The Steve Dangle Podcast - Detroit Screwed Wings | May 6, 2020

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the Leafs sign Mikko Lehtonen (00:00), Toronto might be a hub for the NHL when hockey returns (32:00), the Detroit Red Wings think they got screwed (38:30 ), Matt Murray vs Tristan Jarry (1:10:00), and Adam's History Corner! (1:29:00). Originally aired: May 6, 2020 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/4HMq3bnGAqE Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts 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 d p the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake okay guys hello guys there's hockey stuff to talk about there's hockey stuff to talk about today isn't that great it's great we that's two episodes in a row right now because Last week, there was a lot of, or last episode, there was a lot of hockey talk, too. There's some good stuff. We're looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. And, you know, I mean, we've got lots, including a couple of Canadian hub cities that are apparently on the market. It's funny.

We're finding out more about Canadian hub cities than we are American ones. We don't quite know which hub cities are going to be in the States. We seem to have the two major ones in Canada. So we'll get to what those look like right now And how close each There's one in the east and one in the west What they look like in just a little bit But the first thing we should talk about

Is the Toronto Maple Leafs Making the greatest signing in club history Bobby Orr David Clarkson Finish Bobby Orr Bobby Orr with some finish If you know what I'm saying Here's my knee

Here's my knee That was a good one Mikko Letnick Mikko Lettner. So this is a guy who was, I think he finished fourth in KHL scoring overall. He finished extremely high, and he was the leader of Jokret, of the Continental Hockey League, formerly of the SM Liga. And where are they in terms of competitiveness?

Are they a good team? Jokret, they were, if I remember correctly, and I'll check this out right now, um yoker it was uh they were in the playoffs like mid-gagarin cup playoffs and i want to say they were the first team to just say guys we're not playing anymore like because the khl hadn't shut down operations and yoker it was just like guys we quit we're not playing so and then shortly after they were like well i mean teams are quitting on us so i suppose we'll have to That's the most Russian thing to happen.

Yeah, pretty much. They were the third seed in the first round of the West taking on Locomotive. So that's very good. Now, the reason that Mikko Lettinen being fourth in league scoring is a big deal because you would expect anybody out of the KHL to be somewhat of a high performer if they're going to go to the NHL. First off, it's not easy to score points in the KHL. A lot of people, even a point per game pace is pretty rare.

The second thing is this guy's a defenseman. unfortunately though a left shot defenseman yeah which means he's garbage and the Leafs shouldn't sign him right right because why would you want to do that now it is interesting because there can be a couple things at play here obviously this is a player who wanted to make the jump he's 26 years old um could have an opportunity if he comes into camp and he bombs then he can always go back I mean that's always possible as well but I think they're expecting him to be a minimum a top six guy next year and the question becomes right away what does that mean for the rest of the Leafs blue line which is already thin but already but a little bit stacked on the left side and you

know you've got Travis Dermott and Rasmus Sandin excuse me they're already ready to go uh you would expect Rasmus Sandin probably maybe ready to go maybe he sees some playoff time uh and then if this you know say the season starts in December like we've heard you know by December I would think with with some of the games that they're going to play some of the games the Marlies might play I mean I don't know if the AHL is looking at coming back or if they completely canceled but regardless you would think that there's going to be a lineup a mile long uh for that third left-handed shot defenseman spot now that doesn't mean that Travis Dermott, Miko Lettinen, or Rasmus Sandin can't play the right side it just means it's not optimal and

the question I think is firstly do we have a coach that's willing to explore that that's willing to explore like TJ Brody does playing a left-handed shot defenseman on the right side and sustaining it and you know letting him get used to it play listen the Leafs defense stinks play your by the way I'm late dangle I don't know if you see see my name there sorry sorry they're fellas um they're they're not good play your best six defensemen and uh figure out the handedness later um they're they're already thin on the right side they're probably going to lose Tyson Berry they're going to lose Cody Cece so Justin Hall if I'm not mistaken is the only right-handed defender they have signed back there oh and Timothy Lilligren so doesn't appear to be

ready yet well maybe you go maybe he is right um here's here's the thing so a lot of you know we joked about it off the top that miko letnan is the best ever and he's bobby or slash nicholas lidstrom slash gretzky but backwards and all that before the leaf signed him people were talking about him calling him one of the best if not the best defenseman in europe when it was rumored he was going to the devils when it was rumored he was going to the habs were a big one when he was rumored to be going to the rangers or talking to all these teams the leafs came out of left field so i don't know what the hell he i don't know what the hell kyle dubas did to convince him to come to the leafs no bonuses there doesn't appear to be any room for him obviously they got to get creative

and they don't even have to get that creative miko letnan uh just last season when he was in the swedish hockey league played with hv 71 and he played supposedly the whole season on the right side he did say in the press conference call that he had played it on the right side and was capable of it he didn't seem to be faced yeah riley's done it uh dermot has done it but i went on my uh you know bi-weekly rant it seems about travis dermot playing the right side until they do it i'm gonna stop i'm not gonna continue to talk about it as an option can i bring up something that happened when this uh when this came down sure so we were we were awarded the stanley cup no okay we were in the studio at diversion radio and i told adam that uh he had signed

and adam probably said does this mean travis dermot is out the door because that seems like the logical conclusion there's a thing they're cash traps right cash traps and even if travis Dermott makes Justin Hall money they're Justin Hall bucks it's too much like it's too much I think they can't afford that right so what what does that mean and Travis Dermott you would expect I mean this is a defenseman who still as much as he sort of has been had an up and down season ranks pretty highly among defensemen his age and if you compare some of the better defensemen in the NHL now they had numbers similar to him at a similar age this is Dermott you're talking about Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Josh Morrissey comes to mind.

Yeah. Like I'm not, I'm not ready to give up on Dermott. I criticized him pretty heavily this season, but like he was coming off an injury. Not everyone comes off of surgery better. Like Zach Hyman, like that's a weird season Zach Hyman had in a fantastic one. Not everyone comes off it better. And you know, there wasn't the first significant injury that Travis Dermott has had throughout his career, but you're right, Adam, this guy is due for a race. no matter what so what's it going to be there is nothing but good news that comes from this signing

either they trade Dermott and get something for him they trade someone else and get something for him it pressures Dermott into a different kind of contract that's more team friendly for the Leafs the Leafs adding talent is never a bad thing ever ever ever what I take umbrage with people suggesting and and this is professor uh no no i just i i there are there is a suggestion out there that because this signing happens if the leafs trade travis dermot that they've given up on him and i think sometimes in the nhl it's not about giving up on it's getting the best value for even if that value is young good talented defense like if you could have travis dermot that played steady on the right side you wouldn't need to move you wouldn't need to move right and

that's that's the thing it's it seems like such an odd thing though to trade a guy that you've had in your system for four and a half years to get a guy who just happens to be right-handed like that just seems like it just seems odd to me unless you can dial back the clock and get somebody who's maybe on an entry-level uh deal who is only going to make you know eight or nine hundred grand for the next couple of seasons if they see another travis dermot and they're like we're going to trade uh current wins for some future wins so we can keep under the cap like that's the only way i see that working i don't see them being able to bring in some big salary um unless you're packaging a guy like alex kerfoot andreas johnson casperi capital you can trade

sandin no you can't no you could though you could you can trade anybody you can trade absolutely anybody in the world um another option that i threw out there uh connecting it to a topic that we discussed on the podcast and i don't think this is likely but it is something that's possibly out there um if they do play three and threes because miko letting can't play in the nhl until next season right next season that we talked about could start in december run through july they're gonna have to they still want to play 82 games they got to condense the schedule if you're gonna be playing three and threes you're gonna want four competent nhl parents to carry with you throughout the season that's true not even to have you know chilling in the minors and then

you call them up to be black aces during the the playoffs or whatever so there's there's nothing bad about it and i feel like it's very leafy to be like so who's gone well we we know the answer the cody cc is gone and tyson berry is gone um i don't know if anyone's getting dealt i think and people forget that you know you can also re-evaluate once the season begins uh so there's the preseason um there's whatever's left of this season which is going to be sort of this weird half season but you can try Travis Dermott out on the right side full-time you can try Morgan Riley out on the right side full-time you can try Mikko Lettinen on the right side full-time Martin Marincin's a left-handed defenseman who plays on the right uh pretty often it's not great

but and this is another thing I think the Leafs really like Martin Marincin I know I think the Leafs really like Travis Dermott uh and the person he is you know I think they're really big on on personality and a type of person they can trust um so that's why I was saying Martin must be the best like he must be just a gem of a human being knows what to get everyone for Christmas that this guy he's always he walks in with coffee every morning he's never late am i right jesse high five he's just a gem his name would be a little different in the zoom i don't think it'd be late dangle no it'd be on time marty i have a question sure why does it seem like it's been years now that the leafs have had a hole on the right side of their defense

and they haven't been able to plug it with anybody why is it every year every offseason and every trade deadline, they can't just fill this one simple hole that it seems like they have every single year. It's not so simple, unfortunately. There's a reason right-hand defensemen get overpaid throughout the league. There was a number of years. Yeah, but if it's half a decade, it's a little more simple than that. No, I know.

