The Steve Dangle Podcast - It's November | November 9, 2017

Episode Date: November 10, 2017

On this episode, there are Leafs missing from practice, oh no (00:00), Adam doesn't want to order Panago Pizza (03:00), Freddy won the game last night (11:00), Have you heard of the Boston Bruins? Me neither. (36:00), Is Soshnikov off to the KHL (46:00), Nick Kypreos didn't start the Mitch Marner rumours (50:00), the Canucks and Jets are playing really well, here's a cookie (1:02:00), a Russian hockey player tested positive for steroids (1:15:00), Roger Goodell, Jerry Jones Ezekiel Elliott (1:21:00), and Roy Halladay and the Press Conference (1:31:00). Originally aired: November 9, 2017 Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Panago Pizza presents S.D.P. The Steve Dangle Podcast with your hosts, Steve Dangle and Adam Wilde. Well, how about this? At Leafs practice this afternoon, we have no Freddie Anderson, no Austin Matthews, and no Jake Gardner. I did not get a chance to read any of that. I was in the car. The Leafs' best centerman, arguably the Leafs' defenseman, and definitely the Leafs' best goalie.

Arguably the Leafs' defenseman. You know what's funny is that is such an accurate description of Jay Carter. Arguably the Leafs' defenseman. He is kind of the archetype, isn't he? Whenever he jumps up in the rush, I'm like, God, he could easily be a $5-6 million winger if he just wanted to be. Sure. Yeah.

If he just wanted to be. Yep, absolutely. Instead he'll be a $5-6 million defender. Can you imagine a Bozak-JVR-Gardner line? Just Freddie never being anywhere within 50 feet of any teammate ever. Would Jake Gardner be better at being Thomas Vanik than Thomas Vanik? Because Thomas Vanik plays zero defense. He is a power play specialist.

Got himself ready to get a five or seven year deal in Buffalo or New York. The American Sergei Kostitsyn. Does Thomas Vanik have a 40 goal season? I think he's 35, at least. He had a couple good years in Buffalo. Amazing years, in fact. Boy, we just went a distance just now. Thomas Vanek has one, he has two 40-goal seasons.

He's not a bad player on his career. How many 30-goal seasons after that? He's got a 36, a 32, and a bunch of 20s. Top 100 player, Thomas Vanek. Forget Geno. Where was Thomas Vanek in the top 100 of all time? Yeah, everyone complaining about Chara and Thornton and Aginla. You're all wrong.

You're clearly all wrong. Yeah, Thomas Vanik is clearly where it's at. Buffalo Sabres legend. Hall of Famer. Future Hall of Famer. I mean, if he's going to edge out the likes of P. Cain and J. Taves, gotta give him his due. So, two questions.

Okay. One, what's 36 divided by 15? Two. Two something. Two and a half? Two. Yeah, two something was my exact answer. What year and number was he drafted?

Oh, um, fifth overall. Of course you know this. First ass in the long divide. And then this. 2002? Wow. Fifth overall. Oh, wait, can I change it?

Go ahead. I think it was 2003. 2003? Yes! Oh my god! And I didn't see. You know what That's a new game

We should play with Steve Every episode Is the draft game Okay yeah Where was this Vague player drafted Okay now long divide No long divide first

To throw you off True If you gave me enough time I could actually figure out The decimal But it would take A very long time Couple things we need to hit

Before we get into The actual show today I mean well We're in the show But first thing We gotta talk about Panago's brand new Hashtag road to the

Cup hockey combo We need to do that So basically We've got this new combo From Panago Pizza You can get Two medium recipe pizzas Ten

Which includes A ten pack Of fire grilled wings Which are so good And cheesy bread As if pizza Was not enough cheesy bread You get some bread

With some cheese on it After you've eaten Your pizza with cheese And bread and sauce on it Their cheesy bread Is so good It is so good Cheesy bread is cheesy bread

Pizza is pizza You're right Let's not pretend Like they're the same thing If they were They wouldn't have it Yep They do

Can we order it right now? We can Mike would kind of Like that Uh, I just ate, so nope. Screw you guys. Screw you guys. You just said we can't. Well, you can, but like you're old. Can you just wait till I'm old? That's how

I know you're old. I ate is an excuse for not eating. That is never an excuse for not eating. That's true. When you're young. And I'm not even thinking, because I could eat a whole pizza right now. It's just that if I did, I know that I would regret it later. I used to go to my friend's house,

eat dinner with him and his family, go home and have dinner. Like, how dare you? I just ate. I used to have dinner before and after hockey like before and after hockey games I hope Panago hears this and they're like

we want Steve to read the rest of them we want someone who respects food anyway it's basically it's like if you want hockey

and pizza together on a Saturday night it costs it starts at like 43 bucks but it's basically perfect for if you're having people

over and you're watching the game exactly hashtag road to the cup Panago pizza hockey combo make sure you didn't just eat

yeah well I mean I also want to shout out Andrew Utero who proposed to his girlfriend he's a long time listener of this podcast the reason this is special is because Andrew

was on me for like several weeks because he's like hey man where did you get your ring how did you do the ring thing because I told you about how I didn't go through like a typical jeweler I actually went to someone who you went and harvested the diamond yourself I went and dug it up myself

you rolled up your sleeves revealing beefy hairy forearms but I was able to make the ring Anyway, Andrew went to my girl, Suzanne, and got the ring. Suzanne Summers? No, not Suzanne Summers. That's so impressive. Her name is Suzanne Taylor.

If you would like her contact, I can give it to anybody who wants to propose. Did she make it with her thighs? She did not make it with her thighs. Did she forge the diamond in between her thighs? Suzanne Summers could have because she would work out. Anyway, Suzanne, he drove up from the States to talk to her specifically. He drove up from the States to do this. Does his girlfriend, sorry, fiancé, know that he went to all this trouble?

I don't know. I don't know. I hope she does. The bother. I hope she knows the bother that he went to for his love for her. Did you also know that we're being used now in applications for jobs? No. So Emily messaged me.

We're? Like us? Our show. Emily messaged me on Instagram. That's not good. And she said, hey, Adam, I had a job interview. One of the questions was what podcast I listened to. The interview was at a digital marketing agency So I mentioned I listened to a hockey podcast

And the interviewer asked me Which one? I said the Steve Dangle podcast So he asked me to describe it And I told him it was three Canadians One who yells about the Maple Leafs While two friends watch and occasionally chime in I hope I get the job Peace and blessings from New York, Emily

That's okay I think that's a pretty accurate description I was applying for a job at Schneider's What industry is this? she was applying for a job in a digital marketing agency. I told her to update us. I want to know if she gets it.

What's her name? Emily. Emily, it's not looking good. You don't think so? No. I think this is a fine quality podcast, and I don't see why any digital marketing agency wouldn't be a part of it.

I don't trust people who listen to us. I always apologize. I don't listen to me, so I don't know why anyone else does. When people listen, I'm like, I'm sorry. Are you one of those people who, like, you're like, I don't trust my friends, Because I don't like anyone who would like me.

Exactly. Who the hell would? I don't trust their judgment because they think I'm okay. You know, Steve, you've got to get close to someone to stab them in the back. Wow. You can't trust anybody who's within back distance. Is that the plan? You made that sound like that's the plan.

Jesse getting all Machiavelli on us. Are we going to die? It sounds a little bit like that, yeah. Some of us watched Goodfellas recently. Yeah, well, okay. Fair enough. Lastly, I want to shout out Andrew Myers, who I believe is a member of our armed forces based on his Twitter profile.

I want to think about it. He said, think about this for a second. We are closer in age to Patrick Marlowe than Austin Matthews. No, we're not. Yes, we are. No, we're not. The two of you are. Yes, we are.

You're not. We are closer in age to Patrick Marlowe than it is Austin Matthews. Doesn't that make you sad? How old are you again? 25? It's 21 shut up. Yeah, so you're closer to you are Equally no you are equal You're right in between austin matthews and Roman Polak

Wait a second world how old is Roman Polak? I think he's 30 or 31 he Roman Polak to me is forever 47 He's one of those guys. And you know what's funny is that growing up watching hockey, you always think of the guys as so much older. I think this is true of any sport. And then you get to that age and you still think, they're so much older than me.

And they're not. They're not. Patrick Marleau, when we were 20, was like 27. He's not. He could be your older brother. Young dude. He's got like 18 kids now too. I'm weird going into the Leafs locker room.

Age is such a weird perception. It's also how people are treated and spoken of. So, Matthews, okay, we talked about Marner as this little kid. He's this little kid, but he's a year older than Matthews. But then you walk up to Matthews, and that guy is the size of a man. And so you think he's older. Zaitsev, I looked at as this guy who, well, you know, he played years in Russia. Forget the fact that I'm probably like five years older than him.

No, he played for Russia, or in Russia for years. He lived in Russia. He survived Russia. He's a child. And then there's Kadri who has been 22 going on 23 For the last 5-6 years Yeah He still seems like a kid to me

But he's very obviously not I think most of the fanbase still views Nazem Kadri As young And it wasn't until recently That people started to say Tyler Bozak's a veteran Like he was 27 and people were like Well he's a young kid

Well he's not, he wasn't a young kid 5 years ago And he's now over I think he's up over 30 now This is just interesting right It's weird the way you see the perception And I think Tyler Bozak also had a bit of a baby face Going on too right Like he's got one of those guys

That just looks youthful I think this year finally it's changed with Kadri Because Matthews is here And we're like okay Kadri's kind of the old guy now But last year was still Kadri's a young guy on this team Yeah

Look at this His coming out party His 26 year old coming out party He was drafted in 2008 His 26-year-old already has a 30-goal season in his back pocket or whatever. Or would have in the lockout short in a year, maybe. I don't know. Him and the whole rest of the team would have five goals in a year.

Him and Lobel, man. They were lighting it up that year. But that's because they were sheltered. They were playing third-line minutes. It was great. Freddie Anderson wins the game, basically, for the Leafs last night. He's won a few. I had a couple people tweet me, oh, it was the first steal since Winnipeg.

Oh, I don't think so. I don't think so. He's had a few. Come on. I don't know, guys. What is it? 896? It's bad.

It's bad. He's been better recently. How as bad is Freddie Anderson? It's pretty as bad. If we had a hotkey, that would be a button. As bad. In my view. As bad.

Weenie in the butt. In the morning. In the morning. Weenie in the butt. As bad. Freddie. Steve is ruining my life. Fuck a duck.

