The Steve Dangle Podcast - Ghost of Christmas Future | December 23, 2022

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the storm is here (00:00), You Can Bet That with Sports Interaction (08:15), the Leafs beat the Flyers in a game that no one wanted to play (14:00), how do we evaluate the Leafs' start to the year? (20:00), Bruins complete review of Mitchell Miller signing (32:00), our biggest surprises of the 2022 season so far (40:00), what trades should the Leafs make at the deadline? (47:00), is William Nylander working harder? (49:00), the Leafs have to re-sign Kyle Dubas (57:00), should the Leafs trade for Max Domi? (1:05:00), hockey by osmosis (1:15:00). Originally aired: December 23, 2022 Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. To learn more, visit: https://help.sportsinteraction.com/hc/en-us/articles/216779528-Responsible-Gaming-Self-Limitation-Self-Exclusion Or if you have concerns about a gambling problem, call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600. Ontario Only. Must be 19+ or older to play. Visit this episode's sponsors: Get 20% off + free shipping with the code DANGLE at https://Manscaped.com/. That’s 20% off + free shipping with the code DANGLE at manscaped.com. It’s time to get wet and clean with your new MANSCAPED™ Shower Routine." https://sportsinteraction.com/sdpn https://shopify.com/sdp https://athleticgreens.com/sdp This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/sdp and get on your way to being your best self. Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

all right guys you know the promo code give me the promo code dangle yeah that's right where the hell are you on this yeah what are you doing you're eating my bad i thought it's manscaped sorry i'm not supposed to eat during manscaped man come on putting present off free shipping for the holidays enjoy let's start the show this is steve dangle podcast powered by sports interaction wanna bet all right well i guess uh steve's got his snacks out already what are you eating this is um it's called an aberdeen roll otherwise known as a rowley um and it's going to help me survive this winter storm

because it's made of like salt and fat and lard and it's for when you're on a boat and you don't know if you're going to see your ladder last again. You need that to survive a storm. People love listening to a podcast and hearing a guy eat.

Yeah, no kidding. That's what they love in their ears. Munching on food. We have a huge winter storm in the area, which is why we're remote today. And Jack's uh my co-host at virgin said to me this morning she's like do you have your storm chips i said what like do you have your storm chips and i guess that's an east coast thing where you you go out to

the store and you get your chips because there's a storm you gotta have storm chips right i recently learned of stored storm chips they're right maritime right they're right the maritimers are rarely wrong yeah well they do get big storms out there like crazy you know their their hurricanes turn to ice and snow so it's uh it's it's pretty nice she actually told me that um uh when she was younger she's like when i was younger and still dating men um i was uh she was she got actually um i guess that the snow hit so bad that she couldn't leave her boyfriend's house and she's like oh no i'm stuck in here with my boyfriend like oh that sucks when she was in high school i guess her family told her not to go out anyway so listen i i mean it's it's sort of the last uh

show of the year we call it last like live show but you're going to get uh six podcasts over the course of the holidays we've got a whole bunch of stuff lined up including jesse what do you what did you have like hot take a palooza yeah hot take a palooza is coming uh next week we have we're not missing a scheduled show so that's right we're gonna be every monday wednesday friday there'll be a show and yeah hot take a palooza's come in all trivia was one of my favorite things uh steve dangle and adam wilde try and uh hit the mark of that was their goal that was a lot of fun we had all questions non-hockey everybody submitted we got like over nearly 300 questions and we just ran through as many as we could in an hour um that's a very fun episode and then we have normal

things like our 2023 predictions that comes towards the end of uh or into 2023 uh we've pre-taped some predictions that we think things are going to happen in uh the new year so yeah a lot of fun a lot of fun content over the next two weeks you won't you won't miss us and we were going to record those shows come hell or high water that's right i got sick and we had to kind of record them back to back to back they were pretty intense shooting schedule the last couple days but uh we got it done got it done um and of course we're gonna have uh some really cool odds and that sort of thing too from sports interaction about like you know what you can bet on going forward and in this year including i think there's like you know especially for jesse there's of

course the uh how many goals will willie score and like will he be the leading score at the end of the season which i think jesse just 50 goals yeah 20 he's at 20 bud you can bet if he's gonna get $50, I put my money down on it. $50. Now, $2 Steve. Would $2 Steve put $2 on that? $2 Steve is slamming $2 down on that.

