The Steve Dangle Podcast - Goalvin McKenna | October 7, 2026

Starting point is 00:00:00 Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake. Let's go! Hello everybody, and welcome to an episode where, yeah, it's October the 7th, and the New York Rangers are still the NHL's top team. It's going to stay that way. They won. Again. Again.

Starting point is 00:00:24 Igor Shisterkin, another goal. No. No? That didn't happen. Oh. Yeah, who's still not counting that, by the way. Lafranier had a hat trick. And two of them were empties.

Starting point is 00:00:33 It's a, oh, okay. Oh, sorry. No. Sorry. I was like, what the hell? Sorry, Jesse. Hey, Jesse, what are you going to say? That was the rest of my sentence.

Starting point is 00:00:40 No, no, continue it. Continue it. I'll pretend that I did. Do it. Say it. Go. It's okay. No, no, say it.

Starting point is 00:00:45 What were you going to say? Laverineer got a what? Did you see the Laverineer got a hat trick? I did. Jesse, what's special about that? Two of them were empty. What? That's 16!

Starting point is 00:00:56 Oh! Wow. It's a great night for first overall picks. Yeah, it was. It actually was. All three Leaf's first overall picks, although one of them wasn't made in Toronto, did score last night.

Starting point is 00:01:07 And Jesse, you were at the game. And the only thing I want to ask you is this, because I got some messages after the game. But I want you to confirm this. Confirm or deny. It was loud in there when McKenna scored. It was deafening. It was very good crowd. The Tuesday in October Nashville games are usually pretty good.

Starting point is 00:01:27 Because that's when, like, the old thing is, oh, nobody's showing up to the, but because there's so many lease fans, everybody shows up to these games who can't afford the Saturday night in Montreal games. So in these games, the weeknight games against the Western conference team that there aren't many fans for, you get actual Leafs fans there. Which is just so topsy-turvy to how

Starting point is 00:01:49 it usually works in sports where we rag on these middle of the week games against nobody where nobody shows up. In Toronto, this is when the real fans show up. It was loud all game, super loud with McKenna when he got the assist, when he got the goal. It was electric in overtime, too.

Starting point is 00:02:05 and then I'm just like, okay, how do we get these people in here for the playoffs and for the habs on Saturdays? You don't. That's the answer. The answer is fuck off. Yeah, we need that Bay Street money, all right? We're only,

Starting point is 00:02:19 Ed Rogers is only worth about $40 billion. Keith's got to pay for AI. Yeah, yeah. How is he going to pay for more Claude credits? Is that a thing? Yes. I'm still tapped out of all that. He's got to get the bigwigs to pay for the

Starting point is 00:02:35 Apparently Microsoft has told people to stop using Claude because they have an IPO coming and they're like, don't pump up their value. We don't want that. Listen, it's bizarre. AI can't get me this morning. No, not. They, not with that helmet. Billionaires can't get me this, but first of all, I'm wearing my billionaire resistant helmet that I paid too much money for. So nice that you have a helmet that fits your head perfectly. Yes, it's excellent. This is great. If you want to spend 45 of the best dollars you've ever spent. That's only 45. I would have expected like 120. See, Jesse said the opposite. Jesse, what? I think you're both right. what did you think? I'm not surprised at the price you had to pay. It just doesn't see, it seems like it's overpriced, like everything at Scotia Bank Arena. You ever had a six-year-old look at you and said,

Starting point is 00:03:14 Daddy, I want this? It's very hard to say no. For $20 more, you could have ridden the fan bony. Yes, yes. You know what's funny? You know? When it was announced,

Starting point is 00:03:25 when the fan bony was announced, I was like $70 to ride the Zamboni. That's actually not that bad. And then you posted the first video of it. And I'm like, oh, there's six of them. Yeah. And I assume they do it at both intermissions?

Starting point is 00:03:37 No, only the first one. Only the first. See, you're leaving money on the table there, Ed. Way to go, poor. Lull, Ed, the poor Rogers. Anyway. The fan bonie being dynamically priced is crazy. That's wild.

Starting point is 00:03:51 It can be $100 or $6. No, no, Jesse. It's not crazy because billionaires can't get me today. No one can get me today. The Leafs came back from a 3-0 deficit. They won 5'4 in overtime, and Gavin McKenna scored his first career

Starting point is 00:04:03 grandin-chel goal. Everything's fine. Everything's great. The sky is bluer than it was yesterday. Do you remember last episode when I said this team reminded me of the Sheldon Keith Leaps in their play style? I think last night was a great example of that because during those years, all I would ever tell people to do is bet the comeback.

Starting point is 00:04:22 Yeah. Like Leaves would be down because that's what they do. They get down early. And then they have this goal scoring ability where they're able to turn it on finally and score. And it felt a lot like that once again. I hate it. really cool. I hate doing this. You have to give credit to producer Drew. Oh, no. It was three

Starting point is 00:04:37 nothing and he said bet the comeback. He was on it. Uh, were you watching my stream? No. Where do you think you got that from? I was the one saying bet the comeback publicly. You stole it from him. No, I was the one saying, yo, they're fine. People, you should have seen the doom and gloom in the chat after that first period. So first off, I watch your, I watch your LFAR this morning and you were like, oh, they were bad in the first period. No, they weren't. Actually, they were good for the first five minutes. And then they got the period. They had 15 minutes of bad hockey. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Five minutes are good. And I was like, yo, the goals are going to start going in. They are. They're going to, it's going to happen. And I was like, you just waits down to nothing. And then like usual, I make a prediction. And then the opposite immediately happens. Of course.

Starting point is 00:05:19 Because beginning of the second period, they score, I think five minutes in Nashville does. And it's a shit goal. That third goal that Stollers lets in. I'm like, you saw that the whole way, Anthony. And I know that Stephen Stamco's. I know he's got a shot from the gods, but what are you doing on your knees when he's 40 feet away from you? And I know you're 6-7, but he's going to find it.

Starting point is 00:05:39 And so I'm like, guys, I promise you what's going to happen. And then within the next three minutes, the Leafs were within a goal. And I think this is the thing. All of the advanced stats have told you that this is going to happen eventually. Everything has said that. But there's nothing invested in the Bank of Goodwill with the Leafs. Fair enough.

Starting point is 00:05:58 Like, it's objective. they've played three fine games. They could be three and oh if a couple things go this way or that way. The losses were winnable. Right. And maybe if they had made the playoffs a 10th straight year heading into this, we all would have believed that and felt better about it. But last year was last year.

Starting point is 00:06:23 And it's hard. Going one in three in a four game homestand to start the season, and heading into the road trip that they're about to head into, that's a tough sled. It's a tough sell to be like, yeah, but they're trying. They're trying and they're connecting and they're almost getting it. And there's certain things that just feel stupid to say if you're a leaf. And one of them, like, as the plan the parade brigade brigade,

Starting point is 00:06:50 it's the number one chirp of 31 fan bases, it feels stupid to be like, yes, but they've been getting close. I was smartest guy in the room last night. I felt perfectly fine about it when they were down 3-0. I'm like, this is going to be fine. They're fine. They're playing fine. So you know how you're like, oh, I said this and then immediately the opposite happened? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:07:10 This is how the sausage is made. Two hours before the game starts, Hayden goes, I need a quick conversation with you. He said 60 seconds. He's a friggin liar. It was like six minutes. But he's like, so the clip I'm thinking I'm posting is about, it's from last episode and it's about how bad the second line has been. and specifically Tavares and Nielander.

Starting point is 00:07:31 Yeah. And I was like, okay, well, there's a game in two hours. It could either be an extraordinarily prescient clip or completely pointless and stupid. And I said, do you have anything else? And he goes, let me see what I can come up with. And sure enough, J.T. Willie first two calls. And Willie on the,

Starting point is 00:07:51 Willie on the overtime winner where he just drives the net one-handed. Now, we'll get into all that, but I do want to say this. Steve, are you ready to apologize to Leaves Fandum? Because I saw some tweets out there. People going, Steve Dangle hates William Neelander for leveling criticism that's been leveled at William Neelander his entire career.

Starting point is 00:08:11 Yeah. No, no, well, it's funny. I'm getting it from both ends. Like, oh, see, he performed. But the other one is your criticism sounds a lot like the criticism you had for everyone's uncle when he was debuting in the league. And to that, I would say fair. but also he's 10, 11 years?

Starting point is 00:08:30 Yeah, he's not a baby anymore. Yeah. He's a veteran. This isn't like the young up-and-comer. It's Willie, we need you. And he showed up. He showed up. So let's talk.

Starting point is 00:08:39 As he often does, like, Jake B. Leafs had a great tweet. He's like, this is the perfect William Nealander game. Absolutely zero work ethic or effort whatsoever. He will have three goals. And he had three points. Or is it that he just makes it look easy? Maybe he does. Maybe he does, man.

Starting point is 00:08:56 And before we get into all of it, just one more thing I want to say. I saw Jesse on SportsCenter this morning. Did you know Jesse was on SportsCenter? No, I didn't. On SportsCenter? Did Jesse know that? It doesn't look like he does.

Starting point is 00:09:09 You were on Sports Center this morning. So what happened was Mark Masters is interviewing Gavin McKenna after the game about the goal. Sorry, who was interviewing again? The devil. Oh. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:20 They wrote the number, Iron Maiden, wrote the number of the beast after about Mark Masters. But I think what Jesse did not know was that all of the reporters, all, they all, they're a gang, right? You know this. They're like sort of walk up. Yeah. When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way. Right.

Starting point is 00:09:37 You know, full blown. And so they kind of danced up to the Leafs locker room. And they all moved together. And I saw Seisberger. And then I saw David Alter. And I'm like, I wonder if Jesse is going to make this clip. And sure enough, at the back, there's Jesse Blake. head right behind Gavin McKenna.

Starting point is 00:09:54 And I was like, Jesse Blake on SportsCenter this morning. Very cool. I don't think that counts. No, that counts. You were on it. You are the first one of us to appear on SportsCenter. I don't think Steve's been on it. It's like Mike Wazzowski.

Starting point is 00:10:05 I'm on TV. Yeah, exactly. And you look good. You had your little blazer on. Your hair was nicely trimmed. We were at an event recently and they used one of our clips at the end of the event. And it was like a half second of a clip. And we were in it and we were the Mike Wazzowski thing.

Starting point is 00:10:26 Like, ah, we made it. Look at that. Look at that. So last night you guys think the first period was bad. I thought it was a couple of bad breaks. I did. The power plate that just kind of, let's be honest, Tannaven McCabe had a terrible night, both of them. Holy.

Starting point is 00:10:46 OEL was given away gifts like it was Christmas. Holy! So to me, the forward group looked good. but the defense still looks bad. Like how does McCabe not clear that puck on the first power play? Why are you bending yourself in such a pretzel to just not say like, hey, the first period wasn't great? Because the forwards were good.

Starting point is 00:11:04 Then the rest of the game. There was no word. The rest of the game was awesome. I will stand on that. The forwards were good in the first period. They had opportunities when the penalty was called. What about the team? Yeah, but that's not what we're doing here.

Starting point is 00:11:17 We're doing it. Were the forwards good and the defense bad? Yes. Now, another is yes. Another important context thing, the Leafs had played eight good or adequate periods heading into the third period against Ottawa, which was their worst period of the season. It was off. And then they followed it up with they're down two or three nothing to Nashville. Two nothing in the first, then three nothing, five minutes into the second.

Starting point is 00:11:37 It's tough slits. Not great. Tough sled. Not great. And I have to say, it's not like McCabe, Tanev, or OEL got better as the game went on. They continued to be bad. It's a miracle that game made it to overtime. It is.

Starting point is 00:11:51 They tied it and then they were like, no, like they had money on Shville. Right. It was crazy. The giveaways. But I have to say, and I have to give credit where it's due, Riley Raddish, another solid game. I know I've been hating. So I got to, I got to say when I was wrong, I did not see that they could be this. I would have expected them to not be good and they've been good.

Starting point is 00:12:12 I'm telling you. Now let's get into the fact that this is a Matthew statement game and a Willie statement game. Okay. because people have been, especially after that first period, I was getting so much from Leaf fans. Here's what I got. Matthew sucks. He's never going to be the same.

Starting point is 00:12:31 William Nealander, where the hell is he? Which again, I didn't get. And Gavin McKenna, and big shout out to the guy he owned this later. I literally had a comment saying Gavin's not ready. He should be in the H.L. Okay. So there are some Lee fans saying that. There are some leaf fans saying everything.

Starting point is 00:12:51 I know. Because there's so many of them. But the vast majority of the McKenna hate that's out there are from non-leaf fans. Yeah, that's probably true. And that is the case with nearly every leaf. But I'm getting this from Leaf fans on a Leaf chat in a Leaf stream. It's still everyone. It's still everyone.

