The Steve Dangle Podcast - Iggy | February 25, 2022

Episode Date: February 26, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Viva Las Vegas! (00:00), Cassie Campbell-Pascal joins Knoxy & Kax (03:00), the sporting ramifications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (05:00), the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Minnesota Wild (26:00), are the Leafs going after Klingberg and J.T. Miller? (43:00), deadline moves for the Nashville Predators (52:00), do the Kraken move Jared McCann? (1:00:00), deadline moves for the Philadelphia Flyers? (1:02:00), the Blackhawks update us from the desk of Danny Wirtz (1:15:00), Adam's Black History Month Corner on Jarome Iginla (1:24:00), and Adam's spicy cereal (1:37:00). Originally aired: February 25, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/Ob2z082u_xY 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://magicspoon.com/sdp http://edmunds.com/ https://linkedin.com/sdp https://hellofresh.com/sdp16 https://manscaped.com/ CODE: DANGLE 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

Steve Dangle podcast is brought to you by Manscaped. Remember, with the promo code Dangle, you can get 20% off. Promo code Dangle. It's 20% off and free shipping at Manscaped.com. Yeah, I always got to have that. Free shipping. I know. I know.

I'm sorry. Come on. Ridiculous. I'm in vacation mode. The Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake. Let's go! Hey, so listen, we got a bit of a show ahead. It's going to be a bit crazy.

So we're going to start on some lighter notes and some happier notes. First off, Jesse. Yes. That looks like a different background for you. Yeah, I'm not in my usual studio set up here. That's definitely true. Yes. Do you know where Jesse is?

Jesse is in a hotel in a small town. Oh. Because that is the wall of every hotel in a small town. Where do you think he is, actually? Give me a location. A location. Collingwood.

I'm going to say Collingwood. Nice little... Go ahead. Weekend trip to Collingwood? You can't really see that sign. No, no. The pool... Are you in Vegas?

This pool at Paris, Las Vegas is closed for this. Are you seriously in Las Vegas right now? I'm in Vegas, baby. I did not know that. That's hilarious. We thought we'd surprise you. Yeah. Wow.

So Jesse found out that I was on vacation. He's like, well, I got some points. and I'll go to Vegas. Yeah, fly down for the weekend. It'll be a good time. You know, I'm in the basement where the pool is. Actually, it's like the third floor. It's not the basement.

But, like, this is the only area I could find that doesn't have blaring music. And it's 8.30 a.m. right now, and this is the only... The closed pool is the quietest place in the entire city. Wow. Wow.

Well, there you are. Okay. I always love this with Vegas, because flying anywhere in canada it's like 1500 bucks in the middle of the winter how much was it to go to vegas uh it was a lot of points it did not cost me uh much money that's oh my god i can't believe you're in vegas on like a whim that's hilarious i thought i was like jesse is uh in in a small town enjoying the snow. It's also surprisingly cold.

Like, I didn't know how cold the desert is, especially at night. It gets down to like three, four degrees. When I went to Arizona, same thing. It's like, you know, it's 18 to 20 during the day, and then it is four degrees at night, and you're like, holy smokes, how do I dress

for this? I didn't bring enough clothes just for the temperature swings. I guess you'll have to go shopping. Ah, that sucks. Go to Vegas for winter jackets, you know. So before we get started on the obvious story, which is the Ukrainian-Russian situation, we did want to kind of point you in the direction of, and Jesse, I'm not sure if you want to do this now or if you want to insert this later, the Knoxian CAC show with Cassie Campbell

Paschal. It's, I mean, pretty spectacular, but I think the clip that was making the rounds yesterday was the fact that when the double IHF canceled the women's under 18 tournament, Cassie Campbell Paschal called them just and phoned up the president. You can hear that clip right now. For me, it's never been like, let me put out a tweet. That'll solve everything. Oh, this is going to be great.

Boy, I'm going to use my platform. No, my platform is when the under 18 world championships is canceled, I call the president of the IHF. That's what I do. And I say, do you believe in women's hockey? Yeah. So, you know, just Luke Tardif just on your phone. No big deal.

It was such a great story on using your platform to the full extent that you can, because she says like she can she can send a tweet, but her platform extends to getting his phone number. And that's where she went to, you know, and it's just a lesson in, hey, if you have the power to do good, use it. You know, if you can just send a tweet, send your tweet. But if you can also get out there in real life and make some change, do that, because that's much more important. right right and so obviously uh you know over the last 48 hours we've gone from tension in europe to an invasion in europe and uh essentially uh we'll talk about the sort of some of the sports ramifications for this there are many many many and they're still unraveling so you know but chances are by the time you you hear this podcast what we're telling you might

be partially out of date and that's just sort of the the way it goes um but you know the the basic situation is that uh as it stands right now uh russia is about 36 hours into an invasion of ukraine we all woke up yesterday to this happening um and the the the question right now is is you know what what can shut this thing down what can stop this thing from happening obviously we know that russia uh wants a pro-ukraine pro-russian ukrainian government uh we know that um ukraine has working towards being a member nation in NATO as a part of their government mandate. And I believe it's a part of their constitution as well. The Russians don't want that. And what's happened here is just, you know, condemnation from around the world. And,

you know, we can start with the IIHF is going to meet over the next few days to discuss Russia's participation at basically everything. You know, should they be allowed at the World juniors this summer and i and i wondered i wondered too like you know we saw this because the the the doping scandal that happened after sochi russia is still not allowed to participate in the olympics but the athletes are so you know right if the world juniors happens and uh russia's not there but the athletes are like i don't agree with punishing um athletes either but at a certain point it's like you know this is sort of a band-aid solution at a certain point it should it should hurt right the figure skaters were a clear example of they didn't eradicate the issue

um you know they again i can't i can't emphasize this enough they drugged a child and then the child was able to compete anyway and they won a bunch of medals and everyone left in tears anyway because of the people in charge so we don't want to punish the athletes i don't know how you can look at the russian figure skaters from this olympics and not look at them as being punished by the people in charge in russia does that make sense yeah 100 100 uh yeah well it's when you've got a gold medal a silver medal in a fourth place and you know all of them are upset a 15 year old is telling you i'll never skate again the silver medalist is saying i'll never skate again it's uh it really it really shows you the um the depths of which this i mean that

in that particular instance it's more than just the drug the doping program apparently the coach is just terrible uh like a terrible guy but uh you know it just kind of goes to show um how how the problems how bad the problems are and the thing is as steve said it's a punishment of the athletes for them to even show up it seems anyway at least in certain cases um the other question will be, and the NHL is talking about this too, is, you know, there's going to be a 2024 World Cup, guys, which will be exciting. You know, should Russia be able to be there? And, you know, from this perspective, and I want you to remember this two years from now, because a lot can change in six months, 12 months, 18 months. This war could be over this week, right? And it is a war.

This could be over this week. And six months from now, you know, we're probably talking about the next American election. We're probably talking about a bunch of other things in sports. You know, this may be, and I hate to say this, it's maybe one of those things that just finds its way out of the news cycle. That's how callous the news cycle is. But I want you to remember how you feel right now and think about, you know, maybe whatever happens in the next six months, eight months, 12 months, I want you to remember that you felt this way right now. The outrage you feel right now which is almost universal um is is how we have to we have to pull that energy and remember this when the 2024 world cup runs around because for me i don't think you can rightly include them

i i just don't and i don't know if it means that the players can play and i want best on best everybody wants a best on best tournament i want ovechkin there i want uh malkin there if he's still plan i want panarin there uh but at the same time it's sort of like can you have representative of that country you know and i assume we'll get there but you just mentioned two russian players and they are polar opposites in their approach of defending and talking about russia uh ovechkin has a long history of being pro-putin and supporting the russian government and panarin and has done the complete opposite and has put his family in jeopardy

by standing up against the Russian government. So it's like, how much do we expect from the players in the NHL? Like, Ovechkin denied media yesterday. He didn't talk. He wanted to get his words right, and he hasn't spoken publicly about it. What do you guys expect from the Russian players

in the NHL once they do eventually speak to media? Because they can't hide forever. And particularly Ovechkin. I think they're doing... What a lot of the top hockey players do, unfortunately, and they're waiting to follow. You know, I do think there's a chance that the players do speak out, and I do think they potentially speak out against Putin, but they're waiting for others to do it first. There was a tennis star today. You know, there's protests in Moscow.

