The Steve Dangle Podcast - Good Will Bunting | February 2, 2022

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, we're recording a live show this Friday on Twitch.tv/sdpnlive !! (00:00), Andrew Berkshire joins the show to talk about Game Over: International, your daily Olympic update show, and this awful Montreal Canadiens season (04:00), the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New Jersey Devils twice (26:00), Michael Bunting vs Zach Hyman (42:00), will Josh Ho-Sang join the Leafs after the Olympics? (56:00), revisiting Josh Manson to the Leafs (59:00), and who will win the Rocket Richard trophy? (1:04:00). Originally aired: February 2, 2022, 2022 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/b9JDs5THlEE Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://manscaped.com/ CODE: Dangle https://athleticgreens.com/SDP https://betterhelp.com/SDP https://smith.ai/ CODE: SDP Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

this show is presented by manscaped sign up for 20 off manscaped.com using the code dangle the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake we're gonna bring andrew berkshire on in a minute just to talk about uh some stuff that we have plan for am i allowed to say olympics or do i say the games um the five ringed sport event okay all right first thing we want to let you know i don't know is that on friday this week friday evening what usually happens on friday evenings on the sdp and twitch channel uh i stream red dead redemption 2 that's 20 that'll be in 2025 but what about 2022 what's the usual schedule Well, our GM analyst, Jesse Blake, tries to win a Stanley Cup with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And he's still going. Because it's easier said than done. So tell me, Adam, why you're kicking me off of my stream. And you are disappointing the crab people. I'm disappointing the crab people. I'm hoping the crab people will still want to come to this party. But no, they will not come to this party. They're just saying no to this party.

so the nhl all-star skills competition happens friday and we figured why not for the first time do a live stream because steve doesn't do enough of those no uh do a live stream of the skills competition and all the new events all of us just sitting in the studio chatting so it'll be like a three hour long podcast with the skills competition you'll be able to watch on your the the broadcast room second screen you'll watch however you want and then we'll so we're gonna watch the game with you or watch the skills competition it better not be three hours yeah i think it is gonna be four is it four they gotta okay here's here's what first of all that was a burp i didn't mean that yeah you right into the mic sorry we might just edit that out all right if you want to

your burping into the mic no leave it all right it's real it's what people want real i don't know i laughed and then i don't know anyway sorry it just came out excuse me we gotta bring berkshire around but you gotta tell that date story which date oh the burp story i can tell that story i'll tell it with andrew on and he'll be like yep that sounds like you oh okay great um what were we i was saying how it shouldn't be three hours because if it starts at eight we can't be going till 11 p.m nhl get your stuff together if you're putting on a three-hour event like that okay so this is the first all-star game i can think of her skills competition whatever you want to call it where not all the events are in the same building how are they

going to execute that and have it not take an eternity yeah they have the two events one at the bellagio one on the strip how close is the is the arena to the strip i don't care how close it is there are boats involved i think they have the guys already out there yeah i don't think they're going to be in the arena and then well maybe but then they truck them over while the other events are going on are you assuming the best yeah i'm assuming that it's not going to take three hours because we're by the end of three hours we're going to be like okay this is a little much how long is machine gun kelly's last album and they have a performance in the middle or at the beginning or whatever can't wait also i think it's a 7 30 starting on eight yeah so we

will have we will have the podcast and we will have the live stream and we'll see how long it goes because boy it's gonna be fun we don't know yeah maybe maybe we'll we'll have some more carbonated drinks there yeah hey jesse do you mind turning down my headphones just a wee bit just yeah the burp was really loud yeah it was i couldn't it got right into my eardrums not yeah um i also want to let you know that the women's hockey tournament for the olympics starts tomorrow noxi and cax are going to have another episode tomorrow and obviously they're going to be covering that tournament and that brings us to this individual who i mentioned earlier i'd like to welcome on Andrew Berkshire.

Boo! Hey! How you doing? Hey! I feel like a regular at this point. Yeah, really. So, Andrew, the big plan for the games, the five-ringed games, is what?

Well, we are going to relaunch Game Over International, and this time it won't be canceled after two games. Woo! Oh, boy. Yay! Oh, God. We don't know that. famous last words yeah yeah the guy who decided to do a stream after every habs game

thinks things are gonna go great yes why would things get any better oh boy well at least they play at least there are games oh man so do they play steve do they play well they're there and the thing is with these these games is that um most of them are going to start at like midnight like how you feel about that you know i am feeling very interested in changing my sleep schedule entirely because uh this show is going to be very different than what we've been doing thus far with game over it's not going to be live right after the canadian women's game because you know why would we do a live show at like two o'clock in the morning it doesn't make much sense so this is going to be essentially focused on the hockey mostly but also talking about big moments for

canada throughout the games and we're going to go live every morning at 6 a.m so i'm going to be up all night watching olympics so that i know that what i'm talking about and not just reading things off of a sheet right i'm going to tell you what happened you know as i saw it and we're going to have on some great guests that are not going to be as insane as me but also covering the olympics and uh it's gonna be incredibly fun so that's gonna be five days a week monday through friday now i guess i can also talk about this just steve you might not even know about this i don't think the pn has come come in you know there's the sdp oh yes the pn yeah i was like jesse and i this is the only announcement i knew about and andrew uh we're excited uh because i believe can we talk

about this can we talk about the weekend shows yeah it's because andrew's gonna be doing it monday to friday but like who fills in on the weekends because andrew can't do everything so you can't do it seven days we gotta have somebody filling those extra two days can't do every damn thing all right so what are you guys signing me up for extra work 6 a.m saturday and steve you're gonna be hosting game over international on saturday no stop clapping you're not doing it remember not doing it he's your man steve's doing it saturday isn't sunday no steve's your man no why why aren't you why are you refusing this job because i'm a goddamn father i know he is too i don't care

he's got two yeah so they cancel each other out everyone knows how it works one takes care of the other yeah it's logic come on man no what's really going to happen is your friend and our friend and a friend of the world tic-tac-tomar is going to come in and he's going to be filling in now uh we're obviously we're we're going to kind of run test this so sometimes the technology or whatever is going to be it's going to be tricky so i want you to show up for omar and droves at 6 a.m on a saturday morning i love it yeah i want to see what he brings up first michael bunting or dragon ball z it'll be it's a good question i love these because it's your i want you to subscribe to it on the podcast feed or go to the youtube channel and when you

wake up you get an olympic update it's there's your olympic update everything when you were sleeping here's what happened here's what you need to know about the day and andrew's going to deliver it to you with a great guest and it's going to be a perfect wake up for the next two weeks because everybody wants to know what's going on how many medals the canada win and like you can go and you can scroll on your the score app or whatever app you use to check sports or whatever but here you get a person talking to you for 30 minutes you turn it on while you're getting ready in the morning it's gonna be so much fun so i'm very excited for this also i should mention game over international is the theme now is the is the feat to subscribe to right so not game over

