I forgot some of the plays in the game, too. It's press conference time. Sorry. That was a very good Kevin Durant quote. Thank you. Thank you. I got it.

I got you. You nailed it. The Presser SDP The Steve Dangle Press Conference That was cute If you want to bring back up the standings Adam What team, this is from Barely Legal Siegel

I like your handle What team that is currently under 500 Has the best chance of making the playoffs Who's under 500? Are there hurricanes under 500? Hurricanes are 500 In the east you've got Rangers Florida, Montreal, and Buffalo

and I count under 500 to be just wins and losses. Don't get me on the OTL stuff. Oh, you're not doing Batman 500? No, I'm not doing Batman 500. That's what it is. Then I'd have to do so much fucking calculating. No way. And then in the east, you've got

You've only got Edmonton and Arizona that are truly below 500 if you don't count over time losses. Here's the interesting thing about under 500 and that definition. So a lot of Senators fans ripped the Leafs last year because the Leafs had technically lost more games than they won.

They won 40, which means they lost 42. The Sens, through 12 games, are 5, 2, and 5. They have seven losses, technically. Seven losses, but five of them are an OT of the shootout. How about we amend the question, and we make it to how many teams in the— like, name a team in each conference in the playoffs that is not currently in the playoffs, in the playoff race. See what I'm saying?

So you got, in the East, here are your teams that could make the playoffs that are not currently. Detroit, by the way, which just snapped a six-game win streak, is still in the playoff hunt. Crazy. So they're ninth. Boston, Washington, Carolina, New York, Florida, Montreal, Buffalo. Who do you think is most likely out of those guys? Maybe Boston. Washington is the easy answer for me.

Yeah, I honestly don't think the Caps are bad. No, they look good. Their veterans are playing as good as they ever have. it's just a matter of their young guys getting better which they will yeah

and then you've got in the Western Conference Colorado Chris is not wearing shoes right now Colorado hey can we get to the question here

who cares that he's not wearing shoes does it matter does it matter alright Colorado Nashville Chicago

Calgary Minnesota Edmonton Arizona pick Arizona yeah pick Arizona oh my god

I picked them as one of my upset teams is San Jose On the inside Yes they're 8 Oh barely That's crazy

God they look good They just snuck inside the club Before closing time Yeah I'm surprised Calgary's so bad Well they're 6-6 And they're actually A true 6-6

They have not lost That's right That's right No I mean They're not that bad I'm gonna say Calgary Cause San Jose is 6-5 And they're in

And Calgary's 6-6 And they're not So 28 goals There's 4 teams Time to 12 Yeah 5 teams tied with 12 points

yeah that's surprising to me I would say Calgary yeah I think Calgary is pretty darn good Minnesota I mean they're better than their record

but they're busted up so and they're not as good as are they as good as their record showed last year or did they go on

an almost 20 game win streak or whatever it was oh my god wasn't 16 or no that was Columbus Columbus was 16

Minnesota was they lost to Columbus four teams had 10 or yeah double digit win streaks last year right and I think

it was the first time in NHL Philly missed the playoffs yeah oh that's right yeah and go ahead your stuff

the it was like the first time in NHL history two teams with double digit winning streaks played each other yeah the Minnesota and Columbus game

was it? yeah and it just happened to be like New Year's Eve or New Year's Day that they were playing it was crazy it was one of our 100 and 100 moments

so yeah they're all they're all busted up yeah I would say Calgary and who did I say in the east? Carolina

Carolina. Interesting. Okay. Next question. I'm smart. I approve. For two of you, this is from Thrillho on Reddit. Okay.

At what point... That was me in my early 20s. At what point do you worry that the 17-18 Toronto Maple Leafs are actually the 15-16 Dallas Stars? Oh, I don't think that's even comparable. No. No. Nah. No.

No, I would... And especially, it would not be month one. That's for sure. And currently with the Leafs sitting in sixth place in the conference, where a week ago they were second in this conference. Like, I'm sorry, no. They lost three games. Yeah, I'll take Freddie over Niemi and Letnan combined.

And then, yeah, the Leafs, I would argue, are better offensively than even that Stars team was. For sure. Stars team, that kind of circled around like three guys. No defense. Like you think the Leafs defense is weak Go back and look at that team That was bad

Final question I think this is a good wrap Steve You talked about how There was nothing to panic about When they were struggling in October last year This is the Leafs Apparently

You haven't re-watched your LFRs Well Yeah No I guess you're right Well Wait what? Last year when we had two wins Steve said

There's nothing to panic about And this year See Different team Different expectations Yeah, I would call it very different, because the Leafs had two wins in October last year. But in so many of those games, even the ones they lost, they were the better team. Or it looked like they should have won.

