The Steve Dangle Podcast - Milano Minute | February 9, 2026

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where TaskRabbit comes in and I think you should check this out because here's the deal. One of the things, one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to repel down and clean all the windows but they never clean my windows. And their way around on that is like, well, it's a patio window, you can do that yourself. And I'm like, well, hang on a second. What if I don't want to? I don't have the stuff because you got to have that scraper thing and the washer thing.

Starting point is 00:00:28 The chemicals, you got to have the right chemicals. see what i'm saying that's why i used task rabbit and i employed a tasker here's the thing task rabbit connects you with taskers in your area for furniture assembly home repairs lawn maintenance mounting window cleaning all that stuff here's the deal 3.4 million pieces of furniture have been assembled 700 000 home repairs 1.5 million moves and counting go ahead and get ahead of your to-do list 15 off your first task at taskrabbit.ca or on the task rabbit app using the promo code Dangle. Taskers across Canada book up fast, especially for same-day tasks. Get $15 off your first task right now with the promo code Dangle at TaskRabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should

Starting point is 00:01:10 download that. TaskRabbit.ca. Code Dangle. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research together we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer register today at pmcf walk.ca hey so we have a contest winner to announce oh wow hey remember our sdp fan zone scoreboard contest that we were doing sure yeah well we got a winner his name's steven Smolish of Ottawa, Ontario.

Starting point is 00:01:57 What? I thought it was Dangle. No, sorry. It wasn't Steve Dangle. No, it's Steven Smolish of Ottawa, Ontario. And weirdly enough, Steven's favorite team,

Starting point is 00:02:09 and this is how he's going to have it branded because remember, every Fan Zone scoreboard is branded. You can get them in all 32 NFL teams, all 32 NHL teams.

Starting point is 00:02:17 What's Steven's favorite team? I think you're expecting me to say the Sens. I'm going to go with Bruins. Okay. Habs. Tampa Bay Lightning. What?

Starting point is 00:02:26 Yeah. Take it back. Isn't that nuts? Take back the prize. How do you become a Lightning fan in Ottawa? That's an interesting one. I'm going to, Stephen, I'm going to key it. Before we send it to you, I'm going to key it.

Starting point is 00:02:43 Anyway, congratulations to him. If you want the coolest, coolest thing in your basement, in your garage, whatever, you gotta check out fanzonescoreboards.com NFL, NHL, officially licensed, all teams even if you're a Tampa Bay Lightning fan in Ottawa I'm gonna punch the I'm gonna punch it and then you're gonna get fined for it

Starting point is 00:03:05 oh man so post superbowl early olympics i want to do a big shout out to um mateo riso oh mateo riso he has uh helped italy secure its uh first team figure skating medal in its country's history uh obviously in milan which is pretty special and his message to the crowd because each figure skater gets a message to the crowd said forza ferrari oh he's member of the tifosi good reminder by the way that uh nailing the apex is still happening but coming back in full at the end of the month because the the f1 schedule kicks off in early march man let's get back to it yeah I was looking forward to that. Now, Steve, I know you're a big open wheel racing fan.

Starting point is 00:04:05 Also, really important note. Today is your warning that Super Bowl and Valentine's Day are on the same day next year. Oh. So get your plans in now. I'd load up on that Saturday if you want to watch the Super Bowl. So, honey, I was thinking we could just like order wings. Heart-shaped wings, man. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:28 Yeah. You know, Boston Pizza does that heart-shaped pizza. That's always cute. It's adorable. Now, I also, Jesse, there's this, the second link here I've got. I want to do a shout-out to the MVP. Okay? Shout-out to the MVP.

Starting point is 00:04:44 Got it. That's Most Valuable Puppy from the Puppy Bowl. Oh. There was a couple of puppies that broke people's hearts during the Puppy Bowl yesterday. And there was one that had disabilities. And he had the, you know, he had the wheels and the cart and everything. I didn't see that. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:04:59 Is this before the game? Yeah, they always do. This Animal Planet does this. Sorry, I was on the ice. But this guy is Remy. Remy was too afraid to participate in the puppy bowl, and he hung out in the corner the entire time. Remy.

Starting point is 00:05:10 So Remy won the underdog award. Remy. He looks like Jesse's dog, but with longer hair. Oh, boy. A little bit. They have a similar color. Yes. Yeah, the colors are very similar.

Starting point is 00:05:23 Yeah, it's total awful. He looks like a fluffy wishbone. He does. Yeah, anyway, Remy was just a little overwhelmed by the whole experience, and so I thought we'd give Remy a bit of a shout-out for being a brave boy. No, Remy deserves this shout-out. Yeah, isn't he cute? Were they giving treats?