There's a protest in St. Petersburg. um you know it's this doesn't seem particularly popular amongst the russian people i think that's important to note and if it gets unpopular enough and if it's enough of a failure and if putin loses his power through all this then it becomes much easier to stand up to him and we might see players do that in the interim uh he's a direct threat to their families and the people that these uh players love one nhl player spoke out against him in artemi panarin and he lost a significant chunk of last season going home to deal with that a few nhl players i believe nikita zadorov was one of them liked artemi panarin's posts and they had to undo it but you know out of fear

that even liking his words um could endanger their family over uh nearly 2 000 people were detained in russia that we know of yesterday uh for protesting this war so um there there's a lot here there's a lot of emotion here there's a lot of reason to condemn alexander ovechkin there's a lot of reason to be patient with alexander ovechkin um i don't know how reasonable it is to expect a response right away for many of these players i think i think the russian reality is so different from our own and we're looking at it from ours which just doesn't apply uh you know there's there's been a lot of talk of freedom recently and i think we know where there's less if that makes sense so so here's the problem though and

there was a debate raging on twitter yesterday about um about whether or not you ask a russian player about what's going on in russia and i'm sure the debate was nuanced and like everybody could share their opinions correctly and no you know everybody took it well so so first off you know uh uh you know i think that that there is a there is a point to be made when you say hey listen you don't ask american players about their foreign interventions and americans have many foreign interventions all the time i i asked someone about that recently so i so i understand i understand the argument that hey you shouldn't uh you shouldn't be asking russian players about this uh if you're not asking american players about it the difference though guys is that

malkin and ovechkin along with pavel beret and a few other notable russian hockey players started in 2017 uh something called i believe it was uh yeah it was called putin team and it was basically showing their support for vladimir putin and to show publicly that they support him ovechkin currently has putin in his instagram profile picture it's him and putin um the players involved in this were obviously Malkin. I'm just trying to remember, trying to see names. Ilya Kovalchuk's a part of this. Pavel Buri's a part of this. And I'm just, the other names I don't really fully recognize. Evgeny Malkin said, we want Putin to understand that we support him. We just try to offer our support because in 2018, we have a World Cup in Russia and they have

elections too. So this had to do with the elections that, you know, quote unquote happened in Russia. They happen, but, you know, there's one name on the ballot that's going to win. And, you know, I think when you do something like that, when you kind of put that sort of team together and support an individual politically, I think in that point it's OK to ask the question, hey, what do you think about all this? Because I'm not expecting there to be some sort of nuanced or crazy answer from Ovechkin or some sort of about face about this, him or Malkin. um i think that obviously they have families to protect and they also may believe in putin um and i i think that you can ask that question of them though because frankly uh they started that nobody asked them to start that that social media campaign on this side of the ocean

and um and to to say that you know that they don't have to answer for that they kind of yeah they do like like you have to put yourself behind that there were no american players going team we're team george bush not formally not formally not out there not under now social media didn't exist maybe it would have been different you see some of it from nhl players with with trump and and obviously with biden as well like you can see it you can see that but like this was this is a very obvious and deliberate uh push for putin by the russian government through its big stars around the world and you know i think that it's fair game to ask them about that i think it's fair game to ask panarin as well i mean he's directly affected by saying i don't like this guy and you

know he he had his um he had his career put in jeopardy uh by what was it it was a former nhl player too right yes he was a goon for the penguins yeah i forget his name yeah i forgot his name so all that is to say, yeah, Andre Nazarov. Yeah. So all that is to say, I think, you know, when you have that sort of debate, you got to you do have to kind of frame it in. I understand not asking every Russian like, you know, I don't I don't expect Ilya Labushkin, New Toronto Maple Leaf to have a big take on that. And it may not even be fair to ask. I don't know. I'm not a journalist on that one. But I think if you're part of the, quote unquote, Putin team, I would for sure for sure be asking those questions and i think you're well within your rights to ask them

yeah it's i don't know if morning skate is the time to be like hey are you a russian asset like are you literally an asset of the russian government um but like yeah like it's you know it it is like i said i don't think their reality matches ours i agree now um around the world there's been a lot of uh fallout from this poland sweden and czechia czechia i'm still not i'm still not used to not saying czech republic all said uh in soccer world cup qualifying that they will not play in russia who was going to host the final of that division's qualifier and it looked like they were going to host a few games before that as well uefa i believe is meeting today uh to see if they're going to move basically to move the final out of russia and russia's participation

has been called into question in formula one, uh, reporters asked, um, all the drivers about what they thought. And, you know, I gotta, I gotta give a credit where credit's due Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, both world champion F1 drivers, uh, both said, uh, it's inappropriate to be racing, um, in a country that's at war. And, and Vettel just said, people are dying stupidly for no reason. I'm not driving there. I won't, I won't race there promise. And, uh, And so F1 is actually, as of this morning, canceled the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi due to take place this September. The Haas F1 team, and this story is really interesting, guys, because I don't know if you know this or not about Formula One. Some drivers are there because they deserve to be, and some drivers are there because they have significant sponsorship support to pay for the team.

right in the in the case of uh Haas which is owned by an American Gene Haas when Gene bought in uh it was like 50 million bucks or something that he paid for the team or something so it was ridiculous numbers crazy and Gene is a big name in American motor racing and he wanted to have an American team this is America's F1 team that was their tagline and for a few seasons they did pretty well and then sort of fell off a cliff lost some major sponsors and at the end of Drive to Survive Actually, I think it's season three. You see Gunther Steiner, the the the principal lead for the Haas F1 team, go into his trailer, make a call. And Nikita Mazepin, who is the son of Dimitri Mazepin, and I'll explain that in a second, comes in and is a driver with Mick Schumacher, son of Michael. Now, Nikita Mazepin and his father, so his father, Dimitri Mazepin, is the key stakeholder shareholder in a company that is like a it's like.

you're all Kim or something like that, but they call it, you're all Kali on the side of the, uh, of the Haas F1 car. The Haas F1 car went from being America's car to Russia's car. Cause it was literally, there's two cars on the track. They were both colored like Russian flags, red, blue, and white specifically Russian. And so yesterday, um, despite, you know, the, the, the relationship there, um, the Haas team pulled all of the branding off all the Russian flags off. They ran a white car today in testing in Barcelona. And, uh, they've said, listen, we're, we're, you know, they can't say that they've dropped your all colleagues as a sponsor, but they've dropped them. And that means that Nikita Mazepin probably loses his, his seat as

well. And so it would cost them, it will cost Gene Huss tens of millions of dollars to do this, but he's going to do it. And I imagine that the relationship wasn't that easy. Anyway, nikita mazepin is just not up to being an f1 driver he's kind of dangerous on the road like he's he actually is like the other drivers are so good and he's so not good that it's dangerous for him to be out there um so there's that there's that and then you have uh soccer teams in the uk and i believe in europe dropping their russian sponsors and what's interesting is the uh chelsea fc which is owned by a russian oligarch um there's conversations happening in the uk right now and And the oligarch, by the way, doesn't live in Russia.

He lives in the UK. They're talking about, the British government is talking about taking the team back. Just saying. Just taking it. Yeah. It's not your team anymore. It's our team. Which is insane.

That's a crazy, crazy, crazy thing. You know, those teams are not cheap. And they would be able to say, no, you're not involved here anymore. Goodbye. And so here's what's happening too. Like, if you're wondering about why this is happening the way that it is. There is a group of people in Russia that are in control, and then there's everybody else. Putin would be at the top of that, and he's quite isolated. If you slap Putin with the same sanctions that you slap his oligarchs with, well, they're all in this together. but what the right with the american and eu and nato and what they've all done is they've said

okay we're going to go after the oligarchs we're going to make it impossible for them to move money we're going to make it impossible for them to sell things and and but putin we're not going to sanction him we're just going to sanction his support so that they push him to pull out and to stop this and so the the the reputation of of uh russian companies around the world of russia itself, the Russian government, uh, has been severely tarnished by this and Russian money was, was supporting a lot of formula one, a lot of soccer, um, a lot of other sports, um, and all of them are pulling out of this. And it's, it's, that's, that's a crazy move. You know, it was funny. Money usually is the thing that talks now it's talking and it's, it's, it's literally

cutting off their own supply of money. It's crazy. Um, so I'm, I'm, I'm curious about where this all Belize. And I also want to say this, guys, and I think we should have said it off the top of the show, but we should say it now. The key here is that, you know, there's a lot of Russian Canadians, a lot of Ukrainian Canadians, Americans too, obviously. Canada has the third largest Ukrainian population in the world outside of Ukraine and Russia. Right. And Ukrainians were the ones who settled the West in Canada, by the way, mostly Ukrainians. I think it's important to say that this is when we say russia we mean the russian government uh we don't mean the russian people who obviously came out en masse to um to uh uh protest protest this um we uh are you know

obviously what you know we would highly recommend that if you can find a charity uh for the ukraine to donate to, although I couldn't find a good one this morning. Ivanka Osmak has been linking to some. She's got it? Okay, so then we'll do that. So we'll link to that in the description. You don't need to say it on the show. Steve will just link to it in the description. Sure. Or if you

can, if you can find it, that's great, whatever. But I think it's an important thing. This is not like license for you to be anti-Russian person, xenophobic. This is a government that is not elected by the people, uh, who does not represent the people who was doing things that you could

argue against the will of the people. And, uh, I also want to say, uh, to all the Ukrainian, Canadian, Ukrainian, American Ukrainians who listened to this show, um, devastated for you, truly sorry. Um, and you know, I, I, I don't know what the, you know, you always want to end this stuff with something like a good piece of news, but I don't know. I don't know what it is at this point um anything that we can do on our end we will try to do um and you know we're with you i think it's one of those it's it's such an ugly situation they were saying yesterday what do they say the darkest day since world war ii something like that pretty crazy pretty crazy so anyway um all that said the fallout around the world will continue i'm sure by the time like i said by the

time you're listening to this uh there will probably be more news on this and i am curious to get what those certain Russian players have to say. Curious about that. I mean, is that wrong of me? Do you think that's crazy to think? I don't think Ovechkin's going to break the internet with his response. Probably be a non-response.