montreal although you should subscribe to that too because why not if you're a leaf if you're a leaf fan or you're a fan of another team and listen to montreal lose every game what the hell it's kind of fun right yeah basket someone else's misery um but game game over international so so Andrew we got it I want to talk about about something here uh while we have you um can you talk about there was a tweet that you sent out I think it was late last week maybe even this weekend oh no and you said that you said this team being the Montreal Canadiens are a car crash yes um what are you seeing wrong it's more like a train derailing okay what are you seeing from the team now that even at the beginning of the season wasn't as bad as this uh i i think it's just

it sets in for a lot of the veteran players that there's no hope of anything and i i think that when you're this bad and even when you do play well things still go against you you know the goaltending now is like they don't have jake allen he's on injured reserve you know carrie price is possibly you know we don't even know if he's ever going to play again based on the press conference that he had so he intends to play this season but he left open the possibility that like if rehab doesn't go well on his knee that one just might be a career and that would be like incredibly sad after what he did in the playoffs last year to just be taken out of it the same essential way as shea weber right so it would be like another blow but you could tell that just by

price talking a couple of the guys on the team kind of got a little bit of energy back in them like Gallagher was all over the place in his first game back but it's just there's very few guys that are pushing it to the limit right and I think it's easy for media people to like jump on those people and be like oh they're not trying they don't deserve to wear the jersey but when you're in it I think it's very reasonable that like maybe they're only putting in 90% effort and 90% looks terrible because usually you're pushing yourself past the limit of what you think is possible trying to win in a highly competitive sport. And the only guys now that are really doing that are the guys who always do that, which is like Gallagher, Arturi Lekkonen,

Tyler Toffoli in a totally different way than those guys. But he kind of rules with his intelligence. Nick Suzuki, who at times has played 25 minutes a night at the first line center, like i was talking to a couple friends who are canadians fans and we're trying to look around the league and like how many players at 22 years old are a coach's first choice at even strength first choice in the power play first choice in the penalty kill first choice in the shootout first choice at three on three that's what nick suzuki is there's no breaks for him so like he's had a disappointing season but like the pressure is entirely on him like the guys who are actually feeling it like it's got to be the weight of a building on your back you know and then not having

the fans either they're games where they seem to apply some pressure and they score a goal and they get back in it and then there's like that dead spot so you don't have anything to get you back in the game fully and keep that momentum going and plus the goalies are letting in like four of every 10 shots so that never helps suzuki's had like a ridiculous career so far he's one of the first draft picks of an expansion team gets traded in a major trade for the captain of the Montreal Canadiens so he's the guy who has to replace him surpasses all expectations goes to the Stanley Cup final signs a ridiculous deal and is playing 25 minutes a night uh I took some heat this past week for talking about when does pride enter into it for the Habs and you sort of touched

on it uh i'm not saying they're playing without it but there are situations where a team can be bad and a team can be losing and it becomes toxic you mentioned they're not getting a single save which takes you out of the game before the puck is dropped do you think there's anything this management group could do or should do to at least get a body in front of pucks before the end of the season or do they just write it off yeah i i feel like you can't let this level keep going because i know they want the first overall pick because why would you not of course this bad but the sorry excuse me the level that they're playing at is like embarrassment level like the last team to be this bad is the 1989 90 quebec nordiques which were like unbelievably bad if you exclude

expansion teams like the atlanta thrashers san jose sharks and ottawa senators they were also this bad but that was under the old expansion rules where they got no good players that was the team that got eric lindros first overall i believe oh no that was on nolan eric lindros 91 they weren't that's right bad to get eric lindros they won 16 times in the eric lindros year the canadians are on pace for 13 wins whoa so they've got eight so far that means they have five more to go that's what they're on pace for for the remainder of the season yep and it's hockey so they can make that up in a week like they could they could theoretically yeah but it's hard to like believe that they could do that because first of all they haven't

won back-to-back games this year not once and even games where they do play well like i think the season turned from a bad season to and like a complete mess in a game against the vegas golden knights the golden knights came to montreal montreal pounded them the first period the shot count was like 26 to 2 but they only won they were only leading one nothing and in the next period it was like jake allen's first real bad game of the season he allowed like three goals and four shots and you could just see like everybody on the bench slump and it was like even when we do everything right we're not going to get it this year it's just not going to happen it's no nothing is building for us so i think that the focus needs to shift and this is partially on coaching

to building towards next year so that means like building lines that are going to stick together for next year i feel like if they're not going to sell arteriolekin and tyler to foley this year that line together with Suzuki that they're doing right now makes sense. It means leaning on the young guys, guys like Michael Pizzetta, who are kind of like the fan favorite this year because he always gives his all because he's trying to earn a spot and he's like scoring goals with his face and fighting guys a foot taller than him and getting his teeth knocked in. So he's just always out there.

Play him 10 minutes a game instead of four minutes a game. You know, just let them have some fun, look at what you have for next season and not worry so much about getting Hoffman his like 18 minutes. I mean, he's been all right lately after a stretch of flat out not caring, but you can't be so focused on trade value that you lose what you can build towards next year. Maybe that comes after the deadline and maybe Carey Price coming back at some point gives them a little bit of hope and they play better towards the end of the season. but right now as it is like they can't let this go too long because it's just too ugly and it's not fit for this level is it time for i guess fans and the organization to write off montembeau as like an nhl starter in the immediate future or even the distant future because like what he's shown this season like coming in he was never supposed to be the next carrie price but there

are expectations that he could step in as a solid backup to jake allen while price is out and it's just he's never materialized into that is it just time to be like okay this is probably an ahl starter for the next couple years yeah i mean montembeau is 25 so he i don't think they really viewed him so much as a prospect so much as a stopgap he either puts on like a blisteringly brilliant performance or like echl level and i feel bad for him because he's not exactly getting much support and caden primo's in the same boat he's just a little bit younger i think primo is the one that they have to worry about a little bit because he's not NHL ready right now and at 22 you want to see a little bit more out of him and he hasn't been able to put together like two

good starts back to back like not even like NHL level starts he's had a couple really really good games and then he follows it up by getting pulled I think he's been pulled in four out of seven starts or something like that oh my god it's not a great scene and the goalies aren't being supported frankly but they need more out of them okay i'm legitimately depressed because of this conversation so let's try covering it every game exactly right so what is your oasis in the desert like what what are your little things that you're hoping happens for this team on a nightly and weekly basis on and off the ice i think there's not much in terms of on ice product that is giving people hope right now i mean seeing some guys come back for injury is always good i think to fully coming back into

the lineup they were getting their teeth caved in by teams but they were at least like uh trying whereas before to fully was in the lineup it was just it was bleak like it was just like nick suzuki against the world everybody else was phoning it in and it was brutal but to fully kind of gave them a little bit more jump so they have like a little bit more offense not good offense but something right not scoring one goal every game and you know Gallagher coming back gives him a little bit of jump I want to see Paul Byron play because he missed half the season with hip surgery after playing through that for multiple years apparently where he was just in terrible pain the entire time so that's interesting and I mean I want to see Carey Price play just

because i'm a fan of carrie price i have been since he won gold with canada you know he's one of the best goaltenders of his generation right up there with henrik lungfist his prime was cut short more due to injuries than lungfist was but at his peak he's a game-changing player i mean you want to see trades coming close to the trade deadline i think what i'm focused on in covering them right now is like after the trade deadline for game over montreal i'm going to shift pretty hard into bringing on scouts like amateur scouts and talk about the draft uh we're going to talk about the trade deadline coming up soon we might have a sdpn level insider coming on the show soon to break down the canadians roster and who might move

but for the most part i think the focus is in the front office what is kent hughes and what is jeff gorton going to do to change things up are they going to hire a modern robust front office create a research and development staff, create a development staff, because frankly, the Canadians have less than half of the front office and development and research employees that they should have. They have the money to roll this out. They don't have the excuse to be hesitant about it anymore. Spend a fourth liner's money on a research and development program, essentially, and you'll be spending, yeah, maybe $2 million a year on it. And he'll be saving $20 million every couple of years on bad contracts.