Starting point is 00:05:39 They were. Some dogs love to get in. Some dogs are like, no, I don't think so, man. No, I don't want to. The Puppy Bowl is a great watch every year. They really lean into all the dog-related puns and everything. The halftime show is cat cheerleaders. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:57 everything it's awesome and like oh because dogs are boys and cats are girls we all know this yes but cats are not going to get involved the same way dogs are right i don't know how much the gender is involved all i know is no i'm not um the scoring a touchdown you're you're taking the toy and you gotta carry it over to the end zone and it's funny because the dogs don't know that is the goal so they're just running around often you'll see them they'll run and be like oh they're going to the end zone then they'll just stop and drop the toy and you're like why did you stop five yards short imagine jesse if you were in a big building and you didn't know what was going on or what anyone was saying and then you were brought into the middle of that building

Starting point is 00:06:40 and it's just full of 70 000 dogs going that is the equivalent of what remy had to endure yeah and i understand why remy was terrified absolutely absolutely it's a lot uh the next thing i wanted to hit was something are uh that darren revell always puts out as annoying as he can be on on twitter um and as weird as he could be because he's teaching his 12 year old how to gamble on free to play apps true story um i thought this was interesting it's the 180 dollar super bowl burger yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna show some of the the other ones because it wasn't just darren revell a lot of people did content around of these burgers so i'm gonna show you a couple of the videos of the burgers do it in real life

Starting point is 00:07:25 um it's it's an absolutely incredible spectacle that they had at the super bowl like so it's a cheeseburger with a braised bone-in beef shank roasted mirepoix i don't mirepoix demi-glaze i don't even know what that is uh point raised blue cheese fondue and it's on a brioche bun and i love a brioche bun brioche buns are elite um look at these guys look at all this look at the super bowl they got the spread there but i'll go back to the uh the main event that's what we gotta call it hey guys we got you the influencer platter be sure to throw out 80 of your food into this bucket yeah like also like they gave them a wooden knife and fork as though those are going to survive that yeah like they'll snap in half give me metal cutlery damn it well you know you

Starting point is 00:08:14 got to be environmentally friendly at the super bowl i'll show you another fan who who paid the 180 to get it would you guys pay that no here would i pay 180 for a burger here's another view of the 180 is there one toilet for every person so i like this one because this is a true fan who just bought it right the last guys they're from uh stadium eats uh like a channel they always do this kind of stuff so they're gonna get the one that looks the best yes the the people there they're gonna know all these are content guys we gotta make sure one that looks like pristine like the instrument shot yeah this is just a dude a seahawks fan who's like i got 200 bucks why not blow this i'm at the super bowl once in a lifetime and this is what it actually looks like yeah that

Starting point is 00:08:59 looks a little ectoplasmic for me here's here's my yeah here's my burger with um you ever see those videos where they drain a cow's abscess yeah anyway so that's what that looks like you can notice like this this the bone marrow thing is that what it was sticking out of the top it doesn't look as appealing as in the influencer one no no they went a little overboard on the blue cheese there i gotta be honest with you like there are things that i would be willing to pay 200 like a great steak like a great like once in a uh once a year sort of steak meal for sure but like i look at that and i'm like you're making that on a mass right like that is not are you really using the highest quality ingredients or are you charging me for the look if i pay 180 for something

Starting point is 00:09:47 and you give it to me in a cardboard container we're throwing hands no okay that that i think is a fair point i'm hopping over the there's another one more view see that bun looks very different that's a lot of cheese yeah that's that's what that is just cheese and cream right i yeah this burger is called the oh dude now i'm running out of as they said it's meant to be eaten by multiple people yeah it's a four person kind of meal so you're not gouging this whole thing down your throat but um still don't want it for anybody that might be listening it looks like it doesn't look like a brioche bun it looks like a really fucked up croissant on top of us um on top of i like somebody took mayo and even though it even though it looked even though it's blue cheese

Starting point is 00:10:35 it looks like fucking mayo and probably the thickest shank you've ever seen in your life it was a spooky ghost and then there's some sort of like weird thousand islands dressing like pooled around the bottom this does not look good to me this is like especially for 200 like you guys have been out we were all in university and college once i've seen that yellow goo that's around the bottom on the sidewalk so many times outside of a bar i don't think that's what it looks like that's what it looks like no this is we we've all been on tiktok this is the cow's hoof is up in the thing oh and look oh it's got a rock in there so you gotta carve back the layers of so satisfying though so sad at all what a relief for this halfer yeah yeah that is and you hear the cow

Starting point is 00:11:20 in the background like this really hurts uh hey can we do some other super bowl eat hell yeah let's do it if you if you don't mind uh giving me a second i think the super bowl is a prime time for fat guy corner you know what let me let me do this really quick jess while you're pulling that stuff up i want to shout you out um because on the sdp on youtube channel jesse blake broke down the top superbowl commercials it's already sitting at as of this recording at like uh 130 000 views yep um and he just put it up like 24 hours ago so we're not less than so check it out it's obviously high quality content because it's jesse blake um but it's also really good also really super bowl commercials bigger like 15 years ago yeah maybe even like 20 years ago it had a