Starting point is 00:13:10 Yeah, but it was a Leaf fan. And he owned it. He even super chatted later. He's like, that was me and I was wrong. Good. I hope it was for a lot. His name was Dan. He's a really nice guy.

Starting point is 00:13:17 And I think. What I find interesting about that is I thought, I thought Stollers' rebound control was awful in the first period and in the second. He did not have a good game. I thought the defense was terrible, but the guys that I was looking at and going, I need you to perform, seemed to be able to get it going.

Starting point is 00:13:35 Matthews, what I found interesting about last night's game, yes, he scored. And if he hadn't have scored, people would still be, yeah, he didn't score, though, is the vision he has. He had three assists and he should have had four.

Starting point is 00:13:47 Yeah, because the Willie was offside. It's crazy. I want to talk to you guys about that because what struck me about Matthew's game last night wasn't the overtime winner. It was the three primary assists and the vision that went into them. No, I mean, what do you want me to say? It was frigging beautiful. And I think a lot of that has to do with hockey psychology. I had a great video this morning about just the DNA of some of the goals. And obviously, like on McKenna's first goal, for example, crazy effort from Roslick. I didn't put enough effort into that or emphasis on that in the LFR. Like he out muscles and out tries Ryan O'Reilly and just from his knees does this

Starting point is 00:14:32 ridiculous spinning prayer. But, you know, there's some luck involved, but he made his own luck there. and then Matthews just the separation on the boards, the strength. Well, he had to win that battle. He's known for his fitness all over him. Right. And he's pushing him off. And the puck's in his feet. And he's just, yeah, bench pressing Stephen Samcoe's off of him, getting the puck back.

Starting point is 00:14:54 And McKenna finds a good spot in the ice. And kid can shoot. I swear to God, I said this before the season began, this this pass first thing with him, this reputation. this is like I think we'd all do better to just admit we don't know these players before they hit the NHL. And and- Well, some do, but most of us don't. Most of us don't. You're not watching NCAA.

Starting point is 00:15:18 I remember looking at Matthew's numbers and being like, he seems like an Anzay Kopitar type. What? In Switzerland? In Switzerland? Yeah. What? It's a low-scoring league too. Stupid.

Starting point is 00:15:30 And he's also 18 playing against men. So it's like a legendarily bad take that, like why? Well, Babcock said if all goes well, he'll turn it to Jonathan Taze. Did Babcock say that? Yes, he did. He said we want him to be like Jonathan Tate. Matthews might already have more goals than Jonathan Tis. They're not the same type of player, right?

Starting point is 00:15:51 And it's not bad to be Taves and it's not bad to be Copatara. I'm just saying they're not the same player. McKenna led his WHL team in scoring, gold scoring, a year before he was eligible to be drafted. And then he was third on a college team full of men. Right. He's got a shot. He's got an incredible shot. So sorry, I'm drifting into Gavin here. Matthews pushing off Stamco's. Is doing what he has done best and that's absorbing all the oxygen in the room. Like he makes his teammates better. He makes his linemates better by everyone needing to emphasize their attention on him.

Starting point is 00:16:35 focus their attention on him. The part that I'm eager to see more of, and you saw it on the overtime winner, is his best attribute when he was scoring 69 goals, is to turn into a ghost. Like make everyone forget that you exist, and all of a sudden it's in the back of their net before they even realize it's on your stick, right? So last night was the best of the playmaking. and I thought Jim Hiller, who got the blender out against Ottawa, but in a way that just seemed chaotic and to make no sense,

Starting point is 00:17:13 did an excellent job against Nashville and getting Matthews into those better assignments and getting them to just play a different style. Jesse, what do you have up on your computer there? You look like you've prepped something. I was just, I had up the Matthews goal that was taken back the one that William Nealander scored. You can throw it up there, Hayden.

Starting point is 00:17:37 Because I was just looking at, again, Matthews' ability to draw to the defenders because the Stamcoast goal, or the Stamcoast not being able to take the puck off of Austin, I think is the highlight. But this one's so underrated because it didn't count. But Austin was able to draw three defenders directly to him as he came over line,

Starting point is 00:17:57 actually four, because one guy's right on his back, and that's where I want to emphasize. He has a guy right on his back, and he's able to feed him off and then get that puck to Willie. And you look at the attention that Austin is drawing here, and that opens up this entire space for Nealander to score this goal. Man, I'm stuck somewhere between, holy crap, the Leafs were rock stars last night. They're so awesome.

Starting point is 00:18:21 And boy, Nashville is just not very good. I didn't say, I think they look better. I think it looks better. And I mean, they look like a team with a direction. But, you know, the other thing is. Two teams that look better than the low bar they set for themselves. On the power play, Jesse, to that point, you notice how active Ryan O'Reilly was on Matthews? It's basically jumping on his back.

Starting point is 00:18:42 Yeah, everybody was trying to get the puck from him all night. And like Nashville might not be one of the best teams in the Western Conference, but that's another NHL player. You know, that's another guy in this league that's on Austin's tail trying to take that puck from him and he can't do it. And that extra little ability that Matthews is able to generate is what allows him to pass that puck should Neelander. And we forget how big of a guy Austin is. Like he is huge in comparison to his other peers who play that position up the middle and are able to score like he can. He's finding his ability to use that body more and more as his career goes on.

Starting point is 00:19:16 And whenever he's healthy, he's able to do this. And you can see that he's truly healthy and not afraid to go into the corner with Stamco's and take a couple of crosschecks or whatever and then win that battle. It's similar to the Elias Pedersen conversation we had last show. like Petey is doing stuff that I just don't think he would have done last year because he didn't have the confidence in his body. So was Matthews. And you know it's such a shame and people kind of forget because of everything that happened that night? When Matthews got hurt by Goudis in that Ducks game, that was probably one of his best games of the season.

Starting point is 00:19:50 The Leafs were losing, it might have been three nothing, actually. They were down several goals. They were multi-goal deficit. And Matthews got them back in. into the game by taking it over. And that was another reason that it wasn't just that Matthews got took out. It's you guys

Starting point is 00:20:08 are in the middle of fumbling this game and you went and took out Matthew. Like he was on the verge of probably scoring his Hattrick goal on that play. Oh, mother. Anyway, all that to say, we had questions about his health. Then he obviously gets taken out at the

Starting point is 00:20:24 knees. It's a 12 week recovery. How is that going to affect his offseason? We're all waiting to see how he's going to come back and look. and last night was his best game of the season. It's okay. It's what you want to see. I know, Steve, you don't like believing anything anybody says at a podium, but sometimes it's okay to believe when people say things into a microphone

Starting point is 00:20:43 and they work for an NHL team. When they talked about that Matthews is coming into this season, as healthy has been in a long time, it was the truth. And I think he's showing that with his play now. There's always, whenever it comes to how a player is recovered from injury, you can tell if they're lying or not by how come bad if they are. And whenever you ask a player, you know, so you've had some and they all of a sudden get pissed about it, that's because they're sore.

Starting point is 00:21:13 They're still dealing with something. They're still dealing with it and they're mad that you're asking about it because they are very actively dealing with it. When it's relaxed shoulders a little bit, like, you know, preseason's preseason, but he looked good. Now it's the regular season and that game was chicken soup for the league. defense soul, at least offensively. So Matthews was, I mean, Matthews, one of the passes that really blew me away was finding Roslovick. Rosovic obviously scored an incredible goal, but it was a backhand pass through traffic and

Starting point is 00:21:44 nobody knew Roslifick was there, not even Nashville. This is what I'm saying. Like the best players in the world can either disappear themselves or make their linemates disappear. Yeah. Jack Rozovic. It was a peekaboo goal. Picaboo.

Starting point is 00:21:58 And he gets to the puck. and that's the kind of thing he can do when he has the space. We'll get to Willie and Gavin McKenna in a second, but this all starts, and funnily enough, is Gavin McKenna's first career point, although he does next to nothing on it.

Starting point is 00:22:12 He just kind of passes. He was owed it. He should have had three heading into last night. He was owed a gimmy. A John Tavares end-to-end rush with an unbelievable shot. John Tavaris, who, you know, going to the game,

Starting point is 00:22:26 he's like, well, he's a little slow and he was always a little bit. slow. God, he can still do that shit. I called this years ago. I think he's going to, like, listen, he has struggled, but I think he's going to age fine, because speed has never been

Starting point is 00:22:41 his strength. He's going to age... Like the Andy Pettit of hockey players, because Andy Pettit's thing was never speed. Well, let me tell you a guy who never relied on his speed, but had a very long and productive career. Yarmier Yager. Yeah. Yeah, choppy skater. Choppy,

Starting point is 00:22:57 like, go look at him. Go, his old highlights are hilarious. One of the slowest players on the ice. Can't take it off him. Last night, John DeVars was significantly faster than he was in the previous three games. Ah, Stacks.

Starting point is 00:23:10 Just give you the FYI. His max skating speed last night was 34.25 kilometers per hour. And his previous high happened in the Montreal game was 32.56 kilometers per hour. 34 is fast as hell.

Starting point is 00:23:27 Yeah. And so he reached this max that he hadn't reached all season long because he finally had something going for him offensively is that his legs? Is that reaching open ice, Jesse? Or is like, does he, you know,

Starting point is 00:23:38 is this a burst issue for him? Yeah, it has been. The first three games, he's been slower than he was the previous seasons in his entire career. Okay. His entire tenure with the Leafs, he hadn't been that slow

Starting point is 00:23:49 as he was in those first three games. And we finally saw a speed that mirrors his previous season. So he is just where he was last season, and now at this 34 kilometers per hour. Right. What is, okay, just like for my layman brain. 34, like that sounds very fast.

Starting point is 00:24:09 I know that's roughly, I think that's in the neighborhood of like what an Olympic sprinter does, but it's on the ice, it's hockey, it's different. What is 34.25 compared to his peers? So this is his fastest game in the season. Yes, he is the below 50th percentile there. It's still like, it was his fastest, but it's middle of the back. I'll show you the tops in the league.

Starting point is 00:24:35 Sure. Hold on here. Let me just bring up the NHL Edge homepage and I'll show you the top guys in the league and what they are. It's so good they have this stuff. Yes. Let me nerd out. I don't know how much this gets used, but we use it, damn it. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:24:50 That's enough. I think it matters. The max skating speed amongst the top guys. So Connor's number one is 38.65. kilometers per hour. Kappan is 37. Isaac Howard is 37. You can wonder why the Edmonds and Orleans can score goals at will.

Starting point is 00:25:05 They are fast and they play fast. Jack Eichols, 37. I love Jack Eichols game. I always pump up how quick he is through the neutral zone. I think he's as good as Connor McDavid coming through the neutral zone. I don't say that forever. He's 37. And then you get some other guys who are just fast, but lower down the lineup.

Starting point is 00:25:21 Roman Kanserav and then Ben Myers, who skates 37.42 kilometers an hour into a cross check. So for your reference point, this is what you're looking for, a player like John Tavares is four kilometers slower than a player like Connor McDavid who's at the top. Right. Of course, I mean, it doesn't shock me in the slightest that McDavid is nearly a full kilometer

Starting point is 00:25:41 faster than the second closest guy who is his teammate. But no, that's good. Like, I don't need him to be as fast as those guys. I need him to be the fastest version of John Tavares. And what we saw. And get to that,

Starting point is 00:25:56 that top speed as fast as you can. It's the first three strides, right? Totally. And I can show you the previous years what I was talking about is stats being down. Last year, his max skating speed was 36 kilometers per hour. In that first three-game stretch, he only reached 34.

Starting point is 00:26:09 So that would have had him in that group that you just showed. Roughly. Yeah, he's still a little below, like the top guys. Year before, he's at 35. Year before that, he's at 36. So it was concerning that in the first three games, he's at 34, and we're like,

Starting point is 00:26:25 ooh, why is he a little slower? because based on the pure numbers he is. And then now he's back to normal. Can I suggest, too, that I know John is... Sorry, that was a long walk. No, no, it was great. No, I want to add on that. One of the things we were talking about on the stream last night was,

Starting point is 00:26:39 is it possible because some of these guys were used to them starting quick. Like, John is always in phenomenal shape. We're used to him having a hot start. As you get older, some of these guys sort of swing into their season, where the first few games, actually, they're kind of look a little creaky, but then it starts to pick back up again. And I wonder if that's a little bit with John too. And I'm not talking 20 games.

Starting point is 00:27:00 I'm talking five to six where you kind of go, okay, we're starting to see what you are. And then by midseason, they sort of round out into form. Yeah. It's also like I don't want to sound like it's blaming the kid because it's not. But you're getting used to the kid. Yeah. And the kid's getting used to being in the NHL.