$50 goals, huh? I can't wait for the articles about how he's... Actually, I'm pretty sure I bet against it. I can't wait for the articles about how he's played himself off the team because they can't afford to keep him. Oh. That's going to be the first thing. It won't even be the end of the season.

It'll be mid-February. It'll be like, wow. you know they only have a year and a half left what are they going to do the fan base so unanimously rejects that narrative like we've been through it and we didn't enjoy our lives as fans during it dude uh problem address that issue when it gets here um which it's not by the way nylander is under contract this year and next i refuse to worry about it yeah and the other thing is that the the the the last time it happened we were all worried everybody was going to go and they all stayed and they all everybody's go figure no it's crazy it's crazy how that happened yeah no but adam i think you're right in that somebody's gonna write the complete 180

reversal of the william nylander story and it's that oh instead of we gotta trade them it's we can't sign them we can't sign them so we gotta trade them somebody's already happened yeah somebody's gonna clickbait it oh has that happened steve yeah oh oh what you know really yeah oh places okay all right oh my god i apologize for coughing i can't keep it going wow really okay well fair enough it feels a little bit it feels a little bit strange by the way not having you guys here because like i i um you know on a personal note it i guess over the pandemic when we weren't together we got used to the fact that you know that we didn't see each other we didn't have the energy in the room but now sitting in this room without you guys here it's very lonely

like i don't know it's very weird it's i miss the i miss the energy i miss the i don't know where there's always like a bit of being amped up before the show and i kind of missed that in here and i'm really it makes me so grateful that the that pandemic where we had the pandemic time where we had to be apart for a year and a half or two years or whatever it was is over because holy smokes we did a whole bunch of shows just like this you know i can tell this isn't a pandemic episode because we don't all look like complete shit yeah there's a there's a clip in one of the six episodes we pre-recorded that are coming out in the next two weeks we one of them's a best of where we watch back some old stuff and we react to it and we talk about a clip where you guys are

very nice to me and we're awful to steve uh because he tries talking about the zoo and we don't let but we look absolutely terrible and it's crazy that they didn't let you get a haircut you couldn't go anywhere to get groomed for for freaking a year you know it's crazy and we look absolutely awful there there were a few haircuts i got from mrs dangle where you couldn't tell like it's it was professional she did a great job and there were a few where she did not and and it didn't look good and then it got so much worse as it grew yeah that's the thing when you get these pandemic haircuts in your kitchen they grow out and they just look even worse so yeah i remember too i couldn't give uh i couldn't give my dog a haircut and so i had to do it myself like

i couldn't get the groomer to do it because you know that he's a schnauzer and he just grew up and i did a terrible terrible job this is cedric i remember that oh it was bad it was just messy really messy and a couple of like um it never hurt him but you know a couple of marks where it just gets a little too close to the skin and it's like well that's that very clearly looks like somebody sheared that off him like he's a sheep um i got a good practice on that throughout the pandemic and i'm much better at it now but holy smokes what a hack job listen um today there's lots to talk about obviously we've got um the toronto maple leafs and philadelphia flyers in the get us the hell out of here game yesterday oh man um uh we also need to talk about the boston

Bruins uh sneakily putting out the report that they put out and it's funny it's made almost no news because everybody's basically on vacation but we're going to go through sort of the um what the Bruin Bruins report revealed and what the recommendations were but first let's get into you can bet that one last time this year with Dave Bastel you can bet that with David Bastel brought to you by Sports Interaction get in the action and make a play 19 plus please play responsibly. Alright now we know that we're going to

continue with Dave next week but this is sort of the last live in session you can bet that we've got a big year Dave the best part about it is we get to talk World Juniors Yep coming up on Boxing Day Canada of course the favorites to win everything at 180

guys it's not much value you have some teams in there like the States, Finland, Sweden Chechya is probably in that category too, but not really value on Canada. Are you guys leaning one way or another? How far have you dug into this tournament, Steve? Well, about as much as everyone else.