Weenie in the butt. Sorry. Yeah. What? Well, Freddie played Freddie last night. Freddie was Freddie. Yeah, except for the part where he almost blew his shoulder, apparently. Well, he's not, yeah, he's like I said, not in practice.

I'm sure it's just a bit of a strain. I mean, he finished the game, right? I assume someone would have been called up already. Had there actually been an issue. And really, does Frederick Anderson need to practice? I mean, practice? We're talking about practice. If any goalie in this league could use a day off,

Tim, I think he's played the most minutes, faced the most shots, something like that. McElhinney's played two games. has McElhinney even come in in relief in any games none I can think of I don't think so

none I can think of I could be wrong he started the two games that was it as far as I know and they got back to backs coming up now

I don't know what they would do there I would start McElhinney on the home game we'll talk about Bruins in a second but the Leafs I just want to point this out

yes I believe Edmonton Oilers are under 500 without Connor McDavid Leafs undefeated without Austin Matthews throwing that out there, so Toronto

better. Toronto better, it's important to make that distinction, not just the Leafs Toronto. The city vastly superior and every single person in it. Oh all of them, not a one not a one, our worst is

better than our best. You know, you can always tell the difference between old Oilers fans who listen to this show like Oilers fans who have listened to this show for a long time and Oilers fans that are new to the show What? Because because Oilers fans that are new to the show are like, ah, we get it.

And then they'll give it back to us on Twitter. New Oilers fans are offended. I can't believe you said that thing and meant it. I can't believe it, frankly. Also, I'll have you know they're not made of dogs. They are made of... Yeah, yeah. Shirley jackets are not made of golden doodle.

Yeah, you're going to learn to not take the show that seriously. Yeah, don't. Because you know what? We're all fans. And by the way, I think, again, we've talked about this for years. Edmonton and Toronto, a lot in common there. A little bit.

A lot of losing past. Worth mentioning, they won. Bit of a flawed win. Oh, I would think so. Nazem Khadri, I think, was one of the only people who had better than 50 possession. Matt Martin. You mean Stats Martin. Right?

Am I right? Because his stats are fantastic. I am tired of coursey nerds like Matt Martin ruining the game. Whatever happened to just watching hockey and playing the thing? The eye test. What happened to my... What happened to the eye test? Whatever happened to it, you know?

Where did you play, Steve? Where did I play? Where did you play to start talking like that? Of all of us, he's played the most recently. I'll have you know, I've played with NHL players. I blocked a shot. Eric Lindros tweeted about him. Wow.

Yeah. So you can talk about hockey. Oh, E. Big E. Oh, the big E? Yeah. Oh, the big E. Man, it was so great being on a hockey bench

and getting to say all those stupid hockey nicknames. It was fun. Oh, they're all corny and none of them are creative. It's just, okay, so we had John Drews on our team, and no less than 25,000 times during the game, Lindros from the bench, the Drews is loose! And every time he said it, I laughed.

That's awesome. You know what? It was funny on the bench. That's Eric Lindros. If you were to say that at a casual business lunch, I'd be like, shut the fuck up. The Druces, we're trying to get shit accomplished here, Greg. What is with you, Greg?

You don't take your job seriously, Greg piece of shit. But it was Eric Lindros on the bench during the hockey game. I have a question. Okay. Leafs looked like ass against Vegas. One. Leafs look like ass Against Minnesota

One The Vegas win bothered me This one did not Why? I'm trying to figure out why I feel the same way I think first off It feels good to

Put together two wins After the run they had My god Two wins in a row is great I think part of it too Is that I think This is a team that

First off I think coming into the season, expectations were far too high. And then they made it worse by starting 7-2. And so, as I said last episode, and it's not any offense to the players

playing on the team, I don't think their defense is good enough yet. I don't think they have the talent. And it's not because Andreas Borgman can't be that. It's not because Conor Carrick can't be that. The guys that they need. And it's not because Ron Hainsey, Morgan, Riley, Zaitsev, or Gardner are

bad players. None of them are. But we need... You need a guy. You need a guy. The guy. Or, you need a guy to develop. And development takes time. And so I'm willing to wait, because I feel like, I watch Conor Carrick and I feel like it's there.

I watch Andreas Borgman and I feel like it's there, but Andreas Borgman is in the first 20 games of his NHL career. Taking a lot of penalties so far. Yeah, and some, like I mean last night, the second period was like I mean, of course they didn't have any positive possession numbers. They took four penalties

and they spent 16 minutes. I mean, there were some goals in there, but 16 minutes essentially of a 20-minute period on the penalty kill. And some... Andres Boardman's penalty was a joke. That was a joke.

And then... And it felt like the ref... Like, the guys are looking at the ref like, there were times where... What are we allowed to do, guys? Yeah. What are we allowed to do, sir? So, to me, it's like,

okay, well, they looked a little bit like garbage because when you're always shorthanded, you're going to look like garbage. And Zaitsev is, he looks best on the penalty kill. Five on five, he's struggling because I think he's starting to get gassed. I think he's tired. He looks gassed.

But why, for some reason, did this loss not bother me as much? I'm trying to figure that out too. Did it feel like a gritty win? Like they kind of just mustered it out and you're kind of more proud of the team for winning a game they weren't supposed to win? The first period wasn't bad. I thought they dominated the first period. Iwan, they got outshot in the first two, but I looked at the numbers, I think, at the end of two,

and they're getting outshot something like 23 to 12. And I'm going, really? Now, is that five on five, though? No. That's just overall. That's partially, I think, it. What encouraged me the most, and it's something we've talked about,

and it's hard to pick up on in the highlights, is the forwards were actually coming back and bailing out their defense. Like they should be! Like they should be. I think the Leafs' D maybe gets blamed a little bit too much for forwards misgivings. I think it's a team defense issue, for sure. Of course.

Marner was good. Hyman was good. I really like Marleau up the middle. Well, and that's what I wanted to get to next. Can we keep going with that, please? Well, so here's the thing. Marleau, I agree. However, they can't use him there all year.

Why? Because he's 38 years old. And the sports science guys who work for the Leafs, and the Leafs have a very advanced sports science program. And Mike Babcock said it in the press conference last night. He said, listen, we'd love to have him there. But he's 38 years old, and a 200-foot game is a lot. The great thing about Patrick Marleau is that when guys are struggling,

is you can put him in there. You have that option. What's that? I thought he was arguably their best player. I think he's been arguably their best player every time he's played center. Has he scored? I think he's almost scored. No.

I think, what did he score? Three or four goals in two games playing center? If anything, he was cold before they started this. Yeah. And then they gave it a shot. Here, let me look up the stats because I looked it up for the video today. Led the team in shots with four. Trying to see his ice time.

It wasn't that crazy. 14 minutes, 33 seconds. So they're really managing it. He can't give the Leafs 14 and a half minutes a night at center? I think for the line that they have. Well, remember that time is down, though, because of all the special teams. Well, he played a minute 19 on the power play. Yeah, I suppose you're right, and maybe it would have been higher.

All the time they spent shorthanded, that's a 17-minute game. So you're against this? No, no, no. I am 100% for it. I understand why they can't. He is 38 years old. If Matthews plays, he probably plays less than that. Or he probably plays that at a more even game.

My thing is this, guys. When we get to the playoffs, right? This is a young team. They looked fresh going into the playoffs last year. They weren't limping in injured. The last thing you want is a guy like Patrick Marleau who can do both to be gassed. And at 38, it's different than 28, different than 18.

And I think that I understand why they're doing what they're doing, but I bet you if the Leafs make the playoffs this year, which I think they absolutely can and will, Patrick Marleau is the center for most of it. I think he'll be the center in the playoffs because that guy knows, like you can tell. That line. That line was fantastic.

And you can tell with him just the way he, where he puts himself. He knows where the puck's going before the puck goes there. And he is responsible and he's offensive. I mean, it was, I love it. And I loved it the first game I saw it. I just think that it's hard to do over the course of an 82-game series or a season for anybody, let alone 38 years old. That's why I think they'll stop.

But I, man. In the LFR today, I couldn't help but think to myself, Martin, Bozak, Levo. Martin, Bozak, Levo. More has to sit. Leo, Kadri, Nylander. Oh, that's interesting. Leo, Kadri, Nylander, which is what they used yesterday. And Nylander, by the way, looked great.

Yep. Hyman and Brown on the wings from Marleau. And the top line, Matthews dragging around those bums, JVR and Mitch Marner. Yes. Yes. All the way. Yes, please. Yes, please. You sound like you're playing NHL. I know I'm playing NHL. Well, and here's why. So this was the other thing I pointed out that was concerning to me, okay? So Jonas Siegel tweeted before the game that JVR supposedly said something along the lines of him, Bozak, and Marner want to be back together as a line.

Who does? JVR, Bozak, Marner. Okay. Like they were last year. And I think they've been asking Babcock that, or at least once or twice have asked him that. And maybe Babcock's keeping them apart as incentive for them to get better. Well, he puts them together, partially out of need. Yeah, he doesn't have a choice.

Exactly. They get one shot between them It's JVR It's a backhander in the first period Bozak Played 15-10 Almost two minutes on the power play

Marner, who I did think looked good Played 15-47 Two minutes on the power play I feel like that's more than he's been playing recently JVR With almost two minutes on the power play Played 12 minutes and four seconds He has played over 15 minutes

In a game Once in the last 12 games Does that sound like a guy Who's a key part of your team and is going to get re-signed? No I think we came into the season Thinking he's a tradable piece And he is

And this is proving it And yet, what are his numbers? Let me look He still has 6 goals 5 assists, 11 points Minus 7, not that we really care about that number but he's shooting 14%. That's about right. What's up there?

