The Steve Dangle Podcast - Juggernaut | March 8, 2021

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

On this episode, Meghan & Harry are upset with Steve (00:00), who wore the crown! (04:00), Leafs drop two to the Canucks (15:00), Jim Benning speaks to the media (26:00), Tom Wilson has been suspended for 7 games (46:00), Chris Johnston joins the show to talk about his juggernaut of a tweet (55:00), Calgary hires Darryl Sutter as new old head coach (1:29:00), remembering Walter Gretzky (1:35:00), Adam's History Corner (1:39:00), and the press conference: Jack Adams & the PK (1:48:00).  Originally aired: March 8, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/GejmPKz5myE Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://begin.babbel.com/ https://ca.manscaped.com/ https://bluechew.com/ https://betmgm.com/ Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake well it looks like steve picked a shitty time to tweet out he might be a member of the royal family oh yeah that's that's terrible that's terrible that megan and harry would would talk crap about my family like that you know we go way back us uh us royals us sax cobergs or whatever adam called us you are your sax cobergs the only reason they have the last name windsor is because they didn't want to seem too german during world war one so they switched it to windsor and uh and that's that is why they just make up their own last name they did yes their last name was Sachs-Coburg yeah the vict from victoria onward because albert was the

albert victoria's husband was the uh i forget what he was but and then she would she came from a german line and he can't he was german and so sachs-coburg was their name until world war one until you know it seemed like it was too german like a fun fact about the town of or not town city thriving metropolis of kitchener uh kitchener used to be called new berlin until world war one when they changed it to Kitchener, who was the head of the British war effort and German businesses were smashed and set on fire and a whole bunch of stuff. There was some crazy things that happened in World War I. And that's one of them. Kitchener has the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany in the entire world. And I've been to it and it's absolutely pandemonium. Huge, huge German

population in kitchener huge adam i if i'm looking at the queen victoria family tree correctly yeah she married a man named king christian the ninth of denmark and then they had kids and stuff anyway that's my family i don't think i don't think that's the i'm gonna have to look at that uh she was very much married to albert but i'm gonna go with adam on am i misunderstanding how it is this is a little early for adam's history corner king christian of denmark uh it was not there might be maybe there's something to that but i i don't i don't know sometimes the royal stuff is you gotta remember there was like 40 people in who who like intermarried for about 250 years in europe and they they formed the ruling class so that you know and when world

war one broke out queen victoria's three grandsons were uh uh the heads of russia germany and england so you know it's it's sort of it's a bit of a small pool that they were all working up bro yeah literally literally that whoa what are you doing bro are you a royal in doing research for my little pet project i saw some family trees that made me go oh oh it's rough yeah no you got to remember though, when you're looking at your family tree, most people up until about 50 years ago, never ventured outside about 50 kilometers from where they grew up. Never in their life went more than 50 kilometers. So you have to think that that happened a lot and they actually, there are, and this is, the Brits are going to hate this, but the rumors about British

teeth are probably true in the sense that because they were on an island, there was very little cycling of population and therefore gene pool and that's why you get british teeth i know right now crazy that's why i have big teeth because i had british teeth they're terrible they were awful teeth i brutal brutal teeth um all right how far back does adam have to go to find out his aunt was a sister two three generations maybe we're not exactly descended from the same people steve is um now uh let's get into the fact that on international women's day i thought this was fitting uh the nwhl announced they'll be back so happy for that we're gonna finish the season off

which is awesome to hear obviously vaccine uh rollout is going a lot faster in the states than it is in canada although much faster in canada now which is nice um and obviously uh we're happy to see them back so good for them let's get into who wore the crown brought to you by who jesse uh today it is a rather long message so if i um if i can ask for some time here to read it no it's from mike so okay steve uh steve's back all right steve is now wearing a crown for anybody listening to the audio who cares about them mike writes i have donated to sick kids i'd really like to tell you about my story born in january 1990 my life started off as complicated as you could get. I was born with a congenial heart defect called pulmonary artresia. A heart condition

such as this in a newborn in the 1990s was extremely uncommon and often meant that babies born with this condition did not make it very far. I was immediately transferred from Mississauga to SickKids where they saved my life with multiple open heart surgeries over the span of six months where I never went home once throughout those six months. I was baptized twice at the fear that I would not make it. There were multiple moments for my parents where they thought they would be saying their goodbyes. I owe the hospital of sick children

for my entire life to say the least. My family has contributed to their foundation for years and always will. I am now 31, healthy and living as normal of a life as one could. Sure, I have limitations, but nothing you would notice. i continue to visit my cardiologist yearly and hopefully at some point i will require open heart surgery and at some point i will require open heart surgery again my donation and my request

has been made out to cardiology department at sick kids i would like to add that for anyone young or old who may be dealing with insecurities of scars i was that child the one with his shirt on in the pool don't ever let someone make you feel ashamed all scars have a story can i crown a leaf tj brody that's yeah wow he wants to crown tj brody oh i mean you deserve that over deserves it after that holy smokes that's amazing adam if you could uh read mike's liner because he is sponsoring today man uh geez okay well listen uh if you if you want to be like mike and be one of the bravest people that anyone's ever heard of why not why not sponsor who wore the crown brought to you by mike who donated to say kids mike thank you so much steven who do you give

the crown to well it's difficult how many games have there been since we last spoke was it just the two canucks games i think it was uh yes two canucks games what a shame uh in that case i'm gonna have to give it to one james vc gotta give it to jimmy vc who has drawn the the ire the scorn of leafs nation and i think disproportionately and unfairly um the reason why jimmy vc actually took criticism while other guys near the bottom of the lineup did not is because we actually expected something out of jimmy vc and i think there's a small reptilian part of a lot of leaf brains that still is upset he wasn't a leaf after that whole bidding war saga leaving nashville but look at him with the the chemistry

with jason spezza i'm pretty sure all three of us could get a goal playing on a line with jason spezza that guy makes magic uh so i'm going to give it to timothy jimothy vc there you go um i'm going to give mine to uh to freddie anderson and the reason i'm going to give mine to freddie anderson is it's nice to have freddie back number one number two i've been hard on freddie anderson and number three sometimes you forget how hard the leafs are on freddie anderson they certainly had no interest in throwing any sort of defense in front of him in either game uh and i think you know it's interesting the the um you know i still think freddie there's some there's some flaws with freddie as there is with any goaltender

but um the leafs looked gassed and terrible and he didn't and that is believe it or not nice to hear and nice to see because we have an issue in this market where we play him too much and if he is looking fresh while the rest of the team is looking exhausted and they've only got, what is it, five games in the next 13 days or something like that? It's a very, very light schedule coming up. That means everybody can sort of catch up to Freddie's level and I'm excited about that.

So mine goes to Freddie Anderson who looks really good, who we need to look really, really good. Jesse? If you hit up quanthockey.com, it's one of my favorite websites for hockey stats because you can organize these stats in ways where you can get really specific. So I organized the stats in its NHL player stats in the last two seasons. And then I set the categories by goals.

And I ran down the top 11, 11 place in goals. And at number one is Austin Matthews over the last, his last 93 games and last two seasons, he has 65 goals and he leads the entire league over the last two years. But coming in at 11th place is William Nylander who has scored 41 goals in his last 94 games. Now, I just want to throw that out there because I just want to point out how good of a player William Nylander has been for the last two seasons, but that is not the reason I'm giving him this crown. I'm giving William Nylander this crown because he fell victim on Saturday night to one of the worst rules in hockey. so the over the glass penalty is because there needs to be some level of subjectivity to this

call like when it's it's it he's going towards his own offensive zone he's not trying to delay the game he's attacking them calling it a delay of game penalty doesn't make sense he's not trying to escape anything and and um purposely ice the puck over the glass like that doesn't that doesn't make common sense here so i feel like if there was a some way to change this rule where there's some leeway for a ref to not make that call in an instance where the puck just didn't hit a glass like he's not the team has the puck maybe the face-off just goes in the other in your own defensive end so then it's an advantage for the other team but it doesn't make sense for two minute minor penalty be called on a play like that so crown to william neilander for that

ridiculous rule that's still in the NHL rulebook for no reason. That said, when it goes to the Leafs' favor, I'll take it. We're not talking about that. The Leafs have benefited from some serious or from silly puck over the glass calls, but when a guy

has the puck and he's along the half wall or in the corner, and then a player is applying pressure to them and they go, whoa, and they throw it over the glass, that should be called. That's like you did something wrong there. You're trying to escape a defensive jam yeah knee lander was an attacking player exactly supports and it just whoops a

daisy it's still his fault but like it shouldn't be penalized for it if you look at the replay too he wasn't even aiming in that direction the puck just kind of went off the stick funny and it bounced over the glass that way and it's like okay how is that a penalty it should be a nice and call like it should go face off in your zone right so you say if you're in your defensive zone and you flip the puck out penalty. If you're in the offensive zone, it's a or at least moving towards

it. Yeah, or like, yeah, I think that makes it too gray. I think you got it. You got to make something black and white for the refs to work with here because we do bitch about the refs having too much subjectivity. You know, I mean, he was William Nylander was in between the two blue lines. It's like he wasn't in either zone.