I'll just do whatever they tell me to on TV. There's the top prospects. There's the guys who have already played NHL games. And then, of course, there's what I like to call the favorites of the nerds. And this is a great time of year to follow the nerds and listen to what the nerds say. What are the nerds saying?

Oh, let's do that hockey. It's coming. Dave, who's got the second best odds? Like outside of Canada, who's the rated second best? Team USA. They're supposed to come out of Group B. They're actually in a pretty challenging group because when you think of it, you have USA and Finland,

which should meet in that Group B final. But a lot of people I've talked to about the tournament say Switzerland is starting to get into the conversation where they could make things interesting. Like you talk about the Swiss program that's gained a pretty good reputation in the last five or six years. The German programs kind of started to elevate a little bit. Not quite at the Canada, Russia, you know, Sweden, Finland, USA elk, but they're starting to make some strides. But are they going to be there at the end?

We'll see. Canada opens up Boxing Day, of course, against Chechia. Something to look at. And Shane Wright, no surprise, the favorite at Sports Interaction to be the scoring leader. So we shall see. We haven't talked about my favorite bet yet, which is Austria plus five and a half against Sweden. I'm actually glad you brought that up because with the puck line numbers for these international tournaments, you'll get that you'll get like underdog plus five and a half goals or six and a half goals

or like these are unheard of in the nhl only thing you get in the nhl is plus the puck and a half i gotta be careful how i say that uh but but in the international tournaments it's like yeah do you like germany plus four or five goals maybe i i mean it certainly makes it interesting doesn't it jess yeah they're like football spreads like i'm taking uh the cowboys plus three and a half except i get in the hockey game i think like i think it's fun to root for like an underdog like Austria versus Sweden, and I get five and a half goals to start the game, and I gotta see if they can hold that lead.

I think that stuff's so much fun. It makes these games that are typically uninteresting because Team Canada's not in it, makes them interesting to me. Well said. Well said. Well, Dave, it's been a real great year. We just want to say we appreciate everything you've brought, and it's been a pleasure getting to know you. 23 is

going to be amazing, and we know you'll be right back here for it, so thank you so much. I look forward to it. Best of you. holidays for all you guys all your listeners it's been a lot of fun and yes 2023 even better than 2022 hey so um it's funny uh uh steve you tweeted it yesterday and you said like basically this this game has this this leafs flyers game has i'm i'm just waiting to see if my flight's been canceled vibes like we did have this storm kind of coming in we weren't sure when it was going to start and boy to that game it was a game yeah there weren't many worse places to be in north

america than uh toronto waiting to fly out uh yesterday and you could tell all the players uh whether they just wanted to get back to philadelphia or their hometown for for christmas or whatever there was definitely an element of let's get the hell out of here to the point where i think the only reason the flyers didn't tie it yesterday is they didn't want to go to overtime and like the first it ended up becoming a game and it was pretty good but man that first period was tough that was an awful watch and i think you're very right and that everybody was thinking about the charter jet that was waiting at the airport at pearson and they're like we need to get out of here it was it was such a lull of a start and um like even in the crowd the crowd

is feel like they had to ease into it as well i know it was a whole arena full of kids but like the hockey was kind of it was kind of slow and everybody kind of eased into the game and by the middle portion it kind of picked up and then by the end it was we had some excitement but yeah real lull of a game the next generation game actually does kind of go like that and no one remembers that because they always have an exciting finish and this game was no different um i i went to the first one the leafs beat the hurricanes i think it was eight one and even that game started like really clunky and we're all sort of looking at each other like it's two in the afternoon this is really silly that we're all here a lot of flyers fans were confused as hell

because they're like i'm sorry why is this game at two o'clock yeah it's this new annual tradition next generation game it's basically a game that kids can go to i got to watch that game on tv with my son i've gotten to do that three times in his life ever so that was that was pretty interesting but no it started started terrible before it before it picked up it you're not supposed to play hockey at two in the afternoon on a weekday and everyone acknowledged that with their actions yeah took them a while to get into it sloppy sloppy yeah it's almost like the first goal woke everyone up well and that first goal against sam saw it up was just terrible it was a terrible goal it was in the leafs the d'angelo one well the leafs outplayed them i mean it was