You have five off-seasons, enough time. Yeah, and you're like, Justin Holl? That's crafty, but now you're paying him $2 million and he started to stink as soon as you signed it. So that's a little concerning. uh we'll have to see how that goes um but i i remember for the longest time the leafs had a hole on right wing they had no one they had like i think ty domey was like their only natural right winger and now they're stacked but there's another hole so what do you do i don't know

they had ron hainsey on the top pair for two years and i know um the leafs didn't want to do that anymore obviously ron hainsey left mike babcock got fired but if the leafs wanted to make that change that badly if they hated having him up there that badly there's things they could have done and they didn't do it so you know the three lefts three rights it's not the case for most teams throughout the league i'm pretty sure can can i weigh in on something too no uh so jesse oh so there's a couple things at play here at first um and this will anger any of the the people that hate Kyle Dubas and love Lou Lamorello but there were some bad contracts that needed to be undone and Patrick Marleau and Nikita Zaitsev cost the Leafs immensely you know that first

round pick that went to Carolina for this season probably could have got them what they needed but they had to get rid of Patrick Marleau they had to um Nikita Zaitsev I mean it cost them Connor brown right i mean they it it was sort of like he's the he's the throw-in of value um and another another thing they lack though adam just to add to what you're saying is they lack toughness and so they took some of the future on the right side and sean dersey and they dealt into the kings and the kings probably asked for him directly because everyone needs a right-handed defenseman these days right yeah no 100 and i think that's the i also want to throw out there that a right shot defenseman the more i've had time to think about it um and it was you know i've really kind

of been thinking about it since letton has been signed and i don't have much to do um to me it's it's not an issue if the least defense doesn't suck are we talking about the handedness of these guys no and that's the problem i think the the the right-handed part of the defenseman gets overblown steve you made a really good point earlier when you talked about the fact that the Leafs just need to play their six best guys yes we don't need to to brain fuck this thing into happening like it's just like it's just put them out there put them out there and let them go and let them play you know you know what you know what's crazy is that most hockey players at that level can pass can shoot and can skate at a pretty unbelievable level there's no reason if they all

don't have the right skill sets obviously you have to trade guys like Bolak, Hainsey that sort of them but or let them go to free agency but in this particular case the Leafs have a bunch of guys with wheels with the exception of maybe Jake Muslim who's not that fast but he's a very smart player um and you've got an opportunity here with a coach that's young and Kyle Dubas who is young and can influence that coach to say listen you're not getting the right shot guy we're just not going to overpay for that we have we have overpaid for star power overpaid for star power like you Mitch Marner, you could say, oh, a little overpaid. A lot of people say, Nylander, a little overpaid.

I don't think so. People could argue that with Matthews. Tavares, I don't think you can argue that. I don't even think you can argue it with Matthews anymore. But the point I'm making is the money went to the big stars, which is the philosophy of the team. If your overpay is over, we don't have overpay. Now we've got to get creative.

So it's on the head coach and it's on the players to say, how do we figure this out with what we have? and Kyle I think has always done a great job of filling in around the corners he's always found there's always been somebody else there's always been somebody else to kind of step up and take that role and it's either come from the Marlies it's come from Europe like we saw it with Mikheyev this year um uh even guys like you know not that Ogiganov was that great but he was fine he's he was guy he was guy nhl player like he wasn't he wasn't demoted to the marlies you know i just yeah exactly they could have done that i didn't like him but he was good enough at the time and

this is what i was saying you the leafs it's weird they've sort of constructed themselves into being good enough to survive having flaws early in the season if that makes sense they're good enough to have a really weak right side but probably be at least considerably above 500 sort of in a playoff spot by christmas and then you reevaluate and you go okay we kind of suck here's a move we can make but we've already identified they have valuable pieces uh what's going to happen with dermot um what's going to happen with johnson what's going to happen with Kerfoot what's going to happen with Kapanen so all I'm focused on is they signed a guy who was referred to as one of the best defensemen in Europe before his name was even mentioned in

the same sentence as the Leafs and I think people are probably focusing on the wrong issue um with the left versus right if you have a left-handed guy on the right-handed side uh there's a billion in the league yeah at least wanted to get TJ Brody yeah you adjust accordingly you adjust accordingly um if you know you're going to have a guy on your right side who's a left-handed shot here are the two things i'm mostly worried about one um i saw this guy's highlights they're awesome um however a lot of the points he put up especially goals were on the power play how's he gonna get those cookies how's he gonna get those they're saying with dermot gone Sorry, not Dermott.

With Barry gone, he may be the quarterback of the second PP. Second. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, like, he put up 49 points in 60 KHL games. That's banana sandwich. And also, it's nothing like anything he's put up anywhere in his career. In the SM Liga in Sweden.

In Sweden, he put up 24 in 52 games. In the SM Liga in Finland, 29 in 55. and the KHL all of a sudden maybe he's playing with better players he puts up 49 he puts up 20 more points than he's ever scored anywhere else uh and a lot of that was the power play so where is he going to get those cookies you're probably not going to get a ton on the the second power play unit anyway and I doubt you're going to hand them the first because it was already enough of an issue taking the first away from Riley and giving it to Barry now if there's no Barry how are you going to be like here's guy you've never heard of they've already uh muzzin has played some

power play sandin's played some power play and i actually like them there so it's just healthy internal competition but how's he going to put up those points and beyond that the biggest issue the leafs don't have an issue putting up points so i don't really care how many points this guy puts up he's 5 11 a buck 96 can this guy be a dick to people in front of the net can this guy control his gap can this guy uh uh cleared the front of the net for freddie anderson does this guy have a brain on his shoulders can he make a breakout pass can he make a breakout pass for crying out loud can he deny his own entries can he defend it's all i'm all i'm looking for well and and to that point steve just to add to what you're saying you said it already the

the Leafs are stacked on the right side right now, you know, on the forward position. Oh, yes, yes, yes. So if you're stacked on the right side for the Leafs forward position, that should make it easier on the right side defense, should it not? You'd think. And that's sort of the problem that I've been seeing for the last little bit is, like, you're stacked on the left on defense,

stacked on the right up front, and pretty good center as well, let's be honest. But you can't make that cross-ice pass, right? You can't do that coming out of your zone. So all the defensemen on the right-hand side needs to do is keep it pretty simple. I mean, if you look at the Boston Bruins, who are the arch nemesis, there's no question. They're not complicated when they do a zone breakout. No.

Like, it's a couple passes. And they make it look easy against a team like the Leafs, who are a strong, forechecking team. And, you know, we've only ever seen the Babcock Leafs in the playoffs in this iteration. I don't know what Sheldon Keefe's Leafs would look like, especially after a pandemic. but it seems to me that if you could just find a guy like you said control your gap clear the net be sort of a dick um have a head on your shoulders he should be able to like justin hall did for a good chunk of the season figure out how to make a pass to the strong side of the strongest part of this team which is the right hand side so we're in agreement that lenton isn't what the

Leafs need no but in a weird way because he's we don't need more offensive minded players on this team we need people to stay home and play some defense I think I think that stay home thing is a thing that they don't believe in Jesse well there is the entire team I don't think they believe in it you think it's I think that's a crazy way you don't have to stay home they they need come home defensemen yeah right does that make sense for curfew defense yeah no because they go to work beliefs commute to work work is the offensive zone all five guys they're late for dinner at almost every game they're late for dinner no wonder they're my favorite team they're they're always late so we need we need come home defensemen if miko letnan can commute

to work and be a come home defenseman he'll get along with the toronto maple leafs and their fans just so do we have confidence that he's gonna drive his car through traffic and get all the way home or is he gonna hop on the go train and maybe it's running late every day because that's what the go train does and he doesn't make it to oshawa go in time oh man he'll never make it to oshawa you might you might get to danforth but you're not getting to oshawa go on time um the he's okay so the thing too is that i think jesse in a lot of cases the stay-at-home defenseman moniker has gone away because and this is this largely due to the advanced stats community um they basically debunked the idea most of the stay-at-home defensemen that we

grew up with were just bad they were just bad and some of them weren't at home because they couldn't go anywhere right they didn't have the they were in a pandemic yeah they were told to stay home yeah they were on lockdown like please stay in your zone um and i'm not denigrating guys like you know adam foot and things you know there are guys there are guys who were good to fight like you know but what the yeah and i hate to bring up the last dance because i haven't seen the latest two episodes we're gonna have to hold off on our reviews they're pretty good um i they need the leafs need a dennis rodman real bad yeah real bad and i don't know if it's forward or defense i would like it to be on defense but there's they there's an attitude that he got

from detroit and if you haven't seen this my god you need to see it it's it's poetry um that that you know you could see you could see the jordan bulls teams and i i said this before there is such a at least as a leaf fan you can draw a lot from those jordan bulls teams at the end of at the end of the 80s high offense super exciting not great at defense and you know jordan's winning And Defensive Player of the Year, scoring title, MVP, can't get past the second round. And Leafs can't even get past the first yet. I think if you get – I mean, if you've got the talent that they have.