This is the problem. Like it's he very clearly broke broke the rule but like at some point you need to use your human brain and go well this isn't what we meant to do here like this isn't what the rule is supposed to prevent it is funny because the nhl they they'll steve they'll pick and they'll choose what calls they're going to take literally cross-checking they don't take literally yeah walk over glass they take a really good point and to just to prove a point i'll talk about two penalties that should have been called on the Leafs Austin Matthews has now twice this season cross-check someone so hard that his stick broke

he did it I can't remember if it was the first or the second Canucks game and he did it I think it was in the first game of the season against Ben Sherratt called neither time that's ridiculous but that you can't do that Kerfoot the hit from behind on Miller you can do that flip the puck over the glass you can't do that it's silly it's very very silly makes no sense oh that is who wore the crown excuse me sorry guys i liked you better that way most people do uh that is who are the crown brought to you by mike mike thank you for being so awesome and incredible why not be like mike kind of why not why not you gotta leave room for the why not yeah you can't sneak that in on no you better you better sneak in no i think you just need to be better steve i think that's what

it is oh wow so we just gotta be black and white about this too all right no judgment here wow all right so why not why not be like mike uh thank you for sponsoring who wore the crown the jesse's got i think you got people lined up for the next how long yeah let me let me pull up the folder i mentioned the last episode briefly but yeah if you if people keep sending in their donations so right now we're booked through april 20th we have who are the crowns donations 2024 no yeah that's not this year that's that's 2024 like steve said we do want to say though if you're in the states and for some reason i don't know what it is international listeners seem to be able to donate to sick kids.ca uh american listeners tend for some reason apparently they

cannot uh so if you're in the united states and you can't uh donate to sick kids um a great alternative is st jude's which is a children's hospital in the states that offers uh patients um uh care free of charge and it's for children only uh st jude's or your local hospital whichever you want to choose um how about that socialized medicine crazy and some people have chosen to give to like their favorite charity a couple people have donated to black girl hockey club and love that all charity just we just like whatever whatever if you want to sponsor who the ground donate to charity send it along and we'll get your name in here uh one asterisk on that no trump charity counts okay just throwing that out there just wanted to i don't want your

shitty participates no shitty university it doesn't know it's just that the charity is really just a way for them to take more money from people oh he's got an actual charity they did yeah they golf tournaments and everything oh he's such a good well what did you expect of course he was doing that now the Leafs dropped two against the Canucks and it's too bad John Tavares I think said it perfectly it turned what could have been a great road trip into a good one and you know I can understand Thursday was a night where you expected it yes we expected Thursday night to be yeah the Canucks are going to come in and whoop their ass they've played this is now four games and five nights there's no way that the Leafs had a chance and they looked depressing and dull

um saturday night though less of an excuse this team does look tired but this is the vancouver canucks and you need to come out harder and yes they did have without patterson and they you know and i believe he's sitting out again today um you know the the thing with the vancouver canucks is you got to come out hard against them they didn't they somehow managed to get a 2-1 lead for a good chunk of the game and couldn't hang on to it it's a shame and it seems like another wasted opportunity that it's another saturday game where you go guys this should be a layup it's um the matthews marner thornton line i thought was the most concerning in that they looked sort of the way they did in the first five games um they were totally out of sync i saw some people going oh

matthews doesn't look ready after the first game the thursday game i disagreed with that i thought he had some really good scoring chances but something was clearly off and there was a quote that came out actually just before the podcast, let me see if I can find it, here it is that Scott leave Twitter talking, this from Josh Clohey, Austin Matthews

said his wrist still needs to progress a bit though he believes a reduction in games compared to last week could help, I'd like to see it heal a bit, he said I'm going to throw out a hot take I know the season is long and i know they're using the jets as a measuring stick he should not play any of those games

austin matthews should not play the winnipeg jets he should get that week off then into four day break and you can return against calgary on march 20th he should not be playing for the next two weeks i don't blame you i i don't i don't know if i necessarily disagree um i i love when austin matthews is playing but uh this seems like something that you don't need lingering right you don't ride a bike ride a bike do anything but yeah it just even if they lose all the games and the jets catch them who cares it's at this point you've built enough of a lead where when he comes back you're still going to be the leafs and they've played well without him they when he has sat out they had they have played games against you know edmonton and one um and i think that

Maybe it's just sort of sit him. You know something amazing, Adam? The Jets could win all three games and not catch the Leafs. They're seven points back. They do have two games in hand, but they're seven points back. They could win all three games and not catch the Leafs. Sit him. Sit him.

This is why you have Tavares, is it not? Yeah. That's why you're loaded up. They're obviously not worried, so maybe we're just being overprotective here, but you're 100% right. You can get at least one of three against Winnipeg without Tavares. You have not lost without him. You haven't lost a game without Matthews.

You historically have a division-winning record without him in the lineup. You're like the Raptors without Kawhi. It makes no sense, but they're great. They're great without him. Well, if they can win without him, maybe they should just trade him now. You know, Adam's on to the Coyotes now. before he signs there that's right well you know what on that note there might be an opportunity here well we we do know elliot friedman did say the savers are open for business we'll get into

that a little bit later but if you were going to make a trade for a center and you were going to make one anyway maybe you do have to wait till the conditions are right but it would kind of make sense now wouldn't it you know it would except you know i don't think we're being biased by saying the rules of this season screw the canadian teams like for example uh and let's let's use the jets as an example why did dubois count against the cap for the two weeks he was sitting in quarantine see that doesn't make sense you're absolutely right it's ridiculous and the leafs who are up against the cap are now going to be uh essentially penalized it's going to be like they acquired the guy and then he got suspended you know what i mean it's good

so let's say they acquire i was talking to someone today about the math just the pure math of taylor hall for like the taylor hall half retained for like kerfoot or something and how far away are the leafs from being able to afford that obviously kerfoot plus but it doesn't even if the math worked out it wouldn't erase the fact that hall would then just be sitting there for two weeks before they could even use him that makes no sense the quarantine i fully understand the fact that he would count against the cap when you know why he's sitting there that doesn't make any sense so it makes sense for the leafs to logically to acquire someone now with all this time off but then there's the issue of well you

want to be as close to the trade deadline as possible to maximize the cap space but they can't they can't wait to the trade deadline because you're talking about the trade deadline plus two weeks it just it screws canadian teams it does it doesn't have to be a lot of people who'd say well canadian teams are lucky they only have to play canadian teams because there's that narrative going around too those people can fuck off like i'm so sick of hearing it like i love i'm making it into a meme now i hope the rest of the canadian division joins in that they that footage of hoglander doing all that gymnastics on the kettlebells and riding a unicycle and i was like you know that'd be much more impressive if he wasn't doing that in the canadian division

imagine if he was in the east riding a unicycle and juggling that would be impressive nope all canadian division not impressive east isn't very good like oh they're great is anybody gonna talk about how the islanders are kind of the only team that looks really good and like you can really swap the peng pens and the caps and boston and philly in any order you want because they're all kind of mediocre and if carter hart doesn't come back like carter hart was last year at some point this year the same people saying the canadian division standings don't count are the same people who are like ovechkin is a better scorer than gretzky but because he played in this what against the thrashers shut up wayne gretzky never had to play the thrashers he had to play in this

he got to just victimize the shitty southeast for god knows how long and listen i don't even agree with that take that i just said but you see how ridiculous it is yes it is what it is ovechkin could only play the guys he did gretzky could only play in the 80s when he was in the 80s the leafs can only play the canadian division when they're in the division and also when they win it's the division sucks and when they lose a pair to the Canucks it's hot the Leafs stink well yeah that's always going to be it are you I'm sorry Steve are you asking for fairness in people's hate against no I'm asking for people to ignore Darth Vader man ignore the Leafs or Darth Vader the Leafs or Darth Vader and and they are the always by the

way Darth Vader the most interesting character in the Star Wars universe they are always the most interesting story they are also always the most hated and that is okay we need to accept that i'm not looking for fairness except for from the nhl i would like the rules to be fair and when we're talking about a quarter of the league i agree with you it's a little bit weird and i don't think anybody who's a fan of any team in any division is like yeah no that sounds like a great idea that's fair but if it came down to a vote i'm sure all the teams in the america like the american teams would be like well screw those guys am i right let's vote against it the teams are the teams have the same rule that are competing against each other you know like it's not like they're

competing against the american teams within the regular season you know so at least that they're they have a competitive balance amongst the teams you're fighting for a playoff spot it's a competitive balance on paper but like it's the waiver wire and um the the quarantine period crossing the border obviously screwed the Oilers to start the season like there there's an argument to be made that they should be higher in the standings than they are because they just did not they didn't have a goalie they didn't have a goalie and the Hurricanes screwed them for no reason as far as I can see they remember that whole it was such a carousel of you'll have to explain that one again they put the Oilers had Anton Forsberg I believe it was they put him on

waivers the hurricanes just went yoink and then proceeded to put another goalie on waivers so fans are like what so you just took our guy and then but because the oilers finished so high in the standings last year every time a goalie got put on waivers yoink and then the oilers wanted every one of them and and like aaron dell and the devils go yoink should have traded they had the chance and and but and the devils claimed two guys and then put another one and but is that bad gming from the oilers yes oh it's dumb they had the opportunity and wanted to trade for aaron dell and didn't do it yeah and then they finally get troy gross nick and then uh they can't use them for two weeks and then i think by the time they had an opportunity to use them they

didn't use them anyway they used stewart skinner instead of uh gross nick in that ridiculous eight five game against the Sens where Matt Murray we're just watching his career implode in front of us that was a he's got it back on track a little bit since then but anyway it's been it's been a tough ride for some of the Canadian teams to say the least we'll just say that okay so uh without bemoaning the fact the Leafs blow two uh I didn't even know when the next game is to be honest with you it's such a it's such a is it tomorrow and it's against Winnipeg and we know it's a big game matthew's probably playing but we're hoping not mostly because we wanted to take the week off be nice we'll see the one thing though i found interesting this weekend uh when

it came to the canucks was jim benning spoke to the media and that is always very interesting boy and people they've gotta knock that off adam i couldn't figure out why like why was he talking to the media um what was the reasoning is it a mid-season press conference or because it's not mid-season yet is it maybe it is I think there was probably enough demand for it I'm willing to bet like if like Dubas never speaks to the media right it's pretty rare and if like one Toronto Sun writer is like hey I want to talk to Kyle Dubas they'll be like well no but if everyone asks for it and it's for a good reason like for example a trade right but a team in free fall which before the this two games set

against the leafs the canucks pretty much were if you're if you're a team in free fall and you're not really supposed to be yeah no the gm should have to answer for that so i like i give ben and kudos for speaking to the media but good lord good lord someone in that organization has to has to step in this guy's place not i'm not saying to fire him i just he needs a speaker he needs a designated like in baseball he needs a designated no wrestling where you have yes where you bring around the guy who's the voice like he needs a paul heyman yeah you're absolutely right he needs paul heyman and he can be dancing around yeah and then you let the big tough guy just grunt yeah yeah he just does f5s and suplexity and leaves he needs a paul hayman so bad the guy

can't talk he can't talk with that in mind shall we show an example jesse go ahead and play the audio yeah adam you want to play this little clip from uh his presser all right let me pull it up here this would be why the canucks are off to a bad start according to jim benning you know we we started the season we had the week training camp um no exhibition games and then we started into the games uh i think part of you know part of our problems early on were we played like 16 games in 25 nights and in that in those 25 nights uh we had two practices in 19 days and so what happens with that when you don't practice when you're just like saving all your energy to play the games you have a bunch of new players Travis doesn't get to you know use that

practice time to work on our systems you lose execution when you're not practicing you don't have puck touches and but I thought you know the last couple weeks you know when we've had time to practice and our systems we're playing you know with more structure and discipline in our game um we've been in all the games the last couple weeks i think you know maybe we have some puck luck we have maybe two or three wins more wins in those 11 games uh but you know we're deposit there he's not exactly the most charismatic speaker and that's not his job so i'm not going to criticize them for that horrible it's uh it's bad it's it's like an oral presentation in grade 10 it's so bad now the kid who won't look up right so i tell you to look up every