I... Oh, boy. I think there's a chance players surprise you. Maybe that's naive. But I think they're going to wait for the... I think they're going to wait

for until it's safe for them to do so yeah for a lot of them i don't think it is some of them i genuinely support them you know let's not give everyone carte blanche when it comes to the benefit of the doubt but um you know do they or don't they we have this conversation many years ago uh there's just no way to know until he's no longer in power and i think you made a good point Steve earlier and I think it bears repeating you you we can't relate to what what these players are going through because remember they all have families back home right so you're sort of given a decision to join maybe you were given the decision to join the Putin team but maybe you don't really have a decision I don't right so I don't think so so uh let's get into the Toronto

Maple Leafs last night um finally snapping that three-game win streak which I don't know felt like it dragged on forever because it was so painful but the um the team looked honestly like the team you expect to see there you know let me give myself a pat on the back here because the the rock paper scissors analogy i'm thinking is looking more and more right because again they do struggle against rock they do but they've taken on some really good scissors recently and won the the carolina hurricanes they beat the pittsburgh penguins they beat and now the minnesota wild they beat in what was a really stingy game a game that the leaf struggled to get chances and shots in but never seemed frustrated um never let the the game get to them so yeah

there have been some struggles recently goaltending chief among them first three game losing streak since October but there's been a lot to cheer for there's been a lot to be enthusiastic about for sure I don't know how we didn't lead this off with Adam Wilde is right how

is that not the lead of the takeaways from last night's game what they had completely fixable mistakes that if they just fix them they'll be fine no no no no no about the best player in the world Oh, well, we're getting to that. We're getting to that.

Oh, don't worry. Adam's going to highlight that, Adam. No, my takeaway from the game was that the best player showed up and bailed out his team. Like, the play that Austin Matthews made on the game-winning goal where he makes that pass and then he snipes it, he takes the pass, capping it. Like, that was –

Caco. Caco. That was unbelievable. Like, that was the best player in the world doing best player in the world stuff. and like pat on the back to Adam for nailing right now what Austin Matthews is and he's the best player on the ice every time he steps on the ice he had Dmitry Kulikov in hell right that was that was not a fun game for that for that young man he had him in hell so so this is the thing

right like I think when people people were really upset about my take because you know you get used to the best player in the world being the best player in the world for a long time and again I wasn't ever saying that Connor McDavid can't be the best player in the world or won't be the best player in the world in the future. What I was saying is right now, Austin Matthews is the best player in the world. You look at that takeaway at the blue line as he turns it around. Um, and, uh, and you know, obviously scores, uh, there are very few players that are going to be able to do that. And I know a lot of people are like, well, what about Huberto? What about Huberto? Alan Walsh would probably be like, what about Huberto? Um, Huberto is great, but I don't think any of

them any of the best players leon uh who is worse at defense than labushkin jesse just so you know um thank goodness connor i don't think they all bring all of the things that austin matthews bring you're looking at a player right now who has 36 goals in 48 games the next closest is dry sidle with 35 and 51 it's a tight race and then chris crider who's been right at the top all season and then alexander ovechkin's a few goals behind it's going to be a tight race between those four players after his slow start he's 29 in 31 29 goals 29 goals in 31 games like a mutant okay so if he wins the rocket he could win the rocket how do you not give him the selkie how do you not give him the heart trophy or the heart the selkie is a little far i don't know

that it is guys his defense is a positive a massive positive the toronto maple leafs every time he's on the ice you got you got a guy who could score 50 plus goals and potentially win the selkie the selkie is the most uh plug and play your narrative award in the world how did like no no and like this isn't even you it's it changes what the selkie is changes on based on the year um the selkie in a lot of years is best original screenplay because because you gave you gave best picture to someone else right but best original screenplay is well you know you did a good job at other things so you know if matthews didn't win the heart would he win the selkie then um or you know is is the selkie winner this year adequate at defense but sick in terms of goal

scoring should the selkie winner be david kampf you know what i mean who's who's in the conversation is what i want to know we've had a lot of heart conversation i haven't heard a lot of selkie like usually that number two in the heart votes gets the selkie right exactly it's best original screenplay so it's it's gotta you know is is huberto or barkov in there they should be you know yeah so guys like that but i i think matthews is uh you're seeing the conversation more and more that the heart conversation is shisterkin and matthews it's two horse race right now and it's real hard for goalies to win it yeah and and ryan mead by the way from blue shirts banner uh posted did a tweet last night saying,

who would you rather start your franchise with right now? Austin Matthews or Igor Shcherkin? And I mean, it's a great question. It's a really great question. I am going to go full Austin Matthews on that because as we've seen with Thatcher Demko, you can have a great goalie and a terrible team. You can find great goaltending.

You cannot find people. You cannot find people who can score like Austin Matthews. There's been like three in the last decade. And no offense to Igor Shcherkin, but there have been other goalies, more than 10 of them who have done that in the last 20 years. Philosophically, Mika Kiprasov was King and he had a goals against average below two.

He was ridiculous. Yeah. But there's, there's always a goalie who's ridiculous. Yeah. Philosophically you start from the base, right? So if you're starting a franchise from scratch,

you don't want to worry about who's in net every night. So philosophically I go with the goalie, but as a Leafs fan who I've gotten to cheer for some teams with really good goaltending, um, that weren't able to do the other things. Uh, Austin Matthews is unlike any player I've ever had the opportunity to cheer for. Like he it's, he's so good that we take him for granted. We've never had a player who was, if he didn't score for two straight games, we'd be like, what's up with him?

is everything all right if matthew matthews is more likely to score than not jesse what was what was the stat you said since his slump uh 29 in 31 that's so dumb that's stupid that's preposterous so philosophically i go with the goalie but since austin matthews is involved in the conversation i go with him that's so dumb 29 and 31 like knock that off otherworldly well actually don't please don't don't know it's otherworldly never you can't replicate that and no offense to igor shisterkin but matthews has been doing it for six years matthews is the only 60 goal scorer to never score 50 okay oh so you're on my side of four goals is not a hat trick uh no how did you shoehorn that is that 60 if 60 isn't 50 then four isn't three no i'm saying that

because he's never reached either plateau no he could have he he for sure would have hit 50 at least once but he would i think hit 60 at least once had the seasons not been shortened 60 isn't 54 isn't three thank you very much so ovechkin and stamkos when they had 60 so if you get six goals in a game jesse is that two hat tricks no it's something else it's like what are you good you got to give it its own name sex trick yeah that's what adam used to do in high school yeah yeah sure just big money over here um i i have to say uh yeah so matthew's looking like absolutely otherworldly last night it was great to see marazic playing at marazic's best that's the thing is like if you're a detroit fan if you're carolina hurricanes fan you can relate

to this marazic giveth and marazic taketh away you're just never sure what you're gonna get a really good marazic game is a few really good saves give up a goal and make a great save off a mistake you created ugly rebound and he bailed himself out it was great like that is boy what a ah like whenever i see him in nets i'm just like stress it is because and that's and that's not due to a lack of faith it's due to he plays an unbelievably stressful style the yes amount of times he pushes himself well out of the nets you know in situations where thank god the other team doesn't come up with the puck uh man that guy's movements are way too big way too big he's he's not controlled at all that that dude is a is a mustang of a goalie he's he's he's uh he's

old school sal all these cookie cutter goalies who you know stay in their net robotic and stay in their net head the goal no marazic is just uh that that dude is the pre-workout of goalies he's just pure caffeine and adrenaline only allowed one um yeah only allowed one are there any other takeaways other than matthews and marazic from that game that you thought because minnesota is a very very good team and i thought after two bad losses against teams you should have beaten great way to come back you got to feel good about that um and like we said against st louis right when the losing skid sort of started you're gonna lose to good teams from time to time so it's not like it's not like with minnesota you're like oh boy they look terrible

they look fine what what other takeaways did you get from that and and kind of uh that maybe didn't make the headlines can i ask how was the defense sure steve how was it are you asking me yeah it's So I don't know what it is, but the Leafs know how to play a certain way where 10 minutes into the game, you're like, oh, tonight's going to be fine. You know what I mean? And I don't know because I'm not an X's and O's expert. I don't know how to quantify that. But as a fan, I know when my heart rate is higher or lower.