I think, you know, one of the best things you could say about Jeff Gordon, if you're a Habs fan, is, you know, he inherited this Hall of Fame goalie and knew that the future of the franchise depended on his ability to replace them. And he's not there anymore, but look who the Rangers have in net. This is true. A guy you have back in up to the Hart Trophy. Yeah. Yeah.

yeah like he's he's man that guy's a real deal uh earlier in the season me and rangers fans had it out because he made a wild amount of saves against the leafs but i didn't feel like the leafs challenged him uh apparently he's had i don't know two three dozen of those games where he's just a vesna caliber goalie uh easier said than done but it's not like he picked him first overall with the rangers maybe you start there i mean the last time that jeff gordon took over a team before the rangers he went out and got another business caliber goaltender right away and took a rest oh no just by the way this is day two twenty thousand and one since the leafs won the cup oh good andrew was the first guy to let us know that uh yesterday was day twenty thousand

via text nice of them thanks for that appreciate it you're welcome i didn't get any tweets about it so it was good yeah join my misery i i saw like after i mentioned that on twitter somebody responded who was the least fan i was like the nice thing about being a least fan is i see this and i'm like thought it'd be longer oh yeah like it's just like it's synonyms yeah like i know they're bad like how bad here's another way they're bad like it's you can give me the amount of years you can give me the amount of days throw in some months how many seconds be be sure to check out game over international with andrew berkshire and on the weekends another round of applause we're very excited to have omar on board with this uh julian mckenzie

is going to be handling game over montreal um on the weekends when andrew is taking a much deserved break but andrew is a maniac and is doing game over montreal and game over international on same days on the weekdays on the weekdays yeah julian's feeling oh you're feeling the weekdays you're doing weekend yeah julian's doing weekends because the weekend games are all in the afternoon in february yeah oh yeah yeah so andrew andrew's doing both during the week so during the week you're gonna so i think there's two games during the week where you're gonna do the game over and then game over international that's crazy it'll be game over in the evening and then i'll be up all night watching olympics and then game over international in the morning then i'll take the

kids to daycare and go to sleep go to bed have you considered you're out of your mind before i get any shitty comments because whatever reason i get blamed for this um i asked andrew if that's what he wanted to do why are you forcing him no he he said that answer the question proposed this and then i said are you sure that seems like a lot and he said i got it right andrew is that kind of yes yes that is 100 true and i the way it is is like we talked about how we were going do this show right and like it makes sense to do 6am so people have it on the morning commute they can wake up they can get the recap either live or on youtube while they're eating their cereal or on a podcast in the car on the way it's a wonderful format yeah it's awesome yeah but in

order to do it that early i have to actually know what i'm talking about right so i've got to watch the actual olympics which happened in the middle of the night because it's happening in beijing so it just makes sense for me to switch it and like the fact is outside of the weekends which which are going to be kind of tough on my wife. I'll probably sleep less on the weekend during the day. I'll just be sleeping while the kids are at daycare. So it's not going to disrupt things too much, except for like the first few days,

I'll probably be loopy, but I'll caffeinate myself and figure it out. And for those who, when I got COVID over the holidays, for some reason, everyone decided that Adam was forcing me to continue doing game over Montreal, despite the fact that I was sick.

And Adam was the first person was like, you want to have somebody else come in you want us to just not do the shows and i was like i'm bored out of my mind isolated in my basement i'm not that sick i'll just do it and everyone was like how dare adam wilde i'm literally like uh the like the one of the bad guys in superman what's the what's the guy's name the bald guy who's always like lex luther lex luther i'm literally lex luther i feel like it's i i'm like i don't know where this came from but anyway andrew You did a killer job. I don't remember Lex Luthor being that exploitive.

Just the head of a girl mustache so he can twirl it. I like that. Andrew, do you have a guest for tomorrow? Yes, they're currently tied to the train tracks. Adam Wilde. Who's coming on tomorrow? I am in the midst of scheduling a lot right now. Tomorrow so far, one guest.

There may be two. We're waiting to hear back. but jared book from habs eyes in the prize and he's an expert and veteran of covering women's hockey is going to come on because i honestly i want to get as many people who know women's hockey the best way better than me on because i want to focus on that and frankly i just don't have the peak knowledge of that sport and those players that i would like to to like cover it all on my own so jared has that he's going to bring that tomorrow morning he's going to come on a couple more times as well and we also have uh liz knox coming on hey oh bring the knowledge

that's so great well listen andrew you're about to embark on quite the journey uh enjoy the rest of your month because it's going to blow by um but we'll be watching and uh i can't wait to hear the recaps every single morning when i'm because i'll i'll be going to work by uh earlier than you'll be recording but when i come home we'll be watching them every night so thank you so much man and and uh keep kicking ass man it could not been could not have been a worst half season to start a game over and yet andrew has jumped over every hoop and it's a success anyway so uh thank you andrew it's my pleasure thanks for doing this guys i'm excited to do it i'm once again excited not to jinx it to cover some sports that yeah yeah where they might win yeah was that prepared

statement good enough for you adam well we'll talk about it later oh okay oh boy you know you can put down the gun now good luck bro thanks andrew thanks talk to you guys soon take care buddy two and five canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar raised matters on september 19th join thousands in toronto for the princess margaret cancer foundation walk challenge yourself friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. until December 31st.

You gotta try breakfast at A&W at participating A&W locations in Ontario. So I'll also mention Jonathan Huberto joining me on Agent Provocateur with Alan Walsh. We're recording that next, so

it'll be out tomorrow, likely. Okay, okay, okay. Who is that? First star of the week. NHL All-Star, likely Olympian, had the NHL gone. Oh. Yeah. No, definitely. Doug Armstrong said. That's right. Doug Armstrong everybody's an Olympian

oh for sure now that okay so listen if we'd done this podcast after game one of the home and home with New Jersey

I feel like the conversation would have gone a lot different but the two games back to back put a lot of stuff in context and I think you know

what we saw the first night was Jack Campbell just not playing up to Jack Campbell's standard it was really like a four or five game skid and he was due

he was putting up outrageous numbers fine And the team was very bad. Very bad in front of them. In front of them, yeah. But what I saw, the good stuff from Monday night carried over to Tuesday night. And what we saw on Tuesday night was the stuff I think we all want and expect the Leafs to be.