now and then what the problem is what Canucks fans know what we know what everybody knows is the Canucks got worse this offseason and the Canucks were a barely marginal playoff team before this season well and the lack of practice the the short training that's everybody everybody and who played the most games early on the Leafs and the Canucks they were in there and the Oilers though but all the Canadian teams the Canucks played the most games out of everybody they're at the halfway point of the season 28 of 56 but that's not an excuse no no these are professional hockey players they should be able to execute some systems without maybe optimal practice time right you look at the teams who have played the most games it's a it's a total mixed bag

uh the Canucks are bad the Sens are bad the Leafs are good the Blackhawks are good the Oilers are okay they're meeting no they're good they're good they're top half Calgary's 20th it's a mixed bag but i don't think anybody would come out and blame lack of practice and it's it i think what it is is that we just need to call it what it is the canucks are poorly constructed and they don't want to say they're poorly constructed the gm who constructed them can't say that they're poorly constructed but they are and i i know and i i listen i know it was satisfying for the canucks uh and their fan base to beat the leaps twice and i get that but that doesn't change the oh as it should be that doesn't change the overall look which is this team is not neat is not where

it needs to be he wanted this team to be an elite team by his fourth year as the general manager it is now his seventh seven years and people complained about mike gillis mike gillis had a couple of president's trophies by now you know this is forcing him to speak well and how i think it's one playoff berth in the last seven isn't it two maybe it's not good not good good and last year they would not have made the playoffs they would i know they had an amazing run they would not have made it they were the 11th seed in the west they would not have made it they might have i'd take from steve but yeah probably not they might have but it was looking not like that was gonna happen yeah they yeah i think uh i was so i'm looking at their lineup because you're you're

talking about how they're poorly constructed and i'm like well they got parts that i really like i i don't think their offense is very bad i like it and i was gonna say their right side on d is nothing they have nothing they have no one i didn't realize nate schmidt was playing the right side so here's what daily face-off has alex edler who's the oldest player on the team by far on the top pair with nate schmidt then it's quinn hughes travis hamannik and jordy ben tyler myers no jordy ben tyler myers those are two guys probably best suited for a third pair at this point in their careers hamannik is a guy who they didn't have until really recently i believe yeah he was a pto i think yeah like he wasn't signed until right right before yeah i yeah and for

whatever reason he wasn't able to play whatever that reason happened to be but um having him in the lineup is a big addition for them regardless of what you think of him as a player he's at least guy right like they were they were throwing in guys who are not nhl players um so now now i look at their roster and i go yeah those are all nhl players not all of them are great but they're nhl players right so you know what maybe jim is right i guess is what i'm getting to maybe he's right let's all lay off bim do you want the vancouver canucks uh by season since they went to the stanley cup final and lost to the bruins give me that sure so in 2011 like like i just said they lost to the bruins and stanley cup final since then they lost in the first round 11 12 lost in

the first round 12 13 didn't make the playoffs 13 14 lost in the first round 14 15 no playoffs um 15 through 19 and then last season they went to the conference finals sucks so if you don't count last year they haven't won a playoff series since they went to the san lincoln final in 2011 but you got to count last year you got to count last year they won playoff series yeah yeah the last year for the first time since going to the stanley cup final now you know connects fans you'll be like well what are the least one and you're right man talking about that i hate when people do that it's not acceptable well that's because it's it's called what about ism that's it's not a logical argument to anyone who's one of those like all

you do is talk about the leafs all you do is talk about the leafs and then i talk about your team and you make it about the Leafs. Let me talk about your team. No. No. Okay, fine. Well, I'm going to do it anyway and get paid for it. So sit on it.

How does Jim Benning affect Jimmy Vesey's play? Well, I mean, Jimmy Vesey would bolster their offense. He would be second on the Buffalo Sabres in goals. No, sorry, third. Third. Let's not be ridiculous. He'd be third. Don't overreact.

Yeah, holy smokes. they have two guys with more than four goals wow yeah they uh vc very briefly had more goals than skinner eichel and hall combined i think he's only got one doesn't he yeah well and then skinner scored so now he only has as many not more yeah it's eichel and hall i think i have two each and skinner has one now how long tell me about how the players love ralph kruger tell me how long does jim benning have left in vancouver i think he's got the end of the season that's how he's out yeah he's done i don't think firing a gm mid-season rarely makes sense um travis yeah here's the thing travis green doesn't deserve it but you're gonna bring in

a new head coach he doesn't deserve to be fired no he doesn't he doesn't deserve his job this is enough true travis green yo travis green is a good coach okay i think he's a very good coach i don't think this is a i just don't think this is a great team and i actually think they're a better team than what they've shown skill-wise for sure yeah they've had some injuries oh they didn't get enough practice and uh didn't spend 40 48 days in training camp or whatever they have to spend each year but in all honesty um you know Pettersson not playing things like that that's gonna hurt you that's a huge huge thing however on the other side of that you had your heart cut out this offseason you quote-unquote ran out of time to sign Tanev and Markstrom and to Fole

I mean this that's a those are major losses the worst one and you and you sort of made up for it by stealing Nate Schmidt from the Vegas Golden Nuts, who are out at Golden Knight, excuse me. No, I like that name. Vegas Golden Nuts. They're losing their minds over there. They're crazy. Everybody who's on the free agent in Vegas is after.

But beyond that, it's just not a great team. I mean, Steve, you mentioned Jordy Ben and Tyler Myers. Tyler Myers, the guy you just signed 18 months ago to a six-year deal at $6 million per, is your third-line right-side defenseman? He's just signed him. jim benning is and like i'm i you cannot say this lightly there are 31 candidates for this he is the worst active general manager on free agency day put the phone down that's what we

kept saying put the phone down the worst active and like i defended the canucks moves last year because the conversation was those contracts are too long they're too much money etc etc but what I did was I slowed it down and I go now wait a minute though you're all looking several years down the line look at the Canucks this year they're better and they were they were better and they ended up making it with a bit of an asterisk but they made it and then they had some playoff success you know they i i said look at the team i know they went out and got jt miller despite not making the playoffs here before and giving up a first but they're better they're better on paper but now that we're in the future and it's time to talk about the future

the worst free agency general manager in the league i don't want to talk about Drafting, development, in terms of free agency, unrestricted free agents, getting them and losing them, the worst in the NHL. He's terrible. He signs players that were good three years ago. It's like he hasn't watched games from around the league. If you watched a Jets game when Tyler Myers was still on the Jets, you'd know that he wasn't worth that kind of money.

You know he'd maybe be worth half that if that. I think you can sign one or two guys to market value, right? You can win the bidding war for one or two guys, but when you're routinely doing it every year, you're going to overpay, and he's overpaid so many guys. To that point, Steve, what would he have lost? If you look at free agency for the Canucks in the last three years, what step did the Canucks lose by signing nobody?

This is the problem. So I'm trying to think of who they got. Myers was a big one. Myers, you have Jay Beagle, you have Antoine Roussel. like brayden holpe holpe made sense i i still think it made sense because they lost their goalie because they couldn't afford their goalie yes this is very true you know and then how did they get and i forget on this one how did they get brandon sutter was that a trade and then they signed him yes i believe so so because here's the thing i'll give you i'll grant you jim benning and

his staff have done a great job in drafting people there's no question about that they've done a pretty great job in signing players to um you know younger players to lesser deals look at what brock fesser and bo horvat are making that's not lesser deals but you know not the outrageous deals that toronto's young players got early on in their careers based you know would have made things a little bit easier for toronto had everybody signed at bo horvat or brock fesser rates but it didn't happen that way um i'll give you that but you look at this sutter rusell beagle um Myers I don't know who did the the Edler extension and I and I guess that was a long time ago when Alex Edler was better he was a very very good defense that one's okay that's okay

you're gonna have one of the or two of those if you're good enough for a long enough period yeah but it's it's but it's just scary some of this stuff and I and I look at like there are three current defensemen on the Canucks who make more money than any Leafs defenseman yeah that's that's not good enough yeah if you want to make it ever say oh the canucks have better defense than the leafs like you wouldn't sit there and say that right now no one's sitting here going the leafs defense is great no all it is is better than last year's leafs defense but so here's the thing you got edler myers and schmidt all making more the only one that i would see in the leafs top four is schmidt yeah and quinn hughes is obviously on an entry level

but like he's going to take them to the cleaners next year or not. Hope he's sorry. Demco is a restricted free agent this summer. He's going to take him to the cleaners. Oh, he's got, you know what? Demco has got to play better to take them to the cleaners.

I'm not really, he's played well, but like cleaners, I don't know. Oh, Pedersen as well. Yeah. That would be hard.

That's going to be hard. Another guy who was an RFA this summer who I was going to tweet. I just, I guess I just forgot that I really like him. I Adam Gaudette. that guy's got wheels something about the salad I love the salad flowing well he's just flying down the ice I don't know what Canucks fans think of him but in the limited viewing I've had of him I like that player well and we saw actually you know this this past week that for whatever reason

the Canucks couldn't make the money work with Danton Heinen and the Anaheim Ducks for Jake Furtanen they don't want Jake Furtanen they haven't wanted Jake Furtanen for years but they just can't pony up what is it 750 grand to make it work well and adam they just signed him to get out of jade for tannin's deal sorry what are what are teams going to stop this stop signing players you don't want hey i know how to get out from under that problem don't sign them don't give them millions of dollars we don't want this guy so we're gonna what well i think what they would say is we can't have an asset sitting sitting idly by taking up a roster spot they're worth more to us if they're signed to a deal because a gm doesn't want to trade for a restricted free

agent because the restricted free agent then takes them to the cleaners that's what the rangers thought when they signed tony d'angelo and then after like five games of him being tony d'angelo they're like what we didn't think tony d'angelo would be tony d'angelo and now where's he playing nowhere say well for 10 it's like we don't like the way for 10 in place so we're going to sign him and we're going to hope someone might yeah and then he lights the leaves up because of course he does of course he has to um but this is the thing right i mean this is just a different it's just not not good and i don't think jim benning can say that but jim's gone but but i don't hate the way he's drafted and i would take i would take him on my squad any day if he's heading up scouting

I think that guy's really good at drafting. I think they've got a – that's a pretty solid track record. The Aquilines – Hoaglander's a hell of a player. The Aquilines are weird enough owners that I wonder if they'd be like, Jim, we would like to hire a new GM. Would you please continue to work for us somehow? Make the same money. He's a consultant.