What's going on? Something's rotten. Like with this, with the middle of the lineup. What is it? What can I figure out? I mean, that's what I think they're trying to figure out. I mean, that's why they split up Bozak, Marner, JVR. I don't, again, I'm not seeing, I like Martin, Bozak, and Marner together,

but I'm still not sold on Bozak this year. No. And you can't have Marner on the fourth line long term. No. No. I don't think there's, and I don't think, I don't know, and I have to really look into the numbers, and yes, I think they use it as the fourth line,

but I don't really know if they use it as a typical fourth line. Well, the way penalties have been this season, everything's so out of whack. Like, I can't even really look at the, just the raw time on ice. You can look at the even strength time on ice, but even that, like, is a little bit skewed because then the guys who were killing penalties, well, what are they going to do?

be on the next even strength shift and the power play you're not gonna put out. I don't know. It's all very confusing. But, again, they won, and we're talking about the Leafs needing a guy on the back end. Riley's doing his best impression. He's doing his best the-guy

impression. Gardner had a couple plays I didn't like, but for the most part, when Zaitsev was screwing up, Gardner was there. I liked Carrick, except for the dumb penalty. That was it. Well, and it was also sort of dumb that it wasn't

coincidental minors on that one. You know what it should have been? Nothing. It should have been nothing, because you watch it again. This is, by the way, the penalty at the end of the game, for anybody wondering. With about five minutes left, yeah. Carrick went high, which is why he got the call, and I remember being

like, oh, how does he not get the, or how does he get the only call? If you go back and watch what Erickson Eck, I think is his name, what he did, it's even less. it's barely a shove

if I was Minnesota I'd be pissed if that was a penalty that should not be coincidental I would have

just called it nothing but I'm also a Leaf fan when you mentioned that you don't know the numbers

because the penalties are so out of whack this year I looked up the penalty averages for this

season and compared them to a couple from previous years is this the whole

league or just the league this is league wide okay so power play

opportunities are at 3.56 and that's the highest per game. And that's the highest number since 2009. It was at 3.71.

And Power Play goals are at 3 point... Power Play goals... Power Play percentage is at 1912, which is the highest number since 1992 when it was 1957.

Can I be honest with you? That's gotta go down. I wonder what impact the face-off rule has on that. Also, save percentage is at 9-10, which is the lowest number since 2008. Wow. Because when we talk about league average goaltending, it's 9-15. Last year it was. Yeah, last year

it was 9-13, but the year before that the previous two years were 9-15. Hey, Freddie just came up. I want to throw something at you. What I find frustrating about this year so far, in terms of the amount of penalties, is that when I watch hockey, I want to watch for the

five-on-five game with a sprinkling of power play. As in, it's like when you... What do you put on your burger? Well, you guys think it's disgusting that I like mustard so much. I love mustard. You only put mustard on your burger, right? Oh, okay. I like mustard, onions,

sometimes pickle. Okay. So if you were to eat that burger... Underrated. Guacamole. Well, of course. That's not a common You know what? Egg on your burger, too. Oh, yeah. Solid. A little bit messy, but

very good. Oh, righteous. So good. Okay, so let's focus on Steve's Burger for a second. Substrato hipster jerks. What? P&L Burger on Queen, when they shut down, I cry. You know what else is good? Caviar, and on the side you have a little Pinot Grige.

Adam, continue. He's talking about Steve's Burger. Do you know what's also delicious? Rosé and calamari. It is, though. That is good. I don't think anybody's going to deny that. By the way, first date, rosé and calamari. Go for that. You will win every time.

Man, I would have that right now if I didn't eat right before the show. You're a funny guy. Go ahead, Grandma. So here's the... Oh, really? With the way you drive, you're going to call me Grandma? I spoiled my appetite so I couldn't possibly. I could go for some Panago pizza.

I don't know. Somebody else. Can we just wait until we're all hungry and we all can participate? I would like to order Panago, but somebody had just ate it. You don't understand. The mere word Panago gets me hungry, ravenous, puddle of drool on the floor. It's disgusting. Until you realize pizza's coming.

Can we talk about hockey now? Yeah, sure. Okay, thank you. That'd be great. That'd be great. Love Panago, but let's talk about hockey. Jesse, do you want to have a calamari and rosé night and not involve Adam at all? You assholes.

So Steve, your burger, you like Where did this come from? Just fucking go with it Power play, power play Yes, yes, yes, yes On your burger, what do you like again? Mustard, onions Pickle Mustard, onion, pickle

Would you have a burger Two bun, like, you know, a bun Top and a bottom Top and a bottom Mustard, onion, and pickle With a little bit of ground beef sprinkled on top of that ground beef sprinkled on top of my beef burger? No, no, no burger.

Just mustard, pickle, and onion. So mustard, pickle, and a little sandwich. That's how I feel about this NHL season. It's not giving you the meat. The burger is the five on five. The special sauce, the Big Mac sauce, whatever you want to call it, are the penalties in the power play.

This shall be forever known as the condiments and garnish season. You see what I'm saying? Should we rethink hockey, how we think about hockey? Should power plays be more how we look at the game now? I think they think it's going to even out, but I don't know. I don't know. And I'm not really, I didn't enjoy the second period. And I know if I were a Leaf fan, like even as a Leaf fan,

if the other team has taken four penalties in a row, I'm like, great, they're going to win. But at the same time, I'm kind of like, can we just play? It's also worth mentioning that the Leafs were 6-1 and 7-2, and we were still complaining about these things. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they won last night

and we're complaining about it. I've not enjoyed this season as much as others. I think that's fair. I think that's a fair comment. It's, I don't know. What happens after 05-06 is they eventually figured things out. Or, how about this one?

How about this theory? So, the trend has been younger, faster. Both of those things. younger, which is inexperience, and faster, which is kind of unpredictability, are those things leading to more penalties?

The fact that there are more inexperienced players, maybe, I don't have the numbers, and the game is faster than it's ever been. Combined with a couple little rule tweaks, has that caused penalties to go completely out of whack and then next season, year after year

after, it comes back down to normal again? That's what happened. You couldn't get more alien than the 05-06 season. That season was insanity. And then it slowly came down to the point where we're talking about making goalie pads smaller again. And making the nets bigger. And curving

the posts. And all kinds of stupid crap. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I just, I find that I'm not getting enough burger. Getting a lot of condiments and not enough burger. And that's bugging me. Well, it's definitely bugging me that the Leafs have one of the best four-line teams in hockey. And we never get to use it.

And we never get to see it. That's true. That is pissing me right off. Now, is that, like, are the Leafs going to be the Preds? Like, what if they just squeak into the playoffs, and then in the playoffs the rules change? Because they always do. No, this year's going to be different. And all of a sudden, oh, oh, we built our,

now we get to play hockey under the rules that we're accustomed to. And all of a sudden They make it way further Than anyone thinks Because they barely squeaked in In the first place We built basically A complete four lines

And we can use them That's pretty neat Isn't that neat? Now I want to say The Leafs squeaking Into the playoffs The Leafs are third In the Eastern Conference

Right now Really? Yeah So I don't know If squeak in Is going to be the thing Yeah we have the same amount Of points as the Penguins

They've also played 17 games I feel like that's more Technically points wise Tied for second Yeah Well So I mean It's the beginning of the season

I saw someone tweet What if I told you The Habs were Six points behind the Leafs I'd be like Yeah I believe you It's It's early November

Yeah Yeah If you win two straight games If you win This was This was like Less than a week This was probably

Three days ago That's my favorite Yeah it's November Yeah it's November Mathematically Nobody should be surprised By that If your team

Is out of the playoffs right now and you go on a five game winning streak. I don't care if you're the Arizona Coyotes. You're back in the picture. Except if you're the Arizona Coyotes. Okay, fine. Anyone except them. The Coyotes are already 19

points behind the first place St. Louis Blues in their conference. Already. Holy mackerel. They have six points. What's their record? 2-13-2. They have six total points this year. My nudge. It's crazy. Absolutely insane.

Wow. So they have 65 games left. What's the average playoff team? 95 points. How many games would they have to win out of their last 65? They would literally have to play at the top NHL point production. They'd have to play at probably 120 point pace to even make the playoffs at this point. Yeah, 40 wins wouldn't even do it.

Or no, 40 wins would do it. How many OT losses and stuff like that? You'd need like 15 OT losses at 40 wins. You need 45, 50 wins. They have like 20 regulation losses left in them before they're cooked. Oh, my God. That's it. Hey, that could happen before Christmas.

That's a weird way to look at it. If you get X amount of wins, you make the playoffs? No. X amount of regulation losses. You're done. You're done. Good point. They'd have to go about 45 and 18 to get to 96 points.

They can do it. 45-18, let's do this. We believe Coyotes. Coyotes, Coyotes, Coyotes. Hey, so Nylander looked like himself last night, even though he missed a couple. He definitely was close to being on the score sheet. I think it's going to happen next game,

or one of his home-and-home with Boston. One thing we've got to talk about is Nazem Khadri, and I was reading Jonas Siegel this morning on The Athletic, and he said Khadri is on a, currently, 44-goal pace. Right now. Right now. Now, there's only, I think, five guys or six guys in the NHL with more goals than him, and their names are Ovechkin, Matthews.

You should check it out. It's pretty cool. He's got nine goals. He's done it so quietly. However, his shooting percentage is 20.4, so it's not going to stay. But even at that, even if it doesn't sustain and it goes back to where it should be, which is like the 12 to 14 range, that means that he might be well on his way to another 30-goal season.

Oh, he's definitely well on his way to that. Also, though, that goal I don't think should have counted. Oh, yeah, it was a bit of a high stick there, eh? Minnesota missed it. In the same way that Babcock missed the sixth goal against St. Louis, Minnesota missed challenging that call. I don't know what they were looking at. It's those damn tiny monitors.

Yep. Man, pro tip. Like, I know a lot of players like to use black tape on their stick to... Use white. Yeah, use white. You can't pick it up on the monitor. you can't put it up on the monitor how stupid is that

it's really stupid but I used to wear I used to do white tape on my stick and then I'd tape a black strip on the middle of it and I was a jerk so I had I would play when I was in house league I would get selected for the selects team

or whatever and we'd go around and tour and whatever and one of the goalies that I played against in our house league team and this is when we were 16 or 17 years old so we're well past caring about going anywhere with hockey he's like

you son of a bitch you actually like faked me right out I thought the puck was on your stick and it was actually on my friend he said it does

like it messes you up now at the NHL level not so much but it was just one of those things that I used to do I mean it might it does catch your eye

right? it's like just it's stupid but it's what I used to do why is it stupid? it's deception I like it I don't know

who the Boston Bruins are anymore I don't recognize most of those names those names are rumors so left wing is a guy named Anders Bork, which is a name that I feel

like when you get to season 2021 in your GM mode, that's like the draft name that the company puts together. It's like, here's two names that sort of go together. Well, the latest NHL franchise has delayed that a little

bit because they now actually have the actual draft classes going all the way back to the CHL and they import into your new GM mode. No way. So the first season you finish in GM mode you have the actual

draft class so you can get oh so like Rasmus Dahlonen well of course Rasmus Dahlonen the year Matthews would have been drafted

he wasn't eligible yet because he didn't play in a league over here and he never signed until he played an actual game so you couldn't draft Matthews yet

that's silly you can get all the guys who are currently in the show so let's go okay so let's go so there you go

producer Jesse I like video games a little yo Nobody Producer Jesse Has quickly become The best NHL

NHL A team player I know He beat me Steve Steve's very good I know Steve's very good Oh shut up Steve is very good

You know you beat me What was it two out of three I'm pretty sure you beat me Okay okay We gotta get into this guys Gotta get into this I was pissed Anders Bork

Patrice Bergeron David Pasternak's top line Not bad And then On your second line Left wing Tim Schaller At center

Sean Curley Curley Curley Curley And at right wing Danton Heinen Those are all rumors And then you've got

Left wing Ah Former 25 goal scorer Matt Boleski Oh How did you mention Pastrana? I did at top line

Oh okay Right wing Riley Nash That's a name we've heard before Austin Ziernik Yep That's a rumor And then at left wing

And this is weird Isn't Jake DeBrusque supposed to be a high-end talent? I mean, he's a first-round pick playing his first year. So they're playing him on the fourth line? That doesn't make any sense. Marner's the second-year player on the fourth line.