You know, they had Pippen and Jordan and Horace – Horace Grant. Horace Grant. You need a mean SOB. And I think eventually someone's going to develop into that. You see flashes of that with Kapanen. You see flashes of that with Muzzin. And maybe it's by committee rather than just being one guy.

but there definitely seems to be that element of and I and I'm sure the Leafs have all watched that it's either got to develop from within or they have to go and find it and I definitely still think that there's room for that I don't think they need to make an entire line out of guys like that like the Leafs used to an almost unplayable fourth line for instance which we used to have five years ago but when we talk about where this team will need to get next the high end talent is there and it's developing and it's getting better and scarier and scarier the defense needs to sort itself out you need to have some come home defensemen but you do need to have someone who knocks people off their game well and who are the biggest pests in the league right now

the biggest high talent pests Brad Marchand Brad Marchand Tom Wilson Evander Kane I'm putting on that list yeah Tom Wilson I won't put on that list I don't know if he's a Tom Wilson and Evander Kane I would file under power forward but they they freak people out man they do they do and Not everybody's going to be Brad Marchand past, but I guess when I define past, it's sort of like anybody that pulls my focus, right? Because if a bug is flying around my head, it doesn't matter what kind of bug it is, it's still pulling

my focus. The guys I was thinking along the lines of, and it sucks that you guys immediately went with Wilson and Kane, because where I was going was Brad Marchand, Travis Konechny has really developed into that guy, and where was I going?

Brad Marchand, Travis Konechny. oh my god yeah well matthew kachuk yeah and and brady kachuk is tired is taller i think i think when the senators are better you're gonna see more brady kachuk be that guy yeah max domey so the three guys i was gonna say were max domey brad marchand and travis on and off the ice on and off the ice but then i was gonna say have i mentioned a guy over six feet tall have i mentioned a guy over like 205 pounds or 210 pounds like the point the the the it was a mentality right well and it was also the bulls were like we have to hit the gym and then they did hey guys i just decided to not go to the gym for five years what if we simply worked out and then

they worked out and then they won wow what a great moment in sports history like that's so wild that they chose to do that with their free time good for them but like and then a year later jordan's like what can i bet on i don't have a gambling problem oh oh see adam hasn't seen it yet no i know we'll have to save that for not there yet not there yet oh the past two episodes are great so next next episode of this show we'll get five and six episodes five and six uh so that's your homework if you're listening to the show just so you know we're going to be going through those episodes and talking about some of the highlights from that so rodman though was the was so sorry tying this back into the least rodman was the second three which we established last show i

thought he was only the last one he's the second three the first three which to me are the most important at least in terms of the comparison so the bulls were no good no good no good they mostly developed this different attitude this different way of looking at basketball this different way of looking at their opponents from within so to me you know oh we got to go out and get this guy get that guy get that enough of that you do what you do or what you need to do to get the best team under the salary cap in terms of trades don't go out looking to change the entire attitude of the team with a trade it's not going to happen these guys need to change the way they approach hockey themselves otherwise you sunk yeah there was a point in this season that's still currently going

on where i was like okay dubis isn't going to bail you out anymore and make any trades like there's no muzzin to go get there's no no guy we're going to bring into this locker room it's already the guys who are there who need to change their attitudes and step up and start playing harder yeah and they got kyle clifford they got kyle clifford but like kyle clifford is not going to save you against it was it was like in the same way that colton or and fraser mclaren were not going to save you from zidane ochara no you have austin matthews mitch marner morgan riley you have you have john taveras you have your stars those guys who are gonna save your season the guys who are already there yes yeah yes but sorry the point i was trying to get to is colton or and zidane

ochara are never going to be on the ice at the same time no never never never and if they are it's a problem right so you you've got to change your attitude you got to change the the way you play Kapanen changed his attitude completely he adjusted he didn't like what did someone give him this great pep talk and no I think it was a very short one Kappy go out and fight someone go be a dick and it worked it's uh like listen you might get your ass kicked a few times for sure but you got to stick up for yourself which i think is an enormous problem for this team i saw a clip the other day that made me go that guy must be out of his mind it was wayne simmons drilling brian dumoulin in an um outdoor game do you know who challenged wayne simmons no jared mccann

who's the guy by jared mccann jared mccann by the way is the guy who stuck up for his teammate when Kapanen hit someone I believe and uh and then so he went after Kapanen and so like I'm not saying everyone needs a Jared McCann but I'm saying you don't need to be this giant bruiser to stick up for yourself and stick up for your teammates Jared McCann is freaking he's a bone rack let me like let me try to find out Jared McCann I respect him that he did stand up you know and we said this last episode but the the Leafs need to get away from um I mean they don't I guess they don't outwardly complain that much maybe we as fans need to get away from complaining about the how the game isn't called by the rules i mean it's freaking not but but i don't know that that's

gonna help right like things like the chara flipping someone's stick with his own stick like that stuff i'm gonna complain about that forever i will bitch about that thank you very much because it's so ridiculous it's so over the top ridiculous but anyway so i i don't know how we got to the psychology session uh about the Leafs from doesn't matter it's just all a big long winding road the most concerning thing to me uh about Mikko Lettinen that I've read or extrapolated so far from video I was worried about the power play cookies and also um he had the old job interview um what's your greatest weakness it was oh you know I'm just really hard of myself and i think someone said it for him like oh he's just he's very hard on himself and

you know if he has a bad game like and i'm like and you chose to sign in toronto like over new jersey yeah well all right he can't read english i i mean hopefully I like that he's 26, so it's very little assembly required. He's got to adjust to North American ice. But if he takes things personally, then he's in the wrong market. Well, there's a difference between being hard on yourself and taking things personally. So I'm going to hope that taking things personally is not what they meant.

And we'll see. We'll see what happens, guys. I think it's good to add talent. It's good to have this conversation. And it's nice to talk about bloody hockey. Now, we do have to move on to the next subject, okay? So the next subject is Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, confirmed by the Ontario government,

have been in contact with the Ontario government about being one of the host cities for the NHL. Now, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already said that any player crossing the border, even for work, is going to have to go through two weeks of quarantine. Those are the rules. So if, let's say, the entire Atlantic Division crosses the border to hang out in Toronto and play games here,

every single one of them is going to have to sit in a hotel room for two straight weeks. in a city that is opening up. I don't know if you know this about Toronto, but May and June are fabulous months to be here. And it's going to be really, really hard to pull off. Weird May so far. Weird, yeah, but, like, you know, that's the thing.

May is the hopeful month. May is, like, Wednesday or Thursday. You know, June is, like, Friday. You can feel something. And I'm just thinking, you know, I'm looking at this, and I think, first off, I do think Toronto is a perfect city for it. You need for a hub city to be a hub city in this particular situation. Montreal would be great, too.

But you can't have a non – I don't think you can have a non-playoff hub city. I just don't know if that makes sense. You know, some Habs fans would argue that they're still in the playoff hunt. They're not. But if Montreal was in the playoffs, I would imagine that that would be part of it too. And I wonder if MLSC has offered to share some of the costs or something there. I mean, there's got to be – it's interesting that Toronto stepped up so quickly, but I guess it shouldn't be surprising.

The other city, and Ryan Rashog reported this, is Edmonton. Now, they would obviously probably host their division. I was actually hoping that Toronto would be the only hub city, and that way Edmonton and Calgary would have to play all their playoff games here. But Edmonton and the province apparently have made some progress, according to Ryan Rashad today. Ryan Rashad of TSM, that is. Free letter.

Best network. Free letter. Yeah. Ooh, garbage. so uh we do know that both both places are talking there are no announcements yet um i i here's the thing guys you know what i hate so let's let's say the playoffs start no i don't hate ryan i don't know ryan i'm sure he's a great guy um here's what i want to know okay so here's here's what happens okay so the leafs play um tampa bay in the first round for

Let's say the playoffs start. Okay. And so if the playoffs started today, okay, based on what the standings were exactly when the season ended, I just want to look at the standings right now. Because here's what I want. I want to throw something at you. Because Boston is miles ahead of even Tampa.