He's an assistant GM. President. Why not president? and he gets to manage that relationship between ownership or whatever he's obviously good at getting him to pony up he's obviously good at going hey there frank need some money there frank like he's he's obviously i wouldn't if you don't want jim benning running your team and running the construction of your team you definitely don't want him to be the boss of the next general manager because he's going to say well what about uh this year's jay beagle

want to just sign him for snapper well that's what has to have whoever they bring in has to have some sort of backbone right like that that is that that should be a given with any executive because that always seems to be the conversation i loved when people were um uh i saw some penguins fans anxious that brian burke was going to have too much of an influence now over the pittsburgh penguins and i'm like you think brian burke is gonna boss around ron hexel i've never seen two executives of the same team fight but but they might they might yeah so i i wonder if that's something that canucks look at because you're right he's not a terrible executive he's a good one who does one thing all world bad if that makes sense it's like nonas we were like oh he's bad at

this he's bad at that he's bad at that he's good at negotiating with rfas but he's better this he's bad at that he's better that's true everyone's got their thing yep benning's thing appears to be most other things other than oh free agency brutal um so uh we got to move on here so you guys all saw the tom wilson hit and tom wilson on brandon carlo what's that drama drama well what was funny is so he's got a seven seven game suspension now three hundred thousand dollars forfeited salary and alexander ovechkin this morning called it a joke it's a joke well ovechkin okay there's been a flavor to ovechkin all year oh he's salty i like i think he's still salty about the covid suspension that i was gonna bring that up why do you think that steve because i agree with you

completely i don't know well obviously you know i've i've said this before i've mostly been focused on the canadian division but i feel like it's allowed me to get a better view of a lot of the american teams because i think sometimes when you're just peeking in every now and then it's easier to notice themes because you have less time to pick up on things and every time i watch alexander ovechkin's in a bad mood win or lose he's in a bad mood and he's spearing guys in the nuts and his quotes always seem to be ornery and pissed off and he's looking at tom wilson uh getting suspended and he's like there's just another suspension to my damn team you know imagine if he had coughed on someone how much would he or not even coughed on someone

imagine if he had met someone in a hotel then would it be 11 games or what because he got four games didn't he or something like that seven no no vetchkin oh vetchkin uh yeah because he had to sit on the protocol list and i think yeah i don't remember it was one or two and then they had to miss another couple yeah it wasn't really a suspension it was kind of just you have to sit out for the covid protocols and then the fine right so i think he's still salty about that and and any decision that comes down from the league he's not gonna like it he's not gonna it could have been a fine for Wilson and he would have called it a joke you know he's still salty he's angry I get that well so here's what Ovechkin said and I think this is funny because the league is

not going to like this he's like well first of all no one wants to hurt a player and make a dirty hit but I think it's kind of a joke because we were talking to the refs after the first period and the ref said I don't think it was even two minutes it was a hard hit and on the ice there was no call so yeah the player got hurt it sucks but when I think you play hockey you have to be ready for that and you have to make sure you know who is on the ice now brandon carlos says he's feeling better which is good but if you watch the replay i i could see how the ref missed that i can see that yeah it's a dirty hit when you look at it in on replay and in real time when you're on the camera yeah when you when you're there in real in real time on the ice it probably looks a little

clean you know you're just kind of checking a guy into the boards he falls but like we that's what replay is there for and that's what they take into account during these suspensions i don't say this facetiously nhl officials do not have a trustworthy opinion on the things that happen on the ice they don't we know this already no we they don't but we saw that we saw and that's okay i don't want that fucking job are you kidding me that's an impossible job and i say they don't have a trustworthy opinion because it's so impossible we saw with the Columbus uh Carolina mishap John Tortorella and the goal not coming back but the penalty coming off and that nonsense oh my god that was crazy William Nylander's delay of game penalty the other night in order to determine

whether or not Willie should have been given a delay of game they delayed the game to talk about it and I think look at the replay as well they I think the majority of time they get the calls correct i think i think saying they have a bad opinion on what happens on the ice is a little incorrect i didn't say bad i said not trustworthy alexander ovechkin go hey how'd you see that he's gonna tell you it wasn't a penalty because he didn't call one if he thought it was a penalty he would have called it but he didn't get a chance to see it twice he saw it in real time and went no and so he gave you his answer in the moment when he didn't call one and then later on ovechkin's like hey what do you think and he's still no still no i don't think those guys spend

their intermission looking at the game footage do you i think they just talk to each other and catch their breath like i don't and they shouldn't you know they should their intermission is not ours yeah their intermission is not ours so uh you know a player but basically i would not give alexander ovechkin full marks on his citations for this particular essay it's like citing wikipedia alex they don't know for sure they don't know yes they were there they don't know yeah yeah ovechkin's pissed i like pissed off ovechkin by the way even though i disagree with him completely on this and objectively he's wrong and tom wilson by the way deserved every minute of that seven game suspension probably more in my estimation and i know there's people who are going to hate

me for that again but somehow he's not a repeat offender by the way don't know don't understand how that that's so stupid but i do back to the original piece love pissed off ovechkin because when ovechkin's pissed off magic happens and that's going to be fun to watch i'm excited for that let me ask you this no all right go ahead go ahead i thought the wilson hit was nasty and worthy of a suspension what rule did he break boarding boarding is what they called it yeah so frank ceravalli was getting some shit for tweeting like okay unpopular opinion i'm not sure what rule he broke then later on he tweeted uh tom wilson i don't know if he was saying this as partially a joke or if he actually meant it but tom wilson has now become the first player to ever be suspended

for boarding and hitting a player from the front you know what I mean boarding is usually you hit a guy from behind almost always I've never seen a guy boarding is three strides no it's charging

charging sorry boarding is used I forget the actual definition I had it from Twitter earlier but boarding NHL it's using the boards as like an aggressive attack with the player as a body check it's something along those lines so that's what he did because

to morning is a nice hockey penalty called uh when an offending player pushes trips or checks an opposing player violently into the boards of the rink the boarding call is quite often a major penalty due to the likelihood of injuries suspended like when i got a boarding call i remember in minor hockey and this doesn't matter but i remember i hit a guy and according to our house league rules when you hit it either had to be open ice or it had to be against the boards but if it was too close to the boards then it was boarding but it wasn't close enough that they could you know because you know you don't want to hurt kids so that's so i hit him within about two feet of the boards and his head hit the board he was fine yeah believe me i wasn't skating that

fast and uh but i got a boarding call for that yeah yeah that's that's pretty much a clean-up version of what i said it's you're using the boards as like a violent weapon to body check some guy into the board so i don't know what frank ceravelli's talking about because it's literally a penalty and the nhl outlined it when they suspended wilson in the videos they released where they explained the rule that the guy broke so that's what what take are you trying to say here the blind spot for surf holly might have been that uh wilson was facing the player who was hit which that had nothing to do with the rule it doesn't know i know okay but it is unusual yes right but don't say no guy's ever been suspended for boarding when it's literally a

rule no no no one's ever been suspended for boarding in an incident where the two players were facing each other it's almost always from behind i think is what he was trying to say okay yeah but oddly specific it is oddly specific but what what i wasn't getting is also if you know that nerd no i'm sorry no disrespect to frank on that one but come on who the hell knows that's what i get paid for that's such a tweet you know that's such a thing that you know oh no one's ever done this from in front of a guy into the boards and never been suspended. Here go my mentions. Frank,

by the way, who if he were a member of this show would be the second youngest member. Adam and I are both older than Frank. I'm two months older. Adam's one month. Would you guys like to welcome Chris Johnson to the show? Oh, yes.

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calendar year 2025 for the cadillac definition of luxury bringing on chris johnson who i almost forgot was going to be in the show and i think it's only right that we boo the power of christ compelled you sorry hi do you think that boo is necessary i've been 48 hours of being assaulted in my mentions and you still haven't deleted it what's wrong with you i need one more thing to happen before i delete it What? What's that? What? What? Somebody out there has to buy the tweet on the blockchain. I saw that. You're selling it as an NFT. It's genius.

I need you to explain this. Explain this. Okay, first of all, before we get into any of that, Chris, explain the Habs thing to context for anybody that's missed all of this. It's been a month, guys. It's been a while. right so back i think it was february 2nd uh i didn't check the date stamp before we had this conversation but i'm watching a habs game i was at home they were off to a great start and i i tweeted maybe somewhat uh got a little ahead of myself and said something to the effect of you know a short season requires us to make early predictions or early conclusions the habs are a juggernaut and then they didn't win a game for a little while and you know unfortunately claude

julian pays the price he loses his job and so what happened because there's you know i love hockey twitter i really do i love everyone out there giving me the heat it's all fair but literally every time the habs played a game and lost after that that tweet would just start rolling through my mentions again and leafs fans would be like well what do you think of the leafs and are they still a juggernaut and all this stuff and I was getting that every Leafs game every Habs game no matter what was going on so then they go through Edmonton they can they win those three games 13 to 1 and I honestly first of all I don't believe in jinxes and all this crap to begin with so I wasn't doing it to hex anybody but I was like you know what I'm finally ready to say the Leafs are

a juggernaut and so summoning you know all the people that had asked in light of the Habs tweet I said I'm finally ready to say the Leafs look like a juggernaut and now they're 0-2 since I tweeted that and the internet is not happy Way to go, stupid Who is next? Who can we get? Can you tweet something

about the Jets because the Leafs play them tomorrow it would be really great if you could tell the world that they're a juggernaut The Blackhawks have been a feel-good story, why don't you screw with them? I actually might retire the J word at this point because now people will actually think I'm trying to put a hex on someone, which is not my intent.

Like, when I tweeted about the Habs, I honestly thought, like, man, this team looks like a juggernaut. They're not just winning, but – never tweet. It's just the easy answer. Never express an opinion. No. Never tweet. You're, like, the biggest disruption to sports betting.

You're like Wall Street bets, but to sports betting. What do you think of the Brooklyn Nets there, CJ? Going all in on GameStop, bud. There's nothing bad can happen. Hold that line, CJ. Hold that line. Oh, my God. And now they're going to plummet because you said all in.

Way to go. Way to go, CJ. GameStop looks like a juggernaut. It hasn't helped, though. Like, people like yourself immediately jumped on me and were like, that I've thrown the hex on them. Shouldn't have done it. Okay.

So, for a month, Leafs fans were coming at me. The original tweet was about the Habs, and everyone's like, well, what do you think of the Leafs? What do you think of the Leafs? Why are you calling the Leafs a juggernaut? Then I finally concede to them, and now the same people are mad at me. Oh, my God, you're the monkey's paw. It's the internet.