Sorry, so I've just clicked on the Bruins HockeyDB page. Can I just get through the lineup here? Yes, sure. That'd be super cool. So Jake Dabrowski on left wing, Jordan Schwartz, and Frank Vetrano. And then you've got Chara, McAvoy,

Krug, Carlo, O'Gara and Miller I've never seen O'Gara play and then yeah Bjork is off to a decent start 8 points in 14 games Danton Heinen 7 points in 10 games, that's pretty good

and then Schaller, 6 in 14 DeBrusque, 6 in 14 and then the other guys I think they're guys who just got called up Like, are any of these guys even highly touted? No. O'Gara's like a fifth-round pick from 2011.

Man, how many people are hurt on the Bruins? It's bad. It's bad. That is absolutely—well, Krejci's got to be out. Backus is out. Marchand is out. Oh, Backus is out. And thankfully doing okay.

That's why—okay, so Jonas Siegel made the argument for keeping Matthews out for both Boston games. And I think he's right. I think he's too. Am I dumb? I think he's right. What I've read on Twitter just in the last 20 minutes is that Mike Babcock had a press conference

and they asked him about Matthews and he said, listen, it's not a serious injury, but it needs to be fixed. You know who looked like the perpetrator? Brennan Leipzig. Flinter had a slash and it looked like it might have been slashed to the forearm.

Okay. If Matthews sits both of these games, but gets better, I think that's better in the long run, especially if it is, as you say, a wrist injury. Well, when they say sore, like maybe he just like it's an owie, you know, yeah, you're tense It's not it's not anything serious, but you're tense. It's not a bone But you saw him at the bench in the Vegas game

He was like his head was down and like he looked like he was in some serious pain I mean he was also trying his ass off He was really trying to will the Leafs to a win there, but I'm looking at Boston on paper here They're back end too, but especially up front The Leafs are better on paper Without Matthews Than this Boston lineup That's ridiculous

Staple Kadri to Bergeron And then from there on you're fine Like from there on The Leafs completely overwhelm this lineup You gotta have Marleau at center Yes of course While Matthews is out you need Marleau at center There's no excuse

That they can't compete with this team I'm not saying they're gonna win both Might even lose both But I'm just saying what's better in the long run you're going up against a completely

mangled team their second line center is a rumor I've never heard of that person I have to say also it's unacceptable if they lost both games that's unacceptable

yeah no I think you're right they have to win both games I'm trying to find okay currently he got and even Boston fans would be like you need to beat us

four points in 14 games who is this person fifth round pick 2011 they have a lot of 2011 fifth round picks the Boston Bruins no Sid Matthews

both games then they have four days off rest them nine days beautiful um i was invited on to a college radio show um the bleachers podcast and uh and they're really like they're on wqaq in boston which is a uh it's a university radio station and these guys were really good i was really blown away a guy named dan invited me on and and uh he had his co-host connor there and they were talking about i've heard of them they were talking about um they asked me about the leafs right they asked me a bunch of questions about the leafs and then i said well you guys have had a pretty good in boston and they were

like no the fuck we have not and and i said and i had to stop them i said guys guys guys whoa whoa whoa have you won a stanley cup this decade yeah and they're like oh you mean that i'm like yeah that and maybe you went to the finals again two years later and almost won that too yeah see that's what's called you've had it pretty good and and you know they're in terms of this season not yeah oh it's been a rough 20 games boo for you like I'm sorry but and they got it right they totally understood it was funny is that um uh they they know Boston fans know kind of like we did that they're making some really bad moves well they think the Bacchus deal is a real anchor but they didn't even want to bring up Boleski they didn't even bring him up as like everybody just assumes

that that contracts a write-off. Backus, at least, has been good. Just not worth the money. No. Yeah.

It's not that Backus isn't a good player, for sure. But I think, I think Boston's headed for a retool, and they were upset that Char wasn't traded

two years ago. They're in the middle of it. They need to trade him at the deadline for way too much. I don't know that you're going to get way too much anymore for him.

Yeah, you will. You're a team heading in the line-up. The New York Rangers. I mean if they were to get into a position but imagine Chara as like your third pairing

that's what I said that's exactly what I said to him I'm like you know you've talked about Chara to the Leafs many times which I want it I think it's funny if he wasn't their top line defenseman and you could shelter his minutes still a pretty effective guy he's like Martin Marincin but really good

you know what I mean with a bomb With a bomb Your offensive zone entries With Zdeno Chara Are difficult He can't fit in the lineup He is a left handed

Shot is he not You figure it out That's Zdeno Chara But he's a left handed shot Sorry Sorry Zdeno This Borgman kid Is pretty good

Oh have you won a cup Fuck your cup I don't think it worked I don't know I don't know man Yeah but what about that time You lost the hardest shot To Weber

Right Actually I don't know And Weber's worth P.K. Subban, so there. Exactly. He's going to retire at the end of the season, I assume, right? His contract's up. He's 40. I've heard no.

No? I've heard no. I think he could still be effective in a third pairing role. Just old. If you can get him for $3 million, I don't think you can. Put him on your power play. Yeah. Put him on your power play and use him however you want, like the Bruins have.

do we want to use the hardest shot at the league at the blue line or put a giraffe in front of the net in the blue paint that's how they tied up freaking game 7 alright bomb from the point now we need the net giraffe

to block out the sun from James Reimer James Reimer couldn't even see he couldn't even see what city he was in with Chara standing in front of him piece of crap God, I want him on my team. So does it happen in March?

I don't think the Leafs get him. No, they wouldn't trade him to a division guy. Like, if Boston's going to the finals, if Boston's going to the playoffs, definitely not. But if they're not, they're selling him to the West. There are some really, really interesting teams when it comes to buying and selling. You know who I think gets him?

Just a total shot in the dark. Chicago. He seems like a total fit for Chicago. Chicago goes and gets him. I bet it. Adam's right Adam is absolutely I'm not looking at you for the rest of the show

I'm mad at you for how right you are It's Stan Bowman I'm ignoring you for the rest of the show So Nikita Sashnikov This kind of came out Tuesday Right after our show He's got an out If he's not called up by Tuesday next week

He can leave for the KHL I saw that So Derek Prime is taking pictures of us so we had to pause. What does that mean? Do they call him up? Yeah, so this was the thing I was trying to figure out

that was confusing. In order to honor that clause in his contract, is all they have to do call him up and then send him back down? Because if that's the case, who cares? It's basically a paper transaction. Yeah. But what if he has to take the bus all the way over

from Peoria? Well, from Rico to the Air Canada Center in Toronto, traffic's about an hour. Yeah. It might be a kilometer walk and take you 10 minutes. However, it's an hour in a car. Oh, my God. Anything west of Yonge can kick rocks. Yeah.

Sorry, Jesse. Getting around the city. My fiancee, Caprice, was saying the other day, she's like, you know, I really like the west end. I'm like, nope. Nope. Nope. Not moving there.

Goodbye. The west end is great if you don't own a car or don't have to go anywhere. If you want to walk everywhere, west is perfect. It's amazing. It's a great place to visit. Park your car, leave it there the whole day We have a buddy who's a plumber And he was living in Whitby

And commuted downtown to his job In the West End He has since moved to the West End Not all that far from his job site The inner city traffic To get to his job site He's basically only cut his commute By about 15 minutes

That's so crazy Whitby is four suburbs outside of Toronto Yeah. Like, that's insane. Not suburbs. That's insane. It's two cities over. Yeah, cities.

Cities. Yeah. It's absolutely insane. Sorry, where were we going? Well, Soshnikov. Right. We were talking about the bus ride from Rico to the Air Canada Center. Peoria.

Peoria. Why not? Just like him that much that they're just going to hold on to him? Like, that seems like the kind of guy where if teams are calling and they offer you something decent, take it. Take it. He might bolt anyway, and there's teams around the league that could absolutely use a guy like Sashnikov. I don't know, Boston?

Dude, Edmonton. Edmonton would be great for him. The Leafs could solve so many of Edmonton's problems, and that is the sort of trade, like we talked about, like Levo or something like that, and all this Marner for Nurse insanity. No, something really small. A guy who has played on the power play,

regularly kills penalties, and is fast. And kind of nasty, too. and kind of a prick you want team speed there's your team speed and what do the Leafs get in return clef bomb

clef bomb a pick I'm happy with a pick the Marlies need Sosh that bad no I mean Jeremy Brackett

was barely getting playing time like they need to they have a glut and you know that they're really high on Carl Grundstrom who's in Sweden

and Andreas Johnson who's still here so you know I feel like those guys might jump him anyway and the organizational depth just based on the role he plays. What has to happen to the Leafs where we go,

oh shit, we need Sosh right now? What has to happen? How many guys have to get hurt? How many penalty killers have to get hurt? Like both of Hyman and Brown need to get injured. Because you're going to call up Kapanen first. You already got Gauthier, but he's at center. You know what?

I don't know. I just convinced myself. Only two injuries. Maybe you've got to keep Sash. Maybe you've got to keep him. I don't know. Well, knowing the Leafs, they will. You should entertain offers.

You should definitely entertain offers. So, I had a question about him, and I've forgotten it. Sash? I think so. His claws and going to the KHL. No. His agent said that he wants to stay in the NHL. Of course he does.