Starting point is 00:27:16 Yes. And, you know, it's a wonder, right? Again, he's 18. We tried to hammer this. heading into the season, it's so difficult to play in the NHL at all at 18 years old. Yeah. It's so difficult. And he's in the top six.

Starting point is 00:27:34 So since we're getting into that, Jesse, before we start this particular part of the segment, because Steve, I need to hold you up here. I need to know if you can bring up, there's a thing I've got highlighted in the first segment on the prep sheet here. I need to know your reaction to this photo. Okay? I need to know where you were and what you felt. Because I saw this photo.

Starting point is 00:27:55 I'm like, I might need to print that off. Like I might need to frame this. I might need this as my phone background. Currently, it's my daughter and my niece. They might have to go. This was the third loudest moment in my house last night. It was a very loud house. It was a very loud house?

Starting point is 00:28:10 Last night. This is the third loudest. Look at that picture. By the way, for anybody listening, it is the Gavin McKenna's celebration. He is down on one knee, you know, doing the fist bump through the air. And then Matthews is behind him. both hands raised screaming on one foot. Gosh, I love it.

Starting point is 00:28:27 And that's not AI. That's not, hey, we painted this. That is what happened. That is real. That's a real photo. Friggin' life. And it is absolutely surreal after, I still can't believe he's here. I can't believe either of them are here, honestly, going back that far.

Starting point is 00:28:45 But I can't believe Gavin McKenna is a leaf after everything. All the mathematical odds. Gosh, it's so silly he's here. And I'm so glad that early on in his career, everyone is awake to the fact that, oh, he can shoot. Yeah. Guys. Yeah, he went first overall.

Starting point is 00:29:11 He can shoot. Now, one of the things that I have to do sometimes when I'm prepping this show, I want to just involve you in my process for a second, is there are certain things that make the rounds on the internet where I go, okay, I can bring this up on the show. And I might not even believe it. But because I'm the one bringing it up, people are going to attribute it to me. And that's the way the show has always worked.

Starting point is 00:29:34 And that's okay. Say the thing. And I also sometimes look at prep and go, yeah, that could be a story. But Steve and Jesse might laugh me out of the room. Like they might be like, why did you even include it? What if Steve treats me the way I treat Steve. And I purposely, I saw the morning skate or the optional skate story on Monday morning. And I said, that's not a story.

Starting point is 00:30:07 And if I brought that up, and I made a mental note of this, Steve and Jesse are going to make fun of me for it. If they bring it up, I'm going to have to be like, yo, I purposely ignored that because I don't think it's a story. But it did make the rounds and two major shows picked it up. And some people bought in and some people did not. What I'm, what I was blown away by is that everybody seems to forget that rookies,

Starting point is 00:30:31 usually in January or February, go through a bit of a downspel. They completely burn out. Because they've never played more than 40 or 50 games in a season. And now you're doing it at the NHL level and you're doing 80 plus. Nice rookie burnout was intense. Noticable. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:30:47 And they, it was so intense that he had to like address it the next preseason. season and say, yeah, I worked on, you know, some stuff this summer so I don't have to deal with that this fall. And then he was great. And I think, forget, forget that, you know, morning skate, I've never really been to one. Jesse, you've been to them, the optional skates. I don't think they're that intense. But is it outrageous to believe that the Leafs might be managing that and be aware of that? Or could he be doing something else? Like, he's not at home playing video games, right? Are we, we're having the conversation? Well, I just, I just, I think it's worth addressing

Starting point is 00:31:19 because it became like a thing. We're having the conversation as to the fact that it's not a conversation. Yes. It is silly to anybody who is not on the team to assume a reason why a player takes or doesn't take an optional skate. You don't know the reasons for why this rookie or this veteran isn't out there. They could have a plan with the team where you're skating on these certain days or the conditioning department. wants them to not skate today because of whatever reason. They can have just plans in their life where it's like,

Starting point is 00:31:59 okay, this thing, I had an obligation on that morning to do this, and I have to miss that skate, and that's okay because of where my game is or whatever I'm doing. You just have no idea why somebody is missing an optional skate. So to get upset or even talk about it is a little unreasonable. And that's why I'm bringing it up, because when Gavin McKenna gets the assist and then the goal, which was rockstar shit and we'll talk about it, that's the backdrop.

Starting point is 00:32:26 That's why I have to bring it up today because it was a topic of conversation with certain people. And you kind of go, okay, well, and it's such a backdrop that he has to address it before the game, Jesse. Because they asked him about it. They asked the guy. Yeah, they asked him about the optional skates before. But I was talking to somebody who played in the NHL and was a rookie in the NHL. And they said the first 18 games of the year, he didn't do optional skates because he didn't know he should have been doing them. He said he just didn't go to them and nobody told them anything because he was performing pretty well in his rookie year.

Starting point is 00:33:06 He was up there in points on the team. And then he's like in junior where it came from, we didn't have. those skates. So I was like, I don't really need them for my legs. So I'm not going to do them with everybody. And then eventually at that like 18 game market, he's like, I should probably be out there with guys to be starting doing these skates. And so he finally got out there and he's just like, okay, now I now I'm out there all the time and doing them. But like he just didn't know. He was just ignorant to the idea of being out there. And this was like the 80s or late 80s when he had started early 90s. So it's a little different than with the conditioning. All the science we have when they would show up to camp out of shape. Yeah. Yeah. So you can imagine the attitude back then about that. But like nobody told them to show up because it's optional. And he didn't think he needed it.

Starting point is 00:33:52 And he was like, I'm playing well. I don't need it. The performance is there. So like you never know about these things. You're not on this team. It's a weird thing to get upset and yell about. I think what there's so many things you can point to about a player in his game that this isn't one of them. And and you know what you could have pointed to?

Starting point is 00:34:11 Bad advanced stats. nothing on the stat sheet, giveaways, you could have said any of that, and that would have been completely well-founded. But to make it about effort, I thought that was a really strange thing.

Starting point is 00:34:23 And so when he does score last night, and Leifes Nation is aware of these conversations and he's aware, that goal goes in, and I feel like, and again, I got some, I'm glad you backed it up, Jesse. I got DMs from people at the game

Starting point is 00:34:37 who said the building shook. And then they gave him, apparently, Yeah, so when Mike Ross is like, and Gavin McGahn of the goal, that's the standing ovation from the whole crowd. It's a really cool moment. Everybody's aware of what's going on.

Starting point is 00:34:51 And you love a smart fan in the audience. It's awesome. And, you know, again, it's just such a non-topic that I'd like to just give a calm take on it. Hey, Sid, take two chicken fingers and shove them up. It's nostril, you freaking bum a goal and an assist. Ah! Looks good on you!

Starting point is 00:35:12 Sid was very upset about the option. Good. He was. I'm glad. He was. I think Kipper was too. I think Kipper was too. Yeah. Those are the.

Starting point is 00:35:22 McKenna also. Kipper's way bigger. What, like physically? Oh. Yeah. So like. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:28 Kipper. He's had you in a headlock before. He has. And you know what? Hey, valid point. Nick. Good job. McKenna also lives with John Tavares.

Starting point is 00:35:38 Yeah. If there is ever somebody to be his mentor and get him. him on the straight and narrow path. It's John Tavares. Yeah. So I think like he has good mentors around him on what he should and shouldn't be doing. And if it was an issue to actually be at optional skate, the guy to tell him would have been the guy he's living with.

Starting point is 00:35:59 And that's J.C. Here's what I was most confused about not doing a bit. He had previously been at one and then he skipped one and then he was at one. but the one that he skipped was he wasn't at the optional skate before game one of the entire season and then I think he was and then this Sunday they had a skills practice

Starting point is 00:36:24 and he wasn't there either you never know me and then yesterday he was there morning skate he's lifting weights or who knows he could have been doing anything I also know his family left this weekend like his parents they were in town for the beginning of the season everything so

Starting point is 00:36:41 Maybe it's like, okay, your cardio's good. Maybe you'll skate later somewhere. I don't know, but you want to spend the morning with your parents. I'm just making assumptions there, but like, I don't know. That's not something to get upset about it. Yeah. Well, now he scored a goal and an assist and everybody's going to be praising him today and rightfully so. Am I wrong in saying, guys, that he's looked more and more comfortable, completely imperfect,

Starting point is 00:37:03 but more and more comfortable with every game we've seen? Oh, my God. A hundred percent. Like game one, I think lost, just lost. And that's okay. That's fair. But last night I'm like, this is a factor. Now, what was interesting is when Hiller did get the line blender out, people were kind of pissed because Gavin had just scored his goal.

Starting point is 00:37:23 And then third period starts and he's playing with Nick Paul and Colton Sissons. But I actually thought that was really smart because he put him with two defensively responsible guys. Who can chip in the occasional goal. Who can chip in and had scoring chances all night with Easton Cowan. And I thought, and I didn't even think Cowan had a great. game last. He was okay. Me. But the, but I thought it's like take, okay, he's already scored and had an assist.

Starting point is 00:37:47 Take the responsibility off this player, shelter him a little bit, put him with some responsible guys and let and let the big boys be the big boys. My, the one player my eyes were big, dirty liars with was Nick Paul because I saw him and I was like, that was his best game as to leave. And then I saw this stats after it. I went, oh, never mind. He was the worst player on the eyes, apparently. But no, it didn't feel like that. Not to me. I didn't get that sense either.

Starting point is 00:38:12 And again, I'm always suspicious of publicly available data. It's never good. You never know. But like it's, it's not about, uh, you know,

Starting point is 00:38:20 who's on what line. Stop. Once the game begins, stop looking at his lines one through four. Yeah. It's about ice time. And it's about opportunity and it's about fit. Like I got asked a question last night for the LFR.

Starting point is 00:38:34 Like, do you think Austin and Willie is the future? Uh, like together. Oh. No. I don't. I think they got Kiro Marchenko to play with Austin Matthews, but last night, that wasn't the fit. And that's okay. It's, it's nice that they have options and it's nice

Starting point is 00:38:50 that they have a coach that feels like he has options. Barouba was agonizingly stubborn. This doesn't work and I'm going to stick with it. Oh, my God. This, I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas, whereas Jim Hiller is like here is honestly maybe too many ideas. Yeah. Right? We've swung so far in the other direction, but good. It worked, didn't it? I wanted to ask about Corral Marchenko a little bit before we get to William Nealander, because I think he deserves a little shout out here too. I saw a couple of like flash plays from Marchenko, but otherwise somewhat of a quiet night. People called it, some people I saw online called it like a bad night. I didn't think it was a bad night. No, it wasn't. But what I did see.

Starting point is 00:39:35 is a player that still doesn't quite trust his linemates. Did you see that play where he kind of broke into the Nashville zone and there's a leaf player behind him, I forget who it was. And he could have dropped it. That player has an open shot. But instead, he forces the shot and it doesn't really amount to much. And I think there's a little bit of trust building that needs to go on there too. Trust building, but I think also just awareness.

Starting point is 00:39:57 And I wonder what the difficulty in building chemistry is with a player that fast. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? McDavid's had that issue before. Sure. They've got Loochitz to play with him and they're like he's too fast. Luchich can't keep up.

Starting point is 00:40:11 And when you're going that speed, your mistakes look ridiculous. Yeah. Right? So I'm not in the slightest bit worried about Carol. I wasn't, it's not about being worried. I'm talking about just the development within the team.

Starting point is 00:40:23 I don't think he had a bad night. I don't think so either. There's so, but one thing that did stand out to me too is we're talking about him in a completely different way if in the third period that Tavaris passed that found him Oh my God.

Starting point is 00:40:36 If he buries that. Oh, that was so hot. Everybody's like, oh, everybody's talking about him differently. That's why I don't think he had a bad night. Yeah. No,

Starting point is 00:40:44 I don't think so. And like, Tavares with Cowan and Marchenko on the wings, like that actually kind of makes some sense. Yeah, that's a sick line. And like, Rozovic was playing great.

Starting point is 00:40:54 Like, Rosavik looked great. Listen, like, I don't know, I don't know what we're litigating. It worked. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:41:00 Well, it's a podcast. That's what we do here. I think he has the idea long, line combinations and then when things need to be changed, she switches at mid-gate. Like, I think Jim Hiller has done a good job with the lineup deployment. Yep. Yes. Are you guys open to Matthews and Nylander playing together?

Starting point is 00:41:15 Because I didn't mind. Yeah, when you need sometimes. Yeah. Like it's like Leon and Connor, when you need to whip it out, you do. And then all of a sudden, you're scoring a bunch of goals. I think you whip it out as many times as you can in life. They, hey, man. Privacy of your own home.