And last night it was lower. They have this way of doing this against the Islanders. and you know islanders used to be heart attack level and then uh they decided to start michael hutchinson against the islanders and i was like they're out of their minds they're gonna get killed hutchinson gets the shutout and since then they've sort of owned that team defensively it was weird last year in a season where they were winning a lot of games five to four they owned the edmondson oilers in a way that was so strange and so absolute like so dominant that even you know cheering for the team that's on the wrong end of connor mcdavid

your heart rate's low and last night you know i see peter marazic i see he's going up against the minnesota wild who are really good and i'm like oh boy tonight's not going to be good for roll steve's ticker and about 10 minutes in i'm like oh it's gonna be fine you know they they're i think labushkin did take a penalty um camp was in the box which is always stressful um underratedly through all the leafs defensive struggles man their penalty kill is so good it's so good and it's really been a strength of theirs uh this season but five on five They just do a good job denying the zone. They moved some bodies, I noticed last night, from the front of the net.

And it's a good thing they did because the Wild are a team you have to keep to the outside because they've got shooters. They've got unbelievable shooters on that team. I mean, the one goal they did score was a pretty good snipe from Freddy Gaudreau, of all people. Third star of the night, Freddy Gaudreau. Third star of the night, Freddy Gaudreau. Why not?

I mean, yeah, he scored one of three goals that wasn't an empty netter. It's a pretty easy third star, but, um, it's, I, I would love a breakdown of how teams who own the Leafs play versus how teams who struggle against the Leafs play in terms of generating offense because it's weird this team when it decides to can play low event hockey with anybody yep it's the strangest thing yeah it's almost like they should strive for it it's almost like they should slow down oh is this mike babcock who's joined the zoom call i didn't see that that's what he tried to do for four years here in Toronto he tried to get everybody on the team to play this really slow low event hockey to get upset when they'd score five goals and allow

six goals you know or allow but they couldn't they couldn't score that right right you know what I mean and you know they would get down in a game and then all of a sudden we got to play our dumb style and then they go down to nothing and then they got a double down on dumb and they come back and then you know it's but there's something about last night there wasn't there wasn't a moment okay sorry there was one moment where i clenched when miraza gave up that rebound but other than that i didn't really i didn't really client what a weird goalie man what a weird the thing is they're capable of it and they're capable of it against good teams that's my point from last episode fixable problems are they fixable problems and listen i don't think that

the lineup as it is can continue uh obviously nick nick robertson was called up today i think uh who was called up yesterday it was like christian's rubens and somebody else and basically what they're doing when they do that is to fill out their cap space so they can maximize their ltir space which tells me they're working on something now frege this morning uh in 32 thoughts kind of mentioned that they have called dallas about john klingberg he threw out jt miller as a possibility as well we know that vancouver uh they have called vancouver but from what we've heard it's been more luke shen related than um than uh uh jt miller related it would be amazing for the leafs to get jt miller who by the way had two goals and two assists last night

price would be high seven seven goal drubbing of calgary right yeah she's what was that what was that calgary with a 10 game winning streak snapped insane the highlights are crazy too um but the The J.T. Miller thing seems like less of a possibility. I still feel like they want defensemen. I think they do. It would be incredible. But Woody, though, because he's like another Morgan Riley. But we didn't think that was possible like two weeks ago.

And then Muzzin going out now opens up that possibility. So if Klingberg is now on the board, I think what else is? If it's Klingberg plus something else that's smaller, it just opens up everything. Who wants to play a fun game called Reckless Theories? So Nick Robertson called up today. Here's a couple ways to look at this. Number one, why are they going out and spending a fortune on JT Miller

when they haven't even seen what they have here with Nick Robertson? Nicky Bob. So he's about to get a big audition, and I got to imagine they're calling him up. They're not calling him up to play fourth line. But he hasn't been great in the AHL, Steve. so he didn't have a good start he got injured and he's come back and been good recently he's been good um you call him up to put him with JT and Nylander and nothing else like uh maybe you give him a look on the third line but I I think he's there for a big role because if you're gonna go

out and spend uh you better do it knowing that you have no other options so that's practical fun optimistic option you you want you want dumb chaos option you know who plays for the Dallas Stars Jason Robertson Nick's brother oh yeah yeah yeah how close to done is Nick Robertson for John Klingberg but then Klingberg's up at the end of the year so you're giving up Robertson. Oh, I didn't say it was a good deal. Also, here's the problem. Klingberg is a great puck

mover, but he brings you none of the things that you're missing with Jake Muzzin. You have Klingberg, a developing Klingberg in Sandin. We'll see if he's better or worse than Klingberg. I don't know. Then you got Morgan Riley, who's a great puck mover as well. TJ Brody, underrated as a puck mover. Really, really good.

You need snarl. You need toughness. I'm not really sure. Listen, it doesn't make them worse. klingberg's a great defenseman but right uh i i don't know if it's what they need you know what i mean like it's it's it's sort of it just seems like okay well we got another guy who is devastating at one end of the ice and questionable at on the defensive end that's i don't think they need more of that that's an odd odd one i think i don't think uh saying klingberg's questionable at the defensive end is correct also i like uh sandin as a as a developing klingberg as a great assessment

of who he is. That's fun. I mean, and he's got the patented high shot from the point, too. That was Jeff Merrick used to always hammer that home. Klingberg, when he fires it on, the puck is way up here. So friggin' duck. And Sandin's got

a little bit of that. So we need another Tyson Berry? Is that what you're saying? No, that's no, that was low directly at the shin pad. Oh, right. If you add Klingberg, it's an improvement on the tee. Shouldn't that just be how we're looking at it? Like, if you add this piece, does the team get better?

And I think it does. It doesn't make them a stronger pair of scissors. Potentially even a pair of scissors that cuts rock. You know, like, does that help you? Does that help you win one more playoff game? Listen, I think having John Klingberg on your lineup does do that. And that's the lens I'm looking through. I have to disagree with you, Jesse.

John Klingberg is awful on defense. He's just not good. This is not what this team needs. And people are like, well, Damon Severson looks good. Damon Severson is the second coming of Jake Gardner. If you want that, fine. I like Jake Gardner too, but I don't think it's what they need. I mean, like, honestly, honestly, I mean,

if the price for Sherratt wasn't so high, like Sherratt to me is worth like a seventh rounder. For some reason, everybody's like, well, it's going to be first overall pick. I don't see that. That's not, that doesn't make sense to me. But you need somebody who is going to bring what Jake Muzzin didn't bring because even with Jake Muzzin in the lineup, You needed more of what Jake Muzzin brought.

Yeah. Like, Klingberg is objectively of the top four defensemen on Dallas. Suter, Heiskanen, Lindell, Klingberg. He is the worst by a mile. By a mile. He's spectacular on the power play. Spectacular puck mover. Not the guy you need for the Leafs,

who already play shaky defense on certain nights, except for last night. Uh-oh. Guys, my condition's out. acting up what is it my condition where oh no mark giordano where is mark giordano figure into this conversation oh when are we gonna have a conversation about my paisan i don't there's somebody who's not playing too well this season like right that's why he's cheap oh that's what i'm doing out of seattle he and ron francis had a call i think yesterday and and they are going

to explore the trade market, which means he's getting traded. Yeah. That's somebody you do right by. Is that not? If you're a GM in the National Hockey League, you do right by Mark Giordano. You send him out of there to a contender. Just do that.

It just kind of sucks that they claimed him for no reason and made him captain for no reason, and then now they're trading their captain 40 games in. That sucks. Honestly, I'm telling you guys, they fucked up. They fucked that draft up. They were terrible. It was terrible.

Terrible. I do think Seattle is an interesting team to look at if you're the Toronto Maple Leafs. Kyle Dubas, you know, I think we already said this point. He's obviously willing to get creative. And with an expansion team that is still very raw in a lot of ways, there's a lot of fun wiggle room there. And I got to wonder what's going on.