So, I don't know. I don't think this is a terribly big deal. I think this was just Pierre Lebrun alerting us to something that we didn't know. It's an interesting, it's a pretty interesting clause, I would say. I don't know. It's, it's, I mean, he would of course have the opportunity to leave the KHL, so why not throw it in? Oh, I know what I was going to ask. You brought up Toronto and Edmonton and Nick Kiprios really took it on the chin on Hockey Central on Tuesday

when he suggested that a Mitch Marner type would sure look good on the Oilers, which he's right. Which is accurate so far. And then somebody on Twitter said, hey, if that were to happen, what would be the price coming back? And he said, I believe Darnell Nurse. And I think what he meant by that is Darnell Nurse Plus. Well, okay. Let's back up. So everyone out there who's listening who said Kiprio started the Marner to Nurse rumors, you're wrong.

You're wrong. That's not a rumor. that's not a rumor. If someone asks you how much a box of cereal costs and you tell them, I don't know, it probably costs you like four bucks.

That's not. That's just your opinion on how much you think a box of cereal costs. Marner's a box of cereal in this scenario. You know, players and transactions, it's a business and all that. So he was merely saying if that trade,

which is a total fantasy right now were to happen the price would be something along the lines of Darnell Nurse. Oh, Kiprios hot take us everything I've been seeing. He didn't start anything!

He didn't start How is Okay, here's how I know your hatred is misguided. Kiprios did start the Habs might have to trade carry price trade. Which I love.

He did start that. But as for he started these Marner for Nurse rumors. No. Who's more likely to get traded? Marner or Nurse? Or Carey Price?

Marner or Carey Price? Well, Mitch Marner, of course. I think Carey Price. I think Carey Price. Yeah. I think Montreal could look at a rebuild. Before that contract. I know they won three in a row, but...

Time really is a flat circle. Like, Charlie Lindgren is now Jaroslav Halak. And we're talking about him stealing Price's job and we're trading Price. I don't think that's what we're saying. No, I think if you're going to rebuild... I think some people are. I think if you're going to rebuild,

You try to get the Rasmus Dahlen pick as quickly as possible. Like, you know, get, get. Start that rebuild. Figure out. Figure out who needs a goalie. Something needs to happen before Carey Price gets traded. If Carey Price does, in fact, get traded. Let's say he gets left in for eight goals,

and he's calling to the bench, and no one's pulling him. I'm done here. I'm done. And then he gets traded. So he says, I'm done here. Before you can trade Carey Price, you have to, have to, fire Mark Bergevin. Have to, you have no option, or you're an

incompetent bum of an owner. And pay him for the next five years. Well, because... He did this, he did that, he did that. Now the team isn't doing well. Gives Carey Price $100 million and then, oh! He gives him $100 million

of your money, Dick! $100 million! And then he went, nope. They're not going to trade him. They'll never trade him. I feel like it's happened before that somebody gave

Montreal Canadiens a large contract. I think Jeff Molson gave him that money. I don't think Marc Bergevin gave PK that money. Say that one more time. I think Jeff Molson gave PK Subban that contract. I don't think. I don't think Bergevin gave him that money. You're correct. I thought you were saying Carey Price.

Oh, no. No, no, no. No. No, Carey Price's resume gave Carey Price that contract. Listen, I think he's worth it. I just think that Montreal all if they were to rebuild. What a strange team. But I don't think they're going to rebuild. So I wanted to ask about

that because here's the thing. What Kipper has been bringing up is the fact that he's... Straight fire. He is having a week or two. Yeah, he's been talking about Marner in terms of organizational depth. Now, is Mitch Marner

a late-skilled player? I would think so. I think he's a greatly skilled young player. It's gonna be. Like, not every player is incredible their second year in the league. Is it possible that he's just having a rough go, and then he'll just find his form, and that's it? Because I can tell you, the way he was

scoring last year, there's not a way, there's not a chance in hell I would have ever wanted to trade him, and I still I would be I would be, I think I would be upset. Like, I think I would be very upset. There's so much potential there, still. And when you look at the smoldering ruin that is that line of JVR,

Bozak and Marner Marner looks the best Yeah Keep Marner Trade the other two JVR is so good At batting pucks in Damn

He sure bats a lot of pucks in Put him on a line Where that's all He's gotta do And he'll bag you 30 goals No problem He's

JVR Can do a real good David Clarkson impression A David Clarkson Sustained over 5 years With the Devils Yeah When he was playing

With Kovalchuk JVR is a more skilled version of what everyone thought Clarkson was. Good point. You know? Yeah. No, it's not time to give up on Mitch Marner.

The only thing about this that may be good news is all these rumors about, oh, Matthews is going to get 10 or something and Nylander is going to get 7 or something and so is Marner. No. No. You're going to give Mitch Marner 7 million bucks

after what you've seen so far? No. No? That negotiation is going to be torture. I know it. And I wouldn't be surprised to see him set up the beginning of next season. His contract's up this season? Oh, wait, you're right.

No, it's Neil. No, yeah, sorry, sorry. He's got two. It's Neil, you're right. Yeah, so anyway, interesting thought, but I don't think the Leafs are going to make a big deal this year. I just don't see it. Unless...

I think they will. I just don't think it'll involve Mitch Marner. You think they'll make a big deal? What's a big deal? Is JVR a big deal? Yes Is Bozak a big deal? You think they'll make those moves?

Yeah He's a medium to big deal The Leafs have said repeatedly Okay, you guys have made excellent arguments That JVR and Bozak are like buys Might as well hold on to them But if they're really sticking to the plan like they claim to be Can't just let guys like that walk

can't just let guys like that walk look what Duchesne just got if you can if you have an opportunity to get half of that for JVR

or just the defenseman that you need yes yes I'm telling you Carolina would be perfect look at what it would be so great

who is it the Ducks who no the Ducks got Vermette was it the Coyotes who traded Vermette if you can get

half of what you got for Vermette or what they got for Vermette, for Bozak. And you're sticking to a plan as a rebuilding team. Shouldn't you do it? I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Well, then who takes the spot?

Well, that's where you got me. I'm interested to see what they do. They are kind of thin at center. I am interested to see what they do. Has the window to win changed at all? Because when expectations were so high coming into the season, everyone was like, all right, we need a win in the next two, three years. Is that still the same?

First off, I think that was insane and ridiculous. It would be great to win in the next two to three years. But to say that you've got to is insane. Well, I just think it's funny that people were talking about the Leafs window like it expires when Austin Matthews is 21. Yeah, and that's how people were talking. You're like, oh, okay. Their window to win is the next 12 years.

But should you push in this next three years where you go? If you have an opportunity to. I think teams know what they have by like mid-January, which is why the trade deadline is when it is. You know what I mean? Boy, I can't wait for another trade deadline to pass with no trades. It's going to be great. Pittsburgh, two years ago, was out of a playoff spot in mid-December.

Fired their coach. And then starting in January, they're the best team in the league. And they're back-to-back cup champs since. So you don't know what you have until you're shoveling your driveway. We're not quite there yet. We're just starting to see our breath. I think the Leafs I mean on paper

I look at it and I go there's a chance to make some real noise here next year oh boy they haven't quite shown it on the ice yet I can't imagine them letting all three walk something's up something's strange

I think they signed Komarov and JVR and Bozak are gone no I think you'd get rid of all three you know what you're right But Carl Grunstrom could come in and even if he is 80% in his first season with Komarov is at 30% of the salary, that's a good trade-off. We're doing what we did all summer, which is we're going, what's going on here?

What are the leads going to be? Let's talk about the Marlies for half an hour. Half an hour, some of you are saying. Yeah, right. An hour and a half. Let's talk about Leipzig. Let's do Let's do 45 minutes

Waxing poetically About Leipzig And then he gets Taken by Vegas I don't think we waxed Poetic about Leipzig I think I did I think I did

And you humored me He was like okay No he's great He's a good player How dare you A good player? He's a good player But I mean like

Where would Brandon Leipzig be In the Leafs depth chart Had he stayed I know Exactly But you know If someone gets injured Oh man

Then they only have 14 other guys That could come up It's crazy What if 13 guys You know what could happen New York Rangers have won five games in a row gentlemen five The cat came back the very next day. They have jumped from near last in the conference to eight Proving

You know that there are only eight points out of first in the conference that's four wins That's a week a week of games Yep, and you know Tampa would have to lose a lot which I don't think is gonna happen and Tampa's record by the way right now is 12-2-2 oh piss off they are

reverse coyotes even when Kucherov and Stamkos don't score Nemesnikov does it's crazy oh they're I mean we talk about the Leafs on paper

which hasn't really been applied as of late but Tampa on paper is so much better so much better oh yeah no if they lose

the cup this year it'll be or sorry if they don't win the cup this year it'll be their fault how are they that's aggressive

Who's even in the same Who's on the same plan Who's on the same plan Mid-November I'm going to make a declaration That if this one team Doesn't win the cup it's a disappointment Who's even close

29 other teams Because it's mid-November 29 because Arizona doesn't count Oh that's so disrespectful I mean I don't know if the 8th place Colorado Avalanche go on a run which I think

their odds might have just decreased maybe just a little but they got Samuel Gerrard so you never know never know

right right if Washington doesn't win this year it's a disappointment no that was last year don't be difficult don't be difficult

I get enough of this at home don't say ridiculous things hey you know I'm having calamari and rosé night by myself

fine that sounds like an amazing night can we please actually do that Yeah, Jesse and I are definitely doing that. No, get out of here. I'm coming.

You're not hungry, though. I'm not hungry right now. Are we going to eat before you come? Washington Capitals. I'm going to eat. Okay, the four of us are going to enjoy ourselves. Me, Jesse, and the dogs. The carpets?

The six of us. Steve, Jesse, the two dogs, and two pizzas. Eight of us, the birds. Ah, the birds. The birds get some calamari. Birds like calamari. All right, let's move on, guys. Come on.

That kind of makes sense. Can we throw this out there? Fact. Vancouver. Or as I like to call them, canned Coover. What? They're 8-5-2. So they're canned Coover.

I'm so upset. Vancouver is sitting 13th in the NHL right now with 50.7% Corsi, like their possession. Wow. That's up from 47.9 last year. And it's all in just kind of the way they changed playing the game. Travis Green, man. Yeah. Pretty amazing.

They've added a couple players for sure, but a new coach will really kick you in the ass. It helps that Markstrom looks like a starter too. That helps. That was a question mark. Who is third in the Western Conference right now? The record is 8-3-3. I saw the standings.