You know, they're eight points. Tampa was making a hard push. But, you know, it's tough to make up eight points in the NHL. Right. Boston right now, if the playoffs started today and we didn't even out or roll it back to 68 games or whatever, Columbus and Boston would be playing. which almost seems unfair columbus is scrappy but that seems unfair now if the leafs whether or not the leafs make it through tampa there's a fairly good chance that brad marchand gets to win another

playoff round on toronto maple leaf ice that's where i'm going oh you know you know exactly how he's gonna handle that he's gonna there's gonna be no one there he's great he's great on that ice surface scotia bank arena or when it was called the air canada center who scored the game winner of the world cup world cup of hockey i was a big brad marchand fan for a while yeah for like two weeks yeah and then we said screw you i am a big fan i just hate it when he plays the leaps man he's amazing so i i i'm just i'm just asking you guys personally are you prepared for brad marchand even in an empty arena to win another damn playoff series on toronto maple leafs home ice that's the thing about brad marchand man doesn't matter if you're prepared or not he just

kind of does it so uh no i am not not that it matters but i mean it's the nhl ridiculous this garbage happens i mean you think of how ridiculously hard the bruins have been to beat um they lost a first round playoff series in 2017 to the sins wow really what when the sins went to the i don't remember that yeah that was austin was the team they beat and they made that was the ridiculous carlson carlson pass that was against the bruins wow i think it was in boston so anything can happen like the idea that the bruins are this unbeatable behemoth is strictly a toronto thing oh yeah yeah without question they're good they're very good but yeah they're our boogeyman they're beatable so who knows they play who is it you said in the first

round columbus i mean columbus is gonna choke them on defense or at least he's gonna try And Jonas Korpisalos had a great year, had signed that extension. Wasn't Seth Jones out for the whole season, and now maybe he'll be back? Yes. And they did it to Tampa last year, so why not Boston this year? Because here's the thing about the NHL and hockey, and this is why it's so chaotic and awesome.

You get a team that's confident enough in itself to go, or dumb enough to think, yeah, we can take these guys, and sometimes they do. and it's it's just there's no they have no business being there but it happens you know and that's that's Columbus last year against Tampa uh in a nutshell however they're down a few guns you don't have Panarin you don't have Duchesne I mean you don't even have like it's it's a it's a different thing and Tuka Rask for as much as Bostonians seem to hate the guy I don't understand it uh has been phenomenal in the playoffs the last three seasons or in the

last two seasons i guess since that elimination to ottawa in the first round and even then he wasn't that bad yeah and before that he had a couple of vesnas like yeah yeah yeah no but we lost in the cup finals a couple times like we should be so lucky they've been to the cup finals three times in the last 10 years can you imagine no literally no guys uh jesse do me a favor i gotta pause for two seconds because i have to be so bad however can you pull up the draft lottery for the last four seasons can you do that for me all right like the results or the results of the draft lottery can we do that I got a headline for you, but let me take a peek.

Guys, the Red Wings have been screwed. Again. Guys, the Red Wings have been screwed. After making the playoffs for 30 straight years and winning multiple Stanley Cups, don't we feel bad for the Red Wings? Always. Feel so bad for the Red Wings. I'm not talking about the fans.

I'm talking about the Red Wings. Jim Devolano, VP down there in Detroit, says the wings were screwed by the draft lottery and when it comes to conspiracy theories and i'm going to read you the exact quote because it's a very very interesting quote obviously uh if you haven't heard the story yet we kind of mentioned in the last episode but um with the way the draft lottery will probably work um given the fact that the draft will be in season rather than after the season is over and might be at the beginning of june uh the nhl has instituted potentially a system where um detroit either drafts first or second and that's

the farthest they can fall ottawa can i think the furthest they could fall was uh fourth and then i think montreal florida a few other places the most they could move up was a couple of spots now jim devolano under the old under the old sort of system detroit would have like a 20 shot at the top pick now it's like 50 and it's at least top two and so people said you know you guys tanked and now you've gotten lucky quote unquote because of a pandemic although it's that's a tough argument to make i'm going to be honest yeah there's lots of words in the english language sure and let's maybe not use that one but the red wings won 17 of 71 games this year and jim Dan Milano said to all the conspiracy theorists out there to those people who say that they don't

know what they're talking about we got screwed by the lottery that's factual so here's what I want to do and I didn't wait wait why wait wait did he didn't follow that up with an explanation no that's why I wanted to bring it up now if you're a Detroit Red Wings fan you probably already have this answer but for the other 30 franchise fans uh i figured this would be good to take a look at detroit has been for four straight seasons one of the worst teams in the league right so how high have they drafted and have they fallen every single year jesse you starting with 2016 what are we looking at where did they draft and do you have an idea of where they fell from if they fell at all yeah i got it right up here in front of me so in 2015-16 season

the detroit red wings finished 15th overall in the league they did make the playoffs that year and they drafted in the first round they drafted 20th overall in the first round what did they oh so that was from here The Rangers via Arizona Yes, so that was the Pavel Datsyuk deal And they had traded their pick to Arizona And Arizona ended up taking

Jacob Chikrin So that sounds like a Detroit problem Yeah, so that's a Ken Holland thing So that's 2016 Again, we're detectives We're on the search 16-17 The Red Wings finished

25th overall in the league And they drafted So by that logic Because there was only 30 teams at the time They should draft about 5th They drafted 9th Okay Well because they lost the lottery

Yep Okay Alright Screwed 17-18 Detroit finished 27th Okay so they should draft in the top 3 or 4 They should draft 1, 2, 3

for fifth because 31 games oh there's vegas now right of course yes they should draft fifth and they drafted sixth well heavens why they okay the lottery balls didn't fall in their favor right right drafted sixth all right so 18 19 they finished 28th so they should draft fourth and they ended up drafting sixth they fell two spots gorsh and this year they ended up in last place so they should draft first there you go those are the results now that except for that one year where they fell four spots fifth to ninth is tough but there's still lots of superstar potential available at that time you can you can

look at you know like like what remember that year boston had three first round picks at 12 13 and 14 and they missed like matt barzell and And didn't they miss Brock Besser as well? But they did end up – they ended up with some good picks anyway, or at least one good pick in the lineup. Does that sound like screwed to you? That sounds like in three years they dropped a couple spots. On average, they dropped like three spots if you average it out,

and that just sounds like lottery balls not falling in here. Let me – Like, I don't know. No, I think I'm understanding the language that Jim is speaking. so even though so we're we're not fans of the detroit red wings we don't care so them falling a few spots means nothing to us them falling a few a few spots means everything to them so the fact that they dropped in 2017 in 2018 in 2019 that is very significant and i can absolutely absolutely unequivocally understand why jim devolano is saying that he was screwed

by the draft lottery he and his detroit red wings however the conversation we are having is how it appears rigged or it's a little fishy that we're randomly jacking the Red Wings of picking first or second 30%. It seems weirdly fishy that they're doing that this year. Jim DeVilano fired back with, we have previously been screwed by this system, and then stopped talking. But the thing would appear to be, we were previously screwed,

so here's the NHL making good. Is that what I'm getting there, Jim? Is that what I'm getting there, Jake? So you're saying he's encouraging the conspiracy. Yes. He's giving reason to it. We have been screwed for three consecutive years. So now we're getting it back.

Well, it's kind of like saying I've had my last three cars stolen. So I stole a car. So I screwed you. I screwed you back. You screw us, we're going to screw you right on back. And listen, I don't blame him for saying, well, we got shafted the past three years, so I don't feel bad. Right. Of course I don't blame him.

But he's trying to dispel conspiracy. Right. If he said that, I'd be like, that's kind of funny. No, no, I get it. We'd say the same thing if it was the Leafs. Sure, sure. No, I don't feel bad. I don't feel bad.

I don't blame him for not feeling bad about the draft and the lottery and how everything's falling into his favor at the moment. however that is exactly what he's saying we got shafted the last three drafts or we dropped in the last three drafts so the nhl handing this to us for no reason by the way none the nhl handing this to them is fortunate for them and frankly odd if someone can give me a good reason a logical reason why forget detroit forget ottawa forget any any of the names why are they dicking with the draft lottery at all well the season's not done i know it's not done actually do points percentage right do points percent it well they're going to finish the season eventually yeah well they're hell-bent on this weird idea that they're going to have the

draft in june so if you want it to be as fair as possible with the information you have which is the current standings you do the current draft lottery system do points percentage because it's uneven the amount of games that they've played and just leave it be the fact that you're Randomly jacking one team's odds of winning by 30%, I'm sorry, is slightly alarming. And you can't tell me that there wouldn't be a diaper crisis in North America if this was happening to the Leafs. Can you imagine if the Leafs had a chance at the first overall pick

and their chances were tanked by this much? Or the opposite. imagine it's 2015 there's a there's a pandemic in 2015 and after years of languishing in mediocrity the leafs chances of getting connor mcdavid go from 20 to 50 you don't think a few people would have a handful of questions about that or austin matthews even the leafs had at best a one in five chance of getting austin matthews and where did he almost go where was he one lottery ball away from going arizona montreal montreal not arizona montreal and we would have had a couple questions but still it would have been a one in five chance

and we lost that's also lottery if this was edmonton right now the people also would have been up in arms yes yes there's a couple teams right no i don't yeah i they were my second team growing up i don't really think of them to be honest it has nothing to do with them but it is weird that the team with the best chance of winning that happens to be detroit all of a sudden got their chances of picking first jacked to 50 based on what based on best based on this no worst the Detroit first wing so okay so Jim Devolano being like we got screwed the past few years which is why I don't feel bad only makes me more suspicious and it's yet another example of an NHL executive talking when they super ought to not can I ask uh can I ask