You know, like just lesser things like Nick Robertson's coming up. Is Engvall scratched? is he going to get waived? No. Is he going to get traded if he does sneak through waivers? Do they put him in the minors? Because his contract is almost 100% variable. But is that what they need right now?

Because they actually need to be closer to the cap in order to get the most benefit out of LTIR. You know, there's the show. Engvall's been fine. He's been fine, but someone's got to go. Someone's got to get out of the lineup. It's been nice that he's been mean. Who do you drop to the fourth line?

Kerf to the third line, I would think Well, that's what I mean, but then who drops off the third line? I don't know, well, it might be Mikheyev He had the poops yesterday Kerf played on the third line last night Did he not? He did, he did At least he started there

And then, you know, as the game goes There's a little bit of shuffling But there's this great show I don't know if you've heard of it The Chris Johnston Show Ah! Where Chris Johnston talked about the Leafs being very active and to me that's not a one move thing that's not ah do they got to get

this guy or this guy I think there's a lot of options where they go out and make three or four moves here of of decent significance I'm jacked I'm really jacked but it could be it could be a really fun trade deadline and hopefully Muzzin's healthy I learned on the CJ show so I had heard that mustn't has like a concussion history cj was like he doesn't uh he's not like at least had a couple but it's not like the the long resume that we were expecting i think he's had other injuries as well i just think it's it's not as bad as previously expected but i hope my prayer my prayers are that he's good enough to play um in the first round and get some really good rest in the next two months and heal whatever's ailing him he hasn't been the same this year he just hasn't

yeah he i mean concussions are not all equal the one he got in january was a bad one and then to get concussed again so soon after um it's bad and that was that was the other thing cj brought up is in order to get the max benefit uh out of ltir um you know he's got to be out basically the whole time because what if he comes back you know they've acquired this player um they either got a shed or be penalized against the cap for next season yep um and i wonder if that's something they explore so they're they're not going to be able to really make a decision here until they get some answers and i and i would be shocked if they had any um this soon after the injury um the nashville predators uh have to re-sign philip forestberg and this is going to

be interesting because he was mentioned in trade talks i think it was last year or potentially the year before um here's the problem before you've got 16 million bucks per year wrapped up in Dushane and Johansson and you know Forsberg's got to make more than that but for this to work he's gonna have to come in lower than Roman Yossi at 9.059 and they got to figure this out um probably by the deadline um I mean they could keep him if there's will to go on both sides but But if you're Phillip Forsberg, you could go for the Big Ten. You could try. He's a guy.

So he's only played 39 games this season. Had he not only been in 39 games and missed some time, he'd be in the rocket conversation. By the time the season's done, he might be. He's got 26 goals in 39 games. Insane. It's dumb. It's dumb.

Well, I'll tell you what it is. It's an over 50 goal pace is what it is. that's the sort of season he's having um how often are you able to go out and get a potential 50 goal score at the deadline how often are you at the risk of losing a potential 50 goal score for a team that's performed quite well yeah like philip forsberg going makes no sense but again uh there are a few teams in the league whose reality is not the reality of a consistent cap team and the national predators are one of them you know we sort of talked about who are we talking about in that regard the ducks i can't remember and yeah the ducks are yeah the blues did this a

few years ago when they were in a playoff spot and sold on kevin chattengirk and a couple years later you know ended up working out for them okay they want to come um i wonder if the preds who are doing so so well have to pull the chute here i mean if anyone can you move one of the other contracts i mean you can move one of the other contracts you still need to sign this player yeah forsberg's got all the leverage here there i didn't uh oh never mind i was about to say i didn't even realize this they're leading their division no they're not wild card is not a division they're but they're the top wild card it is now uh but i mean they're two points back of second in the division man they're they're real good they're real good and phil forsberg holds

all the cards i just want to throw this in there it's breaking news or somewhat breaking i guess uh yokerit which is a finnish hockey club in the khl has uh pulled out of the khl playoffs uh i think uh cj said yesterday uh on tsn that finn air which is one of their major sponsors um wasn't even they weren't even sure if finn air would fly them into russia um and some of their other major sponsors just pulled out completely so um they are done for the season which is uh pretty crazy i just wanted to throw that in there sorry about that um it's a so back to the trade deadline for a second here the the um the the forsberg thing is interesting the question i have which i think a lot of people had about the toronto maple leafs

is can you be a viable winner every year on the nashville predators with a nine million dollar center an eight million dollar center and another eight million dollar center yes if they're good yes if they're good well what's ryan johansson doing these days anyway uh so let me look it up Because I know they're having better seasons than expected. Duchesne seems to be back on track a little bit. Okay, so Johansson's got 36 and 49. 36 points, 49 games. Right.

That's still an overpay, but it's good. And Duchesne, 46 points, 23 goals in 48 games. It's good. Yeah, that's what you need from an 8 million. Yeah, a point-of-game player, 8 million bucks. That's a good deal. like eight million I mean centers are so valuable like Jesus if I'm Nazem Kadri I head into this offseason and there's no way I'm making less than either of those guys no way joking me no no way

there's there's just no way um but Duchesne there may be takers but he's the good one right and he's playing right wing this year by the way grandlin is the center right right so if you're a team there's no reason to go out and get duchesne now like you can wait till the next four years of his contract why take a risk now on a duchesne maybe this is his up year and then it goes back down on the charts like why trade for him when there's so much time left on an eight at eight million per year deal and there's like four years left well if you want to win now and you need a guy like that that would be for Johansson

that can't be the guy this could be Johansson swan song you know what I mean like this could be the best his career is from now on right with his injury history and everything and you know you root for him to be better than that

but you know you never know he people forget how gruesome his injury was like wasn't wasn't it like an infection deep within his thigh or something that he suffered during the stanley cup final or it was bad just before the stanley cup final it was really bad um the kind of thing that will change an athlete you know so it's kind of you know contract aside it's amazing he's still in the league um but for that reason

that's why it's kind of hard to go out and get a guy like that dave poyle has done a good job filling in the margins absolutely um remains one of the smartest gms in the league yeah and like They never aren't in it. They never aren't in it. No matter what. Luke Cunningham has been good for them. Yakov Trenin has been good for them. Philip Tomasino is a rookie who's only going to get better.

Interested to see how they view Ellie Tolvanen, who was once the best player outside of the NHL and isn't. Colton, you know, Colton Sissons has been good. Tanner Jeannot, you know, they've done a good job. They've done a good job. And I, you know, it bears repeating. I had no idea UC Soros had this in them. Do you know how many games they've gotten out of goalies

not named UC Soros? How many? Ten. I don't know. Really? Ten. Eight out of Dave Riddick, who I believe was hurt, and that's a big reason.

And two out of Conor Ingram. That's it. Dave Riddick's an 890. Conor Ingram was a 906 in the games he played. Soros, in 43 games, is a 924. Wow. wow they're also not in cap trouble like you can you can leave all of those big contracts those eight mailing contracts there and still add like the national the predators have done

a fantastic job with their cap spoil man it's amazing um i i think it gets done and he stays there yeah um i'm curious about what your thoughts are on jared mccann he's already at a career high in goals he's gonna be on point soon um unrestricted free agency but just went on the ir so i mean obviously he could be off by the trade deadline but is that a guy that i mean listen if you can't get jt miller do you not call the seattle uh kraken about mccann and giordano so sorry by the way jerry mccann is an rfa rfa excuse me yeah so uh that's i mean i think if i'm ron francis and i'm trying to build a team worth paying attention to you pry jared mccann out of my cold dead hands but um maybe you get a premium uh as a result you know

the the seattle kraken still have projected cap space of just under 6.9 nice um and ridiculous amount of roster spots so that's the thing that's sort of come up in conversations i believe cj's brought it up a bunch of times some teams are kind of close to the max whoops max amount of roster spots um they can have which is 50 um most teams are in the mid to high 40s the seattle kraken have 37 oh wow okay yes so to me they're a prime candidate for ahoy hoy feed us your garbage yeah it yes are there any teams out there that are struggling to get underneath the cap please feed us your garbage bring us your trash bring out the dead bring out your dead it is because um because they can they can afford it um in more ways than one and they can still

get what they want or wanted out of expansion, which is draft picks and cap room because the garbage expires. Right. And to answer your McCann question, Adam, if I'm the GM of a team, I don't move my 25-year-old leading scorer of the team that I have control of.

Fair enough. It's not, I don't think it's the right move for Francis to move. Yeah, stupid. So what about, no, you got to ask the question. So I'm going to make you feel something. I'm going to make you feel two things. Sorry.