Starting point is 00:41:30 They have options. Yes. Now, they have options. last year the coach didn't feel like they had options and worse he might have been correct right but like like again again now I'm going to no move on no no like again the you know when

Starting point is 00:41:48 when last season died the moment Scott Lotton got hurt and he's like I'm taking our first line right winger and putting him third line preseason because the fourth line center got hurt that we should have I should have sold all my leaf stock all in one. Oh, they're not doing shit. No, I like what Merchenko, like, I think that line

Starting point is 00:42:09 was effective when I was out there. Like, whether or not we think he had a good game individually or not, that line was doing stuff and important stuff and winning their battles. And I think Jim Hler has figured something out. And if he needs to go and put up William Nylander there to try and generate even more offense, I think he should.

Starting point is 00:42:25 They should do that late. And it worked. Sometimes... They scored the goal that I had to take him back. If you got a line that's really humming or two, sometimes your job is the other lines just don't suck. Hey, that was the fourth line last night. Yeah, don't be a net negative and you'll be fine.

Starting point is 00:42:41 Fourth line, I thought, again, impress me because it was like, basically the least fourth line is a little bit of throw the body and a little bit of just get an offensive zone face off. That's what your job is to do. I don't love Gru as much on the wing, unfortunately, but other than that, like, I mean, he's trying out there, he's laying the body, do aim.

Starting point is 00:43:00 I love him. I love him. him. Fan favorite. Might get a jersey. I love them now. Damn. He's awesome.

Starting point is 00:43:06 He's a really fun player. And that was probably Bluger's best game as well. Yeah. And again, there's nothing, you don't look at them and go, well, I didn't. Like, if the fourth line's making news, usually it's bad. Yes. And I mean, the occasional time, they'll get a hat trick. And it's like, whoa, that's crazy.

Starting point is 00:43:22 But that doesn't usually happen. Your job is to get out there. Give me some offensive zone time. Wear out some of their players and then get Matthews or the Matthews line or the Tavares line on That's it. Good, great. Do that, and they did that. And maybe you give Bo Gru a day off.

Starting point is 00:43:40 Yeah. Throwing McEwen. Only like seven minutes. The Gru did. Well, was that old. Yeah, 731.

Starting point is 00:43:46 He's not even killing penalties, eh? That's interesting. Like, I don't know how much use that is than anyone, but also, like, how much more is McEwen? Yeah, zero short-handed time.

Starting point is 00:43:56 Wow. Yeah, 731 there. Okay. I'm fascinated to see what Joshua was able to do when he gets in there. One thing I did want to bring up in the Tvarist thing, and I forgot, just since I have the event summary up. JT.1-16 face-off last night.

Starting point is 00:44:11 Only lost a single face-off. Out of 17. 16 and 1 in the face-off dot. After last episode, we criticized him for being, oh, wait, it was it 40% in the dot? 39 or 38, whatever. It was bad. It was bad. Standard.

Starting point is 00:44:23 It wasn't good. Just like his speed where he was 36 before, and then now he's 32, and then now he's back up to 34. So it's good. 16 and 1. The most impressive thing about that, in the first period, he went 5 and 1 in the dot. So after the first period, he did not lose a face off draw. Wow. He went.

Starting point is 00:44:43 Okay. That's 10 and 0. No, 11 and 0. My math is terrible. 11 and 0 in the dot after the first period. Mike Johnson is so good between the benches if you want to be a nerd and also learn about hockey. And like the one one thing I've always had a problem with, I just don't know what my solution is.

Starting point is 00:45:05 We, um, uh, every face off stat is incorrect. They're all wrong. All of them are wrong. Yeah. Because it has to do with how the winger performs. Like, if John Tavares ties up a guy, Easton Cowan goes in and gets the puck, that's John Tvaris's win. Eh, wrong.

Starting point is 00:45:25 Do it again. Try again. That's, no. it isn't. No, it isn't. Right? It's it's a, to me it's a team stat. Okay. Or a line stat. If that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:45:37 So I'm not trying to take anything away from Tavares. But I will. He had, but I will. But he had a, and he wasn't friggin' at optional skate either. I'm Portuguese. Sorry. No, no, Sid would never criticize John Tavares because of that. Oh, that's true. Fair enough.

Starting point is 00:45:53 The Portuguese mafia. But even in that case, if you consider it a performance of the long, the line wasn't performing well in the dot then. Right. And then now they are. And I think 11 and 0 is pretty impressive by a line. Regardless of who you're giving it credit to, I think 16 and 1 and 11 and 0 is impressive. 100%.

Starting point is 00:46:12 And I think that absolutely has to do directly with what John Tavares does because he's the one in the dot. Yeah. That's where I would take issue with that. Yeah. And like then why does like one player have good face off metrics across all teams? Yeah. Or like across all seasons. It's obviously mostly to do with JT, but like I'd like to know, like, who's the best face-off winger?

Starting point is 00:46:33 And I'm not talking about like center gets kicked out, winger goes in to take it. Who helps their center win face-offs more? But that, hey, Steve. That only applies in the context of you not winning it directly back to. Which is a lot of them. Totally. Steve gets a PS5 for Christmas and he goes, but how much was the shipping? Like, you should ask how much the shipping was.

Starting point is 00:46:55 He just got a center who didn't lose a face off for two periods and you're like, yeah, but who's helping him? No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the stat is poppycock. Because it is. Yes, that's what I'm saying that you're saying. I'm saying he's good, but the status poppy cock. Yeah, Adam is criticizing you for saying it's poppy cock. Adam's wrong.

Starting point is 00:47:11 No, I think you've described what Adam is doing. No. I know street meat is bad for you, but it's still delicious. Brother, just try to enjoy it. I am enjoying it. Yeah. I'm just saying be nerdier about it. That's what, that's what gets the assistant.

Starting point is 00:47:29 Who gets the assist on the face off? That's what Mike Johnson is doing. I know. Because he, there was a face off. I don't think it was JT. I don't remember who it was. But they lost the face off because the winger planned to go a certain way.

Starting point is 00:47:45 And that's just not where the puck ended up. Yeah. Which ultimately, I guess is on the center. But I don't know. I want granular face off. Did you see the, Did you see the Rosavik and Matthew's faceoffs where they chipped the puck forward? That was hot.

Starting point is 00:47:59 Did that count as a win? Yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. It should. It should. I don't know because it's Poppycock. And you're right.

Starting point is 00:48:05 It's an inexact science. You're absolutely right. I think with how Adam said the public data can be unreliable. I think with this, like all we have is the face off wins and losses. And if you're an NHL team, I'm sure with your Keith Pelly AI, you have more than that. You have the Steve Dangle stats that you want. I'm sorry, Steve. I don't have access to them.

Starting point is 00:48:23 What would Hungry-Torraine's, say. I was just about to. You know how I know it's not the off season anymore? We haven't said Humza Terani and God knows how long. Yeah. And that's good. It should be that way forever. I'm so hot. Yeah. Yeah. I have probably take off. That's fine. The hair stood up. That's good. Yeah, man. Palmade. Yeah. Now, William Nealander game. No, that's a statement game too. Everybody's talking about, well, that's vintage Austin Matthews. Was vintage Willie? Current Willie. Current Willie. Current Willie. Last year, really. Yeah, he was great all last year, too. the only one.

Starting point is 00:48:54 Offensively. Yeah. This is what I was, two years ago, he was so good offensively that whatever he did in the defensive end, I didn't care.

Starting point is 00:49:03 You know, last year wasn't that. And first three games of the season wasn't that. And there were still frustrating moments for sure, but like teams, offensively,

Starting point is 00:49:15 they don't have an answer for this player. Yeah. Right? And that was on display in overtime. And we talked about the strength of Austin

Starting point is 00:49:24 Matthews, this is what drives me nuts about Willie and why on occasion I wouldn't mind if he lost his temper. He's strong. Well, you saw him move Ryan O'Reilly in overtime. Yes. Yes. He's he's strapped. Yeah. He's a very, very strong athlete. And there are just times where I want him to do more. He's so fast. Like I, Willie, I've seen you skate north. Mm-hmm. and south you've got to take off five kilometers an hour. Justin Bourne said, drives me nuts. What blew him away last night about that overtime play is the fact that Nealander skates

Starting point is 00:50:02 don't ever leave the ice. He's got such strong edges that he doesn't have to pump. He's just, he just kind of glides. Is this our first time watching William Neeland? I know. He's been doing it for a decade. Jesse, welcome, stop.

Starting point is 00:50:17 Get out of my head. Like, this is the conversation I have with myself every time I watch him. Every single time I watch him. That's what makes him special. I know. This is why he's making 12.5 and he's on the Toronto Maple Leafs and playing the NHL. And I will tell you, he used offense to be responsible defensively because the way he handled the puck and the attentiveness he had with the puck

Starting point is 00:50:41 on that final play was so important because if that, if he loses it and it goes the other way, Matthews is useless on the back check because he's too. minutes into his shift. Yeah. And that's his second shift of overtime, too. Yeah. Because he was already out there to start where they got hemmed in. And then he went to the bench and then he comes back out for the two minutes.

Starting point is 00:51:03 There's, if Nashville had a chance going the other way, I hope you got it. Stollary. That's all you can do. I want to know what you would have done if the Leafs had that three on O and then lose the overtime. Oh. How does the LFR go?

Starting point is 00:51:22 The LFR, okay, you can tell which companies, which sports media companies were very upset the Leafs won that game. And you? And the answer was most of them. Yes, 100%. The answer was most of them. Okay.

Starting point is 00:51:39 Because like, okay, for example, what was it, BR Center Ice, why are you posting a clip of the Leafs missing a 3-0 in overtime when like 45 seconds later, they won the game? Well, because I think that they were going to post that after. They won the game.

Starting point is 00:51:58 But it is notable that they had to 3-0-0. And then won the game. Yeah, but it's still kind of hilarious that Riley puts the puck to Cowan rather than Matthews instead of... No, it was because they were so horny to get bad leaf content out there that they fired

Starting point is 00:52:14 it off and didn't give a shit because they knew it would do numbers. 100%. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's their job. Their job is to do numbers. What? To be. The clip farmers formed a clip. Well, then I don't respect it.

Starting point is 00:52:30 Okay, that's fair. Okay, that's a different conversation. But I still think it's, I mean, that made Sports Center this morning. Yeah. As part of a pack that included them winning the game. They don't make highlight of packs on their Twitter account. Their job is to just tweet out little snippets of hockey games. And did they post the Matthews goal, which I think they probably did.

Starting point is 00:52:52 They knew what they were doing. Okay. Absolutely. They know what they were doing. Leave hate is the well that never runs dry. Yes. And they needed to quench the masses. Yes, because their job is to get metrics.

Starting point is 00:53:07 Yeah. Numbers and clicks. And it's my job to shit down their neck when the lease win. I got to tell you. I think your anger is directed at the wrong people. I think so. My, like, guys, guys, this is why so many people, myself included, we're so happy with that Leafs preseason thing about like it's always about the fucking

Starting point is 00:53:27 leaves and but just embrace the fact that nobody fucking likes us and honestly I like more and more and more I do the show and go home and like and do LFR and go home because I find most leaf discourse so stupid and exhausting and intentionally dishonest that I'm like, oh, fart, shut up. I don't care. One day I'm going to die, and I don't want to look back having wasted time on the bullshit that you're posting online. I don't.

Starting point is 00:54:03 Okay. And that three nothing thing or three on no thing was a microcosm of it. Yeah. They knew what they were doing. Hey, take a second. Take a second and tack on the goal. I would have fired a person for not posting. that. Yeah, me too. On its own? Yeah. On its own. And then the next tweet is the goal.

Starting point is 00:54:27 Well, here's the problem with running the three-way company. I would have called them and said delete it. I would have logged in and deleted it myself. You would have been wrong to do that. No, because the two tweets generate more views than the one tweet. What if it's not always about the views? It's about telling a story properly. There you go. That's what you're getting wrong. They're all about the views. Oh, okay. I don't know why. They don't run a highlight pack for television. They're not running a podcast. They're literally generate views.

Starting point is 00:54:57 You should be upset at the people who are engaging with it and who are always on the dunk on the least people. If their job is to generate views and they did the correct thing to generate views, what is wrong with that? This is the fight, Jesse, that I've been fighting for over a decade. And I've told this story before. It was a crazy playoff game, 2012, uh, fly, We were supposed to aim for 90 seconds for a highlight pack. And I was notorious for going over that.

Starting point is 00:55:28 The game was 8-4. Crosby fought Jeru. Malkin fought someone. La Tang fought someone. Wayne Simmons scored this beautiful breakaway goal. And it's like, Steve, you got a cut. And I'm like, cut what? And like my fight was always telling the story adequately for hockey fans.