Strong goalie. Chris Pratt passing. Great structure. Chris Pratt. Chris Pratt. What? No, Chris passes. The Devils signed him.

They're desperate. They need a goalie. They need someone to make some saves. Chris Pratt would never sign with a team that has the name of the Devils. That's true. right he loves jesus he sure does more than you more than anyone uh raptors strong goalie crisp passes great structure to the game and really like a dominant offense and i mean obviously i know matthews uh had a hat trick in the first game right and that was that was amazing but it felt

like in the second game it was it was the bunting marner matthew show and nobody else that was bullying that was oh well the first line was so good it sort of distracted from the fact that no one else really had to do anything well david conf was just left alone to play shinny and i think it was was it ray ferraro that was like that's a that's a that's a shot in practice that's a shot in practice that he got like dude nobody's there that was um that was the moment i think all devils fans should have slammed both feet on the panic button because the second goal goes in and it's Matthews shooting gallery and you could chalk that up to yeah well it's Matthews and Marner and then less than a minute later Mikheyev and Kampf play the role of Matthews and Marner and

score a near identical goal and you go oh maybe we're just shit and uh man uh we haven't had a lot of home and homes over the last couple years but i feel like you learn a lot from them and the more i started leaning towards embracing the fact that these games are going to be a little silly until after the all-star break let's just watch the games and have some fun and see what we get out of it they're going to be like early season games where there's not nearly as much structure and you're just faced with the skill both teams have what we found is the leafs grossly outmatched the new jersey devils the death link devils aren't a good team no they're too young they're too inexperienced there's not enough structure there no mckenzie blackwood with the heel problem

right they don't they don't have any real game breakers you're not looking at hughes that way suban's not that player anymore hamilton's not in the lineup hasn't been for 12 games and if you're looking for places for the least to be like okay what can we learn from this we know everyone who played great is great but where was willie and tavarez yeah they weren't really factors where were they in the two games it's and it's not the puck not going in it's they weren't factors no right and by the way with the devils like did do we put any of that at schmid or gilly's feet no no no you can't like blackwood and bernier are good goalies and they missed them but like yeah that's that the effort dude i texted someone i was like man i wanted damon severson on the

leafs 30 hours ago and now the entire fan base is like i think i think the problem with damon severson is that yes he is jake gardner the second coming and right-handed and right-handed and and and you know jake gardner in a strong lineup with a lot of structure thrives because he's a guy that goes a little bit goofy sometimes damon severson same sort of thing no structure to that lineup nothing right well and you don't learn things from guys who are playing on really bad teams like it's hard it's hard to like individual efforts it's hard to know what a player is when he's playing way out of his depth and there's no real support around him of other really good players yeah damon severson looked bad because the other four guys in the ice were also really

out of place like i felt bad for him because people were like tweeting like please don't trade for him david severson's numbers underlying have been good for like four or five years it's just that that team that he is playing on currently is deflated dejected and injured yeah it's it's just not a good team ray ferraro between the benches is absolutely fantastic he's amazing the one thing he said last night where i was like you're picking on him now is uh the goal it was the fourth of the fifth one where severson was fiddling with his visor because it got mushed down into his face yeah he was fiddling with it but i didn't think it was his fault the the goal i didn't went in yeah his man wasn't really the threat there right and or the the

reason that it went in yeah i mean it was a great illustration of look add this to the list of things that went wrong for them but i i don't know i thought it was a bit of a pile on you know i wanted to there's not too much that you can deduce from a team that's as low down right now as the devils are versus a team that is as high up at the leafs are like at the all-star break Like the Leafs are on pace for like 117 points, right? They're fourth in points percentage and based on points, they're third in the division. Yeah. Yeah, because they've got the two best teams in the league in the division, right?

And Boston. But I think the Leafs could set a record for points this year by over 10. We know that, which is amazing. The most they've ever had in a year. Franchise record. Yeah, franchise record. Most they've ever had in a year is 105. Which was two years ago.

The last full season is when they set that record. And we were all like, oh, it's that low? Like, Pippa's had 105 like eight times in the last decade. They might have beaten him last year. I want to say this. The thing I keep seeing from the Leafs, or I kept seeing from the Leafs that I felt like I was seeing, but I'm sure the numbers will tell me I'm wrong, is that when the Leafs were supposed to win games, a lot of the times they were just squeaking by.

And I've seen this, not just this season, but there's been previous years where you're like, the Leafs are playing down to their opponent. We know they're better than this. It's a common criticism. And it was nice to see a team that is supposed to steamroll another team steamroll the other team. But outside of the first two periods of game one, like the first two periods, they look terrible. Yeah. I'm speaking specifically about last night.

They didn't wake up until the third. The third period was embarrassing because of how bad the Devils played. See them in that third period? It was terrible. But the first two, I was like, who is this team that looks worse than the Devils? yeah they just scored on 47 seconds into the home and home it wasn't good no uh everyone's like oh here we go again with campbell i'm like what the no one was there right it wasn't jack hippel nobody was there um but like i don't know to me it feels like the same conversation we're having

over and over again they they have the skill to get themselves out of these problems but the funny thing is uh for the first part of the season the first half um they've been so skilled that they've never really run into that problem where they had to claw back. Here's the best news, the best news we can take from the home and home and from the last couple weeks. Marner is a goddamn dog.

Oh my God. Marner's been great. Unbelievable. Who pissed in his cornflakes? Might have been us. It might have been. I'm glad. Yeah, great.

Great. Great. It's great. Wow. It's not just that the puck's going in, the seven game goal streak he got two last night and the second one is at the speed of smell how did that go i watched the replay and natalie was like i still don't know how that went in i still didn't see the shot matthews completely took away schmied's eyes he didn't he didn't see

it there was a moment in game one in the third period i think it was when they were when they were just rolling and they were on the penalty kill and hall hall had a pass where he sent it up the ice just to ice the puck and marner was exiting the zone and he was pissed off because hall didn't feed him the puck he's like i can go i have a break here and i can go up the ice and score this shorthand marner's looking to score and it's beautiful to see and i love everything i've seen out of him the last couple weeks the entire penalty kill dude oh yeah yeah he's looking to score david kampf is out there like fucking trying to win the rocket every penalty yeah uh him mckay of kerfoot the the leafs forwards uh on the penalty kill have been

amazing and on this home and home against the devils i don't have the numbers in front of me but did the leafs penalty kill out shoot the devil's power play i wouldn't be shocked i wouldn't be shot uh if it wasn't shots on goal it was perhaps coursey because the devils devils are like having to scramble back and block them because they were animals just dogs and marner oh my god what is he at 12 points in six games or something since coming back it's like 16 and seven or something yeah seven like seven goal yeah and that's the shocking part and you know it's funny steve you were talking about this on twitter the other day yes i was steve he's just he's like there's no reason why mitch martyr can't get 30 goals and people got on you about that