I was going to say Vegas, but no, it couldn't be. Because I think Vegas has nine wins. Third in the West. Actually, these guys are ahead of Vegas. Is it San Jose? It's the Winnipeg Jets. Wow. Now, here's why that doesn't surprise me.

Mrs. Dangle is finally leading her hockey pool. And Blake Wheeler is her top guy. Oh, my God. She got some good players. You advised well, I think. Here's what I find interesting about this. The only thing, in Winnipeg, I'm sure it's a different story, but nationally, what you hear out of Winnipeg is,

well, Patrick Lina is not lighting it up like he did last year, and that's a problem. Winnipeg is 8-3-3. This is great. And Bufflin fought Ben. Yes. You know what? No, you're 100% right. I would have never guessed in a million years they're 8-3.

And here's what's even more interesting, and this is from Emily Sadler at Sportsnet.ca, who was writing them. Oh, yeah. Steve Mason, the guy they brought in to be their legit number one goaltender, who Kevin Sheveldayoff said he's a number one goaltender, proven. Do you want to know what his record is?

No. You don't? No, go ahead. Oh, I think you do. I'm going to go with, like, it's 1-3-1. Close Oh 3-1

Do you want to hear his goals against average Which I know is like a weird stat Sure 4-8-4 Good lord Would you like to hear his save percentage That's bad in the 80s Yes

8-7-2 On the other end You've got Connor Hellebuck A hell of a goalie Hella beauty You might even say You might say he's bang for his Hellebuck When his extension comes up

He'll make Hellebucks Who said that before 24 years old Has not lost When he's in net They say hallelujah No Hallalupuck

24 years old Has not lost in regulation Through 11 games this year He's going He's 0-8-2 2. 8-0-2 Sorry

8-0-2 Sorry 2.12 goals against average 936 save percentage 3rd best in the category League Wow How crazy is that

You know what's crazy here Mason has signed to 2 years Well, who cares? What is Mark Scheifele's shooting percentage? He has nine goals, and he's tied for sixth for the league. I want to know the answer. Tied with Kadri for sixth for the league. I'm going to say 18%.

30. 32. Wow! All right, so that's going to slow down. That's dumb. Wow. You know what, though? He's going to go down.

Laine is going to come up. How much is, yeah, how much is, let's go through Patrick Laine's numbers a little bit. I want to know what his shooting percentage is. Holy. Can we just? And let me just throw this out there Patrick Laine's beard, not great Oh my god

Who's advising him on that I'm almost 30, haven't grown a beard yet The reason why, still patchy I want to lie down on the floor with him And interview him about that weird beard It is a weird beard And it's all neck right I think he shaves the face and then it's the neck beard

It's not even neck And you couldn't even call it like chin whiskers It's all It's not quite the chin, not quite the neck Whatever that is Your chin was just... I don't know. Jesse, what do we got here?

How many goals? Last year's runner-up to the Calder Trophy has seven goals and two assists. Oh, why is everyone telling me he sucks? Seven goals is fine. Two assists is lacking. Three are only in even strength. So what?

That's almost 50% of his goals at even strength. That's not that great. Assuming that's a line, the Shifley line, a Wheeler line. is still one of the best in hockey. Even if it's just out on the power play. Give them another five games, we'll see where that's at. His time on ice is down.

Last year was 17.55, this year 17.07. That might be because of the amount of penalties too. More like Patrick. Because he's not playing shorthanded. Piece of garbage. And the shooting percentage, last year 17.6. Seems about right for a sniper. That's for a sniper though.

And that was over 73 games. No, even that is insane. Really? Oh my god. What's Sidney Crosby's? Is 16? Yeah, but, like, that is alien and, like, the best. Like, even the class of the league's best shooters.

The class? Class are still in the 14-ish range. Except for, like, Ovechkin. Ovechkin, Crosby. Who sits consistently at, like, 17. Okay, line eight. And take some more shots. What's his shooting percentage this year?

16.3. Oh. What is this rumor of him? Now he's picked it up this week I think he's got a few points this week So maybe it's that You know what though I'm going to say

You know That whole eastern bias thing That might actually apply to the Jets here I think so Because I had no idea What's hilarious I knew Hellebuck was good Emily Sadler's article is all about

Winnipeg and the goaltending and whatever What I find funny is that the title of it is And I know Sportsnet really takes it and makes up the thing But one of the quotes in the article became the headline, which is that they think that a goaltender's duo, or dual, sorry, not duo, dual, is healthy. And this is not a goaltender's duel. This is a, Connor Hellebuck's the starter, and Steve Mason is not. This is a stop, he's already dead. Yeah, like, this is not a duel.

This is, Connor Hellebuck's the goalie you go with. Yes. Now, the other interesting thing is that, like, Winnipeg, with a struggling starting goaltender and a struggling top-scoring winger, is third in the conference with 8-3-8-3. We said this last year. If they could just get goaltending, that's a dominant NHL team. Can you go look at—here, I'll bring it up. I'm here.

I have a computer as well. I want to look at the Jets' beginning of the season because they might even be better than their record suggests because they obviously lost 7-2 in their first game. But didn't they lose their first three or something like that? It is loading. It's like when you look at the first goal differential right now. Oh, but it's 65-45.

It's insane. But they're sitting first in the Metro. They're 8-3-3. Oh, sorry, 45-59, my bad. Yeah, it's like minus 19 or something. 8-3-3, you said. Who's? The Jets.

Sure. Right? They lost their first two games in regulation by a combined score of 13-5. And they're 8. Which means, since their first two games, they're 8-1-3. And they've only started Steve Mason twice

since their first two games. Holy moly. That's a good team. 5-2 win, 4-2 win, 2-1 win 5-2 loss 4-3 win Lost in overtime to Pittsburgh

Lost in overtime to Columbus Murdered Pittsburgh's existence 7-1 Beat Minnesota 2-1 I believe that was one of the Niemi starts, wasn't it? Probably Oh, no, yes, 100% it was On the second half of the back-to-back as well

What are you doing putting anti-Niemi in On the second half of the back-to-back? Against the Jets Are you nuts? Yeah, who would ever do that? Never mind that McElhinney game against the Kings. Never mind. Never happened.

Destroyed the Dallas Stars. Lost in overtime to Montreal. Destroyed the Dallas Stars again. And now they go on a desert road trip. Where they play Vegas and then Arizona, two straight games. So they play fourth stringer with Vegas. League's worst team twice in a row. Wow.

Coyotes. I would love to know where the Colorado Avalanche were at game 14 or 15 or wherever they cut. Oh, Coyotes are at 17 games, so they're one of the higher games played this year. The Avs were at like 500 this time last year. It wasn't until Vorlamov went down that they really, really tanked. We could be looking at another historically bad team this year. Never know. Never know.

I mean, the... It's certainly one of the worst starts ever. Oh, for sure. It's like when the Leafs were 0-7-1. Oh, this could be. Well, it rarely ever ends up being that way. What was astonishing about Colorado is, wow, they're just kind of staying this way. Holy shit.

Yeah, that's true. They're not as bad, right? They're bad, but not as bad. This year, they're not as bad. So do you think, they're playing the game, Duchesne makes his return to Colorado in Sweden, which is weird, and it kind of sucks, eh? You've got to think, if you're the NHL, you went,

oh, that's the game? It's Colorado-Ottawa in Sweden after we make the trade. The whole reason you're playing regular season games in Sweden is to promote the game. Yeah. So I think they're going hooray. Well, fair enough. So, you know, obviously Ottawa's over there.

Do you see this as being like a trend? Like maybe next year they play in Finland or they go to Arizona. Like how cool would it be to see an NHL game in Arizona? Like do you think that would be cool? Like what if Austin Matthews went and actually played in his home state of Arizona and they saw real professional hockey. Wow. That'd be pretty cool.

That'd be very neat. I think it'd be cool. Hey, Austin Matthews' parents were at the game yesterday. Good for them. They come to a lot of them, I think. Yeah, when he's playing. He wasn't playing in this one. I think they're Leaf fans now.

They probably just had tickets. Of course they just had tickets. No, but how often... I'm trying to think of a time where I've ever seen, oh, and so-and-so's parents are here to watch him not play. I think that's nice. How many times are you paying attention to the parents of the game? I don't know

Well they always just show them And I'm always Like I reach towards the television I'm like you guys are the best Thank you for Austin They seem so great Thank you for Well and they always look the same

The mom with nervous Nervous anticipation And the dad just Ready to choke anyone who comes near his son Don't ever talk to me or my son ever again Uh question Yes If you're Austin Matthews

You are Austin Matthews You both are Austin Matthews I'm the best And you're a great hockey player You're 20 years old though And when you moved to Switzerland Oh I'm going to have two dinners Your mom and your sister

Moved with you Because they obviously want to take care of you a little bit Also it's kind of a cool thing to live in Switzerland for a year Like how sick is that Oh honey I really think I need to go win dollars He went and made a million dollars In Switzerland When most of us were graduating high school

I made a bunch of money And then, and also his mom and sister went with him. That's kind of cool, right? A little bit. Now, you're 20 years old. It's a couple years later. Your parents, I think his parents are either living here some of the time or most of the time. They would have to be.

They're at almost every home game. If you're Austin Matthews, do you live with your parents or not? I don't know whether he does or not. Who does he live with? I don't know. It's like Crosby with Lemieux. I don't know if we'll ever know that. But I can tell you, I mean, I moved out at 19.

I would, there'd be no way in hell I'd be living with my parents at that age. because it would be just way too much fun not to. He might like it. He might like it. And my parents, to be honest, if they were on the show with me right now, like, we drove each other crazy. So it just would not have worked.

I like how boring today's hockey players are. I'm not talking about in interviews like they've always been. I don't remember if we were talking about it with Ken Reed or Dennis Marouk or whatever, but I was talking to someone, like, you heard all these crazy stories about players going out and clubbing

and drinking the night before the game and, oh, that was a crazy one last night, boys. All right, let's beat these guys. And doing frigging lines of coke off the bar. Today's players just stay home and play video games. Just kind of live quiet lives. From what you know. Yeah, that's true.

I don't want to find out. Get the shot of me playing Call of Duty. All right, let's roll. Yeah, but if you're out at the club now, people know and pictures get circulated. Like, some players are really dumb about it. Like, we've been out and I've been like, oh, there's so-and-so who shouldn't be here.