Or they had some epic collapse. What did they have, four epic collapses? Third game of the season, they were up 4-0 on the Jets, and they coughed that lead up. And miraculously, it took them two games to cough up a four-goal lead this year, when they beat the Rangers. They had that collapse against the Blackhawks. There were so many games. Game one. First game of the season, yeah.

Oh, like so many games where they looked like the better team or they were this close to winning and they lost. They were finding ways to lose. All they had to do was something had to click. And what's really impressive is if you go back and look at the Leafs schedule, they didn't really have many crazy win streaks. Maybe two or three at the most. Chips.

It's chipped away. Just November, good. December, good. January, good. This year, they were winning games and looking bad. Yes, they were. Now, part of that might be they were getting off to early leads, and then it's just all defense from there, which is not their strong suit.

But even the game against the Jets, it's amazing the Leafs weren't getting killed after the first period there, and somehow they left that period up 3-0. Yeah. Steve Mason was garbage. And then they cough up a four-goal lead against the Rangers. And then they were losing 3-1 to the Blackhawks It's like winning every game 8-5 You can't

Eventually that 5 will bite you I feel like we talked about it on the show Where we were looking at the Leafs playing style And going, is this bad? Is this bad that they're winning all these games? Because you're not learning any lessons Connor Carrick sort of talked about it When he was interviewed yesterday

We were still going Well, we won, but But there was no need to address the but because you were winning. You were 7-2, 7-1, something like that. No, now with a losing streak, they're being forced

to confront the butt. Gotta confront the butt. Confront the butt is the title of this episode. Let's do it. Now, is it that two Ts or one? One. We can't get two cheeky.

I don't think... I didn't even mean to do that this guy yeah those cold meds man they're working for you tonight's game 7

so the Leafs are on Sportsnet 1 tonight fuck that fuck that game 7 that means by the way

in the in I can watch the end of it in commercial in hockey terms in the states that means we're on the Ocho

ESPN 8 the Ocho Like we're like It's for Sportsnet To put the lease On Sportsnet 1 Whoa Whoa

Which means If you don't have it You should go out And purchase Sportsnet 1 Or get Sportsnet Now Where you can watch it On any mobile device That's right Jesse

25 clean dollars a month Wow That's so cheap I know Wow Skip a couple coffees You got that every month That's actually true

Your daily coffee That's about 25 bucks a month What studio are we in right now? Oh By the way I know that was a perfect ending but i had to throw this out there my head my favorite youtube comment no i'm steven this i don't care my favorite youtube comment was you know i love the new studio but there's too much

toronto in it now guys here's the thing we broadcast out of the sportsnet 590 toronto studios that's sort of the yeah that's sort of the deal it's a toronto station so i'm sorry that that offends you but we're in toronto working for toronto station there's too much sports In this room There is too much And it was like There's too much Leafs And it's all Blue Jays

Actually on the background Yeah the red wall Is Blue Jays The actual Canada's team Right now Can I Can I take the camera Oh hold on

Yeah do it Oh you're going free Freehand Oh Man have we ever done this I don't know But like the new station In Vancouver

I'm willing to bet Is not plastered With Leafs stuff Yeah I really Got my red nose in there You mean You mean Andrew Walker

Canucks fan Isn't Boy, is he really enjoying the role of Canucks fan? He is. And Whitecaps fan. Loves those Whitecaps. He's really enjoying the role. By the way, he's from out there.

I get to hate Toronto now. Yeah, and he loves it. Okay, that's such a Canadian thing you just said. No, he's not. He's from BC, and he worked in Alberta. So, yeah, he's from there. Those aren't the same. He grew up a Canucks fan.

Oh, he did? Yeah, he's from BC. No, he's from Saskatchewan, I thought. Oh, is he? Oh, okay, I don't know. I thought he was from BC. You're better friends with him than I am. Okay, well, I'll ask him.

Ask the fucking guy. So I asked the fucking guy. He said his name was Walker. All right, we're out of here. Jesse, did you show off all the Toronto stuff? I did. Give him a little tour. Oh, show this guy, by the way.

Show this guy. No, that's the rest of the series. Oh, there's me. Show Buddy with the crazy face paint. Yeah, yeah, I got him. Oh, hey, look. Kevin Bieksa is also out tonight. Oh, yeah, because he got a hand injury with that Superman punch.

Really? Yeah, did you know that? I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, he busted his hand. Well, unless it was busted beforehand. And he shouldn't have done that.

Either way, he shouldn't have done that. That's the funny thing about hockey fights is they're bare knuckle. It's not smart. How come nobody has put Soulja Boy to that replay? You! Yeah, it's a bummer. Superman. No, yeah, I know.

On your Twitter account, Adam. No, I don't think so. Just use the camera audio. Yeah, that won't be complicated to edit at all. Hey, should we end the show now? Yeah. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E,

and at Jesse Blake. the steve dangle podcast brought to you by panago pizza order at panago.com and stuff your face with deliciousness