yeah like they're acting like he hops over the board with a pool noodle and it's just not the case um you know it's i've i've i've said this perhaps uh with some naivety uh over the time that we've had this podcast but i watch professional athletes who are able to do things that we can't and mitch marner doesn't take one-timers and i'm watching him and i'm like but why his body can do it why doesn't he do it and it's like matthews man he scored 40 as a rookie i were any of them snapshots i think they're all that sneaky drag shot that he used to do all the time oh just and he figured out okay i got to sort of diversify you know my tool belt here and marner has done the same as of late um so adding that slap shot makes him a more dangerous player

on the power play and adding a little bit of here the fuck i come uh to his five on five play makes that line so formidable that um you know the the the conversation after the game is huh you know willie and tavaris they're slumping i i didn't look at it as that dire i just remember there was a uh point last night where i go oh they're here but that is what that's what offensive depth looks like one night one line's going the other night the other line's going yeah you know who uh also i think we're reading way too much into it because that game was a carnival because uh who which leaves forward led all the forwards in ice time last night jt no it wasn't jt uh michael bunting no it wasn't michael bunting i don't know it was uh at like 18 minutes and 20 seconds it was

david camp really yeah because they had the lead right from like when did spezza score 220 into the game the fourth line engvall looking like gretzky behind the nets like guys guys it eat your eat your candy and shut up like that there was a that was a it was a stupid win at a stupid time in the stupid season and uh i enjoyed every moment of it david camp has 14 points in 42 games this year last year in 56 he had 12 one of those were goals he's got five already this year by the way this is the highest shooting percentage he had his shooting percentage last year was 1.6 percent it is now 10 percent david camp has more has more goals this season against the blackhawks than he had last year for them wow there you go now there's a couple what's the number what's that

number two i want to ask you i want to ask you if it was a significant number a couple players i want to talk to you about a couple players i want to talk to you about jason spezza being number one now jason had a great year last year um you know he he had i think i'm just looking up the points right now 30 points in 54 games that's so dumb 10 goals 20 assists it's it's so round 10 20 30 this year 15 points in 38 maybe not at the exact same pace but we have to remember how close this person is to 40 oh yeah when that fourth line gets out there engvall who scored a few in the last couple of games wayne simmons who is playing a wayne simmons role and spezza who is a legitimate threat every time he hits the ice which is wild to say because it looked like um i mean they it

would look like his last season in dallas he was why underratedly first of all yes but underratedly simmons like decided hey i'm skills guy now like i'm just i mean he was at one point in his career but he just decided i'm bringing that back and the amount of ridiculous plays he has made that haven't quite gone in the net it's it's interesting the fourth line was so so good for the first 30 games or so they had a bit of a lull when they were trying to figure out what they are and now engvall has buried nick ritchie beneath the earth's crust yeah like that yeah he's not coming back unless someone gets hurt he's never coming back uh because engvall's been so good i i was i was talking to drew about it um producer drew angvall is he's fascinating he's six five

like 215 220 one of the fastest guys on the team he can rip it and why doesn't he put up at least 50 points a season because he's not a great decision maker he tons he takes a ton of penalties he doesn't have the coach's trust uh and lately he's just put it together he's just really put it together almost like he looked like he was before the extension was signed yeah like he was scoring a half a point a game and when he signed that extension i'm like kyle dubas genius two years like we were talking about i was talking about that contract like the bunting one i was like andy got the second year and then he disappeared and also the cap stayed flat forever yeah so you know things changed but uh like up this is why we keep talking about the deadline

and oh the Leafs are in on this guy what if they get Claude Giroux I don't give a shit they're fine up front they're fine they're so ridiculously deep it's just in front of the net tidy that up and now you're a contender they looked okay without Muzzin last two games but I don't know how much you take away from it considering their competition but defense looked all right i wonder how much of that is sandin settling into a role a little bit because he's been sort of pinged around the lineup and also like kind of underratedly justin hall is kind of playing his best hockey yeah justin hall's been really good really good yeah um lilligrant after a few real bad games he looked great last night flying great and dermot has

struggled uh with the flip-flopping between the right side and the left side and that's hard It is hard. And he looked like he found his niche on the right. He's back on the left where he struggled and he's played fine. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. You've got to try breakfast at A&W. You've got to try breakfast at A&W. And what better way than with a delicious Pret Organic Coffee? Starting with just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast at A&W. At participating A&W locations in Ontario. The other guy I wanted to bring up specifically, and I want to know what you guys think about this, is Michael Bunting.

Now, we're starting to have conversations. Scarborough God. Starting to have conversations about Michael Bunting, and people are asking this. this might be outlandish, but I want to ask the question and I want to fucking dare is Michael Bunting currently a better fit on that line than Zach Hyman would have been currently contract out of it. That's not what I thought you were,

where you were going. I thought you were going to say, should the leaf sell high? And I was going to kick you. I was going to, no, no, they got to win the cup.

Yes. Yeah, no, no, thank you. No, I don't know who, who,

who said that? I don't know. I've just heard it. I've heard it before. Like, Oh, the, when McCabe had like that 20 goal season,

people were like they should sell high on brian mccabe i'm like they're talking about him for the norris trophy you can't no you build around someone like that michael i understand the logic but you have to think with a soul it's not no it wasn't the question sorry sorry sorry i was pre-arguing you made up you made up your own question and then got mad about it and then asked himself i fucking dare you what i how could you say that first you asked berkshire to work when he has covid then you're telling them to work 30 hour days and now you want to trade michael bunting okay so jesse i'm gonna go to you the question is zach hyman being the player zach hyman is michael bunting being the player

michael bunting is age age differences included contract differences not ah is michael bunting a better fit with martyr and matthews than zach hyman would have been this year bunting is a he adds a different element to the line because he's a threat to score and you never looked at zach hyman in the same way as oh he can get a hat trick on a saturday night oh i disagree oh i 100 don't think anybody thought okay it's it's marner it's matthews and it's hyman and you know what hyman's gonna have that hat trick on saturday but bunting adds that element you thought bunting was gonna get a hat trick i didn't think so but he i now that i know what kind of player he is after watching him for half a season i'm like there's a threat to score on that line in

addition to matthews and marner and the the if whichever one you want to go with if you want hyman on that line or you had bunting or you want bunting on that line those are they're different players they're not they're not the same right they're not the same third option to those two guys they're they're bringing something different to the table so it depends on what kind of hockey you want to play with that line that line's going to be if you're if they're an overall in nhl 22 because as a gm that's how i look at things if that line is a is a 95 combined with each of those guys i think they'd be at the same level but they would bring different roles to each what role do you like better oh gosh right now considering how the montreal series played

out in the playoffs that's my reference point for everything at least right now because until they get to the playoffs uh none of this ever matters i like having michael bunting there i like adding an extra element of scoring just in case the guys who we expect to get it done on the score sheet don't get it done i think by the way they are scoring this year at about the same pace bunting's paid about seven more games than hyman so it's not a total comparison right but 29 points 25 points but those i think i just i think hyman with mcdavid is a different role than hyman with matthews and marner yes so hyman has had it's sort of a developmental thing hyman for his entire career uh professionally has had to be a babysitter basically and uh you know babcock