a power play goal the leafs outplayed philly i think it was oh god what did they out shoot them 15 to 5 in the first period i think four i think when the when it was one one if i remember correctly right shots were like 30 10 like it was very similar to the lightning game for the first bet and to be honest it it was it didn't get much better from there however um uh you know they you You know, the Flyers kind of did make an interesting thing at the end. Mitch Marner did extend his home point scoring streak. He's now fourth all time in points in a row at home for a Toronto Maple Leaf. Just behind Daryl Sittler and Matt Sundin, which is pretty cool.

Daryl Sittler did it a couple of times. Matt Sundin did it in 07-08 when the Leafs were horrendous. Crazy. That was unreal. That was his last season as a Leaf. My first season of LFR. Yeah. Vancouver Canucks, great.

That's right. Good to see Cali Yarncroke get a goal just because he'd been gone for so long, though, right? Like, right off the bat in the second period. Got to think that that helps him kind of get going a little bit because when you're coming back from injury, not only do you feel a little bit out of shape, but you got to feel a little out of sync with where the team's gone.

And you look at how the team's gone since he's been injured. They've been pretty damn good. They have been. And I mean, it's very important to the team's success uh that he fit right back into the slot that he left because uh i mean one guy who tried to fill in for him was so bad at the job they traded him um and then there's robertson who got hurt and it's it really does tie the room together you know what i mean to have that uh cal yarn croak there and you're a bit of a struggle to start the season for him but but what did i say the dude

is the picture of consistency he is always always good for 15 goals and then here he is right back on track for that right right bang on bang on every year of his career he's never going to give you 10 he's never going to give you 20 but he will give you 15 every single year that's right uh Marner Bunting and Nylander the other people to score William Nylander has 20 goals before christmas that's not bad um morgan frost and joel farabee made it sort of interesting at the end and i was it farabee that missed the the wide open page too oh he had an eventful third period he scored a goal he missed the easiest tap-in of his life and he got called for a phantom penalty on dj brody who i think might be getting a lump of coal in his stocking i i think he might

go into the christmas break with a fine for embellishment because that was that was bad no but it was great that he's he's got a little bit of that reputation and he's got to be careful does he have a reputation of diving i it's been bad this year really it's been bad this year i i wouldn't say that about bro oh yeah okay watch watch all right i i want to throw this at you because this is this for me was the most nhl thing i've ever seen um the power plays uh going into the third period where philadelphia had gotten five penalties the leafs with three penalties and the leafs get the first three coming out and of course uh timothy lilligren being the last one and then joel farabee evens it up uh it was exactly the same amount of penalty minutes 12

minutes served by each side i just thought it was like boy the nhl really likes to just make that even gotta be doesn't matter how the game's going it must be even it has to be no one one team is tripling up the other in shots gotta gotta even it up though yeah a hundred percent it's uh it is a it is a thing in the nhl i don't understand why they do it but here they are um going into christmas like what do you say about this toronto maple leafs team for the first i guess it's not like first half but we're almost there what do you what do you see and what do you need to see uh i need to see uh an ir that is a shorter list um need to see that um you're you're evaluating the team based on a few things a are they good yes they are extremely good

they're winning games they deserve to win the games they're even winning games that they don't deserve to win um you're finding out you have depth they have a lot more depth than i assumed they have more the leafs have more depth on the back end than up front which i would have never guessed ever in a million years oh yeah mac hollowell throw them in the lineup they'll be undefeated never guess that in a million years uh but here they are the thing the leafs need to uh figure out the most is what they look like healthy because we straight up have not seen that and you know i'm not going to go as far as some leaf fans saying oh well this means you can trade morgan riley i don't think that some people i get the mentions like oh they've been great without

him does this make him expendable no it doesn't i want to know how he fits into this lineup um once everybody is back because someone is going to get pushed out on the back end who straight up does not deserve it that's a good place to be in yeah i mean you you have around the trade deadline you have teams giving up absolute fortunes for um for guys that you know are are going to be your 6-7 guy, right? The guys that are going to be, you know, and it's just so that they can have a 6th or a 7th guy who deserves to play, who maybe can't play all the time,