No, you know, you know how I think he needed that. Sometimes it's fun to be unnecessarily mean. Yes. Go ahead. Stupid. Moron. So, so when I bring up the Philadelphia Flyers, what feelings do you have, Steve? Just about the organization.

Oh, shut up. I mean, yeah. Boo. Be relevant again. Jesse, similar thoughts, feelings? Go gritty. Okay. Yeah, there you go.

He is the most likable part about the Flyers right now. I'm going to bring up two players. I'm going to bring up two players, and I'm going to make you feel something. Number one, if he makes it to March 17th, Claude Giroux will play his 1,000th game with the Flyers and then potentially be traded after. However, interestingly, it's been reported that it won't kill him if he doesn't make it and he gets traded before that.

oh but you gotta think you gotta think he goes to a thousand games right like he even if you're the flyers you're like listen i'll do the deal just on march 18th i'm not doing it today a hundred percent like there's no way there's no way he gets traded to a team second game is this 1000 they have a mini ceremony for this new guy it won't feel the same that should be your send-off So that should be your retirement party, you know? Yeah. So, so here's, I want to see if any of you remember this, the year the Leafs finished last on purpose.

Yeah. A player they acquired. I know this. Yeah. You do? Yeah. Played their thousandth game as a Leaf and they got presented the silver stick that everyone does when they play their thousandth game.

and everyone in the building had the resounding vibe of who cares do you remember the player eric brewer eric brewer damn good one and i only know i followed eric brewer's career because he was one of those guys that i always used to pick up in fantasy draft things because like in in in the nhl like when you do like a fantasy um not not uh sorry what do they call that do they call that a fantasy draft in nhl when you just draft your own team out of all the nhl players uh Uh, I think so. Yeah. So I know what you mean. I used because the Leafs were so bad and I didn't really like any of the players on the Leafs for a little while there.

There'd be like a couple of guys would be like, yeah, Ian White's cool, I guess. Um, but like I used to just redraft the whole NHL every time. And Eric Brewer is a guy I'd always pick up because he was, he was like, you remember when the players were, it's like they were either stick thin or they were just like a tree stump. Yeah. They were enormous. Yes. Eric Brewer was always that guy and had the hammer next to his name

and he used to crush people. Yeah, and I remember when the Leafs got him, I was like, oh, that's kind of cool, but this sucks. So I was wrong. That was 2014-15 and he actually played for three teams. So there was Tampa who he was with for several seasons and that would have been cool. He played nine games for the Anaheim Ducks

and 18 games for the shitty, shitty, shitty, very, very shitty Leafs. There are actually, I just Googled it, there are pictures of Eric Brewer in a Leafs jersey somehow. It's his picture on HockeyDB. Is it? He looks so upset. Yeah. You know what's funny?

It might actually be a Lightning uniform. Wow. Eric Brewer is also, in one of these shots, blocking a shot. He came to the Toronto Maple Leafs and actually blocked a shot. How about that? He played. I'm telling you, he played. Giroux's got to stick around.

Giroux's got to stick around. I think he's going to stick around. Yeah. Now, so here's the other player on the Philadelphia Flyers. I'm going to make you guys feel something, okay, about the Flyers because we've been, boo, tomato, tomato. There is a player on the Philadelphia Flyers who has been around a lot longer than you think.

How many games has Rasmus Ristelainen played? Not, you mean in his career? Yeah, not for the Flyers. He just started. No, no, just in his career. Just when? I'm trying to think of when he was drafted. 500.

Okay. 500-1. Rasmus Ristelainen has played 600 games in the NHL. Wow. I was going to say 600. Shoot. How many games? I wanted to be an asshole.

How many games has Rasmus Ristelainen played in the playoffs? Oh, zero. Zero. zero games yeah he's a new uh jay bowmeister there's a guy i think and i apparently there's been discussions with flyers management uh he wants to go and play in the playoffs and i think they're gonna try to grant that request for what oh god what do you get back in return i don't know they gave up a lot to get them yeah okay here here can i go through that So the Flyers, for a team that's very shitty,

usually if a team that's very shitty is very shitty, you want to look at their cap-friendly page and go, gosh, look at all those picks. Well, the Flyers this year are missing a second-rounder. Do we know why they're missing a second-rounder? Rasmus, right? Nope. The answer is not Shane Goss despair.

They had to throw it in as a sweetener? a second and a seventh plus Shane Goss to spare for future considerations oh what about what do they give up for Ryan Ellis uh that is a good question and I will look that up in a minute but the Rasmus for the line and trade

which is the second bro it's so fucking bad and the fact that they're already pulling the shoot is unbelievable 2021 first round pick 14th overall which the Sabres used on uh Isaac Rosen Isaac and

2023 second round pick geez God that's tough let me let me try to find Ryan Ellis real quick for you yeah that's and is a second round pick right so that's two seconds and a first

for Ristolainen it's pretty bad that is pretty bad stop that knock that off right now okay here 27 year old second round pick but still uh ryan ellis for uh philippe myers um and nolan patrick was the deal nolan patrick who they picked second overall in 2017 okay all right and you know with ellis it was full cost right listen if the flyers had had that defensive core about four years ago

would have been horrible. Man. And dude, dude, like Ryan Ellis at his best on stop

letting Chuck Fletcher spend your money. Stop. When, when will that memo go out?

Stop letting Chuck Fletcher spend your money. He doesn't know how. I mean, the wild made the playoffs

every year under Chuck Fletcher. every year steve oh yeah every year and you got that playoff gate revenue every year steve oh yeah and everyone's just like i had dubas makes a playoff every year yeah that's the narrative around him that's definitely the narrative around the leafs right is that they make the playoffs every year yeah and everybody's everybody's good with that franchise everybody's yeah they're they're everybody's happy with that that's all we need just make the playoffs

no no for the next team who hires chuck fletcher my question is why he doesn't do things that are good knock it off and get a brain not him i'm listening at this point you know fool me once etc etc what what is the saying for the third time. Fool me a third time, you're a fucking moron. Stop letting this guy spend your money. Stop.

Stop. Do we need a t-shirt that says, fool me a third time, you're a fucking moron? Fool me a third time, I'm a fucking moron. That's it. This dude throws money in a furnace

and everyone goes we don't know why we're bad yeah give Chuck Fletcher to a small market team I'm begging someone and follow them around with a camera crew all year guys

it's beyond the Parise and Suter contracts what are you doing i can't what are you doing letting him spend your money i can't wait till the chuck fletcher arizona coyotes take the ice at asu next year and they hand him 46 and he's like oh like what do i get a per diem they're like no this is for players and he's fucked and he doesn't know what to do like holy smokes guys stop letting this man commit arson with your money anyway anyway uh man i love anytime i get to bring up the flyers i love bringing up chuck

fletcher um noted arsonist chuck fletcher but yeah stop um so uh lastly it seems like the chicago blackhawks are aware finally that their reputation is in tatters and are updating us from the desk of danny wirtz uh the next round of gm No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Danny. I don't want to hear it. You don't? No, sorry. Anytime I hear his name, I'm obligated to interrupt.

Oh, that's fair. Dismissible leader. So according to Freed, the finalists appear to be incumbent, who's already working there, Kyle Davidson, Tampa Bay Director of Operations, Matthew Darsh, who I've heard great things about and was surprised, actually, that the Canadians didn't hire, and Cubs Assistant General Manager. That's right.