Starting point is 00:55:50 don't, it's just not difficult to be like, look at this. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I understand what you're saying. Like, so listen, if for their purposes of what, of how they gauge success, yeah, absolutely. Isolate that clip and post it. But it is not good storytelling.

Starting point is 00:56:14 Yes. Yes. Thank you for giving me that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll give it to you. Just give me that latitude. of for their metric of success,

Starting point is 00:56:23 they did the right thing. Yeah. That's all I was trying to get through to you. I, where you're saying like, that's the wrong way, 100%. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:56:33 You should have a 57 minute conversation about that game. Oh my God. That's what we're at right now, which is probably way too much. It's our show. We can do whatever we want.

Starting point is 00:56:44 Exactly. But we've gone and told the full story. Yes. I am 100% on yourself. I was just why weren't you giving me any latitude on? They are doing what they think is right, which we can say is probably a little wrong if you're trying to treat hockey fans with respect

Starting point is 00:57:02 and tell the, not even hockey fans, treat hockey with respect, the National Hockey League and tell the correct story because it doesn't do that. But it is hilarious. Yeah. Oh, it's funny. Let's be honest.

Starting point is 00:57:13 The true culprit here is Morgan Riley not passing it to Austin Matthews. Are you fucking kidding? Why are you dropping it to the high guy when Austin Matthews is across the net and you're gonna stretch the goal. Or not even doing the old like NHL one-timer thing we just send it across quickly.

Starting point is 00:57:29 Yeah. Or slow down. Or shoot it as a pass. There's three of you. There's so many things they could have done. Slow down. That play is hilariously bad. Yes.

Starting point is 00:57:38 It's hilariously bad. Yeah. I don't know. There's so many highlights that happen any night that you don't use because the context changes. Like Stollars, I want to say, made an incredible say, he might have made two on that power play.

Starting point is 00:57:53 There was an absolute fire dream. Yes. And the paddle. Yeah, no one posted any of those. You know why? Preds scored. That's storytelling.

Starting point is 00:58:02 Yeah. Totally. They've had a power play. They scored. Storytelling. Podcasts? They're for storytelling. That's why we're here.

Starting point is 00:58:07 There it is. That's why we're here. And like you can tell the people who talk about this game who only consume it in those ways. Yeah. And the people who versus like, oh, you actually watched a hockey game.

Starting point is 00:58:19 You know, so. It's just, I don't know. I don't think the audience isn't being fooled by that, right? Jesse, I'm just an old man. Yelling at the clouds, raging against the future. And your booze mean nothing to me.

Starting point is 00:58:34 I've seen what makes you cheer. You know what I mean? Air, kind of important. And that's why we think you should go to airpura.com and use our code SDPN10. You need to get an air purer because we all have air puras and they're working really, really well. You already know that I've got asthma issues, super sexy. And it has really helped like with overnight wheezing and having asthma attacks in the evening, which is bad. You don't want that. But Steve, there's something that it's helped for with you that, you know, I think most

Starting point is 00:59:01 people wouldn't take into consideration. Sometimes you have a stinky dog that makes a stinky, and it helps get rid of the stinky. The pet dander in the air. Yes, dander. That's right. Dust, pet nander, mold spores, smoke and indoor pollutants. And here's the thing. You can speak to one of their air quality experts. That's right. They have air quality experts both at 1866505 7872 or air pura.com. Again, it's 1866 505-782 or air purer.com and the promo code is SDPN10 because we want to save you a little money. This isn't your normal like every day went to the department store and buy it air purifier. This is the one you're going to have forever. Check it out at air purer.com. I want to make mention about regional games because there was some

Starting point is 00:59:46 annoyance last night in Canada. All the games run TSN. Now, people don't understand what regional games are. I'm going to very quickly explain it one more time. Regional games means this is the approximate area we think the majority of the fan base exists in, right? We understand that the Toronto Maple Leafs

Starting point is 01:00:02 in most regions are probably outside of Ontario. The second favorite team? Probably, unless it's Alberta, in which case, it's probably the Flames, because Edmonton is obviously the dominant team there. But the Leaf Fans travel, right? Like, I've been to Flames games where it's 50% Leaf game,

Starting point is 01:00:17 or Leaf fans. There's a ton of Leaf fans in Alberta. And so what happens is when you've got a bunch of regional games, they will be blacked out in certain areas. And some people, like as far afield is like Sudbury, apparently that's Leafs region. But then there's people who are east of Toronto by an hour can't get the TSN feed.

Starting point is 01:00:38 And what's been frustrating. That's so arbitrary. I know. And I don't know that's unnecessarily true, but I'm just going off. If you want the map, I got the map. This is from SportsNet.

Starting point is 01:00:47 They provide the regional restrictions map, and Adam, if you want to outline it. Okay, so exactly where the- Here's the problems, Desi, is they don't work. It doesn't work. And what they're doing is they're using your IP. And the IP is not working and not intellectual property. I'm talking about where you are in where it geographically thinks you are. There are people in Toronto or in the surrounding areas who could not watch last night's game on TSN.

Starting point is 01:01:12 So what do they do? They have the SportsNet Plus package. They go to the SportsNet Plus app. And the SportsNet Plus app correctly identifies that they're in the Leafs region and they can't watch. And that also happened with Montreal and Ottawa last night too,

Starting point is 01:01:25 because all of the Eastern provinces would have been able to watch the Ottawa-Montreal game except that they couldn't. And it's, so people are angry at SportsNet for this. And I'm just going to say,

Starting point is 01:01:39 there's plenty of reasons to be upset at SportsNet for this. It ain't this one. The, from what I saw and I put a tweet out there and I got like 70 responses, everybody was like, anybody who wasn't stealing it was like, yeah, I could watch. And a lot of people from Alberta, a lot of people from BC weighing in. But I think what we still have as an inexact science, it used to be easier when it was just cable because we knew exactly where the homes were. Now that we're going off internet feeds, we really don't have a perfect way to delineate where one region ends and where the home's. the national rights begin. And so regional games mean they cannot broadcast this outside of it. You have to go through Sportsnet, right? That's what it means.

Starting point is 01:02:23 And is it stupid? Yes. Are, is it frustrating? Absolutely. But you have to remember that this is where you have to complain. This is where you got to go to TSN and go, hey, I'm, I've, I'm in your region. Why am I not getting this? That's what you have to do, unfortunately.

Starting point is 01:02:39 Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only, maybe not the only, but the main reason for this is advertising? Yeah. Well, the other reason is there's a theory out there that, for instance, I was told this by somebody in television, that if you made every game national, the Oilers, the Canucks and the Leafs, and Montreal Canadiens would destroy the other markets. Like people say that if Flames games were not the only game available locally, that everybody would be watching the Oilers.

Starting point is 01:03:09 That's what people will tell you. Now, is that true? I don't think so. But Flames games, it's interesting with Calgary specifically. It's a very interesting market because if the flames are good, the number is the same as if the flames are bad. It does not really move unless they're late in the playoffs and the Red Miles on fire. And that's a compliment.

Starting point is 01:03:29 Yeah. Yeah, it's just sort of these are the Flames fans and they're going to watch every night. Whereas the Leafs or the Oilers or whatever, we'll see an enormous jump in audience when they go deep in the playoffs or when they're in a high leverage game or whatever. And so the theory is, well, we got to. protect Winnipeg and their local rights. You got to protect Calgary and their local rights, Ottawa as well. And that's why they still do this. It's also a way to make money from local, um, local people, although most of the local advertisers don't advertise on television

Starting point is 01:04:01 anymore. They go to meta or YouTube or whatever. And, and because it's just too, too damn expensive to put a TV commercial to air. So most of the ads you see are still national ads, your GMCs, your Instacarts or whatever. And so I think when you're mad at this, I want you to be mad at the right thing because I want you to complain to the right people. If you go to SportsNet and complain about this, there's nothing they can do.

Starting point is 01:04:23 Literally nothing. Now, when the Leafs play on Monday night in two weeks and that game is not on cable, right? It will be on SportsNet Plus. That's Monday night hockey. The complaints will explode. And they've had warnings about this. I'm telling you right now.

Starting point is 01:04:40 Like if you're listening to the show, you're a hardcore fan, I don't need to tell you this. You just wait for Reddit and Twitter and all those places where hockey fans congregate the first time the least play on Monday night. It's going to be bad because people don't want to pay that extra price. And they're going to go, wait, what do you mean this happened? And people are going to go, they gave you a month's heads up. And again, is it fair? Is it right? I agree with you.

Starting point is 01:05:03 But that is also going to be a thing that happens. There's two things. Number one, you can't force me to watch anything, you idiot. Yeah, yeah. Like, we're going to put the Jets game on in Jets territory, like just using that as an example. Yeah. To force you to watch the game. I just won't watch.

Starting point is 01:05:25 Like, if I live in that region and I'm not a Jets fan, I'm not going to take my entire night and be like, guess I'm watching the Jets. No, I'm doing something else, you stupid idiot. Yeah. You fool. Or if you want to watch the Flames game that night, then you'll just get a VPN because it's so easy. Or I'll steal it.

Starting point is 01:05:43 Like what are, it's 2026. I agree. Wake up. The other thing is I can go on, uh, like I've watched YouTube while traveling when I'm not logged into, because I pay for premium. I think it's super worth it. But, um, whenever I'm traveling, the ads are local to where I am. Because they're able to find where you are and then target, geotarget.

Starting point is 01:06:11 And so cable needs to evolve as the inferior platform, bluntly, and adopt that. They can. It's just that things like, you know, like the embarrassing thing for Sportsnet, the thing you should be complaining about is their app. Their app is atrocious. Yeah. It's not worth the money. It's awful. It's pixelated.

Starting point is 01:06:31 The picture quality is intentionally 720P in 2026. Why is that, Adam? because they don't care and they want to push you to cable. You want a good picture. Sorry, you're going to have to pay for cable and inferior product. You will not get proper digital innovation out of a cable provider. I have been beating this drum louder since I quit. Forever.

Starting point is 01:06:55 I always believed it. That's where, so I wanted to just quickly say that because there was a lot last night with Montreal and Ottawa and then, of course, Toronto and Nashville going on. Now, let's move on to Detroit. So obviously Dylan Larkin played last night, and we're going to get to that in a second. But I just want to let you know that a couple of things. First off, tickets were reportedly as low as $8 to $14 for this game. And the game was absolutely not sold out in Detroit.

Starting point is 01:07:22 Which that's surprising. Like, can you blame them? Not a little bit. Like this is one of the hottest. Dude, it's Dylan Larkin. Everyone, you're telling me there weren't a bunch of sickos. lining up to be like, I just want to see what happens tonight.

Starting point is 01:07:41 I don't think you're wrong on that, but I think also, Steve, you got to remember the backdrop is they haven't made the playoffs for 10 years. Of course. No, that I understand. But of all the games, like that is,

Starting point is 01:07:51 that's peak morbid curiosity hockey game. Yeah? I wouldn't want to give money. I wouldn't want to give money to the Illish family. That's valid. That I understand. Like you're the reason

Starting point is 01:08:03 we are in this situation. Me buying a ticket funds you. I'm not buying a ticket. That's valid. But like if I was a guy like Hayden and I cheered for an out of town team, I'm going to that game. I have to see what's going to happen. Is there 18,000 of those people?

Starting point is 01:08:19 No. We found out apparently not. Probably not. Apparently not. The video of them not being able to do the flag across the lower bowl of the sea. That was so sad. It was pretty funny. That was pretty funny.

Starting point is 01:08:31 In October. Yeah. Like you haven't even started playing really. You're supposed to. to be able to ride some sort of hooray Gameseron thing. Weather's still nice. Yeah. Holy. What's it going to be like your eighth in the Atlantic? It's January. There's a snowstorm. They won. Well, hang on. Before that, insider training. And that might be bad. Going into that game, Darren said there's ongoing talks between the wings and Simon Edvinson, uh, which would be

Starting point is 01:09:07 AP Barry, that's his agent, but not a lot. In fact, no progress to be mentioned. Yeah, that's pretty bad. So you see why people don't want to spend $8. Totally. And then on top of that, and I thought this was interesting. I don't know if we want to run the clip because it's not the most electric thing, but most cider, I got to give him a ton of credit for taking the side of the fans, the cider of the fans, you might say. He said, it's never something you want to hear referring to booze at Dylan Larkin. But as I've said, this is their opportunity to express their feelings and however they feel they're going to make them known. So my conspiracy theory here is the Red Wings, now I don't believe this necessarily, but for a moment, I was like, what if?