is like all right you're gonna babysit uh matthews and nylander and he's like i'm a rookie too but okay and like so i'll try to figure it out and basically every line he's been on he's sort of filled the role of defensive specialist or the guy who has to be the most defensively responsible bunting has the least defensive responsibility on that line now um they're they're forcing you know matthews this this after this offseason has turned into a defensive force like his two-way game as a center is unbelievable and that's why it's a completely different game with uh bunting as opposed to hyman because hyman handled a lot of that for him and and mitch too and uh hyman is stronger he's more brute force he's probably stronger in front of the net which i think is

going to piss some leaf fans off but like i've i've seen the duty jack um but bunting plays the game with more aggressiveness and violence he's more annoying to deal with uh hyman can defend himself uh bunting is an asshole and there's a huge difference there's a huge difference there's an element of fuck you uh that bunting brings that the Leafs sorely need I'm not saying that to take anything away from Hyman but um it's completely changed the structure of that line I know that Jesse people are going to get on you a little bit for saying well Zach hyman scored over 20 goals and you know blah blah blah it took a while and i people forget it took a while for zach hyman to develop that scoring touch yeah and while he had his especially his

last two three seasons you know he had two 21 goal seasons uh it started to kind of pick up i'm with you i think there's more of a finish in bunting's game i think that's that's fair to say and i hyman finally started to get his power play cooked too yeah they didn't they didn't give him any that's true yeah how many of those are five on five goals with the line we're talking about Isn't that the instance we're talking about 5-on-5 when the first line is running? Yeah, Bunting doesn't have time. Bunting's not running on the power play, getting extra cookies.

Hyman had three power play goals two years ago, three last year, and three this year, and before that, zero. So his power play points were 6, 5, and 5. He's only got 16 career power play points. Yep. I'm surprised. Bunting, I just thought, you know,

I do see a different element to what... Matthews and Marner do with bunting out there? It just seems a bit more, a bit quicker. Does that make any sense? Oh, it's way quicker. They're also better players.

Like, maybe high- Oh, Matthews and Marner are also better players from when they were together last year, you know? It is amazing, you know. There's this kid who, kid, he's 24,

who'd played 26 NHL games. 26 games. Bunting. He's now played 42, so he doubled that this year. And I- i i have to give enormous credit to kyle dubas for finding that yep like and signing him to a two-year deal and you know there's been i there's been times to criticize kyle dubas and we've taken

them i think on this one you look at what he's done with comp kasha and bunting un-flippin believable signings all of them yeah super important people pointing out richie yeah the deal hasn't been good people pointing out marazic the guy's been hurt um and i don't even think he's played that bad when he was playing no nothing but to replace to replace not just zach hyman as an idea or sorry as a player but as an idea um to i i had never heard of david camp in my entire life and they signed him for over a million dollars yeah we were like and i was like this is going to be a goddamn disaster and they bring in andre kasha i'm like cool he's gonna play eight games and they bring in bunting and i'm like his shooting percentage

is going to tank and there was remember there was a moment this season where they put him on the fourth line and i was like oh boy this this this is not gonna go well and the oilers have won 20 of their last 15 games to start the season yeah and uh we're gonna he's he's gonna look really bad and bunting kasha camp like what a ridiculous trio of signings up front uh michael bunding shooting percentage last year is 26.3 percent now if you're kyle dubas and you look at that and go even if that regresses in half that's still a 20 or 30 goal guy right now he's he's shooting 14 this year really i thought you were gonna say it went up which is a career low because his first season in arizona he scored in he scored one goal and he played five games

so he had a 20 and last year's 26 love it this is you know it's just i have to say credit where to do it's amazing it really is on forward yeah to me this is my favorite especially in the last 20 games my favorite forward group I've ever seen with the Toronto Maple Leafs ever I'm talking about JBR I'm talking about Bozak I'm talking about Kadri I'm talking this group and I have a lot more confident with confidence with David Kampf on the ice and I think I think people given the season that Nazem Kadri's had and given that we're Leaf fans that we're always lustful for the past the past which is always horrific I don't

know why we're doing this to ourselves Nazem Qadri's had an unbelievable year he's gonna he's on pace for 120 points it's insane that doesn't mean that David Komp is not a

really good fit for that role and I think I don't think anybody's criticizing David Komp but I think everybody's like well man if we still had Qadri I think we need to look at the

options that we have with David Komp what is the Qadri Komp comparison yeah like when it's not a comparison but it's more like oh if we only had him on the third line

we'd be that much better yeah but like When do we let that go? I think it's time. That's what I'm trying to say. All right. Yeah. It's done.

Listen, guys. I'm happy for not. They lost the trade. They did. Move on. Yeah. Mason Marchman, too. Oh, yeah.

You all fucking called it. Oh, Mason Marchman was not. I don't think Mason Marchman was getting a shot on the Leafs. They were not a shot. Not a hope in hell. He got an assist against the Jets, and we were all like, more than I expected. Cool. Also, they lost the Qadri trade in a vacuum, but Qadri couldn't come back with the team

after he kept getting suspended. yeah like it was a locker room move as much as it was an on ice move he just couldn't it was if you look at the whole circumstance the trade needs to happen it's okay dubious as a gm can't let that happen right and i think i think the other thing is the um imagine the shitty oh yeah thousand percent and listen i love nos we've said we've said that before but i think i think this forward group is my favorite one it's my favorite favorite so we're all taking bunting over hyman uh i won't let my mouth say that i just really like bunting that i like i like hyman too much to disparage if we take the oh no we're not disparaging him just not everything is life

and death people why are you disparaging him so this is just about a hockey line i need to know jesse you touched on something great there why can't we like both but but enjoy one more than the other currently why can't i say hey i like what i'm watching with my eyes and i see bunting score a couple goals and i like that more than what hyman brought it's 2022 and you got you put your stamp on everything forever and that's how it works why do you hate zach hyman do you hate zach i do not i think zach hyman's a good human being i think he's a credible player he's he was heart and soul for the leafs last year yeah i also think that by him leaving the least forward group had to grow i think they left yeah i think they left a lot on his shoulders and said zach

will take care of it and then once zach was gone it was like well i guess we better take care of it i've seen more growth in the marner matthews kneelander group because i think tavaris was already kind of past that part this year as proportional to this previous season than any year before and i mean that in the best way it wasn't like again it's not like they were bad last year so don't take me the wrong way but this group if i see if i if i were to talk about austin matthews game it's spectacular it's amazing but it's mature defensively jesse pointed it out earlier you saw him do you remember when the when new jersey's two-man advantage ended yesterday one of their two-man advantage the first or sorry the first two-man advantage ended and one of their

players zoomed out of the box almost got the breakaway and matthews was the guy back covering Matthews was the guy that broke that up. Stopped him before the blue line even hit. It's amazing. You mean like little things on the face-off? Like Matthews is so good at the face-off this year. Yes, and he was like a 42% his first year. Him and Tavares and Kampf and Spezza,