and when somebody gets injured, then they get to play all the time. A fifth-round pick is worth a million dollars unless you need nine games of Nathan Beaulieu, then it's worth nine games of Nathan Beaulieu. Like, it's just every year, like, just picking a name out of a hat. Every year, no, we need this depth guy. The Leafs give up a fifth for Ben Hutton. that's right and did he even play he did like a handful of not very good games there you go

it's a uh it's an interesting season because they did start so so poorly and now are absolutely rolling and dominating do you think that they have guys the opportunity here and the do you think that they have the the space to actually catch boston and i know a lot of people are like well there's a lot of games left of course they can't but the way boston's playing at the clip that they're playing at is it possible they sustain this the entire year and is it possible that maybe they don't maybe they become less than the greatest team we've seen in a generation and the leafs might be able to catch them make it interesting here's here's what i'm trying to look up so the top top teams boston carolina toronto is in third tied for second actually

with carolina vegas new jersey and then even going down to six seven you got dallas pittsburgh all of those teams each and every one of those teams has gone through a skid of some sort the Bruins haven't gone through any of that they've had hardships but they haven't had a skid at all so I guess the question becomes are they ever going to have one and if they do are the Leafs going to be able to continue their hot streak while the Bruins are skidding like a lot of things it's unbelievable how many things have to fall into place in order to win the president's trophy the Leafs are seven two and one in their last 10 they're 13 two and three at home they're well 500 on the road that's not very good but eight five and three they're 21 seven and six overall

you could not ask more out of this season other than spilled milk which is the first 10 games or so of the season but that's gone so could the leafs play the best hockey they've played in a generation the entire rest of the way and still not win it like has this ship did the ship sail on the president's trophy in october is it entirely possible i don't want to believe that i think that's fine like winning the president's trophy doesn't mean much for your playoffs chances we've seen in the last decade no but go for it oh definitely you're trying to win every game at the end of the day the leafs are in pursuit of a trophy right trying to win a trophy it's not the president's trophy but why not practice right well and and and to that point it doesn't

matter how well uh how how well how close they make it unless they actually take the president's trophy from the bruins because um the the atlantic beyond toronto uh tampa and boston has been pretty weak this year and it's at least from this point looking like unless detroit somehow squeaks in those are the only three teams that are getting in which means toronto is guaranteed to play tampa No matter how good they do You gotta watch out for Buffalo there They've been on a hot streak

They're 7-2-1 in their last 10 Won 4 in a row They seem to be charging up the standings real quick Here's how difficult It is to win the President's Trophy The Leafs are 7-2-1 In their last 10 They have lost a point

On Boston during that stretch And got passed By Carolina that's how hard it is like i'm i'm so out on the president's trophy like why i'm not playing tampa in the first round man they should try and win 82 games like is that not a thing that we all know like yeah you try to win every game i think if they fall short of the president's trophy who cares it's a it's a little different that it's within reach yes you're trying to win every game but you saw how different when there is a man something changes you saw that the leafs

When Marner was on his streak, straight up played differently. Marner, when he was approaching that streak, straight up played differently. He did. He was missing empty nets. He looked visibly nervous. And then he got it. He got it. Now he's this new monster.

You go into every game trying to win, but I'm saying there's just a little extra added something when the win can mean that much more. I feel like Also I just don't want to play Tav in the first round Is that okay? Can I admit that? Yeah, second round Yeah Here's what it would look like Talking about Zidane O'Chara

You know, like oh you needed the extra Motivation Like there wasn't enough just to win every Game, you needed to go make up motivation Oh we gotta get the President's Trophy Why just win every game? Chara's team won, by the way Chara's team did win