another thing and let me just put this forward and I think Detroit fans will actually agree with this. Now, listen, I'm happy for Detroit fans. I'm a Detroit fan. I'm thrilled. I don't give a shit. Ah, screw you guys. Like totally a hundred percent. Nobody's saying that, but, but, and I think Detroit fans will 1000% agree with me. Detroit, in my opinion, in the last few drafts where they got quote unquote screwed, in fact, screwed themselves. Detroit never committed to being one way or the other they never committed to a full rebuild they never committed to signing big players they kept saying well they i think there was like a little bit of talk well maybe we can convince tamaris no the detroit red wings kept signing guys who were mediocre mike green

forever and ever and they kept not doing anything about their positioning they continued to stay in the same spot they would sign you know i will we'll throw some money at trevor daly why not and had detroit under ken holland actually committed to a rebuild this would have been over they wouldn't have been screwed by the draft lottery because they wouldn't have been able to if detroit was as bad as they are now under stevie eiserman because steve eiserman is a smart man he knows he's got it he knows he's got to take the bullet this year and start to build a great team here and they've got some great prospects in the minors this this rebuild could have been sped up a year and a half maybe two years if they had just been like you know what we're coming to

the end we had to offload the dad suit contract in what is it 15 or 16 um so we don't have our first round pick but we're picking 20 if that's not bad we're gonna have a bad couple seasons and then we're gonna come back with some great young incredible talent and instead they sort of went into this limbo mode like no we're still the the atlantic division's loaded with talent but we still think we have a shot you know that that's that was the attitude they have and i think that for jim devolano to say oh we were screwed by the draft no you put yourself in position to be screwed by the draft you put yourself in a position where you had a very little shot at a high draft pick and a very big shot of falling off you finish 25th that's what you get

most teams that finish 25th 26th end up picking six seven eight man that's what happens and by the way that's the way a lottery works if I were to buy a lottery ticket today and I lose do I call the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation and say hey guys you screwed me because I didn't win I just learned today that that's how you're supposed to do it that's that's not how a lottery works that's not how a lottery works a lottery works with a ball falling in to a hole and going down a little tube and then landing at random that is how a lottery works if you want to stack the odds in your favor do what Detroit did this year and win 17 of 71 that's how you do it and for four years or three and a half years under Ken Holland although you could see the end coming

they didn't do anything about it and they kept Ken Holland and the teams that you know the fans were going nuts you know the fans knew what they needed to do but jim for jim devolano to say oh we got screwed no man you did this to you you gave yourself a five percent shot at the number one overall pick and a 20 shot to move back to number nine it's percentages what did you think was gonna happen they're numbers you're a numbers person you should know that what did he think was going to happen exactly what he wanted to happen which is every rich guy's response to everything it seems and i think all of this was evident in 2015 and 16 when they held on for every last morsel just to make the playoffs in eighth place like they didn't need to finish that they could

have torn it down in that 15 16 that 15 off season and now five years later you would have been five years ahead of where you should have been and you couldn't thank them to that point jesse and i would love to do this if you if one of you doesn't mind looking this up right now sure what was if you committed to a rebuild when they should have which is when mike babcock left right because they just clawed their way in and gus nyquist went on a roll and it was 2015 he was crazy right there was 2015 why did they need to trade the dad soup year why couldn't they if they committed to a rebuild And they could have eaten it. They could have eaten that.

They could have had – well, I mean, they could have had Jacob Chikrin, maybe not the guy they would have wanted, maybe not the guy they would have picked. Why did they have to trade one year of Pavel Daksut's ghost contract to Arizona? Why would you have to do that? And this is the point. You screwed yourself, Detroit. And this is not the fans. This is the managers.

This is the Red Wings. The Red Wings screwed themselves. Like, I'm looking at the players they've drafted from the 2015 draft. Only one player has played in the NHL so far, and that's Evgeny Svechnikov, and that's the second-best Svechnikov. Hold on. What about Zidina? No, he was 2018.

No, sorry. Not since. Oh, sorry. Can you imagine? Oh, they'd be way worse. 2016, they've had three players play. Filip Hronik, who is good. Good player.

Good defenseman, like him. Dennis Cholosky, who's a strange player sort of following the Winged Wheel podcast. The Red Wings yo-yo him way too much, but he's a first-round pick, has potential. And Giovanni Smith, who I want to say had his first career goal against the Leafs, but three points in 21 games. So they were really – he's a second-round pick, but he was one of those guys who was sort of thrust into a terrible lineup when they were really digging deep.

2017, which is pretty recent, to be fair. They picked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 guys, which is a lot of guys. Two of them have played, and they've gotten 19 points combined out of them. 18 in 62 games from Michael Rasmussen, and one point in 16 games from Gustav Lindström. Zadina, another guy who up and down, up and down, and obviously 2019 they guarded those guys very close to the chest.

Sure, and that was the right thing. to do but that's eiserman taking over the problem for me here is when you look at the history and again this is all far gone this is a ken holland administration and i know that he had significant amount of leash because of the the success they'd had in the past but i cannot after seven years on this podcast this is our seventh season belief that the leafs are talking about least literally came in and lifted detroit's idea we're gonna have a top-down organization all the way through That's what Detroit had when we started the show. And now it's completely the opposite.

Detroit is like the Leafs kind of languishing, like I don't know what we are or where we're going. Not really anymore. No, under Eisenman, yes. But again, we're going back to Develano's comments. And Develano's been there the whole time. He's a long-time executive. Can I lay out the Datsuk trade for you?

Please do. And then I want to know who Detroit signed that summer after Datsuk was traded. Or the summer before. Right. so it's the going into the 15 16 season they're still on that 30 year run or whatever it is very long time 25 they play the 15 16 season they squeak out fifth uh eighth seed in the in the east they make it 15th season league they drop out in the first round they go into night one of the

draft they have datsu's contract on the books for 7.5 million dollars just dead money they trade down from 16 to 20 so they give arizona that uh 7.5 million cap it and they trade down four spots and then they also get the 53rd pick okay that's not a bad man that is super inexpensive they get the 20th pick and the 53rd pick but then the 16th pick that arizona takes ends up being uh jacob chikrin and then uh the 20th pick is dennis chalowski who has not quite developed Yeah, Choloski, he's a defenseman, though, so, like, who knows? But, like, looking at the 2016 draft, yeah, I was looking at other players. That's when you trade down, right?

If you think that's your guy, that's the risk you take. I can't fault him for that. I was looking at guys they missed out on from 2016. I'm looking at the 10 picks after Choloski. I'm like, ah, there's no one who really stands out. Second round, goddammit, everyone, every single one passed on Alex Dobrynkat at least once. wow so it makes me crazy ah even at the time everybody was like strap this man we knew forever

we knew forever it was a bad idea and they did it anyway everybody not just to try it oh yeah toronto leaves twice leaves twice it's crazy when everybody is saying a thing and then it happens you know maybe you should listen to everybody's idea i remember that was suban i remember that was suban too he was this guy who everyone knew it was going to be good let's take him in the second round anyway and he was awesome although i will say uh igor korshkov has a higher goals per game than alex to bring cat and points per game one goal one game boom oh well that settles it nail in the coffin sorry to burn cat go home never got rid of mark hunter like i've been saying the whole time should have never got rid of him no i i just and and what's great is i don't actually

think we're going to get much pushback from Detroit fans because if we talk about they've kind of drafted bad, they'll be like, yeah, we know. But who did they sign that summer? Why did they need to clear that spot? Right. That's what I want to know. I'll pull it up. You know, what does Detroit's roster

look like in the 16-17 season? Yeah. You look on CapFriendly there, Jesse. I'm looking on NHL Trade Tracker to see if they made any acquisitions. When was this? 16-17. Yeah, summer 16. Summer 16

So at the draft there was Oh I got one Thomas Vanik was signed up Oh my god really That's Zetterberg's last season 2.6 million What are you doing What are you doing

Brands Nielsen six year deal 31.5 million That summer That was the bad summer That was the bad summer that was the bad summer that was the bad summer for that was the andrew ladd nielsen who else was signed that darren helm 19 million for five years why was darren helm signed for five years i'm sorry i'm sorry to confirm jesse i'm sorry these are all red wings nielsen and helm were

the same summer as datsuk and vanek yes they were going for 31 like they thought they had a team Steve Ott, one-year deal, mint league men. League men. Yeah, but you just spent $10 million on Helm and Nielsen. Anything under 1.5, I'm not going to jump over too much, but Nielsen, what the – what? That's what you trade Datsy to do. They're still going for it, which is ridiculous.