Starting point is 01:09:55 They wanted to play Larkin because they need to know how bad it is. Okay. Can we come back from this? Or is this going to completely disrupt the game? you know what I mean expand on that a little bit so I think back to when Brian Burke fired Ron Wilson

Starting point is 01:10:13 okay and it was probably long overdue to fire Ron Wilson it was but Ron Wilson is close friends with Brian Burke who was at the time and the fans

Starting point is 01:10:30 were chanting fire Wilson so loudly that Burke fired him and at the press conference went it would have been cruel and unusual torture to throw Ron out there again. And the conspiracy theory in me was if things are genuinely that bad, this front office that can't do a damn thing. And all the offers they're getting for Dylan Larkin suck from the teams he's actually willing to go to.

Starting point is 01:10:59 What if the fan reaction is so bad that they're able to use it to justify taking a package because it's the only package they can get. That was the conspiracy theory rattling around in my brain. But the other thing is what if he plays in is good and was very good. They're not going to boo a goal. Was mixing it up and with Ridley Grigg. And then, you know, Nick Cousins had the captaincy thing. He was like chirping him.

Starting point is 01:11:26 He was like just shy of a Gordy Howe Hattrick basically. Yeah. Dylan Larkin was the first star last night. He got booed in the starting lineup. And then by the end of the game, guys, Dylan Larkin got a round of applause from Detroit Red Wings fans. And it does make me wonder, because apparently Detroit's goal is to sign Edvinson

Starting point is 01:11:42 and to see if they can mend the relationship with Larkin rather than trade them. In the intermission for the Leafs game, Dregor said that they're continuing to take trade calls on him, though. Yeah, well, of course. I don't know if their goal is to sign him or if they're just scouring for a trade deal, right? Because it was it was Fridge earlier this week as like they would like to repair it, but they were told it was remote that that could happen. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:12:07 Like, so. Here's why you got to give him credit, and I know this is the bare minimum, but not everyone does the bare minimum. So you've got to acknowledge it. When it was announced he was going to play, people started posting the infamous clip of Pierre Luke Dubois from his last game in Columbus.

Starting point is 01:12:23 Okay. He had asked for a trade. He plays one shift, and it is such a disgrace to professional sports, the John Tortorella, known for not taking the emotional route, never plays him again. And then they end up trading.

Starting point is 01:12:39 He should have been Doc Pay for that game. That was absolutely absurd. You didn't try to play hockey. You're a disgrace. But he's fine now. But he took his ball and went home on the ice. Like it's just shy of point shaving. You go out there and intentionally don't try.

Starting point is 01:12:58 And you get millions of dollars to do so. And there's millions of dollars on the line. Yeah. We didn't spend enough time on how much of a disgrace that was from Pierre-Luc Dubois. Dylan Larkin goes out there and he tries his bag off, which, again, you make millions of dollars, you were the captain. There's a bunch of injuries. They need you, dude.

Starting point is 01:13:19 It should be the bare minimum that he tried his hardest, but not everyone does it. Totally. And I was talking about Edvinson with the trade calls from Trigger. Oh. I thought you were talking about Lerner. No, no. I thought you were talking about Larkin. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:13:30 Okay, that's what I got you said Edmondson with Dregor and the insider trading. Yeah. And then at intermission, I don't know, you guys didn't see intermission, apparently. I saw parts of it. Sorry, my bad. I completely. I made popcorn. Okay.

Starting point is 01:13:43 I thought Larkin. Okay. We both did. Okay. Okay. Anyways, I think Larkin's best way to earn his trade out of Detroit is to play well. Yeah. I think so he has to play.

Starting point is 01:13:53 But I think it's interesting that they want to trade to Edvinson. Uh, I mean, if there's no progress, you kind of have. have to have the conversation. Have the conversation about a guy who can play in the lineup for you tomorrow or whenever the next game is because right now he's he's not helping you from Sweden. And it's, by the way, it's not his fault at all. It's 100% of the Red Wings. Pay him the money he's worth.

Starting point is 01:14:20 Adjust to reality or continue to stink. Yeah, there you go. They did win. Now they did win. And I kind of wondered about that too because I think. you know, pre the NFL season, everybody's like, well, we're all healthy and in the best shape of our lives and everything's going to go great. But we've seen Barkoff go down. We've seen now Marchand go down and we'll get to that.

Starting point is 01:14:43 And, you know, you start to go, oh, well, there will be injuries and there will be attrition and somebody is going to get jumpy. And, you know, I think if Dylan Larkin's playing that good, Detroit's going to get a heck of an offer for him eventually. 100%. He's a number one center in the NHL. Like, worst case, he's a 1A, right? Or 1. 1B. Yeah, no, there's a number 1 and there's a 1A. They're not the same.

Starting point is 01:15:08 One is higher than the other. I'm not saying it's Florida. I'm just saying, because I don't know what Florida would really have to offer. They don't have any first round picks for three years. But, you know, it doesn't really matter. I think that at some point, this guy's going to get moved, but can Detroit save the relationship in time? Because they are not getting a number one center back.

Starting point is 01:15:27 I mean, you think every. player in the NFL. There's, there's like 800, 900, 900 players in the

Starting point is 01:15:31 NHL. You think they all love the team that they play for? Right? Suck it up. Man. And he is.

Starting point is 01:15:39 Yeah, he is. I'm out here, I'm out here trying to contribute. Yeah, he's not the guy you got to sell to suck it up. I think he's done a lot of lemon sucking.

Starting point is 01:15:45 Yeah. He's just, hey, whoa. Hey, you know, when you're stuck a lemon like that.

Starting point is 01:15:50 Yeah, I don't do that. The Simpsons thing. Yeah. There's a lemon behind that rock. Here's a Shelbyville No, it's the mafia one.

Starting point is 01:15:59 It's like, oh, wait. Yeah, yeah. It's like, hey, Jimmy, you're shot. And it's like, what do we tell about the hospital? Tell him to suck a lemon. Yeah. No, I was talking about the. There is another.

Starting point is 01:16:08 Oh, there is a lemon behind that rock. Are you guys, are you guys ready for? There's so many episodes. Are you ready for? They have multiple lemon jokes. The most Kyle Dubus ass trade of your life because it just happened. Oh. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Starting point is 01:16:23 Who's it with and what players are involved? Okay, it's Kyle Dubus, so it's... One of them is a former leaf. Hilarious. Leaf organization, anyway. Hilarious. Is it the Kings? It is not the Kings.

Starting point is 01:16:39 Oh. Is it the Flyers? It is not the Flyers. One more guess. Black Ox. Blues. It's the Edmonton Oilers. Oh, that's not a different.

Starting point is 01:16:51 Former. Okay. Okay, but player, player is. Have they played in the NHLs? this year. Let me look. Oh, he doesn't know. Not highlight.

Starting point is 01:17:03 I told you he was Leaf System. He was, uh, okay. Somebody. They have. They've played two games and actually have three points. Somebody in the Leaf System on the Oilers. So you said, oh no, you said they played. Caponin.

Starting point is 01:17:17 They at one point were a leaf, but never played for the Leafs. Oh. Okay. Kappan and Hyman. I'm trying to think, do they have a goalie in the system? Do they have a deal? No. Who is it?

Starting point is 01:17:31 The trade is. The Pittsburgh Pagons have required Spencer Stasney for Philip Hallander, who was once traded for Jared McCann. Oh, I didn't realize it was, damn it. I was thinking of the Oilers. No, no, no, this is a, and I just think, and you're probably like...

Starting point is 01:17:52 So that's a D for a forward. So, yeah, what do you know about Spencer Stasney? Not an abundance. I know he's young-ish. and depth defenseman for them. 26. Fifth round pick, 2018. There you go.

Starting point is 01:18:07 Philip Hollander is the Bruno Caboclo of the NHL. He's two years away from being two years away. Highly touted once. And I just thought that is a hilarious trait. He loves a little tinker. He, like, what is that? Spencer Stasney has not played a game. He played 36 last year with one goal.

Starting point is 01:18:28 Philip Hollander's 26 now Yeah he is Spencer Stassany's 26 now Stop Edmonton needs forward help Yes they do that makes sense for them Oh right because of all their injuries Yeah they just need depth

Starting point is 01:18:45 And that makes sense And I was going to say Stassney is Probably the better or more NHL ready player and that is represented In his contract 1.525 Mill versus Hollander who it makes I think 850 is leaked.

Starting point is 01:18:59 So the oilers save a little bit of cap space here and get a depth forward. The penguins get what? Do the penguins need depth defense? Everyone needs depth defense. All right. Okay. All right. This is the thing with the Kyle Dubus trade.

Starting point is 01:19:16 This is a thing with the Kyle Dubus trade. You don't immediately know what's going on. That's why it's kind of fun because you're like, this is a Kyle Dubas trade because I'm like, what is he thinking? You go, oh. vaguely aware of this player, what might he add to the 30 or 40 games he might play this season? Maybe Philip Hollander wasn't getting into games, and Duba said, my God, I have to do right by my guy.

Starting point is 01:19:40 As he's so often, no, I actually, the trade makes sense for Edmondson, but I like it for Pittsburgh. Why do you like it for Pittsburgh? Because they get an NHL player. Hollander's played 17 games. Hey, Hollander has three points this year. This year? Yeah, he did in two games.

Starting point is 01:19:57 I just said, yeah, one goal to assist. So Stan Bowman looked at a penguin who doesn't have a history of being good but is off to a hot start and he said, I need to trade for him immediately. Some people just don't learn. And this is where I think, this is what I'm saying.

Starting point is 01:20:14 That's why I also said it was a Kyle Dubas ass trade because Stan and Kyle do a lot of work together. Oh my God. Okay, the most surprising thing about that trade is if I was Stan Bowman, I'd never speak to Kyle Dubas ever again. That's fair. Ever again.

Starting point is 01:20:27 I would assume. assume he's fleecing me. At every board of governor's meeting, I'd spill a drink on him on purpose. A sticky drink. So my- With lots of sugar. My guess for doing the deal now is that Brian Rust or Justin Bresso or Kuzmenko are like ready to come back in the lineup. And this is the guy that they think is expendable.

Starting point is 01:20:50 So go flip him for help on D when you're already deep in the forward group. their left side is not great. They got Van Riemsdike, Carlisle I admittedly don't know much about, and Gerard. I would assume he could supplant one of those guys. Yeah, no, they need help back. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:21:12 That's okay. I don't know about you, but with Leon playing with Connor and Nuge and Hyman out, the Oilers' top six is looking a little thin, and Jason Dickinson is sort of canceled in, but he's not, does not matter, has not played. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:21:28 So you're looking at Colton Dock, Owen Michaels. I mean, you could move Frederick to take the occasional face off, but like, you kind of need this guy to play center for you. Like they need Philip Hollander. Yes. You need, you need a forward with some offensive ability in there. Like, bless those guys, but. Oof.

Starting point is 01:21:50 Yeah, like you can make Connor do everything all of the time. Yes, you can. Every single year. or yes, you can for 12 years and lose Anaheim. You know what I mean? Oh, but a couple of staling have finals in there.

Starting point is 01:22:01 Couple of, yeah, and then what? Yeah, you're right. Like there's a shelf life on that strategy. Yeah, yeah. You can play Connor with Leon and it's great and it's fun, but you, history is dictated that eventually you need to knock it off. Yeah. Power play fine.

Starting point is 01:22:16 Five on five, there's a shelf life on it. You have to knock it off. And if you're not going to knock it off, then you need to provide the. rest of the lineup with the horses to get it done. Man, I feel bad for the Oilers. It's not fair. Like, Nuge and Hyman going down that quick.

Starting point is 01:22:33 Like, that sucks. That just sucks. I feel bad for my fantasy team. Do you have both of them? I had... You've Nuge? Dude, it's insane. I had Nuge.

Starting point is 01:22:41 I had Barkov. I had Faber. I had Marshant. It's bad, man. It's real bad. Okay. Jesse? What are you looking at?

Starting point is 01:22:50 Just Josh Yoi had noted that they have a near unprecedented forward depth in the penguin system where they have like 18 guys that could reasonably make this lineup because it's kind of even across the bottom of the board. So it does, it does seem like he was expendable. That is Dubus's MO. There was one year. And it looks, sorry, and it looks like Brian Rust is ready to return. There you go. There was one year I was like, they could, they have like six lines worth of players I would trust. Oh, what was that? Oh, how are they on D? Oh, stop asking that. I'm asking so many questions.

Starting point is 01:23:28 Dubis B. Dubeson. That criticism and compliment. Dubes B. Dubeson. He does, and I love it. Florida, Brad Marshan went down with an injury that looked rough. He had surgery this offseason, and, you know, he basically is kind of crashing the net, and that knee gets back in a very awkward thing.