Whatever Chara needed that worked i think we should uh praise and not criticize yeah yeah man what by the way man i was so hoping for something fun to come out of that segment like bx and char like a one-on-one on hockey night in canada or something what a fart man i he just seemed it's out he seems so sour about it i'm like come on bx you're the funny one do the funny thing and he's just like we had a great leadership group yeah okay great that's cool but you didn't win so why don't you why don't we have some fun with this and and and make some fun out of this i don't know man made me sad made me sad i wanted i wanted a celebrity boxing or something i don't know um you know that is perfect according

to steve dagle it is it is um you know and the other reason i would love for the leafs to catch boston is right now the washington capitals are uh like eighth place um i like that listen i might live to regret this but i like the leafs versus washington a heck of a lot more than i do the leafs versus tampa just even though the caps just ran the leaf show yeah that's one game i think the least would be okay i think the least would be okay i think they'd be okay i i just i know they have to slay the dragon eventually i know it's gonna the road to the cup's gonna have to go through tampa or boston this year i know that but sometimes you just don't don't you want to avoid a little conflict a little bit yeah no i think i think the leafs journey like let's let's

okay let's allow ourselves to dream after all it is christmas yes if this is the year if i think it would be amazing for the journey if they have to go through the team that this whole group cut their playoff teeth on if they if they have to go through Washington first as the president's trophy winner which Washington was when the Leafs played them then in the second round you got to go through Boston because of course you do there's no situation where the Leafs can play Washington, Boston, then Tampa, right? Maybe if Tampa's the top wild

card? Maybe? Maybe. But I don't know how that would be possible. Don't make me do math. That would be perfect, though. Any combination of they got to play Washington, then Boston, then Tampa, and then, of course, in the final, they got to play the Blue Jackets. Or something.

When was the last time a President's Trophy winner won the Stanley Cup? God, that's got to be a long time ago. I don't know. Do you tell me off the top of your head? I know. It's trivia. Last time the President's Trophy winner. Detroit in 08? New Jersey in 95.

The 2013. Oh, that one should have been obvious. Yeah, that team was unbeatable. Unless it happens this year, it's going to be a decade. The President's Trophy doesn't mean playoff success. Does it mean more than one round? It might mean, yeah, usually. Should it mean second round?

It doesn't mean going past the second round. So I'll read off to you the last 10 years of President's Trophies. Florida Panthers lost in the second round. Colorado Avalanche lost in the second round. Boston Bruins lost in the second round. Tampa Bay Lightning lost in the first round. Predators, second round. Caps, second round.

Capitals, second round. Rangers, conference finals. Bruins, second round. So you're telling me there's only a 10% chance that they still lose in the first round if they win the President's Trophy. I'm into it. let's go let's go president's trophy let's go i'm just saying the stanley cup champion doesn't come from the president's trophy very often i get that but i think if you look at the leafs context which is avoid boston and tampa at least as far as much as you can uh i'm into it just saying

an intentional losing streak just to be like the bottom wild card team martin yeah no kidding right Hey, by the way, the Bruins have announced the completion of their independent review, which took place following their failed signing of prospect Mitchell Miller. This is from Frank Cervalli. The team says the report showed no misconduct by the team, but recommended a series of steps be implemented as per the team release. And here they are. Number one, establish clear written policies for vetting off ice conduct, including identifying red flags requiring detailed vetting and documentation resolution. Number two, establish clear timetables and responsibilities within the organization to investigate prospects, community, and or other off-ice commitments.

Number three, establish centralized documentation of vetting to include reporting on red flags and off-ice issues and ensure such documentation is available to all stakeholders involved in the process. Number four, establish a tracking system to ensure responsibilities for all vetting tasks so they are clearly assigned and tracked. So meaning people within the organization, making sure that they're doing what they say they're going to do. Number five, utilize independent third-party resources to investigate and resolve factual issues when reviewing red flags. Meaning if Mitchell Miller says he's doing this thing that's really good for the community, maybe use a third party to find out if he is. and number six determine whether there are specific training or rehabilitation programs that the prospect should participate in depending upon the nature of the red flags

and the boston ruins have said that they will implement these immediately what is your first reaction to this guys what a song and dance that's that's my first reaction the um the we concluded that we found no misconduct was that ever the accusation no that was never the accusation Were we ever like, the Bruins, this is misconduct. No. What we all said was, wow, what a stupid fucking decision. That's what we all said. There doesn't need to be misconduct