With a trail of people following them. Yeah, who really shouldn't be here. It's one thing if your team's out of the playoffs. I don't want to see my team lose because I know they were hungover. Do you know what I mean? Save the drink for games that you're not playing. I don't think you've ever heard of Babe Ruth. Yeah, who would eat like two steaks before a game

and then go hit a dinger and then get hammered afterwards. Babe Ruth died as insane. Yeah, he might have been hammered before too. Now I want to throw something in. Hits the ball because he thought it was some guy who talked smack about him. You throw me that son of a bitch right here. And he just cracks it over the tiny brick wall that they used to have. Here's a fun story.

Bunch of people wearing suits. Yes. A Russian hockey player playing in Russia actually tested positive for something and they penalized him for it. They have to do that. So they think that it's actually legit. No, it was literally in the documents from Sochi. They had some of the participants on the Russian Olympic team get caught, even though they thought they were being protected under their giant doping program.

Because they wanted to make it seem like somebody. Some people were getting caught. And they sacrificed the guys who had been there a long time. They knew weren't going to win gold medals, but will still qualify. We got him. Yeah, but it was like these people were being turned on by their government because they were like, okay, I'm in this weird doping program with Putin

who's the overseer of the whole thing and they're like, I can take these steroids and not get caught, but then the overlords would be like, hey we gotta sacrifice somebody and they'd pick these guys out of it. Interesting that you say that That guy might be one of them. Because the guy's name is I listen to podcasts on this. The guy's name is

Denis Zaripov Denis Zaripov and the blues are going to sign him because the substance that he tested positive for for the khl is not banned in the nhl and it is called pseudofedrin uh no yeah pseudofedrin so pseudofedrin is a stimulant oh pseudofed uh but is well known for shrinking swollen nasal mucous membranes also used as a decongestant a decongestant it reduces tissue uh high uh hype i'm sorry edema nasal congestion commonly associated with colds or allergies that's

why nicholas backstrom wasn't allowed to play in the sochi gold medal game because he had pseudofed So, Zarepov will sign with the Blues, apparently. He's, interestingly, Jesse mentioned something about age, 36 years old. And he's been, he was, I think he played for Akbar's Kazan for 12 years, and then Metal Eric Magnitogorsk this year until he was suspended, and now he's out. So now he'll be joining the Blues, who are already first place in the Western Conference,

and now he's going to join them. Isn't that the dude's name in Aladdin? Akbar? Jafar? You got the R Okay It was close I just find that interesting

That a Russian hockey player was caught Using his stubs as they shouldn't And the NHL allows it Usually it would be the other way around It would be like Oh you test positive in NHL Come play for us So there was some shenanigans a few years ago

And that's what this reminds me of This is a Puck Daddy article From way back in the day when Greg Wyshynski used to write for them. April 24th, 2012, and I remember this from when I was doing KHL videos with Andriy Osadchenko. Failed drug test in KHL leads to Anton Belov's suspension

from Gagarin Cup Final. When we point out the differences between the NHL and the KHL, it's usually to goof on their goaltending or celebrate their goonery. But here's another rather important distinction between the two. KHL players are tested for banned substances

during the playoffs, while the current NHL policy doesn't allow it. Avangard Omsk defenseman Anton Belov who after this went on to play for the Edmonton Oilers, learned that difference the hard way in the 2012 Gagarin Cup Finals.

From Russia Today, Belov was suspended for a banned substance. Russian Deputy Sports Minister Yuri, Russian name, told RIA Novosti on Sunday that the 25-year-old tested positive after the fourth match of the Gagarin Cup Finals

against Dynamo Moscow on, by the way, this was the semifinal. This was incorrect. He missed the fifth game on Saturday, snatched by Dynamo 3-2 to cut the deficit in the series. We had the information that the A test was positive already on Friday, said Russian name.

Belov has a chance to be justified if the B test prove otherwise. Any sanctions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the whole thing about this that I remember Andre telling me is it might have been a little bit of shenaniganery. No. On account of

team is winning in the playoffs. Best defenseman all of a sudden fails a drug test. Did somebody put some money on it or what? Well, okay. All I know is Avangard Omsk was up 3-1 in the semi-final

or conference final. Whatever it was. The round before the final. They lose both games. Balav is out. Game seven Dynamo Moscow wins. They go to the Gagarin Cup final. They beat Tractor Chilabinsk and win I'm just saying it's a very fortunate drug test if you're Dynamo Moscow That's for sure. That's timing now. I don't know I mean it could be a completely different scenario as a repuff but so and I want to throw this out there, you know

So we make me we make fun of the KHL. We make fun of the NHL for being Let's talk about the fact that Jerry Jones Wants to sue the NFL if they bring back The commissioner Have you heard this story? Owner of the Dallas Cowboys Why won't sports let us like them? My favorite line

In South Park is like And what is it? Just because Jerry Jones No, no You broke the rules and you found out how we broke the rules No, it's the and Jerry Jones' eyes are too far apart.

That thing where they Hey, my eyes are too far apart. So I guess Jerry Jones is really mad about how Roger Goodell has handled the Ezekiel Elliott situation this year.

Can you refresh me? Jesse, can you give Steve the Was this the guy who played every game drunk? No, that's Josh Gordon. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Ezekiel Elliott there was an investigation into something he did during college and then there was a bunch of allegations. Was it domestic abuse? Yes. And then the police discovered that there was enough to charge him, so they left the issue

and then the NFL did their own internal investigation and said they have enough evidence to suspend him for six games, I believe. So he wasn't charged, but the NFL was like, well, we have enough evidence to suspend him. Through our own investigation, we have enough evidence to charge him. So they suspended him

for six games to start the year. And then he's like, no, I'm taking this to court because I wasn't charged. You don't have enough evidence. So he took it to court. The judge repealed the suspension. So he got to start the season. And then the NFL took it to the next level of court. And then that court reinstated his suspension.

This was like week three, I believe. So he had played three games and then it was in between week three. And then in between week three and the next game, he went to the next level of court and got his suspension repealed again. Today I learned court is a video game. America is the most litigious society, I think, in the history of man. And then now we're at week nine. They went back and forth one more time, and now the suspension's still off. And then he's played every single game, but the suspension's still there in the air, and they have to go one more level of court to find out who actually wins this suspension.

Did I tell you the Florida? What's the point of any of the other levels of court? What was the point of the other, really? Why do this? Why? Like, what are we doing? This court said you broke the rules. I went back and re-watched.

No, this other court said we didn't break the rules. I went back and watched that episode, by the way. It is so good even now. You cheated. No. You're cheating now. Well, everybody cheats. It's the Tom Brady episode.

It's so great. Would Tom Brady give up? No. he'd argue that he didn't cheat. And then he'd argue that everybody else cheated to distract everyone. Did I ever talk about the Florida jury selection thing that I heard?

No. Okay, so basically it was a case in Florida. Of course. I'm sure it was crazy too. An injury related to a work vehicle. So they're doing the jury selection process and there's 50 people

there. Something like that. And they go Okay, how many of you have ever been involved with, as a defendant, as a plaintiff, or as a juror, in a case that involved an injury with regard to a work vehicle? 45 people raised their hands. So, when you say it's the most litigious society on the face of the planet, yeah, I believe you. It's crazy. No offense, Americans. It's just... They do like their court, and there are a lot of lawyers making a lot of money off all this.

Whenever I go to the States, I just, like, kind of tiptoe around because, like, I don't know what you are and aren't. It's like Canada except there's all this—it's not. It's super not. Yeah. It's super not. Also, this is a guy who doesn't like ordering at restaurants, so, like— Yeah. Yeah, so imagine how paranoid I am doing anything in the States.

I might get sued. But I think it's funny. So here's the deal. Like, I don't even—I just point at what I want. So breaking this—so imagine an NHL owner suing the league over Gary Benton getting extended. By the way, let me throw this out there Whatever you think of Roger Goodell You're right, probably

But the man has made the league And the owners gargantuan amounts of money Right? And that is his job His job is to make them gargantuan amounts of money Would they make it anyway? Uh, well, I mean, they are Hard to argue But I would imagine

I think they've done better than even they thought If you put me in charge of the NFL How bad could I possibly screw up? You can fuck it up You can fuck it up. Anybody can fuck up anything. Like, don't... Listen.

If there's one thing that Roger Goodell does... Remember when everyone used blackberries? Yeah. Like, nobody thought blackberries would get fucked up. Yeah. Now look. Roger Goodell, if there's one thing he's good at, and I think this might be the only thing, it's making piles of money for rich men.

All right. Okay? So they make a pile of money. All of yours. That was like seven years ago, by the way. Remember when everyone used blackberries? That was like seven years ago. Another relic.

It was a thing. Yeah. So here's the funny part. They offered him a new contract. And Jerry Jones, again, has threatened to sue. So I guess the compromise that the owners on the competition committee have come up with is that Roger Goodell, you're not going to get a raise, but your contract is going to be more incentive-based.

So where I think he used to make $40 million a year, you're going to make $40 million a year, but you have to accomplish all these goals before we'll give it to you. And he's apparently super pissed off. When did English die? What do you mean? Words don't mean anything anymore. you're not going to make as much money.

However, here's how you make a bunch more money. No, not a bunch more. The same, Steve. Oh, the same? So if I'm paying you $40, and I don't guarantee any of it, I guarantee you $40 for 11 years of your career. And then on the 11th year,

I get pissed off at you because you're doing an investigation and doing your job and trying to eradicate things like, you know, I don't know. How are you able to sue? Domestic abuse. So now I'm going to sue the you're going to sue the league

or I'm going to sue the league. I'm pissed off at you because you're trying to get rid of domestic abuse. I'm going to sue the league and you're going to get the same amount of money only it's not going to be guaranteed now. If you spoke Klingon, I would have retained the same amount of information. It's just crazy. So Matt, so it's basically like

I'm going to give you an iPhone every year and actually this year I would give you an iPhone but you're going to have to do all these things to earn that same iPhone that you didn't have to last year. There's no guaranteed money. It's, it's, anyway, it's really funny. I just find it very funny that, because in this, in this instance, there are no good guys.

They're both shitheads. So it's kind of cool to see them both just tear each other apart. What is the most tolerable sports league in North America? Tolerable as in, as a fan, you can look at them and go, not insufferable. You know what it is? Sports are tolerable the less you know about what goes on in upper management. I think that you just, just, if you want to enjoy sports more, think less about what the owners do?

I don't know. We know too much. Yeah, I don't think anyone's more tolerable than the other. Yeah, I don't think so either. Depends on which one

I think the NBA is doing a pretty good job right now. Yeah, I was going to say the NBA. Like, you know, when they got rid of what's-his-nuts who

had the Clippers. I don't even remember. Don Sterling. As soon as they got rid of that guy, and they hated him and tried to get him out for years.