You can't win. Nobody wins a discussion on the internet. I'm trying to, though. I have tried really hard to win this discussion. Not to win, but just to be fair. Well, the next person that is a dick to you, look at what team they cheer for and just tweet that their team's a juggernaut and say there you go sir um and i can't wait for the the third time's a charm chris johnston juggernaut tweet

to happen oh chris you you were uh you were um watching the games obviously this the past two the leafs versus the canucks not particularly inspiring does it worry you at all uh not because of your juggernaut tweet but just in general like is it something where it's like leaf fans should kind of be concerned or is it they're exhausted yeah i was watching that whole game going like man i've really screwed this team up you know i should not oh no i in all seriousness i'm not i wouldn't be that worried as a leafs fan or you know the team you know no one likes to hear this because it is it is an excuse but when they just play five games in eight days yeah across western Canada you know they had leads in both games you know it wasn't like they've got look it wasn't

great but it wasn't they didn't lose seven to one or whatever you know Winnipeg lost in the weekend of Montreal so you know I think that there's like some cause for okay can they stop this now because one thing the Leafs have been much better at this year is not letting the sort of down periods ride for too long that really haven't been very many uh you know I think that that's a worthy question as we move into a tough series of games with Winnipeg. But, you know, there was nothing in those games that made me think, oh, they've lost it. I just think they're probably tired.

It's been a lot of games. The goalies are hurt, right? Jack Campbell gets a shutout that he can't even dress for the next couple. You know, Freddie, I'm not pinning this on any individuals. It's just they weren't themselves fully, but I don't see any cause to hit panic buttons or anything like that.

Well, speaking of not themselves, There was a quote today from Austin Matthews basically talking about, like, he wishes his wrist was further along in terms of progress or whatever. And a lot of Leaf Twitter was saying, why is this guy playing? Why is this guy playing? Because he wants to be. You know, and like. It should be. Shouldn't they be like, yeah, but you can't.

But I don't think he's at a point where he's risking further damage. I mean, look, one thing that Austin sort of made clear is that he's out of the rhythm now, even just from missing the few games he did that, you know, obviously when he was popping, like it was just rolling for him, they're playing every day, every other day, it was going well. And then, you know, I think that he's searching for it a little bit. You know, clearly the strength isn't fully back, though. You know, Sheldon Keefe, the most interesting thing I heard at practice today was Sheldon Keefe mentioning in the power play they've had to move him a little bit out of a shooter spot

just because he's not comfortable being the main shooter on the power play essentially so i mean that's that's also hinting at the same thing you're talking about um but i i think he really doesn't want to get out of rhythm i think he wants to keep playing and i you know look lots of guys are playing hurt we just don't always know about it you know we know william kneelander is playing hurt you know i think that that's a facet of hockey it's hard to keep players out of the lineup in hockey you know in in the nba where like load management is just fully real i wish i remember the teams there was one recently you know the star player was on a limit for minutes and it was like a close game with two minutes left they're like you're off like you're at 34 minutes or whatever

you know we're not there in hockey like joe thornton came back from his rib injury and played three games in four days and then got hurt again and i'm not saying it's because he played those three games in four days but you kind of think you wonder right like could we ease these guys in more could we give them more time off when they're injured it's just it's so against the culture of the sport i think is the easiest answer and and you know obviously austin's pushing to play the doctors have determined he can't make this worse and so that's where why we're where we are right now and then i obviously we we see today at practice wayne simmons is back skating again any idea on when his return is because he definitely seems uh you know for all the

projections about where his skill level was at boy did he come out and play great and become a fan favorite in about a heartbeat and the team despite the fact that they've kept winning certainly seems to miss him for sure you know it's not going to be hard to find a spot for him uh you know i think he's probably still about two weeks away though you know he's he was been able to skate last week we didn't see him because the team was on the road so we weren't here at the practice rink uh but he was skating last week initially and he's back today and and you know probably if you're gonna find a silver lining in a broken wrist which is what he's coming back for it's that he can keep his conditioning up and so theoretically once he's able to regain his own

strength in the wrist and be able to feel like he can handle the puck and shoot and all those things potentially throw a punch too which is you know part of what he does from time to time um you know then then he'll be able to get back in the lineup but at least he's going to be able to have the conditioning part down so you know he's not imminent but that two weeks will go quickly and and actually once we get beyond this week you know the Leafs have a couple pretty quiet weeks in this shortened season in terms of number of games. So he is getting closer, you know, maybe six or eight more games before he's back. So you've broken some things on the show in the past,

and I just want to know, what did it take for the Leafs to get Taylor Hall in the trade you're about to announce on our show right now? Well, look, that makes a lot of sense. you know the only part that doesn't make sense or doesn't make this easy is is the cap situation you know i think that let's look at buffalo in general we know that they're the shop is open i mean come into the convenience store and look around and what what do you want um you know any team that might want taylor hall is going to have trouble you know because i assume it's really only contenders that would be in the market for him you know who's going to be able to fit

even a four million dollar cap it under their their their ceiling you know which is buffalo retaining half that salary i mean if we just go through the contenders tampa vegas um who else you got on there colorado like they're all teams that are using ltir you know boston might have a bit of room for them if they wanted to do it carolina has a bit of room but but you know most of the top teams in the league are in the same situation as the leafs and so you you work through what makes sense for the Leafs like can you trade four million dollars off as part of that deal are you gonna give away someone like Alex Kerfoot just to name a four million dollar well a little less but but similar you know that kind of contract you know starts to maybe make the

numbers make sense you know the other thing that could happen here uh you know which happened in Chicago I believe maybe the year they got Antoine Vermette at the deadline as Patrick Kane went on long-term injured reserve for the rest of the regular season and then was activated for the playoffs if the Leafs had an injury you know which obviously no one's cheering for but you know they they could potentially go above the cap to bring in someone like Taylor Hall and then activate that player come playoff time so there's ways it could happen but as we're sitting here right now March 8th I believe it is you know there's more reasons to say it's not going to happen to say that it will but you know I think Taylor would want to come here it makes a lot of sense look the Leafs

could definitely use another top six left winger they could definitely use an impact player they could definitely use a guy who's got a house in toronto taylor i'm imagining i haven't talked to him i actually haven't asked his agent so this is just my opinion but i don't think it's a bold one to say probably wouldn't mind a chance to compete for the stanley cup and whatever's happening with the savers so you know there's a fit there from 10 000 feet i just don't know if all the details are going to line up the way they need to to make that trade work chris um with the with the trade deadline looming there's been a lot of rumors about the fact that there aren't going to be a lot of buyers this year like most of the teams i think it was pierre lebrun who said

like majority of teams that are in contention for the playoffs right now that are almost certain to make it are teams that do not have the green light to spend anyway even if they did have the cap room like you maybe look at a carolina i know tom dundon's the kind of guy who's like you know what screw it let it ride but even tom dundon can't run away from the fact that covet has had a pretty nasty effect on the economy and a lot of these teams are hurting and there's no fans i mean And what do you think the situation in terms of buyer's market versus seller's market? Are we going to have too many teams selling, not enough buying come trade deadline? Or is it going to be the other way around, which it normally is?

I just don't think there's going to be enough buying in general for the reasons you mentioned. But keep in mind, like sometimes what is there like 40 trades on that day? And I get some of them are like your sixth defenseman for a six round pick. Like they're not trades that grab a big headline on Sportsnet.ca. But, you know, I think you're going to see less of those even because, you know, sometimes teams make that trade not thinking they can win the cup, but they want to get the playoff dates, right? Because that's more revenue for their owner. Well, you know, I know we're starting to get fans and small percentages in the U.S., but making the playoffs right now, it might cost the team more than revenue they can, you know, draw from selling tickets in their building. which isn't to say teams want to miss the playoffs on purpose but I think there's less incentive to

even roll the dice just to try to get playoff games if you're on the bubble there and so you know the the contenders as I already outlined basically all the teams like whatever the list we could say of the top five teams win the cup and we might not have complete agreeance on this call among who's those five are but those teams don't have any cap room anyway they might not have the money to spend and i don't think the sort of middle tier that's trying to make the playoffs or trying to get some catch magic in a bottle i don't see much there so you know i i'd be stunned if this was an active trade deadline you know i think it's going to be moves don't get me wrong and i think we're going to see moves in march uh you know april 12th is the official deadline but

you know any of these canadian teams looking to make a trade i think they really want to make that deal as soon as possible i mean this week or next week why not you want to you want to get the 14-day quarantine served as soon as you can get the player in your lineup so there's going to be trades i just don't think it's going to be anywhere near the volume that we're we're accustomed to chris right before you joined us you fired off a tweet about the nhl draft lottery and some potential changes that could be happening to it can you explain to us what's going on there yeah i haven't i literally sent that and then joined with you guys so if anyone's mad at me or anything i haven't seen the text yet but uh as it was relayed to me teams were told about the

nhl looking to propose uh changes to the draft lottery uh it's going to go down to this is if it's approved this is subject to approval uh instead of having the top three picks determined by lottery it's only going to be the top two uh you're only going to be able to move up 10 spots with a lottery win which means a team that say is 15th overall in the 15th from the bottom in the standings can't win the number one pick they could only move up to number five uh and you could only win two lotteries in a five-year period uh which which that might have helped edmonton if you went back in time you know all those number one picks didn't necessarily work out but um you know it's a pretty big change i think i haven't had a time to sort of process

at all but but what i the way i like my brain tells me that's going to work out is first of all if you finish dead last you're falling no worse than third overall instead of fourth overall because there's only two lotteries now so you can only have two teams come from behind to beat you and the odds when you finish last will be better that you get the number one pick because you know teams that have had it in previous years won't be eligible teams can only come from 10 spots back and so essentially what we're waiting what these changes mean is that if you finish last overall you're more likely to get the number one pick under the proposed changes than where we've been what is it going to take for us to just get a set of rules for this and keep

it? Like, well, we're going to have to get rid of the draft. That's what it's going to take. Cause otherwise I just think they're going to tinker with it because every couple of years new things happen and then new GMs get mad about something and they react to it or new owners,

you know, not just GMs. You know, I think Detroit honest, it's no secret was, you know, they had a historically bad season last year. they're a team that's benefited probably the least of any team in the last

generation from the draft. They were never picking high. And finally they have this one awful year. Right. And did they drop to number four? I think. So, you know, I'm not saying it's just driven by Detroit, but you see that happen. And then the league's like, Oh, that's probably not fair. And so they're just trying to readjust the waiting here a little bit so that a team in that circumstance benefits. But, you know,

I don't think this will ever Steve, I really don't think this will stay 100% consistent for 10 years in a row at any point, unless we get rid of the draft altogether. And then we don't need a lottery. Wow. And, and Chris, I do want to ask you about hockey Canada because they apparently are holding an orientation camp in September. And this was sort of slipped in under the radar and headlines on,

on Saturday night. And I was like, what? So are they going to the Olympics? I think it's a good sign about where their minds are at, that they're planning this. I mean, look at, everything is subject to COVID of course, you know, any, any plan anyone's making right now, like I'm trying to think of my next trip, and I don't know when it's going to be, but you know, sometimes my wife and I are dreaming up, Hey, maybe we could go here in this time,

but we'll see what happens in the universe. But yeah, I think it's a good sign that hockey Canada is optimistic. There's going to be a deal with the NHL, the IOC, the double IHF, you know, so far that hasn't happened. But you know, that deal would have to be relatively soon. You know, like if, If the NHL players, to flip it the other way, if the NHL players aren't going to the Olympics, the federations are going to need to know soon to make other plans, right? And so, you know, Hockey Canada is operating under the assumption they'll be there.