But they clearly – like, you have Zetterberg, who was still the team-leading scorer at the end of that season at 68 points. But, like, the next closest was Gus Nyquist, you know? And maybe they thought – and I think a lot of people did. like whoa is this a you know a superstar in the making right is this is this the guy and not to make everything about Babcock but it's I sort of got the impression just listening to them talk like I kind of wonder if Datsouk or Zetterberg would have stuck around like for maybe the one extra season let me look at um Pavel Datsouk by the way because uh I don't know if a lot of people

know this that dude still plays hockey eh yeah yeah he's playing for actually uh I think we might have briefly mentioned this. He's playing for Yekaterinburg, Avdmobilist. I don't blame him for going, by the way. He wanted to spend time with his daughter. Of course. Datsouk was the second

leading scoring center on Avdmobilist behind Peter Holland. Wow! Peter Holland outscored Datsouk? A Toronto signing in the summer of 2016. Summer of 2016, Toronto signed Peter Holland.

There you go. Hey, there you go. One year, $1.3 million. There you go. That was also the same summer they gave Peter Mrazik a new contract. They signed him for two years, $8 million. That's Detroit. Detroit, yeah, yeah.

Mrazik wasn't bad. He wasn't bad. I think they thought they had a good better. He was a very weird – he's a strange goalie. Yeah. If you ask me any given night what to expect out of Peter Mrazik, I don't know. I don't know.

he might be unbeatable he might allow 10 like we saw i think that's the problem right uh like last last year with the hurricanes you know amazing numbers 914 save percentage 239 when he goes when he when he leaves um but then you know the year before he is a 0.91 i'm sorry 0.891 with the philadelphia flyers uh like you know when they who i believe acquired him at the trade deadline he you know he's just he's an up and down sort of guy you know if you look at his career save percentages 918 921 901 910 891 914 905 like there's a lot of swaying back and forth and goaltending is a funny position anyway but that's a lot it was a it was a lot here's the thing it seemed a little bit like at that point and again i can understand if you look at the roster you

can see how that team could squeak in but there's no way in hell if you look at that roster from 16, 17, that they have a chance in hell. If Zetterberg's last year, they're going for the playoffs, like, why? Yeah. Why? You know, you could say, well, we want to honor Henrik Zetterberg by throwing away a season that you could be developing. No, but, like, you're there to make the hard decisions.

That would have been a hard decision. Yes. That's the obvious one. You're there to make the – you're there to do what the Rangers did, and I've praised this from the day they did it. They pulled the chute. The Leafs kind of pulled the chute when they fired Randy Carlisle. At what point does Chicago get on this end?

Chicago's here. Detroit and Chicago. Chicago now is Detroit in 17-18. Chicago's sort of coming out of it. They've done a lot of stuff I really hate, but they've still drafted all right. They have some good young pieces. Their stars are better than Detroit's stars.

Chicago's stars now are better than Detroit's stars were at the end of all this. I agree. They're trying to do a rebuild on the fly And it's kind of working As we like to say at Bell Because this is a thing Corporations always have those buzz things

Building a plane while flying it Building a plane mid-flight Man, you know what though So And now we're completely off topic I'm just looking at the 1998 draft When Pavel Datsyuk was drafted

And And it's a great example of where scouting has come from since then. 1998, I mean, it wasn't that long ago, but it was also 22 years ago, so maybe it was. Pavel Datsyuk is third in scoring from the 1998 draft. He was picked in the sixth round. If you look at other guys picked in, like, the later rounds, the next highest scoring guy outside of the first three rounds

was Andrei Markov in the sixth round. so there's another Russian the league completely missed entirely eighth round Michael Ryder so there's a Canadian fifth round Yaroslav Spachek fifth round Michael Samuelson fourth round Alexey Ponikarovsky there's a guy sixth round Alex Kotelik like it just it just seemed like Europe and Russia were not scouted well at all at the time which is wild because Sweden Finland the czech republic russia they've been hockey powerhouses for a lot longer than 22 years and it just seemed like i don't know no one really scouted it no it's true or they did it poorly yeah they did they did actually that was one of the things that gave the blue jays an edge um

in uh in the late 80s i think it was it was it jesse was it puerto rico or cuba that they they had scouts in that like the dominican republic dominican yes and was that's where robbie alomar was found right yeah so they had like no other team went to the dominican and so they did and they yeah sorry well they found the best second baseman ever like or one of the best second baseman to ever play the game just because they sent a scout there on a plane and they tried to recreate that philosophy with uh

vladi and i think a did he did his due diligence and he went down there and they got him so yeah did they did they um like they didn't draft him they just baseball weird man as a boy yeah he was like 16 yeah sorry i was doing that to adjust the white balance this kid hits dingers like that's that was it it's kind of like they have similar rules to soccer or you just sign children wasn't wayne rooney like in pajamas like how old was that guy he was like 18 when he started playing when was he signed yeah most guys are 17 or 18 when they start but they have like like i know there's a guy for tfc that was a part of i think it was real madrid's program from the time he was like eight years old like

they get pulled in and now and like the thing is is that those kids can can can either stay in those programs or they can like fall out maybe they physically don't develop maybe they get injured um so it's a pretty vicious like it's a tough process uh but there are a lot of teams with guys like kids kids teams i think um tfc even has a young tfc they're they're most of those the big soccer clubs they run like uh i don't know call them camps academies academy there's the word yes academy so they just run their own mini soccer academy and you groom the next generation of talent for your team you look at it that way and then if the parents want to take them out put them wherever but you figure if somebody's going to be a star you're on them

when they're a child and then if they're in the system they're going to want to sign with you you give them everything in the world and hopefully if they grow up to be a superstar they'll want to play for your team my brother-in-law was uh i think he practiced with the tfc academy a few times well that's cool i wish he made it gosh darn it yeah it would have been neat he said he won with he won an sfl title in scotland with one of ross county's academy teams whoa that's cool yeah or minor league teams i think it was above academy yeah it's cool right like to just say that like i've seen the medal it's cool in england because the setup is like there's the EPL and there's like four leagues under it and the guys who are four leagues under

it are just like normal dudes who have normal jobs and they make like 10 grand and they just play and like that's if you look up if you're not a huge soccer fan Jamie Vardy's story right he's one of the most prolific scorers the last five years and was just a fourth league player and they were like oh hey this guy's pretty good and they brought him up and they had like this ridiculous championship run that I think they gave it like it would happen once every 100 years I forget what was the team was that lester lester that's right lester city found him and it's just it's just a wild jamie vardy's just got this crazy story and like he's a british national team striker and he was playing like fourth league so anyway it's kind of neat did lester city not

fire their manager like a year or two years after probably did the most improbable run in like pro sports history yeah i think i think like a year later he was fired something yeah it wouldn't surprise me it wouldn't surprise me i'm just preparing for the chat to lose their mind over the cat that just walked by your window i know i know that's william by the way he's uh oh my favorite comment from last video was if a pure later truck pulls into his backyard i'm gonna lose my mind that's not my backyard that's my neighbor's backyard this is okay so okay i don't have a backyard uh except for like that's where my cars are parked and people just hang out like randomly yeah where people chill chill by your car hang on there's someone in my backyard

yeah um lastly and this is a quicker conversation because we are running a little short on time but you are pittsburgh guys you're pittsburgh yes i win all the time yes you have great players but here's the question you got a goaltending controversy going i don't know if you know this or not but you got a 25 year old goalie who's an upstart uh who is playing really really well his name's tristan jari 921 save percentage for what it's worth 243 goals goals against average he went 20 12 and 1 so far this season then you got two times stanley cup winner matt murray two times stanley cup winner the guy won the cup before he'd ever played a full season in the nhl Okay?

He was a two-time Stanley Cup winner at the end of his rookie season. Yes. Well, yeah. Yeah, that's right. And didn't he win a consummate in there, too? No. No. I don't know.

No. He was very good. He was very, very good. You got Matt Murray, who was also 20, 11, and 5. Not bad. However, 287 goals against average for what it means. There's an asterisk next to that stat, but it's still an important one. Sure.

899 save percentage. both are restricted free agents at the end of this season now matt murray had one down year by matt murray standards in 17 18 where he posted a 907 which is still not bad in 49 games last year right back up into matt murray territory 919 save percentage that's what you hope for from your start right even if his goals against average was a little high at 269 my question to you is pittsburgh like toronto right up against the cap at all times and they have been for years and they've made it work do you if you're pittsburgh say well i could trade the valuable goalie because you know there's going to be a lot of teams in on matt murray and we take a chance

on this christian jari guy and then we sign you know matt murray to a mega bucks deal which they have to do excuse me let me start that again okay i i i basically went over my i went the wrong way So do you take your chance on the young guy who is young, upstart, 25 years old, just coming into his own, you don't have to pay him all that much, and then trade the veteran guy who's won a couple Stanley Cups and, you know, potentially has more value in the trade scenario? Or do you keep the guy that's won the Cups despite the fact that he's had a bit of an offseason and trade the young guy who is definitely on the way up and who someone might take a chance at but is probably not worth as much? if you're pittsburgh and you need to add value because if you're against the cap you always need to add value for trade what solution do you come to that's what they're facing at the end of this season oh so i was gonna say you try your damnedest to keep both because what we're discovering more and more is you need two goalies you need two goalies in this league you do um but i'm looking

at pittsburgh and their pickle expands far beyond their goaltending so what do you say so matt murray like you said restricted free agent 3.75 tristan jari is making actual league minimum 675 both restricted free agents then there's you so ricola who's a restricted free agent justin schultz is an unrestricted free agent at 5.5 and he's a right shot defenseman Is he not? Yep. That is primary pickle numero uno. Patrick Marleau, 700 grand.