Chicago Cubs Assistant General Manager, jeff greenberg it's been an interesting process and actually apparently one of the people they reached out to because they reached out to a lot of non-hockey people which i think is really interesting um raptors vice president theresa resh uh and i guess resh said that didn't say it on on sources but the the sources are saying that resh said that didn't think it was the right thing for her um but felt chicago was legit in its interests and uh and free to put this on his thing he's like one thing about the Raptors is they pay very very well which is why you know same with the Leafs you know you're wondering it's like why does Lawrence Gilman not have a GM job

in the NHL that's because Lawrence Gilman would be taking a pay cut oh yeah like if I were the if I were the Flyers that would be the guy I'd be calling Lawrence Gilman has done amazing where you look at the bunting contracts you look at the value he has helped find and the the the cap shenaniganery that they're still able to pull off because of him you know why is he not a gm well because all the pressure and none of the money if you simply and this is where it's so funny this is what alan was talking about when we talked about uh uh the luxury cap he's like listen you have a bunch of players on ltir the teams are just hiding like the canadians like the tampa bay lightning last year like the least forever and ever and they're not getting taxed on

those player contracts. So the small market teams see no benefit and the big market teams continue to outspend them. What if we taxed that? And when you, when you say tax, you mean taking money and putting it back into the smaller markets. That's right. So if you're a big market team and it doesn't matter who's injured, if Shea Weber's injured and he's injured for the remainder of his contract, it's too freaking bad. You're getting taxed on that. And that money is going to the coyotes and everybody else who doesn't make money. By the way, do you know what an equalization payment looks like, do you know how much actually gets paid out to each of the small market teams for that? No. $5 million. Oh, that's it? That's it. So if you think the salary cap is

really helping your small market team with $5 million, that's not a great equalization payment, man. Even look at what the Leafs are doing right now with Jake Muzzin. So in order to get the most LTIR benefit, they have to do what? Bring up more people. Get closer to the cap. So, this mechanism of the salary cap forces teams or incentivizes teams to spend

more money. The salary cap is to do the exact opposite of that, but because of the salary cap, the Toronto Maple Leafs are spending more money than they were yesterday. Right. And dumb. If you don't think big market

teams have advantages in other ways like you're totally wrong on that because if you go to the training facilities of the Leafs if you if you go to the the coaches that they have um the access to and just the the all the extracurricular things that players in big markets have smaller market teams don't have those like there are inherent advantages just to being worth more and having more money hanging on to great assistant general managers yeah I um I I interviewed Tobias Lindberg when he, shortly after he became a Leaf, he was traded to the Leafs in the Dion Phaneuf trade with the

Ottawa Senators. And I was like, you know, what's the difference between wherever, I think the Sens were still playing in Binghamton at the time and the Marlies. And he's like, oh, the Marlies goalie coach travels with them. I think it was the goalie coach. It was either goalie coach or video.

You know what I mean? Like, imagine you're a goalie going through a slump and gosh, I would just like a refresher with my goalie coach just to clear my mind, but you're on a seven-game road trip, and it's game one and the goalie coach doesn't travel.

You know what I mean? Seven-game road trips are not out of the question in the American League. Whether it was goalie coach or video coach, I believe it was goalie coach. It's enormous advantages for the big market teams. There's a reason

they put in that rule, what was it, two years ago about off-season training and teams not using the facilities because the big market teams could fly guys around and allow them to use all the practice facilities and they're like nope you can't have the big market team spending the money that they have that was a corny thing yeah i do just because the Leafs were doing it's just because the Leafs oh it was it was it was it when the Leafs do something people find out about it if if Philadelphia had done that another big market team or New York had done that another big market team nobody would have batted an eye but because it's the Leafs and because remember

they hired nhl refs to come into ref games too yeah and they have to shut it down no you can't do that no well like what if like in in in a luxury tax world the leafs could do their thing they could continue doing what they do and on the receipt instead of gratuity it's shut the fuck up it's here's the shut the fuck up payment where we do what we want and you shut the fuck up for a small fee and maybe with this small fee you could shut the fuck up and get good and do it yourself you're welcome by the way you know and and and also think of the meme capital if there's luxury tax uh and the leafs the leafs could start paying teams to beat them think of the jokes everybody you're cheering for this for the jokes imagine not having to rely on

2004 and 1967 jokes forever you can say you paid us to beat you the senators get paid a 20 million dollar payment from the equalization and then they beat the leafs in the playoffs yeah you helped us re-sign connor brown hilarious like stuff like that stuff of that nature the the flyers not only is Chuck Fletcher spending your money, but so are we. Yeah, like, hey. With the luxury tax, the Leafs pay Nikita Zaitsev anyway.

You know? Things of that nature. You know, if Phil Kessel sticks around with the Coyotes, guess what? He's still on payroll. You know, there's just, why aren't we doing this? Let us pay you.

I forget who made this point. I think it was a couple of years ago who originally made this point, but the way NHL franchises are run is so the opposite of way every regular business is run, because there are regulations in place that are limiting these businesses from becoming bigger businesses and expanding their market size and being better businesses and making more profits. So in normal business world, if you wanted to spend more money in advertising, because that'll get you more sales, you can just spend as

much advertising dollars as you wanted to get more sales. But in the NHL, they're not allowing you to Spend more money on players so you can have a better business and get more profits. They're just limiting these guys from running their teams to the maximum ability of the team for no reason. Yep. Other than competitive balance, which I don't think it works at all. I mean, listen, the bad teams are still poorly run. Yeah. So I don't know.

Anyway, I'm going to keep banging that drum. Now, we do have to get to the press conference here. One thing on your original note on the Blackhawks search. Jamie Faulkner, her husband, Colin Faulkner, works as an executive at the Cubs. And Jamie Faulkner is the president of business operations, and her husband is an executive with the Cubs. And he said one of the candidates there is a Cubs executive.

So that's where that connection comes in. She probably knows him very well and then had him out as a candidate there. I would love to see that happen just for the chaos of it. um i i think i think we we i think there are a lot of qualified people who don't get a shot in hockey so i'd like to see them get a shot um a non-hockey person moving over to hockey but that i think that's cool too i think that's cool too so you know just open it up please all right let's do the press conference the steve dangle press conference all right we ready I have an Adams History Corner here quickly.

Oh, go ahead. You know what we're talking about? I got an Adams History Corner shirt. Wearing the shirt. I love it. I love it. Finally got one. It's actually, it's a wonderful fit.

The Adams History Corner University, which is hilarious because I only went to two semesters. How funny is that? But you too can attend school at Adams History Corner if you visit sdpnshop.ca and get your crew neck sweater. You know, I want I wanted today's today's profile to be a really fun one. It's a dark time in the world. And I thought that this one, you know, with Black History Month, we have to remember that

so much of it is like we're not we don't call it Black Trauma Month. We call it Black History Month. Let's talk about the successes. Let's talk about the people that we love. And I've tried to bring you people like Lonnie Johnson, like the Harlem Hellfighters that you just didn't know about. And then, you know, Grant Fuhrer was one where it's like you knew about him, but did you know about Grant Fuhrer?

and the Pepsi deal and all the other stuff? No, probably not. I didn't. One, this is going to be one that you know well, but nobody knows better than Steve Dangle, and that is one Jerome Aguililla. Oh, yeah! There we go.

Calgary Flames, all-time leader in goals, points, and games played. He's the first black NHL player to win the Art Ross Trophy, the first one to win the Maurice Rocket Richard Trophy, both in 2002. As a member of the Canadian men's national team in 2002, the winter Olympics, he also became the first black man to win any gold medal at the winter Olympics. Can you believe that at all? That's what that as far as my research shows in hockey, I as far as I know, he became the first black man to win any gold medal at the winter Olympics for anyone. that is that my understanding is that if i'm incorrect then i sincerely apologize in advance

because i couldn't believe that either and what year was that what's that 2002 2002 wow and then this year sarah nurse was the first black woman to win uh gold medal in hockey and that's 10 years a decade later but or sorry 20 years later it's up for the first black woman to win a gold medal hockey but that's unbelievable that's first black man in general in any sport in the olympics wow okay so what's interesting about this is that there's different there's different um uh there's different thoughts on this but yeah jerome again love from what i understand became the first black man to win a gold medal at at the winter olympics shocking yes and where where is this from uh there's several different articles on the web you can just google it if you want to but um there are

several sources that say it's jerome mcginley there's several but it could be somebody bob's like but there are several sources that say it's jerome mcginley okay sorry to grill you either way it's 2002 olympics that's the first time it happened so at the same games yes those incidences okay yeah so it's pretty crazy guys and uh uh i i you know whether or not he is the first it's sort of immaterial he's among the first yeah he's about he's he's if he's not first he's the second yeah which is a sad realization but also an accomplishment yes both fronts yes yeah absolutely and you know the thing is jerome again let um i think summed up when he was playing everything that canadians view about hockey he can score 50 goals he can punch your best player

in the face in the stanley cup finals and he um is also super quiet and likes to live in the mountains in the offseason like that is that's the canadian weirdly enough that is for a lot of people the canadian dream it's like i'm um i don't have a cell phone and i'm gonna live in the mountains and you'll never see me again except for the auto occasional award ceremony that was one of the things i remember working with nike is uh you know hey we we got to get these things done with him before a certain date because then we won't be able to find him like we if we don't if we don't get these things done before the off season there's we're just gonna lose contact with him for three months and we're not gonna be able to shoot these things and get these things done

that we need to um because he just he just loves he loves uh solitude he loves solitude it's pretty cool right yeah uh and and i also i think i think you know when you when you go to calgary and having lived there the effect that jerome mcginley had on that city and its love for hockey the 2004 run everybody talks about the red mile still to this day um you know and how they were essentially in my opinion robbed of a stanley cup they should have they should have won that cup that was that was a calgary flames cup sorry tampa your cup your cups came later um jerome mcginley helped out in the community uh jerome mcginla um gave everything he could to the calgary flames and obviously you know we've teased steve in the past about his his absolute undying love for jerome mcginla and