for you to make a stupid fucking decision. The accusation was always, oh, what a stupid fucking decision. So, oh, we found no misconduct. Great. What do you think you would have found? That there was some sort of underhanded, under the table. It just

feels like you found something no one asked you to find or no even worse you didn't find something no one asked you to find no one asked you to find that and uh it just felt like they learned their lesson from the last time where they announced the signing before hockey night in canada a leaf game in toronto and instead they decided to wait until the leaf game was over and drop it right before christmas at five o'clock on a thursday yeah um and that's the lesson they learned here the lead got buried a bit um you know this this uh frank servali tweet went big the follow-up tweet um was to my knowledge miller remains under contract with the bruins and has earned more

than 116 000 american uh since his november 4th signing so the dude's made 116 000 in six weeks if that's cancel culture uh may we all get canceled yeah because he's just he's being paid right now to sit at home because you can't just get rid of an nhl contract it's not like an nfl one where you just cut a guy you know so they just have to pay out this deal and it's such a blatant um hiding of the story by the bruins like i think like we should put a lot of emphasis on when this came out and the fact that they're just trying to drop this so everybody forgets about it it's going to be the holidays when all everybody comes back it's going to be january and they can say you know what we didn't do anything here everything was good with our process and let's

move on it's so it's such a spit in the face of everybody who cared about this story when it dropped because now they're just like okay we're all good now let's move on it's well and their management it's important that you know that they know they're good we're gonna do this so we know we're good now i i looked at this and i was like the one thing i will say is that uh that's how it works in literally every other organization in every other organization where there's red flags that's how it works we are pledging to do things properly like we should have we're coming into the 21st century is what that document tells me that no one has their finger on the pulse like the boston bruins management group they're always like you know what no no i think people like us

too much yeah well shut how much do the players wish everyone would just shut the hell up honestly just shut the hell up just shut the hell up just let patrice bergeron do his thing why are you ruining this for him stop being it's a uh well i think that's specifically what they're trying to do they don't want to talk about it anymore um and you know that the reality is that the outcry after the mitchell miller situation probably precludes this from happening i would think anytime again in the near future um because i think you know based on the reaction out of montreal when logan mayu was uh drafted um and then you know mitchell miller being uh signed like this i think nhl teams you know remember there was um slava voinov was a very very very

good defenseman for the los angeles kings and i believe he was booked on domestic assault and battery and um he was basically kicked out of the league and he had to go to the khl but there were teams that were circling on him and he was in florida and they were i'm not saying the panthers were going to sign him i don't know which teams were in on him but we know that he was in the united states the continental united states and from what from what we heard it was going to happen going to happen going to happen and then poof this story went away now usually what happens is nhl head office steps in and they go uh no you're not going to do that i'm saving you from yourself you morons um but i think at that point they recognized hey fans are not going to take

too kindly to a person who's been booked on assault and battery against a woman um being in the league here let me give some uh the detail to that because i didn't realize how long ago this happened but uh from the la from latimes.com after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of corporal injury to a spouse he served almost two months in jail in 2015 u.s immigration and customs enforcement then took him into custody and he returned to russia rather than go through deportation proceedings right it's pretty serious but it was also seven years ago which i didn't realize right and there were teams looking for a top four defenseman with a right shot and he would have fit the bill and so it seems that as though the the message really i think the most

powerful message out of this it has been the the team response it's like you look at you look at boston fans um and the way they responded to this the way that they wrote letters and petitions and all these things and uh uh i don't think that the nhl team i know that the club was not prepared for that and i'm sure nhl teams are like well shit their fan base is that passionate uh and loves everything that they do imagine if we tried that shit won't happen so the change will probably just come from the fan reaction itself and the fear of the fallout more than maybe internal policies if that makes any sense every now and then fans give teams a little reminder that they're the ones in charge and bruins fans i think to no one's surprise uh reminded uh the boston bruins

front office they're in charge yeah absolutely it's a uh it's a it's a fascinating story and a fascinating end or it'll be a fascinating blight on uh on this season for the bruins which has been overwhelmingly positive um guys you know i i think uh um uh going into uh the holidays here um i'm kind of trying to figure out because i don't want to i don't want to go too much into predictions because we do a little bit of that in the holidays but can i can i ask you what your surprises were um what your surprises have been so far this year like what storylines uh good or otherwise have blown you away players good or otherwise teams what's what's really got your attention um eric carlson randomly deciding to put up the best offensive season of his career