Starting point is 01:23:50 And that, to me, that looks like an ACL tear. Does that not look like that to you? Worst case, it's what happened to McDavid a few years ago, and that's PCL. And McDavid was a very young man when that happened, rehabilitated it himself. Marshand's not that. And he was looking really good. Marshan's my age. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:24:07 Like, that's a problem. But he was looking good for the Panthers. It was what I mean. Oh, of course. Being productive and scored in his first game. For a game and a half. And then this happened. It reminds me a little bit of Montreal coming out of their Stanley Cup final birth in

Starting point is 01:24:23 2021 were just like there were some nights for a couple years there where it's like it's not even Canadian Thanksgiving and you're like who the hell is playing for them tonight. Yeah. Because everyone went down for a variety of reasons. Um, you do worry about, you know, obviously what this means for the rest of his season, but the rest of his career. Like, like I said, that's one of the oldest players in the NHL. Yeah. And he's coming off

Starting point is 01:24:52 of the surgery, but that looked bad. Yeah, that looked very good. Yeah, this keeps him out for six months or whatever.

Starting point is 01:24:58 Is that a career ender just because of his age? I saw one of those, like, doctors last night who does like the injury estimation. I don't love those accounts.

Starting point is 01:25:08 It's something that I wanted a few years ago and we talked about it on the show and then people started doing it and I'm like, I hate this actually. And he said four to six weeks and I'm like,

Starting point is 01:25:18 that didn't look like four to six weeks. You don't know that. No, yeah. You don't know that. Man on Twitter. It's, it looked, it looked very, very, very. I don't think you were back in the dressing room examining his leg.

Starting point is 01:25:30 Yeah. And it could be, but I just, it's weird to speculate on that stuff. I don't blame. I would have thought I wanted it. But yeah. I would have thought I wanted it. But it's weird. And you're a doctor.

Starting point is 01:25:42 Like you can't speculate. Right? No. And like if some just random does it, you're like, what do you know, you asshole? And then a doctor does it and you're like, hey, man, you should be better than that. And you shouldn't be posting. Yes. There's a lot of hypocrisy going on.

Starting point is 01:25:57 It's like they're treating injuries the same way we treat like hypothetical trades or like line up decisions and everything. Like we're sitting there being like, ah, you should move this guy for this guy. And he's like, ah, maybe that's like an MCL tear. What's your hot take on his knee? Like that's, it's. I feel like I don't know if it translates, you know? If our, the way we chat about the hockey stuff on the ice. and off the ice too

Starting point is 01:26:20 translates to medical updates. It's not evil though. It comes from a good place. It's just, I don't know that it's working. They're trying to add to the game. Yeah. Fandom of it all.

Starting point is 01:26:29 And it feels like it's going away. There doesn't always need to be more. I think it's okay to look at an injury and go, and that's your contribution. Yeah, let's wait for the team to give us an update. Oh, that looked bad. And that's it. You don't need additional thoughts.

Starting point is 01:26:46 And hey, I feel bad for him. Totally. because the guy was a very productive player. Now, speaking of production with the Florida Panthers, I do think it's worth noting that if you include game 82 last year, we only played 10 minutes, we don't have to include it. Okay. But including the playoffs, game 82 last year,

Starting point is 01:27:09 and the first four games of this season, this player has not scored a point. That's nine straight games. Oh. Brady Kachuk Brady Kachuk And listen I won't include

Starting point is 01:27:25 Game 82 but I will include the four games in the playoffs because he scored a bunch going into the playoffs I went back and looked at his game logs I'm like Oh no no he was getting points

Starting point is 01:27:32 He got Again everyone focuses on Allmark and how poor he was At the beginning of last season They also didn't have Brady Kichuk It's a miracle The Sends made the playoffs last year Yeah

Starting point is 01:27:43 All things considered Yeah Brady looks a little lost. And I know people are like sort of dumping on him for it. And I don't necessarily blame them, especially if they're Ottawa Senators fans. But this is a thing. Like, again, it's four games. He's not Gavin McKenna, though. He's not 18. No, he's not. And he was traded for three first round picks. And so now you've got Brad Marshan out. You've got Barkov out till maybe Christmas.

Starting point is 01:28:13 I reported what Armando Velez reported. But then there were some other counter reports saying that's not true. It might be six weeks. I don't, I don't know, man. It's Barkoff. He heals like a maniac. You should guess. I'm going to get. I'm going off with the reporters. No, no. I'm making fun of the doctor. Oh. Oh. Frigin. Here wait. Here. Oh, yeah, it feels like two months. So you should start a Twitter account and just start guessing. Yeah. I don't know. You know what? We started to show guessing, but it's a little less serious. But I think, I think, he's got to get this going. And one of the things that we asked

Starting point is 01:28:50 that I specifically asked in that preview that we did for the Florida Panthers was Brady Kachuk was billed as the guy in Ottawa. And he's going to go to Florida and find out whether he is him. And it reminds me a little bit of Chris Bosch in Toronto.

Starting point is 01:29:09 Because Chris Bosch, they tried to build that team around him. And then he goes to Miami and you're like, oh, he's very, very much the third of three. It's not like he's good. Guy goes from Ontario to Florida as a bit player instead of the guy. And he was and Chris Bosch was a very, very good player in that role. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:29:28 But compare him to Dwayne Wade at that time and LeBron James at that time. He was the third of three. And I just kind of go, that's okay, Brady's got to show us in Florida, especially with these two injuries that he's the guy worth paying three first round picks for. And you know, maybe he's better off as the guy. One thing that Sid Sixero said when that trade happened, I'll give him full marks for this is he should have been at optional practice. No, he changed.

Starting point is 01:29:55 They handed the keys. Bill Zito handed the keys to the Kachuk and said, this is your team now when they made that trade. Because, and I don't think he's wrong. Like, I don't know that they wouldn't have made the trade, but I know for sure why they made the trade. Do you know what I'm saying? Uh-huh.

Starting point is 01:30:13 Uh-huh. You're now, okay, well, it's, now Keith and Matthew's team, not Bill Zito's team. They got to play like it. They got to play like it. They got to make Bill. Bill yielded that responsibility a little bit by doing this deal. Now we got to see if Brady can step up.

Starting point is 01:30:31 And that's the point of the Florida Panthers is when they're all healthy. We said in the preview, that's the deepest forward group in the league. Maybe besides, maybe Dallas, if they're healthy. I mean, one of the kind of important things about acquiring Brady Kachuk is he actually makes them younger. That's a good point He's like 10 years younger Yeah Yeah because like listen

Starting point is 01:30:49 There's a world I still think You know Marshan comes back Barkoff comes back They're fine There's Stanley Cup contenders Yes

Starting point is 01:30:55 But there's a world In the not too distant future where they might be Tata turbo dog shit Mind blowingly Bottom five San Jose bad after all the contracts expired yeah

Starting point is 01:31:09 Yeah Vlasic Burns era Marlowe comes back era sharks. Carlson. Dude. Carlson without the hundred points. Who the hell scored a hundred points back there, right?

Starting point is 01:31:26 They're going for it. That's Zito's job. None of us looked at the acquisition of Brady Kachuk and said, oh, they're worse now. None of us looked at it that way, right? But he hasn't. He hasn't been good enough. And his team needs him.

Starting point is 01:31:43 Now, you know, we talked about Dylan Larkin, who didn't get his wish and hasn't been traded, but that wasn't just his season debut. It was a captain-ish, a guy returning to a lineup that desperately needed him. Detroit was missing a bunch of guys. They needed them. And beat a good Ottawa team. Beat a good Ottawa team. Brady needs to help his team out right now, and he's not the only one. I mean, you lose.

Starting point is 01:32:11 But he's the one that was, he's the big acquisition. Yes. He has to step up. Has to. It's like when Mitch Marner went to Vegas. The story all year was Mitch Marner, Vegas and a little bit of Toronto too. And that is what happens when you get it, when you have a massive move like that. And like, listen, everyone wants a player who's fierce and fearless and plays like an asshole.

Starting point is 01:32:33 And everyone wants that. But at the end of the day, it's a goal scoring contest and you've got to contribute. And he hasn't done that. Yep. Like I, his defense. fault going back to when he was in Ottawa is nothing's going right for me. I'm just going to fight someone. And that can't be your thing every night when you make $7 million and I paid three first round picks for you. Yes. I need you to pot one. Right? He's capable of doing it. Yep. He has big

Starting point is 01:33:01 moments. That's what Florida needs out of him right now. Nick Suzuki, sorry, not Suzuki. Tim Stutzla is currently tied for he's in the top 10 but there's a lot of players tied at number seven with six points um and people are asking in ottawa was brady kuchukh holding tim's toothed le back because of the hot start that he's been on i know that's a joke no if he was holding him back he would have fell oh stop he had a dive the next game against boston i've got it that was even worse than the merchant uncle one do you want to look at it can i he's a disgrace can i talk about the panthers for a little yeah yeah just for half a second to Please.

Starting point is 01:33:37 I don't know how many Panthers fans still stomach listening to this program, but I think they've been a little fair to them over the year during their cup runs and everything. So if you're listening, I'll give you some hope here. You haven't lost a game in regulation yet this season. You're 2.0.2. Even that game where Brad Marchand goes down the other night, they beat the Kings 2-1 in that game. Points in four straight. Things are pretty fine.

Starting point is 01:34:03 Six out of eight. I think top of the Atlantic is a good spot. to be at any point in the season, you are there. On Brady Kachuk, his PDO is disgustingly low, which is a good measure of luck. Natural stat trick has it at 858, which is second worst amongst forwards on the Florida Panthers. God. He only trail, the only person who trails him is Brad Marshan, who won't be playing hockey for a while.

Starting point is 01:34:27 So let's say Brady Kachuk is last. Let's ask the doctors who are guessing how long that'll be. I think if that's going to be where it is, which is. at 100, which is where PDO is, hey, your luck's kind of eveninging it out because you should be at 100. Things should come and things should turn around for Brady. His expected goals as well on MoneyPuck, I think I used expected goals wrong on the last episode. Somebody pointed out correctly. This time I'll use it right. The expected goals is second on the team, only behind, I believe, Carter Verheagie. So they're going to fall. He's trying, I think, according to the advanced numbers.

Starting point is 01:35:02 The eye test doesn't look that great. I don't think it ever does with Brady. He's not. He's not somebody who's very dynamic with his play. You know, when you catch Panthers, when you catch Sends games, like, he doesn't stand out unless he's doing that physical stuff. Elite role guy. And then when he's doing that physical stuff, sometimes it doesn't even hit because he's like getting bullied by the other guy. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:35:22 So he's never been an eye test guy. So I don't know how much the advanced numbers support that he's playing decently, but things aren't falling for him in these first four games. So there's a little rope for Brady. And you know, I'm not one to defend Brady Kach, but I thought I thought I, I thought give that other side to. Yeah, no, and you need to. Can you bring that up?

Starting point is 01:35:40 Just like a real quick thing on PDO for people who don't know what it is. Yeah, yeah. It's shot percentage plus save percentage. Yeah, on ice five on five. Yeah, and it should add up to roughly 100. I know it's probably changed in recent years with, but even as shot percentages go up, save percentages have gone down. His on ice save percentage is 83.3, which is insane.

Starting point is 01:36:01 And his on ice shot percentage is 2.4, which is, absolutely insane. And yes, Jesse, you're absolutely right to point out. That probably gets better. That's disgustingly low. Yeah. That's insane. He's under Garnet Hathaway. Yeah, dude. And like Verhege's is also stupid high. Yeah. It's early in the season. The stats are dumb. Totally. So I think, and then there's, oh, Sam Ryanhart's the one who leads in expected goals on Money Buck. I know some people don't trust their expected goals as much, but just a good reference point. Brady, second on the team and expect a goal is 1.3. Sam Reinhardt's number one at 1.7. There's something there.

Starting point is 01:36:42 Reinhardt doesn't have a point either, right? So it's not like Kachuk's the only guy struggling, and they're still pulling out points. I think if this continues, regardless of what the advanced numbers say, eventually the actual numbers have to be there. So if this goes another week or something, I think it's fair to yell at him. As a fantasy holder of both Kachuk brothers, I would desperately love for both of to fucking store. Kiss my bottom. Please, Steve is thumping me this week.