He's gone. Dominic Simone, RFA making 750 grand. What kind of season did Dominic Simone have? Okay, not as good as I thought, but still decent enough. 22 points in 64 games. He strikes me as one of those guys who, you know, you throw into the Sidney Crosby of getting Malcolm lottery. Here's your cookies.

here you go you get that um dominic simone sam lafferty anthony angelo you know not too worried about that here's the name i'm worried about though because i love this guy in a pittsburgh penguin uniform and i'm sure a lot of penguins fans would agree 14 goals 21 assists 35 points in 66 games this season and he got hot jared mccann second time he's been brought up on this show so he's pickle number two I would say behind Justin Schultz Evan Rodriguez I'm not as concerned about and Connor Sheery three million bucks UFA that sort of strikes me as the sort of thing where maybe you just have to let him go so Pittsburgh's got some difficult decisions to make I think it'd be awesome if they were able to keep both goalies I'm not totally certain that's going to

be able to happen now i have less than 100 games experience as an nhl goalie i just signed a deal for 4.4 million dollars before um all this pandemic broke out when was when was the signing july 13th so when i signed this 4.4 million dollar deal for two years i had played and he played 50 i'd played like 35 nhl games when did he sign it uh this past summer who is this jordan bennington ah oh well he did win a cup yeah he did win a cup in his ear so he his contract is fascinating to me if i'm an edmondson oilers fan because there i mean there's matt murray who obviously won two cups he's played far more games but he's already signed his thank you for winning us a cup deal and we all thought he was going to get a big old raise he was going

to be one of the best goalies in the league and it's just not happening but if you're tristan jari you've had you want to say edmonton oilers did i say oilers you said oilers yeah that's why I was wondering where it was going. That's weird. Why did I say that? Why did I say that? Sorry to interrupt. Maybe I was looking at Justin Schultz.

I don't know. Anyway, so if I'm Matt Murray, you know, I can't ask for one of the best goalies in the league money. So that goes in Pittsburgh's favor. Like, can he ask for a raise? Oh, Matt Murray? Yeah. Yes.

Yes. He's coming off a – he can ask for it. He's coming off a dog shit season. He'll get it from someone. From someone. this is the problem though he's a restricted free agent so pittsburgh still has him like this tristan jari is a fascinating one because he's got just the one good season right so there might be a scenario where i guess it just depends how much of a sweet talker

uh jim rutherford is because there could be a scenario where you keep both it's just going to be extremely difficult and i'm looking at the penguins long-term injury reserve they got jake genzel there so the salary cap that i'm seeing here um they're using up a ton of ltir didn't they just get jason zucker too they just got jason zucker who has three seasons left three seasons left at 5.5 oh to be the pittsburgh penguins though like this is the type of problem you strive to have right so my question remains though can i can you go can i answer it you go ahead go ahead while i try to actually answer adam's thing i i am gonna go to our history buff adam wilde oh and i'm going to ask you a question to answer this question okay uh complete this phrase

the best predictor of future performance is past success past success the pittsburgh penguins have shown past success in getting rid of their stanley cup winning goaltender who's been there for a little bit and going actually they paid a first to get rid of them too to get rid of this time i think they'll be collecting a first for it a second and it was a second that was a second all right but still and going with the younger unproven goalie in the case of matt murray he had already won a stanley cup but jari's already proven that he can win so i think pittsburgh will follow the pittsburgh penguin model and just go with justin jari here's here's the thing though about your your younger thing tristan jari is one month younger no sorry one month older than

matt murray right but at a different development curve right yes yes younger in the sense that he's gonna command less money and that he seems to have a longer uh prime in front of him extremely important wrinkle in all of this uh in one season i played 14 games threw up a 921 the next season i played 36 games threw up a 916 not as good but i played more games and still very good casey de smith who is signed to the pittsburgh penguins for this season and the next two after at uh what Is it 1.25? So you're saying they have three good goalies. Yes.

That's exactly what I'm saying. So they're making a move. Right. What do you trade, Steve? Yeah. Oh, man. Because you get more value from Matt Murray, but you also have to pay him more if you keep him.

I don't know that you do. I think you do. I think you do. I think you call the teams that can't get goaltending. Teams love the mystery box, though. They do. And Tristan Jari's the mystery box. he it's his first good it's his first productive nhl season he's an all-star man just jerry could

be anything he could even be matt murray teams love the mystery box they love it if i am the ottawa senators i'm calling and asking what do you want from memory that's a fun name oh because they have a big old bunch of picks but big old bunch of picks which pittsburgh could use even if they parlay those into other players at the trade deadline or whatever you want to say ottawa has a gigantic position to fill when craig anderson leaves i don't know if that's the end of this season i don't know what happens but i think we've kind of seen the end right and i think if i'm ottawa there's a guy who is a restricted free agent i can pay him what he wants because like i don't know like who's who's who's getting paid on the

ottawa senators right and then you have your goaltending position set up you sign into a five-year contract somewhat similar to what freddie signed five years 25 million dollars who hates that how old is that Stanley Cups 25 oh wow like he's 25 years old this guy is perfect for a rebuilding team perfect oh he's won in the playoffs he's played with Sidney Crosby this is a guy that i think if you're a young upstart team like the senators will be inevitably even detroit you know if you're detroit why aren't you making that phone call right can i throw something out there sure uh who's gonna get more money in their next deal matt murray or frederick anderson freddie anderson ready yeah so well what about which i think is by the way what about the

oh it's a mistake i'm just saying what's what about the least trade away freddie anderson for matt murray well dubas would love that buddy he's oh he's he's got a top decision former sue greyhound i mean you'd probably super piss off uh friggin austin matthews in the process because those two are best friends guys yeah but freddy is not coming back after next i don't think he is yeah so why not get matt murray ahead of time also i'm sorry i made a mistake uh matt murray is about to turn 26 so tristan jerry is actually a year younger okay well again we're talking about the difference of one month or 11 months it doesn't matter it's not a huge thing the point is the point is that we are looking at a goaltending situation much like new york

where something's someone's got to go someone's got to retire in new york's case uh yeah like henryx needs to retire if you're if you can get henry to retire he might or go on ltir then you can keep both goalies in your set and which which is what new york should do your controversy was just hey one guy go away yeah if you're pittsburgh and you've got the opportunity here i mean maybe you're able to hang on to matt murray but if you're not you've got some pretty good value in the trade market especially with some of these young upstart teams think about what the first overall pick and matt murray does to a franchise like detroit or a franchise like ottawa that is a game-changing situation and if as long as you have approval from ownership which is tough in

terms of in ottawa's case give him 25 million bucks is he gonna say no god like i'm just looking at matt murray or maybe it's more maybe it's six million a season who cares you don't know what to expect from him season in season out and the reason matt murray's name carries so much wait this dude came in in a 13 game season and a 49 game season threw up a 9 30 and a 9 23 and that's just in the regular season pittsburgh's first cup run he was a 9 23 and 21 games the next season that he split with uh flurry he was a in 11 games in the stanley cup playoffs This dude threw up a 937 Followed that up

That's absurd Followed it up with a 907 regular season 908 playoff Follows that up With a 919 season In 50 games Which is spectacular 906 playoff

And this season he's an 899 I think you know what to expect from Matt Murray Yes you do Steve, you just went through them 9.30, 9.23, 9.07, 9.19, and an 8.99. Even with that 8.99, his save percentage is a 9.14 in his entire career. You know exactly what to expect from Matt Murray. Matt Murray is a starting goaltender in the NHL.