they were number one in the league last I checked. Unbelievable. Like the forward group does a staggering amount of stuff. And I think it's, you know, credit to Kyle Dubas. I keep looking at Ricard Raquel and thinking, I wonder if he's not the next Andre Kasha on the Leafs. yeah my concern i i my concern is the conversation we just had and how great that forward group is and someone's not wanting to tinker with it someone's gonna leave yeah they're gonna leave

at some point no i mean mid-season oh no i wasn't talking about now i'm talking about in the off season oh yeah like i mean man we we talk about the sort of golden handcuffs he's given himself but with these contracts and also god gave him with you know yeah the cap staying flat and everything keep bringing up god and blaming him for stuff i'm sorry um but uh god he knocked it out of the park uh with a few of them yeah um uh i also uh want to quickly ask you guys with josh hosang going to the olympics awesome awesome and he's going to have i mean he's had a really good season with the marlies and and the ahl is a lower scoring league so when you have somebody that's got 20 points at 30 games which i think josh hosang does it's pretty good um he has said

that uh he i love this uh this is from terry koshan from the toronto sun one of the things that's really helped me in the toronto organization is i feel heard there my opinion seems like it matters and it inspires me to do a lot better on the ice because i feel like i have a stake in what's going on he also talked about in in some interviews that he was too focused on himself and on the future and being successful immediately to focus on the present and delivering and developing so he's got an ahl only contract when he comes back he's going to get the showcase of the olympics and you know people are going to be watching he's going to have a contract offer from at least a few NHL teams? Yes. Do you

think the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Josh Hosang as depth going into the playoffs because he's got the tools to do it? Man, here's the thing. They sign him. Don't they still risk losing him to waivers? Not re-entry. Would he? I'm not sure how that works.

Yeah, does he have to clear waivers to become an NHLer? I think he does. That is insanely stupid that anything like that has to happen. I don't understand it because um... Like, waivers are there to give players an NHL opportunity and basically get players into the NHL and making NHL money.

Sure, as many as possible. That's what it's there for. But I think back to a few years ago when Evgeny Nabokov signed a contract with, I think it was Detroit, and the Islanders were like, you're an Islander now. And he was like, I don't want to be an Islander. Yeah, who does that help? If he wanted to be one, he would have signed with them.

what i just signed a contract with the team i play zero games for them and i'm not on their team the next day who does this help who does this help how does that make any sense other than i guess you could make the argument that like large market teams can afford more of those contracts or or they can they have my more more influence yes so here's what hopefully happens selfishly if you're a Leafs fan yeah is Josh Hosang is being compensated well enough at the AHL level that he won't want to sign an NHL deal until the offseason when the Leafs can just outright sign him there's no waivers required and if he makes the team out of camp he makes the team out of camp and if he doesn't he goes on waivers but that's what waivers

are four he thought he was getting an nhl opportunity and now he's not so you go on waivers so that you can get another nhl opportunity forget the lease let's say he signs a deal with the san jose sharks and the philadelphia flyers come in and claim him you i signed with the sharks i wanted to be a shark or you sign with the team that you expect is going to the playoffs and then another team says yoink will take you and you get to lose the rest of the way yeah tell you what let's go sabers i know you thought you were going to a contender but how about let's go sabers here's let me introduce you to alex tuck and tage thompson four other dudes like yeah it's i if that is the case i don't actually know it's the case it's it's very

bizarre but it doesn't help anybody but it's a great story all the same exactly we're losing sight of that it's uh awesome for him there was a scary moment where it looked like he wouldn't be going to the olympics because he got a concussion um in the ahl but he's he's had a great season um and a couple of things from 30 32 thoughts the blog especially coming around trade deadline cj and elliot friedman's feeds are like i have them sent directly to my phone number four on this one uh after mentioning toronto's interest in josh manson one exec joked with me the leafs have been interested in him in him since punch him lack was gm and anaheim will have many options there now i have heard from some duck fan ducks fans were like

i'm not really sure why you guys want josh manson so bad his underlying numbers aren't great that's what they said i haven't actually even checked that i mean remember when uh wasn't it eric francis was like yeah tj brody's got a bit of that jake gardner and he doesn't uh no no he doesn't it's no so uh and like i i did see someone else talk about yeah he doesn't have the greatest underlying numbers but he is tough and i'm like cool great good sounds good i'll have that they need an asshole they need an asshole they have guys who can move the puck it's fine even people talk about jake muzzin like he's never made a pass in his entire life like guys the leafs can move the puck. They're fine. Get an

asshole. We miss Zach Bogosian. We do miss Zach Bogosian. But we need Bogosian was Squirtle and we need at least War Tortle. Fair. Right? Squirtle on the third pair. A Blastoise would be nice but I don't know if that's going to be possible. Blastoise would be nice but it

costs a lot. They do. Right? So you need War Tortle there at, you know, evolves level 16 if I remember correctly. Josh Manson can be our War Tortle. Okay, done. Jeff Merrick also mentioned, and Elliot made mention of this, Owen Tippett and Frank Vetrano could be traded out of Florida

because their forward lineup is so deep they can't fit them. Like, do you just weep openly deep bitter tears if you're a forward traded out of Florida right now? Everything turns to gold. Yeah. It's stunning. I mean, listen, everything they've had since 1996 has turned to dust. So they're due.

Right. yeah this is uh like regression against time this is uh it's if someone on the panthers were to get injured and they signed someone out of the echl um and just threw him into the top six you can be pretty confident that dude's gonna have 60 points like the that's the old mark donkin buzz flibbet joke from actin a fool i'm in with the penguins no no this is like mecca dunk and uber flibbet like they're monsters mason marchman i know it's six points in one night by the way everyone was talking about mason marchman versus dennis malgan and i was wondering when i was going to see a leaf fan compare mason marchman stats to nick ritchie stats because marchman had

six points in one night richie has nine points on the season hmm where is nick richie right now chilling popcorn he's just like off the roster right no he's he's on the roster i think he travels with her to the extras oh he does travel yeah okay it's good to know that like if somebody goes down like anybody on that fourth line i could see moving up in the lineup sure more more More Spezza and Engvall than Simmons, but I can see it. And if the two guys stepping in are Ritchie and Clifford, I don't hate it. That's okay. Yeah.