They've named their management staff. That management staff's been meeting, actually are having calls virtually for several months and is actually narrowing down the list of players they're looking at. And part of that preparation is hopefully holding an orientation camp in Calgary in September. and you know that excites me because i i want to see this we need more best on best like seriously enough i'm getting old man see the grandness beard i'm only going to be able to see so much of this stuff while i'm still walking the earth and so i we've been denied too long i want to see the generation of stars and you know look the olympics are a little problematic for a couple

regions beijing has raised some human rights issues you know i don't know where covid will be at i mean i don't even know is the tokyo olympics happening this summer well kind of they said they're doing it with no international fans so it's still planning to go on right so selfishly if there's a beijing olympics jesse can i go can i cover it i don't think so no if there's a beijing probably next year oh next year i would think so yeah yeah i'm planning on being there like that's where my brain's at like yeah this is gonna happen and cj is gonna be in building that's that's what i'm thinking i think that's gonna happen and we're all gonna manifest it okay good and and i'll also be in calgary watching these guys play ball hockey or whatever

they have to do in orientation camp because if you remember before sochi there was an issue with how much it cost to insure all the contracts so they couldn't actually go on the ice during that that week oh my god man team canada looks like a no wow that might be my next jugger no no i love it no i love it do it chris do it uh by the way on that juggernaut team i can say it you can't because we know what happens when you say uh who would be the starting goaltender for canada if it happened today because that to me seems to be the position that is most up for grabs please don't say carrie price i think binnington and look it's not a slam dunk like i'm not saying he has to be it or you know i'm not putting my career on that one but i i think he's actually

played pretty well he's got the stanley cup experience doug armstrong has you know comfort with him knows him from st louis and is putting together the canadian team you know roberto Luongo's also got to say in this of course you know it might be price though to be honest as much as uh it might be it can't be you can't take an 888 goaltender and go yeah he's going to be the team Canada guy this is Carey Price hasn't been good for a couple of years now can we fully admit that we can but the myth of Carey Price lives on like like the way players talk about him the way GMs like like he gets tremendous respect still so I wouldn't rule him out and then what are the other two choices McKenzie Blackwood or Carter Hart probably Carter Hart's you know had a bit

of a step back lately so I think it'll be some version of those three goalies like to me it's probably Price Binnington and one of Blackwood or Hart is my guess wow that's crazy I don't love it gonna be honest well who else do you want I mean do you want Vasilevsky to play for Canada yes yeah i do i do you know what this is that here's the thing when canada gets too into its own mythology about players that they they end up like they did and i think it was the 2010 20 no 2006 olympics when when crosby like they're like no you're too young let's take the old guys busted it was like you looked at the lineup busted busted busted no knee no shoulder no hip and they stunk and i i worry that canada is going to get into that because we got a little bit of

this whole COVID thing. And we're not looking at things in its reality. We're looking at it in a COVID reality. And I feel like from a situational standpoint, I'm a little concerned about these guys looking at, well, what was this player pre-COVID? Well, who cares? It matters now. And I don't know that this management group is going to do that. And I think you have to look at how players performed in the bubble. And I think you have to look at how players performed this year. Otherwise, I think you're grabbing players from two years ago. And I don't think that's a recipe for success it's it's all fair points i think what's interesting here is that the management team has actually said out loud in the media we're not basically beholden to anyone

anymore because we didn't go in 2018 like i think they they don't feel there has to be this sense of loyalty at any position you know because look canada's men won in 2010 and 2014 and so just for argument's sake if it was best on best and they won again in 2018 and let's say like drew dowdy's on that defense again just just to pick a name you know there might be a lot more push for them to be like you know drew dowdy's helpless win three straight olympic gold medals like it'd be hard to leave him off now and he keeps talking about how he should be on the team but that's the job that's the job right but i think anymore but i'm excited not excited and it's nothing but drew to be clear it's just i like that they don't have those they've said a lot like there's basically

there's like they're ripping off all the you know thanks for what you've done but that's past tense and i think they're really gonna have a team with a lot of new blood and new energy so maybe that is the one part that doesn't hold up when i'm saying carrie price is gonna have one of the three goaltending spots maybe he's included in that i just you know we don't have a lot of great goaltenders from canada like it's like at that level at the top of the world and at the position It's just, it doesn't exist right now. Is McDavid's line the first line or is Crosby's line the first line? McDavid.

McDavid. Okay. Well, I'm putting, see, I have McDavid. I have McKinnon. McDavid Marner is my top line. Yes. That's how I had it. Wow.

Wow. Oh, man. Oh, that's. No, I have no idea. they're gonna do that but i think i think that's a great top line and then i think you come back with marshawn and bergeron and crosby and then and then and you know obviously that's not as offensively dangerous but but there's just have the puck the whole time like good luck playing with it they'll cycle the hell out of you and then i think your third line like this is where

this is where when you're building these lists i think there's more room for debate not to say there isn't debate some people might not have marner i guess on the top line that was my choice But then, like, I think you've got Brayden Point in there. You know, it depends what you like. Like, Matthew Barzell, you've got – if you want old guys. Shifley, you've got Stamkos. You know, I think John Tavares will probably be a fourth liner on this team. It will be a silly team, I think, like, especially at offense.

I mean, the blue line is where it gets a little bit – there's way more room for debate because of what I – What's that? who do you like well i i would go with petrangelo and shea webber or shea theodore pardon me uh because i got the vegas thing i think you got to have dougie hamilton there mm-hmm kale mccarr kale mccarr and then shabbat and riley like do they both go one or the other um you know i think bo byron might be in the mix honestly i know he's only just played you know whatever it is 30 nhl games or

less at this point like that's where i mean it's not i just think that you know i think um aaron ekblad could be in the mix too the the question is does shea weber get there like i'm looking at the guys who've been there that does drew dowdy get there like for me they don't um but maybe you know that it'll be interesting like i the blue line for canada used to be almost a lock because every year it wasn't you know if you look at 10 and 14 like you had dowdy and weber and all these guys were just the mainstays edamire prior to that but now now it's being turned over and i and i think there's the most room for debate among that group i love that i I love that conversation.

I'll say it right now. If the Americans don't win gold medal, it's going to be a disappointment. Oh yeah, the Americans are going to win. Are you buying an American sweater? Well, I'm half American, so I can play both sides. Wait, Adam.

What do they look like? What do the American jerseys look like? No, the team. What does the team look like? What do you mean? In your opinion. Starts with a J. For the love of God,

say the word i don't know what you're talking about the americans will be a juggernaut i love it all right this clip is going up on chris's twitter and we're gonna sell it on blockchain right chris well i don't know how you can come to any other conclusion yeah we did it canada team usa team usa will be a juggernaut wow at the 2022 olympics there you go i love it oh that's john gibson connor hellebuck that's good austin matthews of your toronto maple leafs adam wild steve dangle god not you jesse johnny good joe patrick kane that's good it's the kachuk brothers on the third line probably just annoying the hell out everyone that's a juggernaut violating every olympic rule

the usa right they gotta put usa and russia in the same division just to see the u.s i think the groups are set i don't i don't have them in front of you but the groups are actually set oh are they okay all right all right olympics uh let's see if we can look about So anyway, whatever, it doesn't matter. We can have this conversation 40 times before then. Chris Johnson, thank you so much for joining us today. We do appreciate that. No problem.

But you got it. I got the last plug. You got to get that tweet bot. Okay. Because where's the money going? Well, it's going to conquer COVID-19 charity. It's not going to my pocket. Don't worry.

That's not the, that's not the driving force here, but I'm fascinated by blockchain. And here's what, this is why I think it will be a collectible. because if the internet is telling the truth and this has been a hex that i put on the leafs the person that buys this will have on blockchain proof that they were the one who bought it and made me delete it from the universe and so the only copy that will exist is the one that you own that you buy for like as little as like five bucks like it doesn't i'm not saying it's going to cost you a thousand dollars so is it a bidding process i believe so i don't know i've never had

someone buy my tweet that's actually mostly why i want this to happen i think this is the right tweet for it and i don't know how it works exactly i i know it's for sale right now so it's been minted like it's it's been officiated as as an entity on the blockchain yes and then i sign it digitally somehow but i haven't done this process yet so i just i mostly just want to see how this works i also think it could be a collectible it's one of one i can't sell it again so once it's sold you own the only one i'm going to delete the one that that is on the twitter app itself so no one will ever see it again except you will own the real thing and you will be responsible for reversing this hex and allowing the maple leafs to have a great second half of the season who touches the

puck for the the cup first is it larry tannenbaum is it uh uh john tavaris or is it the person that bought your tweet on blockchain well i think i could get the person that buys it on blockchain at least into the line like probably but the scouts and stuff but like you know i'll get you in there somewhere i mean i have you guys talked with this like it must go joe if the leafs ever won it would go to varus to thornton right and end to spezza probably yeah maybe spezza over thornton only because spezza's been there longer but thornton's been the better player no it usually goes to the guy who's like most suffered like you know went to ray bork second like it went colorado one right i think it i think jumbo it would go to varus to thornton wow varus thornton

then maybe should it be like spetsa simmons then the leafs crew which should start with riley because he's been there the longest yeah he would no he would be ahead of those guys i mean there's a whole hockey reason to this i mean where does taylor hall fit in that's the only thing i'm wondering so that's a good question oh and we're here first hey chris what about uh eric stall where does he fit in okay you're getting a little greedy now oh i want eric stall bad i think he'd fit perfectly on the Leafs. Adam, that's a weird way to pronounce Matthias Echolm. And Victor Arvidsson.