at least two or three years after he was officially cooked is wild to me wild like he he wasn't able to do this in his prime and he's somehow able to do it on what to the best of our knowledge is essentially one leg like i i don't know how he's how he's been able to do this and maintain it jesse what about you we we make fun of you adam wild for your love of of the devils but how hot the devils are i never thought they'd get goaltend just getting goaltending would spark this team in this way you know especially when they started the year and that first week of the season when the crowd was chanting fire lindy i thought it was like okay the devils haven't changed this has been the same thing for four years they don't have goaltending um the offense

can't make up for it the defense isn't really there and they need a complete change here and we don't know if jack who's is ever going to amount to anything we don't know what the defense is going to be and then all of a sudden they go on this ridiculous winning streak and they're one of the best teams in national hockey league i i didn't expect this from the devils at all and i'm pleasantly surprised for all the fans out there including you adam uh rasmus dalene and tage thompson for me i cannot believe what those guys are they're dragging the sabers towards the playoff spot right now um not that the sabers are that bad but they didn't i didn't see this year guys as as the year that they'd be challenging for a playoff spot and maybe they don't make it

but you know when tage thompson was signed to that extension i think people myself included were rightly like okay he had that one good year and yes he was dominant but we've seen plenty of guys have one good year get a big contract and it'd be a mess um tage thompson looks like he's getting better he's scary with what he can do with the the size that of his body and the fact that he's able to i mean there's times where i'm like is that sydney crosby bodying people out or is that tage thompson bodying people out the way he moves he's very quick with his hands and he's fucking huge man he's huge some of us some of us have been on the tage thompson band i know and i know you are our most underrated player of 2022 award last season if we're talking about

awards you were right i was i was on the tage bandwagon you know uh some i think tage thompson is a unicorn but uh we need to stop thinking every top five pick that is not a heart contender immediately is nail yakupov uh because rasmus dalene was the first overall pick and then he got good and we all acted surprised i think we're wrong for that and um it's a cautionary tale for the likes of alexi lafreniere and capocacco as well capocacco by the way one of the hottest players on the entire rangers uh right now so we need to stop writing off players with elite resumes um when they're essentially children and then acting surprised when they're superstar adults it's kind of fun though isn't it can we sure can i also add to the biggest surprises is i want to

shout out the core of the winnipeg jets in yeah yeah like coming where it's due stripping the captaincy all the all the drama during the summer we thought everybody was going to be traded and they're gonna be left with nobody and connor hellebuck uh pld complaining having that um yeah that interview where he trashed the team and he wanted to go to montreal like that was and now they're a top 10 team they look great i think they're second in the division they're top three in the west and scheifele and wheeler have just been playing their game playing well and to be as good as they've been without eelers who i think is such a key part of that team yeah really impressive man josh morrissey i don't think we mentioned unreal having a norris caliber season

yeah yeah i didn't i didn't think we'd see that i didn't know he had that in him well what do they call it norrissey josh norrissey now they should they should why not nickname i like it yeah i i you know i'm not i can't tell you that i'm surprised that uh connor hellebuck's good but wow is he ever good that team lives and dies by that goalie and he's been every bit the guy that you want amazing um now jesse i've got a question for you do you want to do an extended press conference today because we do have we do have some extra time the news as you can imagine is a little bit slower we are kind of waiting up to gear up for world juniors aren't and there isn't a ton of major storylines with the exception of some canceled games up here and a lot of games

actually in action tonight a lot of teams getting ready to play jesse what do you think Yeah, let's do it. Can I just say I'm so distracted because I never look at myself in this light, this specific light. My nose is fucked. Look at that. Is it?

Look at that. It's a letter. It doesn't look bad at all. You're literally zooming in on your nose and analyzing it with your squinted eyes. Yeah, man. I think you look good. It's fine. The way the light is hitting it. No. What happened to my nose?

Oh well, it's all good.