And if you can get a 9.14 from Matt Murray, pretty damn good chance that your team's in the playoffs. He's a goalie who's going to help you win. And if you get those two playoff games and all that gate revenue and all that local TV revenue and all that stuff, he's paid his contract. those two home playoff games it's all you need did he battle I want to say he battled an injury because like just looking at it he struggled the second Marc-Andre Fleury left and that makes sense his role changes dramatically you can't lean on him as hard and then he throws up a spectacular

season and this one was so weird I mean you sort of he's played 199 NHL games Tristan Jari is sitting at 62 like that's got to be a giant tiebreaker not even mentioning all the playoff experience in the cups well but also matt murray when they moved on from mark andre flurry had played even less games right if you're here's here's one yeah and he plays rookie year man here's one what do they want like what do what would matt murray prefer you'd probably want to stay at the place where he's built a life and built a heart with Sidney Crosby wants to make a lot of money wants to make a lot of money true but like Tristan Jari you're just making the league you have a chance to go somewhere and be the guy the starter I don't know necessarily Ottawa yeah

but if you flip a second pick to Pittsburgh for Tristan Jari say or whatever it is I don't know what it would be I don't know what the trade market is for goalies this year um he's still fighting for a number one spot matt murray is a number one so if detroit's looking for value matt murray's the guy you have to trade i should also mention by the way casey de smith wicked nhl numbers he was garbage in the ahl this year okay um so it's an interesting one but again uh the problem with pittsburgh and the problem you know it's been with the leafs and the problem with a few other teams is that they have too many good players what was you you know what i mean it's it's the salary cap creates this problem but it used to be being shit created the problem

right so the penguins are not shit this is not a problem it is um more of a conundrum right decisions must be made it doesn't really look like you know the fear is matt murray go somewhere and he succeeds oh we look so stupid or tristan jari goes somewhere and he's amazing and oh we look so stupid that's what happens like that's what happens when you have too many good players in a salary cap era you've got to trade them away and they go somewhere and they're good you only look stupid if you don't play better right if you if the pittsburgh penguins continue to do what the penguins have done for over a decade now which is make the playoffs in like minimum second round most years you're fine what do you lose you've got crosby and malcolm

letang's not injured at least not recently like come on you're okay careful like careful with that yeah i'm just saying like it it only looks bad if you're bad like the leafs looked bad when they traded x guys many guys because they were bad like anton strawman gave him away for nothing Even Scott Harrington, no one talks about that, but we gave away Scott Harrington for nothing when we could have used him. And they looked bad for doing that because there was even a time where Richard Ponick made them look bad and they were so horrible. And so when they go and the team sucks, then you go, why did you give away a valuable player? But I have a hard time believing that the Pittsburgh Penguins, if they're able to keep Justin Schultz, especially after, you know, if you don't have to sign Matt Murray, I have a hard time believing that they look anything other than a smart team.

But the NHL always defaults to, what have you done for me lately? And if that's the case, I think Matt Murray's gone. Frederick Anderson and Alex Kerfoot in exchange for Matt Murray and Jared McCann and every other player who's ever played for the Sioux Greyhounds. Tell me you don't do that deal. Final offer, even though it adds far more salary to Pittsburgh's roster, i will hear none of it let's do the press conference guys the steve dangle press conference press conference we're doing adam's history corner

because i teased it last episode okay let's can we can we hold off on tally ran just because i have not had a chance to do the proper research and that guy deserves it who's oh that was that your corruption guy that was yeah that was a corruption guy and i just can't i can't i can't do it because i want to make sure that's a guy i want to research a little bit more because he was he had so many just give an idea just just a small story about him uh france backed up uh the united states in the revolutionary war george washington sends a diplomat to france uh or it was jefferson i think it was what washington during the during uh the french revolution talley ran who used to serve the king is now serving under the new government

and he says to them oh you want to talk to us cool uh you'll have to pay me twenty thousand dollars back then and they're like no so they said three diplomats two of them got on boats and went home and there was this huge diplomatic scandal between the states and france in the 1790s because this guy basically talleyrand would just use his position to make a pile of money and he served under every government from the king who got his head chopped off to the estates general which was the first parliament to the uh jacobin government under robespierre where everybody lost their head to the directory which was five people and very not democratic and a bunch of just cynical bad rulers to bone apart to after bone apart this guy was unbelievable so i i want to

do a bit of a deep are you sure you don't want to do it here well that's what it was i mean that's i mean he's a brilliant brilliant man it's not what he did though it's why he did it and i think we need to get into that but anyway that's that's what i got for you all right all right yeah brilliant brilliant man and hated uh i'll ask you this one from uh bear hug the brave on twitter okay can you give a little background onto who actually discovered america not the native americans because history decided that they don't count but in terms of christopher columbus and leaf life am i saying that correctly uh erickson viking guy in the 11th 11th century i think yeah so okay so let me just say this it's weird that to say that humanity discovered north america

uh in the last several centuries is a joke uh obviously there were people here for several thousand years and that happened when there was what we speculate was a a land bridge between asia and uh in north america that was during you know a very cold period uh where people would have crossed the ice come down through like the yukon and alaska and that sort of thing and made their way into the north and south american continent um however we're talking about european exploration which is what i think he's talking about which is for so long oh the discovery of the americas um i don't know much about leaf erickson but i do know that there were viking settlements and they found them in newfoundland uh and other places where you know the vikings actually you

know sailed these long boats which were not that maybe 100 feet long and rode them like across the atlantic ocean you think about that in the you know 100 years ago or 120 years ago it took several weeks to get across on a steamer like the titanic was going to take a week at least you know so you think about that right and and so how long you're you'd see for months in this tiny little boat and the fact that anyone survived the journey that they had they just they didn't know how many supplies they should bring they didn't know what kind of water they should bring they just sailed and said that's what we're going to do now christopher columbia yeah exactly can you imagine the boldness that you have to have to do something like that in a wooden boat and there's a handful

of guys on that boat who aren't so worried about starving as much as they are worried about falling off the edge of the earth right because that's what they believed yes christopher columbus uh who was actually an Italian, um, uh, he, um, basically, uh, theorized that the earth was, I think, 4,000 kilometers smaller than it, than it is. And he thought that, um, if he sailed, like, you know, there were, they were discovering, discovering again, in quotes, hard quotes, discovering India that it existed or rediscovering because Alexander the great had been in there and that sort of thing so from a eurocentric percent uh perception you know how do we get all the riches of india all the spices the silks the everything else that they loved about india and

trading with with india how do we get that to spain faster and in fact christopher columbus wanted to do that to it for italy uh but the italians turned him down and i think the french turned him down too but the spanish empire which was the greatest empire in the world at that time said yeah we'll fund the expedition wasn't it stupid question wasn't it the portuguese portuguese had a big empire as well but spain was i think more powerful at that point at that point you know more than me um or was going to be anyway was poised to be so they send him this way and he runs into north america and he calls you know they call you know we don't call them indians anymore but he calls them indians because he thinks it's india he thinks it's just the other side and um

i mean i don't know the you know the 1492 columbus sails the ocean blue there is a lot about how we learn history that is convenient rather than factual. It's so that you get the basics of what happened for people that don't care. So that at least they go, they know, okay, so like, I guess we've known about this place for 500 years and I don't have to think about it ever again. I don't care. What's Kim Kardashian up to? You know, what's, what's my favorite hockey team up to? Most people just do not give a shit. So the way they teach history oftentimes, because history requires nuance it requires uh uh reading things several different sources on the same subject and it requires a um an ability uh and a desire to see things outside of the lens of the era that

you grew up in and so the reason columbus is so easy is because he was the european from the not barbarian north uh quote unquote again uh that that settled and and you have to remember this about the vikings too the reason that they never got any credit for quote unquote settling because again they didn't settle anything that was already settled they just happened to show up and put some roots down as well they didn't have a written language so a lot of what we know about viking culture or what we think we know about viking culture is conjecture we don't know all about the rituals we don't know how they came up with their boats how we came up with like we we know how they built them but we don't know who they who invented them like we didn't they just

didn't have that sort of record keeping thing until missionaries went up into Denmark, into Sweden, into Finland, and Norway, obviously, and basically Christianized it. And it was a very vicious process when that happened. So when, you know, Leif Erikson and other, from what I understand anyway, when that happened, you know, it's hard to take credit for something if you don't write it down especially back then and i think that's probably why um and and i bet you for four or five hundred years europeans just had no idea that the the vikings had been there and it's only recently that we're like oh hey that's viking stuff in north america weird how could that have happened and then you go but that would just be that's all i have i run out of

that was very good uh along a similar vein uh the easter island heads is uh weird right it's interesting yeah where where is that adam easter island is in uh is it off the coast of nova scotia isn't it canada let me look um it's there's a really shitty history channel show on it too curse of easter there's oak island easter island chili oh wait that's chili so i got my islands mixed up but yes the the heads are crazy and the story behind the heads is crazy oh those little head things those yeah head things yes because they go down like 20 or 30 feet yes so that is that's the crazy thing to me is so the easter island heads exist there's these giant rock heads yeah on this island that i'm now looking

it's owned by chile i guess but it's like in the middle of the pacific ocean and these giant rock heads they don't know how they got there whatever whatever or at least for a while they did and it was only recently i want to say within like the last five years maybe even two that they decided to dig around them and they discovered oh they have entire bodies yeah what yeah what how do you what you didn't think to check you didn't think to look you weren't you didn't bring a shovel what that's insane and then didn't i see something where maybe this we should um research then didn't i see something once where the theory they uh were looking through or like their best research is they're trying to figure okay where did these freaking heads come from and one of the things i

saw was africa it's possible i mean it had a thriving population like timbuktu uh at one point was one of the preeminent trade capitals of the world in the 1500s yeah but easter island nowhere near africa well that's the thing right they were extremely wealthy right possible right it is it's all fascinating some of that stuff that's just that's just lost to history or maybe maybe not like it's lost to history for us now until we find it that's right that's right anything else jess all that stuff's cool other questions history all right well that's it for us today um Steve, you want to wrap this up? That is it for this one.

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