Again, don't tinker with the damn thing. But there was a time where we would have looked at the Leafs have an open slot, fourth line, left wing. Oh, man, it'd be great if we could get Nick Ritchie for that. And Mason Marchment would be, we have Nick Ritchie at home. And now the roles have reversed. Right. Nick Ritchie is, we have Mason Marchment at home.

which is wild I want to talk about the NHL scoring race do you guys know who is in the lead? most goals Chris Kreider how many? 34 37 games played

33 goals toward pace following that Leon Dreisaitl in 41 games has 31 goals Ovechkin in 46 has 29 and Matthews at number 4 39-29

so he's uh coming up the rear right oh matthews yeah well because he's i think he went six games without scoring or five games without scoring and chew and there he is so uh uh uh hey shay on uh on twitter uh wrote an article today about chris crider's pace and how yes it's not sustainable because it's if he if the pace keeps up he'll score 58 goals this year he can i can see chris crider finishing with like near 50 i can too the way he's scoring it's wild because like i don't even think he's the best goal scorer on the rangers like oh no no i don't think so i would i'd probably sit at zabana jad and panarin being the best playmaker but cryder's an animal right now it's insane too because at number five is alex de brin cat and his numbers are so similar

to cryder right all goals no assists right yeah they're all front of the net goals where they're just banging and crashing them in yeah yeah and i i'm just playoff stuff with matthews who is the reigning rocket richard trophy winner you know i felt like what we saw in game one versus new jersey was him going okay we're gonna win this game now yeah all right well that was fun yeah like and i said i remember saying uh out loud i'm like we are like an austin matthews slap shot away from being four three here oh yeah and it's just he it's just seemed so automatic so my question to you is of the four i just named and remember austin matthews has played the fewest games of anybody ovechkin matthews dry sidle crider who wins the rocket richard the way too

early prediction steve jesse i got dry sidle yeah dry sidle ovechkin matthews dry sidle crider maybe i should pick ovechkin i'm gonna take ovechkin oilers are so hot and cold but when they're hot they get 12 goals in two games insane amounts of points oh man oh man and like what are the Leafs going to do better

they're fourth right oh Ovi give us one more give us one more old man yeah I'm going to take Ovechkin because that's what I'm rooting for just for the sake that he's like

30 million years old no I want Matthews to hit 75 but continue the greatest goal scorer of all time but I want to keep I want to see him keep doing it man I the other day uh in like one of my memories an article came up that I wrote about Ovechkin and like how great he was historically it's from like 2015 I remember when you were one of the first people to talk to me about hey maybe he beats Gretzky's record well I was looking at and i'm like uh like okay he's got to keep it going for a while but like we were talking about he's got a legitimate shot at beating gretzky if by like this age and last year he slows down

to like 30 a season he's got 29 now in 46 so he's been on pace to pass gretzky but that's only if he keeps up the pace and magically he's done that it's unbelievable he's on pace to bury gretzky Yeah, I think he's on pace for another 55 goals this year. Matthews is somewhere close to 60. Kreider's like 58. Dry Saddle would be somewhere in the neighborhood of Matthews. I think, to me, it's going to come down to the way it's going because you got to remember Dry Saddle and Matthews

have played six or seven games less than the other guys. It's going to come down to those two. February is going to be big. And if I'm going to give it to anybody on this one, I'm going to give it to Matthews, and I'll tell you why. The Leafs are just a more consistent team. And I think that's why I think he's going to get it. I think that the support system around Austin Matthews,

not that he doesn't deserve it, he's an unbelievable goal scorer. I think Leon Dreisaitl is going to win points. He's going to be the point leader again. I know Hubert O's ahead right now, so nobody tell Alan I said that. But I think Austin Matthews is the Rocket Richard Trophy winner again. And he's also, remember, it's Mitch Marner setting him up.

God, they're good. They are good. They're so good. Well, and also the Oilers, i mean isn't the whole thing with them they want to spread it out that's what they're trying to do i don't know if that's possible like how are you going to spread it out when you've got those two you got kane now by not playing them together yeah yeah yeah yeah you have kane yeah yep and hyman and pulley rv and nugent hopkins and oh you had one guy in there and it looks a lot better

yeah he definitely changed his thing yeah by the way i don't think that was ever the argument against him what what leaf has the most assists on the team it's not marner he's been hurt too much morgan riley morgan riley 11th 11th in the nhl in assists wow 33 assists he has 38 points in 42 games oh my god that's another season we need to talk about like score like remember he had what do you have 70 points a couple years ago uh 72 yes 72 and 20 goals look at an awful lot like you might be able to do that again yeah man yeah man he and again like we talk about uh how unfair starting goaltender in Toronto is where if you're bad you're a piece of shit and when you're good it's all right good you're doing your job congrats on doing your job it's a little bit of Morgan

Riley like he set that standard for himself and now even if he gets back to it people are just like good yeah yeah being a top pairing defenseman on the Toronto Maple Leafs for the last 25 years has been a thankless job. Either you're doing it right and good you're doing it or if you're bad we're going to burn you at the stage.

Run you out of town, man. Run you right out of town right to Detroit so you can win a cup, Larry Murphy. People talk about how I've gotten more negative. People expect

Morgan Rielly to fail. Yep. Why? Based on what? I think that... No, no. I don't know if they expect him to fail.

I think we always knew Morgan Rielly could put up points. I think my concern was obviously the Leafs salary cap and I've just kind of thrown that out the window. Who fucking cares? They'll figure it out.

They clearly always do, so they'll figure it out. What do people think top pair defensemen are worth? I think people think what's keeping him out of the Hedman discussion, it's clearly not the points. He's not Hedman? Well, he's not Hedman, but Hedman is like the best defenseman in the league because he's so great defensively, and I think people are like, well, Morgan Riley's all great on the points,

but what are the detractions from his defense? Do you see what I'm saying? yeah headman is also the nathan mckinnon of defenseman yes i 100 agree that contract's a one-off the he's seven i wouldn't even talk about the contract just the skill oh just it's also the best of the best yeah no he's the best defenseman it's it's uh so i think people are like okay i think what they have is morgan riley okay you want him to be the best defenseman he's going to be the lead defenseman in the leafs really because he is yeah well he's not any good at defense that's what his most intense detractors say yeah but i think he's a little bit better than they say i i would

agree with that i'm just throwing that out there now i would like to uh i i want to shout out paul hendrick at henny i love him i miss him i miss him too uh the leafs you know what that was the the worst roster move the leafs have made in the last two years is is not having paul hendrick well he made it did he yeah he took a step back okay well i don't like it anyway here's what he tweeted he said the foundation of a rebuild leafs closed out 2016 with a loss to new jersey prior to drafting austin matthews two months later let's talk about what that roster looked like that night because he posted the roster oh i need to go soon you need to go so oh i don't know if we have all the time because of walsh yeah we have a broadcast okay let me run you through okay let me run you

through unless you want to do it from here do you just want to do it from here and i can't it's not option okay so here we go you ready yeah and then we'll close the close out the show i'm gonna tell you the career stats of each player brooks like tyler bozak pa parental in the first round good god second line colin greening william nylander tobias lindbergh stop it third line michael grabner frederick gochey leo kamaroff all-star leo kamaroff that year oh my fourth line sam carrick byron phrase brad boys byron defenseman again morgan riley martin marincin on the first pairing, and you don't think Morgan Riley is good. Second pairing,

Jake Gardner, Frank Corrado, friend of the show. Hey. Andrew Campbell and TJ Brennan bringing up the bottom pair. Hey, soup. And your two goalies are Garrett Sparks and Jonathan Bernier. Mother of God. It's a bad team. Anyway, it was the start of something great, and that was a fun season.

I do remember that. So, we'll wrap it up there. We're going to be back Friday, and remember we got that big, long broadcast on Friday night. Twitch.tv slash SDPN, correct? No. Twitch.tv slash sdp and live live let's get the live all right jesse go home get the hell out of here yeah see you friday the steve dangle podcast follow the guys on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and

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