whether or not retirement was foisted upon him or he chose it himself but jerome mcginla is one of the most special athletes that's ever come through the canadian system and i thought he deserved a little bit of a shout out as we wind down black history month um we're going to have one more on monday uh but you know i wanted to steve you know when you you got to interview him so i wanted to pull from your experience on this you know when you step up you have that microphone you stepped in front of that camera you're like 20 22 21 22 21 and you got to talk to jerome for the first time can you tell me about that moment uh uh that was a big day um those nike interviews were long and torturous they they weren't regular sports interviews which are you know

five minutes max. Like these things were 20 minutes, uh, at least. And I'm standing there dumpy and as, as a student and probably hung over and, you know, talking to them about like nutrition and fitness and stuff like that. Uh, that day I had spoken to Jillian apps, Jaina Hefford and Jennifer Botterill. And, uh, Jerome McGinley was the last interview of the bunch if i remember correct and i knew he was coming in and i'm 21 i've done a bunch of interviews not many of them in person i did a lot of phone interviews in junior um but most of those were over the phone and i just remember psyching myself up i'm still in university and i'm psyching myself up like all right come on big boy pants it's it's jerome again la but you know you're

not going to get starstruck this is just another day it's another it doesn't matter this isn't going to phase you because you're a professional they they're paying you to be here because you're good at what you do right and the second jerome again walks in the building or walks into the room it was it was the way uh um uh charlie murphy describes the first time he saw rick james like just just the aura around him the orange aura and immediately all professionalism leaves me and i'm just like oh my god that's saroma gimba like i actually despite psyching myself up i was still like weak in the legs i can't believe i'm meeting this guy i shake his hand he engulfs it um and just so nice just a smile that that lights up the room had time for everyone

he signed a jersey of mine and i got in trouble for it and i still have the jersey so worth it uh okay you're not allowed to ask them to design things for you and i decided i made an executive decision in that moment that i didn't care and i'm glad uh because he's just a wonderful guy took pictures with everyone so kind to everyone um you know was willing to laugh at himself one of the things i remember about that is so he had to change into nike stuff because he had just got in from it was either flames morning skate or flames practice and uh he had to put on these uh these shoes and uh but he was wearing these powder blue socks with i think like flowers and snowflakes on them and we were like where did you even get

these and i believe they were a christmas gift from like someone in his family like an aunt or something like that so he wore christmas gift socks to a nike shoe and people were like you know i think they had accounted on okay yeah we got to change him into different shoes but i don't think they had extra socks right so they were like yeah i think they were like i guess yeah like just go barefoot or something and but there's a pair of shoes that was left behind at the shoot oh adam's frozen oh there he is there are a pair of shoes that were i'm back that were left behind at the shoot and we didn't know whose they were so i grabbed them and kept them and i choose to believe that i have jerome again the shoes there you they're probably not

because they're too small for me they're probably just other shoes you stole somebody's shoes oh nike dude i miss working for them man they were the best like there was this one dude who every time I went to Nike headquarters he would see me and he would just be like, oh, what size are you? Like he was looking for me. Like, what size are you? And I'd be like, uh, large and

pants and I don't know, shoes. Like 11 and a half. And I would go home with like $500 worth of shit. Like, oh man, I really I miss them. Come back. In any of those instances, did you also steal somebody's shoes? No,

I simply was given them. okay so you didn't you didn't pick pocket shoes i i when i went to we're getting away we're getting away from jerome mcginley here but uh the world juniors i had my parents blue suede suitcase that they brought to their honeymoon in 1985 um and the someone from nike saw that and they were just like you we you work for us now you can't be seen with this so we'll get you some stuff and they ended up getting me like a bunch of bags but the guy was just like what is this literally just this blue i gotta find a picture of the suitcase but my parents brought it to quebec city in 1985 and i brought it to uh regina saskatchewan in december

2009 wow i need a picture of that steve dude i was broke i didn't have any money i was sure that thing i i feel like i know what it looks like it's like a big bigger size leather briefcase that's blue it's like leather it's yeah it's terrible but anyway um yeah as it all that to say uh jerome mcginley uh my favorite non-leaf of all time and uh meeting him was the dream i was fortunate enough to do it twice um when he came to town with the uh colorado avalanche later in his career um i remember him talking about you know because yarmir yager was a big story at the time and oh are you gonna play forever too and he was basically like no i have kids uh so but uh you know really friendly to everyone i've never heard a bad jerome mcginley story uh hard-nosed

player great family man i mean who's got a bad thing to say about jerome mcginley not even oilers fans have a bad thing to say about jerome mcginley because they're like yeah but he's from edmonton played for the flames but he's from edmonton so he's ours again you know he's retired I like that I like that a lot okay with that Jesse do we have any questions we want to get to in the press conference before we wrap it up for the week two quick questions let's go Adam this one's from Boomtown

and for you can we get Adam's ranking on what the most spiciest cereal is the spiciest cereal if you don't know what we're referencing during one of our new advertisements

for Magic Spoon that's running Adam said that He gets heartburn from cereal and that cereal is really spicy. So Adam, I didn't say it was spicy. I just sometimes get heartburn. Can you back up this ridiculous dumb take that cereal is spicy and gives you heartburn? Yeah. Tell us about habanero honeycomb.

So, so it does get, it does, but I won't get into that. But the, if you want spicy cereal, cinnamon toast, crunch, spicy. So cinnamony, it's spicy. I'm going to kick you through the computer. Oh my God. It does give me heartburn. Chorizo Cheerios. Yeah.

Guys, more than spicy stuff gives you heartburn. You know that, right? I don't know if it's cereal, though. It does. You're wrong. You're wrong. Also, I can't eat Cheerios anymore because they make me toot. It's ridiculous.

You know that? I'm telling you. What's the matter? How is the stomach fixed? Oh, it's fine. It's all fine. Adam, call your doctor and say cereal is spicy. They'll tell you to go to the ER right away.

we live in canada it's free go like get out of here let's stop recording pack up your shit and go to the doctor all right next question next question so steve this is uh something you mentioned briefly on a previous podcast i think we all talked about it uh but you went back and did the research on this question so uh this was i am coupon i am a coupon on our discord server if you're not a member of our discord go to svn.ca to join our discord they wanted to know about a player playing more than 82 games so we we were talking about how it's it's been done and uh we've referenced a couple instances where guys played 84 85 games because they've been traded to a team mid-season that uh second team to get traded to has more games left than their

previous team so they end up playing 84 games in the year uh but you were looking at some of the records and who has a chance to beat it this year and get into like the 90s if that were to happen yeah so there were some scenarios so this i made a tech talk about a week ago with all this information so there's been updates and i don't know exactly how it works but there are trade scenarios with a few of the teams who have played the most games um and most notably the new york islanders in the minnesota wild um because they've played so many fewer games than everybody else there are scenarios out there where players could break the record um which is 86 games in a season and they could play as many as who

bob kadelsky and she's joe is it john cullen i'm asking you oh shit let me uh here you tell the story i'll look it up yeah sorry man um yeah um anyway it's two guys who hold the record for 86 so there's actually a couple answers for who owns the record if you want to get picky about it so there used to be 84 games in a season these two players got traded during those 84 game seasons they played a couple extra games so they played 86 the non-84 game season record i believe is held by bill garren who in an 82 game season played 85 so you are correct about that bill garren has played 85 games bob kadelsky played 86 and number one also at 86 jimmy carson jimmy carson yeah i got jc correct i got jc correct um so this year there still

exist a number of scenarios where they could tie the record they could beat the record uh or at very least play over 82 eric stall i think was the most recent player to play over 82 there might have been some players who played more than the maximum amount of games over the last couple years but they were shortened seasons remember so they were still nowhere close to the record but uh most notably with the new york islanders if a player was traded from the islanders wait if a player was traded from one of the teams who have played the most games so far To the Islanders, they could hypothetically play well into the 80s. Like we're talking 84, 85, 86, 87 games.

Wow. And 87 would be the new record. Crazy. Crazy. All right. Well, there you go. It's the Steve Angle podcast for this week. We will be back Monday with more stuff.

I don't even know. It's going to be a crazy weekend. Who do the Leafs even play tomorrow? Right? Okay. I think. Yeah. There you go.

Anyway, so enjoy. We hope you have a great weekend. Jesse, enjoy Vegas. I want some stories when you get back, though. Yeah. Oh, there'll be some stories. Beautiful. We'll be back in studio on Monday.

SDP. The Steve Dangle Podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E, and at Jesse Blake. Connection complete.