As soon as that tape came out, boom, gone. It's just, I don't know. It's like you said, what did you say? Something along the lines of we just know too much?

Yeah, the less you know about what the owners are doing, the better. The second I saw a headline, Vin Scully thinks that and I'm like, no! And then you read it, oh shit, now I know that. Fuck. This old white man has the opinion of an old white man. Yeah, I think at a certain age

you have to expect them. It's like the Papa John's pizza guy being upset at the NFL that Papa John's pizza went down because they sponsored the NFL And Pizza Hut going, no, we're fine This is the official pizza of Nazis And then he has to go, no we're not And oh my god, we live in the dumbest timeline

You can't really expect certain people to have nuanced opinions No If you have, like, how do you stay normal If you've got a hundred million dollars in the bank A hundred billion No, but if you're Papa John's guy Is it a hundred million bucks in the bank you personally have? Oh, it's billions, that guy

How can you have a nuanced social How can you fight for the common man? That's tough I don't live in any reality that humans know I speak to poor people before I eat them and their opinions are always surprising to me

I've stopped being disappointed by when rich people don't have the same outlook on life that I do and you mean rich everybody would be a lot happier if they realized oh rich people are coming from a completely different perspective than me and couldn't understand what it's like

to barely pay your bills each month you mean rich too You don't mean look at a nice condo building in Toronto and going, I'm going to get a condo there. You're talking about people going, I want the building. No, what was it? There's people like that. You can do that. The Chris Rock line?

I don't want to be. Shaq is rich. The guy that signs Shaq's check is wealthy. Yeah. Yes. That kind of wealth. I don't think you could have. And you know what?

I don't think they care. I think they care about doing one thing. They don't even think about you. No. So accept that, and you'll be a lot happier. Let's get to the press conference, shall we? Yeah. The Presser SDP.

The Steve Dangle Press Conference. Man, we went all over the place there. The Russian doping thing I was talking about before. It was from Brian Fogle. There's a documentary on Netflix called Icarus. That's really good. Okay? You should watch it.

Icarus. Icarus. Good myth. Roy Halladay passed away this week. Yes, he did. Did you guys have any Roy Halladay stories? Never met him? Just the one that I tweeted.

So, okay, I was an intern. My first game that I got to cover as an intern is the visiting room, Mike. Jays, I don't remember who they were playing, unfortunately. I do know that Frank Thomas was on the Jays at the time, and it went 14 innings, and they had to use A.J. Burnett as a reliever because they ran out of pitchers, and they lost.

And I missed the last train home, and I had to crash in a friend's apartment. So as a result, the second game I show up, and, you know, I'm just a nervous intern. I'm trying to make jokes with people. I'm like, oh, I might be bad luck. Last time I was here, we didn't get out of here until midnight, and they still lost and all that. And Barry Davis, who used to work for Sportsnet, just turns to me.

He goes, it's a 7 o'clock game. And Barry Davis goes, Halliday's pitching today. We'll be out of here by 930. and I'm pretty sure the game ended at 9-22. Wow, crazy. He was just an excellent, excellent pitcher. Sounds like an excellent, excellent human being. Admittedly, I didn't know enough about him.

What I thought was really funny and a little bit dark in the Leafs tribute to him was they show him striking out a Yankees player in the bottom of the seventh, and the crowd goes nuts, and the announcer's like, struck him out oh Roy Halladay and I looked at the score and it was 2-1 Yankees and I'm like

boy if that wasn't Roy Halladay's whole Blue Jays career I don't know he's just pitching a gem and getting totally let down by the bats

he was he was stunning though like he's the best pitcher in Blue Jays history and the Jays have had some really incredible pitchers I think he was the best player

in Blue Jays history and I mean that over Roberto Alomar over Joe Carter over anybody else that you can name he was the best player the Blue Jays ever had

and it's a lot like remember your video on Phil Kessel it's a wasted era they wasted the Roy Halladay years and there was really no reason everyone knew his greatness yeah but

they still wasted it they never got to the playoffs what you're saying is they should make the playoffs they should win a World Series with Roy Halladay it's a shame and the way he left and I'm not sure if anybody remembers this it was because our clown of a general manager

decided that he wanted to test the market on Roy Halladay. And Roy Halladay found out because a report leaked and then he was like, okay, this is Ricciardi. So then Ricciardi gets fired Anthopolis takes over. It's his first year and Anthopolis tries to mend fences and goes, please, we didn't want to trade you.

It was a Ricciardi thing and Roy's like, you know what? I'd like to be traded. And that sucks. That sucks. I think it was more Sundin than a bad relationship. It was more of this guy's on his last leg and we want him to win a World Series.

Let's trade him to the best team in the National League. Yeah. Which was the Phillies. And then we had a whole bunch of prospects. I think it was more, it was a little more Sundin than the relationship. Right, but I think Ricciardi and Halliday's relationship was bad. Yeah.

Because of that. And I think that's a shame. But I think he would have been traded regardless. And then Richard Lee Sam, R-L-E-E-S-A-M on Twitter, posted this story from the Canadian Baseball Network. Roy Halladay wanted to work for the Blue Jays this spring,

had to apply for some reason, and was rejected. Which I thought was very odd. He wanted to play for the Blue Jays this spring? He wanted to work with the Blue Jays. Very strange. Very strange. Jesse, you were a pitcher at a relatively high level. What?

No. I mean, at a higher level than I think most of the sport. So? You okay I assume you know A decent amount About pitching More than the average

Schlub Yeah sure Where's this going I just What are some of the things About Halliday That you admired As a pitcher

Oh I think I think everything That everybody Always talks about With Halliday Is his mental focus That's everything

You heard the last couple days He was just so Laser focused On one thing I don't think Even think it's a pitching thing I think it's just a human thing where he has this control of his mind and he knows what he's doing every single day.

And then everyone told the story of the clubhouse. Like, you couldn't talk to him because he knew what he was doing all the time and it made him great. There used to be a sore point, I want to say, with Norm Rumak. Storm and Norm Rumak is, you know, the fan is owned by Rodgers. The Jays are owned by Rodgers. No Rodgers station could get Roy freaking Halliday on their show. but I mean

that's just that's just Roy just the way he was never got a chance to meet him walked by him once that was it I walked by

Roy Halladay walking next to AJ Burnett I felt like I was 8 years old because those guys are both like 6'6 yeah

there was a story from a former teammate of his I don't remember who but it was tweeted out they walk up and they see Roy Halladay

sitting at a table in the clubhouse it's like 5.30 in the morning and Halliday's soaking wet. And he asked him, he goes, oh, did you just get here? You must have walked in out of the rain. And Halliday goes, no, I was just finishing up my workout.

Yeah, that was in spring training one year. Yeah, spring training. Yeah, that was before this even started. First day of spring training. If you want to be the best, that's how. Not a lot of people want to do that. Amazing. I don't get up at four.

I get up at four if I have to catch a plane, and even then I'm like I don't have to catch this plane that bad what was it the most upvoted question

on our reddit this week was our Stanley Cup picks oh yeah we gotta do it for November that's right pull up the old standings here

I'm gonna say Tampa's will is it just one or two I don't remember it's two yeah you gotta pick the finals

in the who's tops in the west right now St. Louis LA Winnipeg I'm going to say Nashville-Tampa. Can someone please keep track of these? Because I am not.

Nashville-Tampa. Nashville-Tampa. Am I drunk to say San Jose? Yep. Oh. No, I'm kidding. I actually think they're pretty good. I need to be with Mark Jones, man.

They were a team where I was like, oh, if they slip up, maybe the Leafs get Thornton off them, and all of a sudden the Leafs play the Sharks. I'm like, God, that's a good team. The correct answer is St. Louis-Washington. See, but you can't just pick the two best teams. You didn't say it was Washington?

Washington's ninth right now. I think that's bold. And you know what? I actually agree. I think Washington's going to do way better in the playoffs this year than they did last year. Interesting. No pressure. Interesting.

If they make it in, people are going to be like, yes, that's great. For you guys, huh? They're going to be like, yes! Yes! Yes! You made your pick already? Yeah, Tampa versus Sharks. I had a good question tweeted to me.

Can I throw this one in there? and Jesse it might have been the one you were going to read next neither of Matthews Marner

or Nylander have gotten to a career NHL fight yet who will be the first Nylander Nylander Marner

he's too good of a Canadian boy to fight he's nuts what Marner yeah he's a little bit he's a little speed crazy okay

I see here's the thing as long as he's playing on Matt Martin's line it will not be Marner because Matt Martin will go I don't think so

yes But, okay, if anyone tries to fight Austin Matthews, I expect Martin to jump off of the bench. Yeah. And, like, subject himself to criminal charges. Don't touch Austin Matthews. Yeah. Marner's too small. Matthews is too important.

And Nylander's the last one. See, that's why I picked Marner, though. The small guys always find a way to get into a fight somehow. Marner versus Char. Because they get pushed around more. Yes. The small guys get pushed around more. Yeah.

Yeah, and there's other guys on your line who will fight for you. He probably has a junior fight. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I struggled with this one. I don't actually have a great answer.

I'm going to say Nylander because sometimes I feel like... The thing with Nylander is he never seems bothered by anything. And Matthews never seems bothered by anything. Marner's the only one that I'm like, oh, he might be a little bothered right now. Matthews never even talks to the opposition.

No, he just kind of plays. Except when he scores. Then he gets all excited. Yeah. Yeah, but he's not going to the other team. I scored on you. Did you notice how I did that? That was fun I did that and felt good about it. I'm trying to look if Marner has a page on hockey fights calm and the answer I don't see one. No Patrick Marlowe. What? Oh I want to see this. I want to click on Patrick Carlos hockey fights page. Man. He's got a bunch

He's got like half a dozen. That's crazy Good for him. Anyway, no, we really need to go on account of traffic, and you have a show at 3. Yeah. Anyway, I have no idea. You have a show in 17 minutes. All right, so peace out, everybody.

Have a great weekend. Home and home against Boston. And then we'll see you next week. Another four-game week next week. It's going to be pretty intense. Steve is loving this with all the videos. At least they don't play Monday this time. Yeah.

I think they play Wednesday. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E, and at Jesse Blake. The Steve Dangle Podcast. Brought to you by Panago Pizza. Order at Panago.com and stuff your face with deliciousness.