Yeah, what the hell? Why not? Why not? Well, Chris, we love you. Thank you so much for joining us. It's good to see your face. Yeah, great to see you guys, and I'm sorry to any Leafs fans out there. I swear to you, I'm not trying to put any

bad juju in the air. I just you know just ease off my timeline my dad might read that some guy tweeted Chris Johnson is not going to get into heaven and I'm okay with that

like that's something I wrote though that's a funny guy that's funny hey Chris thanks so much man alright guys see ya in Toronto every arrival is a statement and nothing says it better than this Cadillac Optic was the number one

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Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Get that tweet off the internet. Off. Gone. Daryl Sutter

moments after we finish up our show saying that there's no way that Ward gets fired in Calgary and of course he does and of course Daryl Sutter back for a second go around with the Flames this move to me smacks of desperation no it doesn't

I'm here to raise hell I'm here in Calgary and it's just going to be hellfire and brimstone with the Calgary Flames did you see any of the the meetings or the press conferences that he had because he he's clearly advanced in age

so he does the old man kind of zoom call where he shoots cameras like an old man yeah somebody the media people for Calgary need to just sit him in front of a laptop and a camera and show him how to use zoom just look at the webcam

at what point do we speak to our grandparents generation of which he is and we say listen guys you have been watching tv for your entire lives have you ever once seen a camera up like this unless it was the Blair Witch Project like at what point is this um something looks off about this could it be if I just went like this I've I've solved the problem don't assume that they have tv all their lives you don't know maybe Daryl Sutter didn't but so here's this is a desperate move is it not and Brad Treliving has got to be a desperate

gm he's bad at hiring coaches bill peters jeff ward took over got the interim tag taken off didn't go so well and now we got daryl sutter who seems like it seems like the flames really want a line order guy and also who was the guy before bill peters there was um glenn galutson yeah oh yeah right oh my gosh when you run that down yeah true living's terrible at this at what point guys does brad for living through the calgary flames go maybe we need to hire a guy who connects with this generation he has to be the i'm not even sure daryl sutter can connect with daryl sutter's generation and when he was a great coach that worked but the reason he hasn't coached since he coached in calgary is because it doesn't work anymore all right i'll go to bat

i'll go to bat for brad for living with the only argument that works here daryl sutter is there exclusively as a locker room reset and motivator uh you know any of those this generation coaches um i don't think they make the same impact daryl is gonna go in and he's gonna be so old school that even if you go yeah whatever old man and you try to ignore him you will not be able to he's he's going to be nothing like any of these kids have ever really seen save for mark giordano uh who's up there who's been there um but i think i think we've talked about the calgary flames they're not particularly special but they're good enough for god's sake they i they should make the playoffs in this division in my opinion going to the second round

Yeah. And I think Sutter could, if the motivation is there, get it out of them. I think this is great news. His hiring is great news for Milan Lucic. It's great news for Matthew Kachuk. It's great news for Sam Bennett. and if it's great news for those three i think it's great news for the rest of the team because they are clearly not a team they're not a team they're a bunch of guys skating around and not having a good time at all and the idea that oh we're stick of what we're sick of sticking up for matthew kachuk like so odd so you've never heard that coming out of ottawa with brady you never heard it in toronto we've been on the line in ottawa well brady's played there there's nothing that's been on the line in ottawa so like that's true but you never heard of naz here you never heard it with naz here you never heard it with brad marchand in boston never and he was

super over the top at worst they're like hey brad that's the second time you've licked a guy now can you stop and then he did and went right back to good old run of the mill cross checks to the back of the head but you never once heard the bruins are sick of brad marshand you know what i mean they just seem what why like so i guess you just don't like playing hockey then you know what i mean like it can't always be fun i suppose not you know you don't need to like you don't need to be fun under daryl sutter it's not going to be no it's not a it's not about they're already not having fun so they might as well be strict about it right oh you guys don't like this here's some daryl for you here's the guy this your new head coach hasn't seen another human being who's

not a family member for nine months at least he's just he's been on his farm with his old ipad that he doesn't really know how to work and they had to delay the press conference because it wasn't charged and all all that and now looks good on you you could have had jeff ward but you didn't feel like having matthew kachuk as a teammate so now here's some daryl for you the scenario you're painting didn't actually happen it's just i think it might have but would it would you believe it i would though i would yeah yeah all right okay here am i on is it muted am i on mute am i like it's like bill hater's old reporter character from snl that's where he just falls asleep and he hits he hits everybody with the mic yeah why don't you ask them some questions

why didn't your wife take your last name yes i have i have um quickly before we get to the press conference here we got a couple minutes uh steve your thoughts uh not thoughts on but i guess do you have anything you'd like to say about walter gretzky oh just uh i i talk about this sometimes when someone passes you know you talk about mourning the loss of someone and you talk about celebrating someone's life now obviously there is a time to mourn and i mean people are mourning walter gretzky um you know you can't can't escape tragedy but with walter gretzky you are seeing a true celebration of life people are celebrating his life uh he was a wonderful man by all accounts you never hear a negative walter

gretzky story um when i was 12 i went to a leafs game it was the last leafs game of the regular season of the year 2000 against tampa the leafs won matt sundin scored a goal and at that game with my friend adam but it wasn't this adam it's another friend adam rodericks we went to this game and saw walter gretzky we were like oh and we were just so intimidated like we that's walter that's wayne gretzky's dad but we can't go say hi to him but what gave us the courage to say hi to him was everyone said hi to him everyone all game long was walking up to him um so we gathered up the nerve didn't have anything for uh for him to sign it with and he just pulls out the sharpie just like paul hendrick said uh in his tweet and we got the signature um there is a picture of me

at the game holding it somewhere and we're trying to find it i think it's at adam's house um another the time i saw him at union station and it was one of those things where no one everyone was nervous and then one person said hi to walter and he was mobbed just mobbed by dozens and dozens of people no security didn't need it um because he was canada's dad and if you ever did anything to him someone would rough you up he was just a good guy loved that story of uh someone driving up to his house stealing the grass off his lawn and years later he even remembered it um just a good man good man and the sort of person you everyone should strive to be yes walter gretzky uh just want to say the quick the one time i got to interview him on breakfast television after

the interview we took a picture and he invited me to his house uh so many people yeah everybody was allowed to kind of come in and there was like a mausoleum to wayne and uh and the other gretzky brothers too who'd also hit the nhl um and it was it was really cool and one of the the best stories i ever heard was the fact that people would just drive up and steal pieces of his lawn and while they were doing that uh he would just say hey instead of taking the grass why don't you come in and hang out and he was just a very he was the neighborhood dad a really good guy walter gretzky thank you so much for everything and for being the ultimate hockey dad now let's do the press conference the steve dangle press conference all right adam and steve well i just

wanted to say one thing that's that generation so i i met bobby bond i interviewed him and then he was doing a book signing and i decided i don't feel like being professional anymore i want to get a book signed by bobby bond and the guy in front of me in line got the last book and and mr bond recognized me obviously from the interview that we did like half an hour previous and he's like oh we'll just come to my house and he invited me to his house in ajax and i'm driving and i go i wonder which house is oh it's the one with bobby bond washing his van in the driveway and he just i just got to go in his house just invites me in signs the book awesome addresses it to my wife and and and also of that generation just the neatest nicest handwriting nicest signature like

autographs used to be works of art instead of scribbles bobby bonds is immaculate and so was walter gretzky's he had a really nice one too sorry i got a dm on instagram i'm gonna read it to you guys this is for adam's history corner it says hey my husband alex doesn't use instagram but he asked me to reach out to you for a segment in AHC about the sinking of the Bismarck and its effect on World War II. He donates $300 a year to SickKids, so he asked me to reach out to you.

Thanks and love the pod. I think asking your wife to DM a podcast to get your question asked is next level. And yes, we are going to answer this question. And Adam, take it over for Adam's History Corner. First thing you need to do after you've done this show is look up sink the bismarck by a country or sorry a folk artist country artist uh from the early 1960s in america named johnny horton that's a that's an early 60s american name right there

johnny horton there's a song called sink the bismarck literally uh and so that okay so the bismarck is um named after the guy that unified germany in the 1870s bismarck he wrote just a friend or just at the piano and everybody's like that's the song you're talking about right that's right okay no so it's actually about a boat sinking the bismarck was in its day a top-of-the-line battlecruiser when battlecruisers were already on their way out like we still have battleships today they're still enormous but it's sort of like, the best thing I could compare it to, because it was a World War II battleship, is thinking that Carey Price is still the best goalie in the world. It was once the most powerful

thing, and 100% was the most effective thing if you wanted to control and dominate the world. However, at that point, countries were spending outrageous amounts of money on technology that was frankly outdated and really vulnerable. You know, you invent the submarine, that's one thing. Then you invent radar and put it in a submarine. That's another thing. Oh, and now we got aircraft carriers so we can have airplanes flying all over the place and bombing the hell out of these big battleships. It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to spend, in Germany's case, leading into World War I, 40% of their national budget on it. 40% of their national budget to build a navy. so so the bismarck story is interesting because um the the thing in world war ii that germany's known for outside of all the terrible shit uh is you know at least one of the things is the is the uh the submarine warfare but they did have a couple of big battle cruisers and hitler was apparently as obsessed as kaiser wilhelm was a war before with building up the british navy to

complete sorry building up the german navy to compete with the british navy and the british navy was not going to have that they were going to build and build and build um and the reason that hitler was so obsessed with it was that you had at the end of world war one um everybody demobilized but the major powers were very concerned about germany saying you know what fuck it we're going back to war because they knew in their countries france england especially that the stress from the war had created some serious societal changes, and they were concerned about turning communist. What you had in Germany was like full-blown communist revolutions in the streets, 1919, 1920. And so if Germany turned around and said, we're going back to war, screw

you guys. Britain and France had already demobilized. The Americans had sent their troops home. It could be six months before they were back to battle strength again. So what the British did was they strangled germany which they've been doing all war so germany has already agreed to an armistice and they're just working out the peace treaty in paris and britain's saying sorry you can't import any food and it's the winter time and the previous winter they'd called it the turnip winter meaning they drank coffee eaten bread the only thing that they could make turned up when it was turned up yeah it's terrible got some patron shots so hitler remembered this i I don't think they had, I don't think that was in the book.

No, they didn't have Petronia turnips, man. But they did have some serious issues with food. So there was a lot of German resentment towards this because it took six months to work out that treaty. So the whole time the British are saying, no, sorry, you can't eat too bad. And so Adolf Hitler was bound to determine that was never going to happen again.