Starting point is 01:37:11 Oh, am I playing you? Yeah. Oh, I'm a lot of dude. It's crazy. I'm gonna go one and one against your house. Yeah, yeah, because Natalie rocked you. Just murdered me. And by the way, she was, she's

Starting point is 01:37:22 very proud of that. She's been walking around the house going, I actually beat Steve. This is really great. That's because she thinks I'm good at fantasy hockey. Now, you're going to fantasy football. I'm more good at fantasy football. I'm three and one. Blindly good at it. It's insane. You draft Derek Henry

Starting point is 01:37:36 every year and they're like, okay, I'm done. Set my team. My all-time record has to be insane because I almost won the regular season trophy the first year. Yeah, you had the President's trophy. You were like in the last week and then you blew it. I don't know my players. I don't know my players. I think it's good for you. So upset. I'm so upset about it.

Starting point is 01:37:54 Okay. Do we want to do I got to show you this Tim Stutzlade. It's there. Yeah, I mean, you got to pull that up, Jesse, if you can because it, you know, again, since fans know, and they're like, he is elite at doing this. And he is.

Starting point is 01:38:08 They're not wrong. I'd like them to get together, get in the huddle, and pick a thing. Okay. Okay. Why? Pick a thing. Okay. We just defended the honor of the sentence.

Starting point is 01:38:18 Okay. Because I, for the last 48 hours or 72 hours, whatever, have been getting bombarded by Sends fans saying he doesn't dive your salty and everyone does it. You're just mad he's good at it. Mm. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Pick one.

Starting point is 01:38:34 What is it, Steve? Pick one. He does dive and he's good at it and get mad skill issue, or he doesn't do it. Pick one. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Before you talk to me, talk amongst yourselves, figure it out, pick one. Okay. And call me a slur.

Starting point is 01:38:53 Now, he is. Yeah, okay, so here's Tim Stutzel at the faceoff jot. And by the way, he did draw a penalty here. So I'm going to be, I'll be following this. By the way, if Tim Stutzla dives in your team's game, I want you to file with us at 1-800, Tin Stutzla hurt me. And I want you to tag me in every Tim Stutz-L-dive because we're going to profile every Tim Stutz-Ladive

Starting point is 01:39:15 that we possibly can on the SDP this year. It's incredible what a good hockey player he is for being such an utter weakling. Look how hard he falls here. It's crazy. You guys are too mean to Timmy. He's trying his best. None of us are mean enough.

Starting point is 01:39:29 None of us are mean enough. He's disgraceful. He's disgraceful. like that oh my god dude no he's he's the worst diver in the league and one of these days refs will get tired of being humiliated by this guy but it's not today no they're not going to get these are the best refs in the world i know that's why they're not tired of it because if they were going to get tired of it they would have got tired of it already but they're not no give them a chance okay so last thing i want to say here uh before we go first off uh um i guess there's a couple of

Starting point is 01:40:03 things. Nikita Klepov will make his start, his opening night start or opening start for the ducks tonight. That was the 15th overall pick in the draft this year. Yeah, but he's good. He's real good. He's real good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. He was a big star of, oh, wow, which will be coming back at some point. Stop yelling at me. But, no, this, this player, that was a good pick by the ducks. Very good pick by the ducks. What do you think Brandon Montour said to Mark Stone to make Mark Stone fight him on a five on three. So the, so what happened is, was it Mayor, Myers?

Starting point is 01:40:43 Philippe. Philippe. On Seattle, cross-checks one of Vegas's guys, Olifson, Victor Oliveson. It was ugly, it was not good. And then some beaking happened. And after the game, Mark Stone said, well, I didn't like what he said about our team.

Starting point is 01:41:00 What did he say? I would love. to know. You're never going to know. Well, everyone had their theories. Well, of course,

Starting point is 01:41:06 but they're all wrong. Come on. Some of them were, well, I don't know. I don't know. But, I mean,

Starting point is 01:41:12 it's hockey. So my number one guess is he said, you guys are soft. And Stone said, soft this. Yeah. And he did,

Starting point is 01:41:21 he punched him. And he looked at him with his smirking face that looks like animal from the Muppets. And Vegas did Vegas things, which is

Starting point is 01:41:32 winning. Now, I want to say Maclin Celebrini went down with an injury. He's being evaluated as of a day ago. It's kind of, it wasn't down with an injury. He took part in pregame skate the other night and then they determined that he wasn't healthy enough to go. The sharks are all they are. He is going to miss games. The sharks as a team are going to have to find a way to look better without him. They did not look great without him. And I know it's Macklin Celebrini, but like, there are other players on this team. This is your take a step here. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:42:08 Yeah. Watch, they miss the playoffs and get the first overall pick. Landon DuPont back there. That'd be insane. We're going to see what they're made of, right? You can't just be Macklin Celebrini and his band of Mary Men. Someone's got to step up. Right.

Starting point is 01:42:25 And we said that with the Edmonton Oilers for 20 years. Every year. And no. Actually, Steve, you don't. Alan Briggs of front office sports, who covers culture, has reported that NHL's hot for hockey, which were the eight or nine minute long podcast slash audio books that were included Trevor Zegris and Connor McDavid. They were taken off of Spotify. And the NHL said at the end of each of them, tune in to the NHL all season long for more hockey love.

Starting point is 01:42:58 And the NHL had said when they released these, well, we're going to keep updating them throughout the season. And the backlash has been more intense than I think they could have thought. And they're taking them down and they're not going to be updating them now. It's one of the worst cases of how do you do fellow teens I've ever seen in my entire life. Like they're trying to ride the coattails of the popularity of heated rivalry. And off campus. And off campus. Guys,

Starting point is 01:43:32 both of those things have aggressive fuck scenes. That is the crux of those stories. And you're trying to create that with fictional. You're right. You're doing multi-billion dollar company sanctioned fan fiction. That's actually PG. I am shocked that this isn't a bigger deal amongst the players association. They don't know what's going on.

Starting point is 01:44:07 In the NHL took my name and image and likeness, which you have the rights to do and used it for your pseudo-not smut thing. Yeah. And it's been a complete disaster. And that the NHLPA isn't outraged about that. But the NHLPA signed off on this. They allowed this. So they were okay with this.

Starting point is 01:44:28 think they should be upset at the execution. And they should be upset at themselves for not recognizing it's a bad idea for the beginning. It's a horrible idea. Who's the leadership over there who said yes to this? First of all, the players should be mad at that person. And then that person should be like, fuck, I screwed up. Let me get mad at the guys who executed this so I don't look as bad.

Starting point is 01:44:48 I'm not saying like all fan fiction is terrible. I don't really get it. But that's okay. Not everything needs to be for me. No. But like I'll tell you. something, like early on podcast days, someone wrote a fan fiction about me. Love you Dangler.

Starting point is 01:45:04 Love you, Dangler. It was more than one, actually. And we read it on the show. Legendary episode. And I was like, this is very weird and I'm uncomfortable, but we're still having some fun with it. If Sportsnet, when I was working there, then turned around and said, hey, we saw that, we want to ride the coattails of that.

Starting point is 01:45:28 and produce a dozen episodes of you getting fucked, Stephen? I don't think that's what the NHL produced. No, but the heavy. That's what they were going for. They were going for, I think also the thing is that what makes those appealing is that they're smutty. The NHL could never have gone smutty with this. So I think they were just bad. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:45:50 I think that is also a problem. Is that the greatest crime that it commits? Is it just sucked? That is the greatest crime. It was hated by both sides. Anybody who they thought would like it, didn't like it. Here's what Gary said on the announcement of it. I just think you guys will find this interesting because it'll support your point.

Starting point is 01:46:08 I will tell you that the data is overwhelming in terms of new fans that we acquired last year who were first introduced to hockey either through off campus or heated rivalry. So since it seems to be a cultural phenomenon, we figured why not get on board. How is Connor McDavid not on the phone to Judd Maldaver? I think he was. And then how is Judd not on the phone? to Ron Hainsey or whoever he needs to be on the phone. I think Judd was on the phone.

Starting point is 01:46:32 I don't think Connor even needs to call him. And I think here's the other thing. The way to support this stuff, right? Because I think in off campus, they do mention NHL teams. I can't really remember, but I don't think that they do heated rivalry.

Starting point is 01:46:44 No, he did rivalry. They do not. They do not. Right? No. So here's what you do. You want to get on board with this?

Starting point is 01:46:51 Turn your licenses over to heated rivalry season two and off campus season two and take the free promotion. Don't create it yourself Just give the licenses over It's free promotion for you They're gonna do a better job Because they write smutty novels And have the audience

Starting point is 01:47:06 And the trust of the audience Which is so key That's all the NHL had to do here That's such a good idea That's all you need to do Or worse, they don't want to do that And they're like, let's just do a shitty PG knockoff How many women do you think

Starting point is 01:47:19 We're in the room when this decision was made? Negative five How many people under the age of 55 were in the room when this decision was inappropriate. No, no, they were probably in the room, but they're like context. And the old people went, fle. And sorry, I don't have the author's name, the actual person that they commissioned to write this. The author still has the episodes up on their page.

Starting point is 01:47:46 The NHL took it down. To back up your point, I assume when they brought that author in to do this, they got their grubby hands over all of everything that they had the ideas for. You know, I assume this is all those 55-year-old men's ideas into these stories. It's like when a brand account tries to put brain rot on TikTok. Yeah. Like, you can't possibly tell me within the corporate restrictions of the NHL that whoever this writing staff was or keywriter was, had any sort of latitude to do anything that actually would have appealed to that. Do you know me lawyers this probably went through?

Starting point is 01:48:21 Okay. They're all lawyers. Yeah. I'm sure the lawyers are really good at making stories. So, Batman, has said he's watched heated rivalry, right? Yes, I believe he has.

Starting point is 01:48:31 I don't believe at all that he's watched. No, no, they have to for their job keep up with all that stuff. I assume he has seen at all. I think he's had someone see. Fellas, imagine Gary Bettman sitting there on his couch.

Starting point is 01:48:47 All the things you said. No, I believe. And it's Elya Rosenov beating off into the glass of his shower, which was so gratuitous. That was a very odd job. You think Gary Betman watch that? I don't think it's at home on a sketch.

Starting point is 01:49:00 I think it's in his office. I don't believe for a moment. I think that is his job and Gary Bettman is good at doing what he needs to do. I don't think an NHL executive has seen that show in its entirety. No chance. No shot. A hundred percent. I think I don't know about an executive because I don't think it's their job to do it.

Starting point is 01:49:16 I think Gary has. I think he's had people watch it. I'll have to agree to disagree. That's fine. No, fuck that. I think we should fight about it. Here, stand up. I want to see Hotelia. What was this bit?

Starting point is 01:49:30 I'm very much watching this in my office. Adam has shrunk himself in his chair. Yeah, I mean, listen. You got to talk to the microphone. I think the thing is, you can't replicate cool cultural phenomena that come out of nowhere in a boardroom. Thank you, Hayden, for going to the three shot. When was the last time do you think Gary saw a scene

Starting point is 01:49:54 where somebody beat off onto a piece of some glass? And that's how the episode, it's that loud grunt credits. This is a guy who grew up on like MASH and like, you know what I mean? Like what? How crazy must that have been? I'm watching that and I went, all right. All right. That's fine.

Starting point is 01:50:15 Whatever. It's like I saw some people talking about it and like fan fiction belongs to fan. Yes. Exactly. And the moment a giant corporation that the fan fiction is based on gets their grubby hands on it, it becomes whatever the shit that was. Yeah. And anyway, so they've taken it down, but the author page still has it up if you want to watch it. And there actually are people on TikTok who have record screen recorded it. Not TikTok, excuse me. Um, uh, Twitter, uh, have screen recorded it and are posting it just to say, you can't erase this. But it's like it's like heated rivalry and off campus. Except they're not able to do it. Well, yeah. That's not what they do. Stop just stop doing that. Turn your licenses over.

Starting point is 01:51:03 Get in with the cool crowd. That's all you got to do. That's it. They'll never do it. Yeah, exactly. I know. It's ridiculous. And I think that is it.

Starting point is 01:51:12 But the one thing I do want to say, if you do want to check out something fun on TikTok today, check out the Utah mammoth account after they absolutely destroyed the devils with a brain rot TikTok. Because they beat the devils last night. And it did. Yes, it did include plastic knives and for jack use. Big fan. I thought that was great.

Starting point is 01:51:31 Yeah. So, yeah, I guess you can do it. Do you think Gary would have approved brain rot? Explain that to Gary Bettman and Bill Daley? I don't know. I don't think he understands a ton. And I would like them to retire. You know what?

Starting point is 01:51:44 You have to understand when you're in that position that you're not going to understand a ton. Hire people to do. That's your job. Hire the people that do. So when you say smut, Like how smutty we talk Kitsen on the lips The Steve Dangle podcast

Starting point is 01:52:02 Follow the guys on Twitter At Steve underscore Dangle At Adam W Y LDE And at Jesse Blake Connection complete

The Steve Dangle Podcast - Goalvin McKenna | October 7, 2026

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