But he starts the war in Poland in 1939. And the German naval commander is like, we're not going to be up to strength till 1946. so i don't know what you want me to do so the bismarck though surprises a lot of people it is top of the line it's incredible it goes head to head with a ship called the hood the hood is the the top battle cruiser battleship for and i'm not really great on classifications for that there are people that are absolutely obsessed with battleships i love them i think they're cool but i don't i don't have that obsession um or guns or you know what people are like i love history

do you know about this gun i'm like not really um it's it's more about to me it's more about the world events that's what matters to me so you've got these two major heavyweight fighters imagine mike tyson who's mike tyson's biggest um who who what was the biggest no in his in his career who was that guy that sort of came out of nowhere think of ollie mike tyson no ollie buster douglas came out of nowhere so imagine okay so imagine it's the british or mike tyson and buster douglas is this german thing and the bismarck sinks the hood and this is at the at a time in the war where things were going terrible for england they were losing everything france capitulates and then they lose their top battleship and this is a country you know the whole song rule britannia rule the

waves their their whole thing is our navy is the strongest in the world and that's the one thing you can't touch us on and here come the germans with like three battleships and they sink your best one so of course for a moral victory the uh allies which is basically just england at this point hunt down this bismarck take it down sink it and it's an enormous moral victory and it accomplishes essentially nothing in the actual terms of war other than you take a big battleship out of the war but it wasn't like some strategic victory the bismarck was the boogeyman it was like it was sort of the thing in everybody's minds that that was freaking them out and it gave the british a hell of a hell of a go and really brought morale down but when they did finally

sink it brought morale up and then you get the famous british sort of hilarious sense of humor about being bombed every night um and it sort of kind of propelled them to turn things around piece by piece so that is what i know about the bismarck i'm sure there's more details but i don't know adam what was the boat we were talking about on the phone the other day because this is this is what adam and i do oh god was it the victory that was it was uh i think it was victory and it was uh um nelson's flagship uh admiral nelson flagship uh hms victory yeah yeah and the reason that came up in our conversation is so i've i tweeted this yesterday ahead of the royal interview that um i'm actually doing a deep dive on my family history and i've

actually hired someone to help with the history um and we've actually unearthed quite a bit because the i wrote about this in the book in one of the very few non-zoo chapters um about uh it was at the beginning so my great-grandfather is adopted and he's allegedly the bastard son of uh king edward the seventh uh and i believe it a lot more now than i did about a month ago um a lot more i'm actually i'm gonna i'll tweet some uh today uh because someone asked for it but one thing we found in our research is he was actually on that ship at one point adam a ship that you recognized he was a drummer on the hms victory for three days and that's like a huge honor because it's still in commission because it was the winning ship that led the way in the battle of trafalgar

which is one of the most famous naval victories in history huge huge huge so trafalgar now a road in oakville that's right road that's right and it's a regular traffic update on 680 that's right talk about trafalgar there's a lot of traffic on trafalgar it's a very busy street uh next question jesse all right uh just two notes uh we since the last podcast uh brent seabrook retired that's a thing that happened that's right yeah i kind of knew that was coming i i hate what injuries and time due to players like okay the contract sucked um brent seabrook was an unbelievable hockey player unbelievable defenseman unbelievable untouchable uh resume and just injury and time and a bad contract caught up with him but for a time the blackhawks um outside of the two-headed

monster up front the underrated two-headed monster was the one on the back end um it's you're you're a you're an every single season stanley cup contender when you have what is essentially canada's first d pair as yours it's duncan keith brent seabrook staggering staggering so good great player game seven overtime winner on under his resume on top of three cups uh he's unreal unreal player and then uh i did have the international ice hockey groups for the men's it'll be canada usa germany china and group a so there you go i don't like i don't like canada versus us i don't think they match up very well i'm gonna get a lot of hate for that but i think america is going to be a very very very strong team very unpopular opinion with our canadian

listeners uh canada better win the next couple uh olympics because i think as the more time passes the harder it's going to get to win um i i can see the states passing canada at some point yeah just because uh enrollment's up huge in the states enrollment is up and we just We're outnumbered 10 to 1. Yeah. It's so hard. The people thing is kind of insurmountable. Also, it's outrageously expensive to play hockey.

Yes. I've said for years, I'd really like to start a hockey brand where they could just be – it's like your generic hockey brand. It's like – I'll call it wild. It's like, oh, it's sort of a boring stick, but it's a stick that's carbon fiber, and I bought it for a tenth of the price. You know what I mean?

we need to make that way more accessible for people it's outrageous how much it costs and the companies that are behind this come on there's a little bit of like there's a little of uh of hey wink wink nudge nudge let's all raise these prices together is there not i don't know it's i don't know you're you're asking dollars for a stick is the like the lowest stick you can get that's carbon fiber stick's not even the worst one like it's it shouldn't cost a grand for a new set of equipment it's maybe less for kids even 500 is wild it's way too much especially for what it is and what it's made of it's ridiculous and uh and i i honestly i'm really surprised there actually hasn't been like a it's so noticeable in the last 20 years i'm surprised there hasn't been

an investigation seriously how how is that possible that hockey pants which used to cost 30 haven't changed much it's not like the technology is that much better like they're getting a lighter wasn't like i'm old enough to be wearing leather hockey pants these are the same pants same plastics same fabrics maybe the health and safety is a little better than it was when i was a kid but not that much and you're telling me that those pants are now 150 dollars are you kidding me it's not an accessible enough sport and like and once you buy the equipment then you have to skate yeah like i i was saying this in in a in a conversation i was having with someone else i suck at basketball i suck at soccer but if a friend is like hey i

want to play a game of pickup basketball and i want to play with my friend or i want to play a game of pickup soccer i can show up and be on the field and or the court and run around like if if you've never played hockey before and you want to go play with your friends who know how to play you're not gonna have nearly as much fun yeah that's the part that really has done that because like yeah the the equipment okay it's terrible but like even if you justify it as a one-time $300 $500 expense and then you get to the point where i can't just go and play with my friends you know because it's not it's not even except you can like exactly like you said you can go stand on a court and still enjoy basketball you still play with your friends just by standing

there you'll get a couple of jump shots you'll you'll touch the ball and everything but you can't just go stand on the ice and play hockey with people unless you have this years of training and practice and people showing you how to actually play and skate and then the equipment on top of all that just the barrier to entry is just so difficult so right hockey's got a ton a ton of equipment um and it's necessary right so that's why it's more expensive than other sports what does do either of you know what like a set of football equipment costs american football the helmet the everything no but they they wear less equipment anyway i played as a kid and mine were like rented from the team so like i returned it at the end of the season it was probably like a

$50 rental or something but i was i was like 13 at the time so that's a good idea actually yeah is that a thing i never played again that's a good idea there's a business model for you i mean you gotta wear stinky equipment but whatever whatever you can get that stuff washed i think it's at the end of the day um you know do we do we want this to be our game or not there's gonna sacrifices need to be made changes need to be made or the states and probably a few other countries are going to pass us real quick yep absolutely absolutely this question is small we're too small it's not about passion there's they have 10 times the pool sorry this question comes from uh justin sainsbury on twitter he wants to know if we think sheldon keith could

win the jack adams this year are the leafs enough of the hey they're performing above expectations this coach deserves that trophy no no we gotta see they would have to be so far ahead of second place in the canadian division for him to even be nominated but even then if they did steve that would take away from the credibility of the division right people would say well it's an easy division who cares yeah like no one i don't for as down on this team as some people were heading into the season i don't think anyone had the leafs finishing outside of their top four you know what i mean and the jack adams is either the most dominant team in the league which you know they could be in that conversation by the season's end or more commonly it's the hey

we thought you would suck award right so a nomination maybe i don't i don't see him winning it yeah no don't think so don't know who don't know who would at this point though but uh not we don't need to speculate on that who cares like all right there's nothing like mid-season jack item jack adams award picks love that compelling where's where's jeremy colton in the conversation he don't care i just don't care i think i'm trying to steer us away from this actually it's weird all right this question comes from luke snape luke wants to know what do think of the Leafs penalty kill very aggressive and looks great most

of time but in bottom half of league and seems to be scored on a lot I think a lot of people were harping on the penalty kill after those couple Vancouver games because Vancouver scored pretty quickly if I remember correctly well first of all I don't answer questions from Slytherins so all right

is his name Snape you said that's his Twitter name I don't know I was about to say man he must have gone through hell in school geez um yeah focus on that not the question you're right um it does seem to be a weak point doesn't it um the the penalty kill not totally in love with it and you know i was thinking about this today with because kerfoot like people are talking about him like he's already an ex-leaf

but if they're gonna bring someone in his salary you know may have to go out the door and i was like oh but he's on the penalty kill and i'm like yeah but it's not even a good one yeah it's not it's not the greatest thing in the world so who cares if we move him from it this is the problem and you want to improve your penalty kill because you can't just be like well in the playoffs there's less no that special teams lost the leafs uh two series against boston two um i don't i don't really know what the answer is i think i think if kerfoot's going to go out the door um and you want to improve your penalty kill you got to acquire a full-time third line center love the job eric well i love the job engvall has done recently but you either you either got

to get a guy who is going to play under him and can support him or a guy who pushes him down engvall and i said this last year during the bubble as fourth line center was magnificent i thought he was very very good that fourth line of engvall spezza clifford was actually very very good and then all of a sudden you get engvall spezza it could be like engvall spezza simmons or something on the fourth line and all of a sudden you know that's pretty good it's pretty good depth yeah yeah it's pretty pretty gosh darn good um so yeah the penalty kill is a weak spot a lot of a lot of a lot of turnover there but i think it's time to gel i do like the style they play i just think once they tighten it up a little bit it'll get better

they're great in the neutral zone there but once the other team oh yeah but that's the leafs yeah it is faster blue line it's it's over oh it's a problem and they they've five on five they're so much better at that but on the penalty kill it's a matter of time before they get possession in your end it's true jesse is that all yeah you guys want more we got plenty oh i think we gotta we gotta wrap because i gotta pick my daughter let's go come on yeah last thing shout out the uh toronto raptors on march 24th against the denver denver nuggets they announced they will have an all-female broadcast first time in nba history they announced that today for international women's day it'll be uh megan mcpeak i believe she's of nba tv and also kia nurse who

is a team canada women's team they'll be handling the play-by-play and then like uh kayla gray and caper ness will be doing like sideline reporting so yeah shout out them that's really cool that's awesome very awesome uh uh okay i think that's it for us today thank you so much for listening to the women in our lives and to the women of yours. Happy International Women's Day. Thank you so much for doing what you do.

And I guess our next show is Thursday, guys. So we'll see you then. Connection complete.