Starting point is 00:12:08 different kind of momentum around it now it's it's they release them like two weeks early yeah on youtube you're not actually sitting there watching cable television to be like this is the one time i'm gonna see this commercial and then i'm never gonna see it again they ruin the premiere they ruin the premiere uh we don't need the early showings show wait till the super bowl and then put it on youtube afterwards i don't understand why they used to be did you see that yeah that's there's not a did you see that factor to super bowl commercials right can i be honest with you i saw one yesterday that probably didn't make yours because it's canadian but it was a no frills commercial and they're like here's our no frills uh super bowl halftime show blah blah blah and

Starting point is 00:12:47 they like took ingredients that were also artists so they had like m&ms salt and pepper uh like whatever and it was actually like really creative i'm like damn all right galen weston you got me this time you know what maybe he's not so bad based on this one thing it was good marketing i gotta give him that wait is he no never mind no um do you remember when we had beef about a super bowl commercial argument on this show a couple years ago i want to say it was the 23 super bowl maybe 24 no it wouldn't have been yeah maybe it's two years ago there's a super commercial we came on here the next day and like we argued about it because it was like controversial what was it i don't remember i was wondering if just mentioning it would spark

Starting point is 00:13:32 anybody's uh memory about about oh was it the kendall jenner pepsi one no that was years ago jesse and i did that on kiss that was yeah oh is that long she gave pepsi to a police officer and then they all got along which is what's happened in america since thank god um somebody listening will will remember yeah i can't or maybe i'll try and find it by the end of the show but um i'll look for it anyways super bowl eats fat guy corner let's do uh let's just start with the drinks snacks and beverages going to super bowl santa clara you're paying 22 50 for a premium draft beer american that's 30 canadian dollars at least 32 ounce souvenir soda 12 oh okay that is so much damn soda though 32 ounces of soda is insane that is i don't i don't think

Starting point is 00:14:31 americans understand their soda culture yeah compared to the rest of the world like that you guys had a uh we call them we don't call them pops here we call them pops here when's the last time you had one like just a can of pop yeah can't think of it jesse when's the last time you had a can of pop i had a ginger ale i want to say in like december because my tummy hurt okay question does ginger ale count i don't think ginger ale has medicinal qualities i'm talking about just straight up enjoyment yeah i don't remember i had a root beer it has to be like 10 years i don't drink pop i don't drink it either i don't drink it at all my wife has one diet coke a day because she's one of those

Starting point is 00:15:14 yeah no my wife she's one of those she's an addict yeah for sure she'll be the first one to admit that but she has her one diet coke that's it yeah i'd rather do that than like do something like smoking right so yeah uh but it does does like uh a mixed bevy count like i've had like a white claw recently no no that doesn't that's a white claw that's a white claw but it's there's that's not 32 ounce souvenir soda but it's soda and sugar and it might literally be better for you yeah because some of those some of those drinks are like talking about maddie i didn't say have a bunch and get behind the wheel of a forklift i said you did not say it count calorically yeah like i think they're probably comparable remember we worked with

Starting point is 00:15:59 neutral uh during the playoffs yeah no sugar they sweat the flavor out of the thing and then great i'm gonna have one so i would argue it is probably better i'm gonna go on i'm gonna go on my peloton after it crush a neutral and then two or three neutrals and then i'm gonna put it in drive what i'm doing i'm putting that peloton in freaking drive i think i think sprite might be a little better than neutral vodka yeah well the show the sugar content is always what you worry about but yeah 32 ounces of soda like like holy mother a lot of soda who are you splitting that with you're not drinking that on your i think americans drink that on their own no way 32 ounces i think that this is a very normal size of souvenir soda

Starting point is 00:16:42 so they have in in in starbucks in the united states they have a higher you know we have like a their trenta is like so we have the trenta here i think we can get it i'm not sure maybe but like that trend does like they're large and that sizes are even bigger and that's 20 ounces of coffee yeah if you gotta you bring down the sizes from when as soon as you cross the border like you go to mcdonald's like their their medium is our small yes you know dude denny's in niagara falls versus denny's in buffalo yeah is insane yeah i always like a kid when we go down to like buffalo for the shopping the outlet stuff when we go to pennsylvania they have the great awesome outlet malls in pennsylvania yes absolutely i would like that would be the best part is the fast food

Starting point is 00:17:27 because like oh i got a medium fries it's actually a large fries yeah you know and i would lose it and when you're a teenager that's great but when you're older like my tummy's yeah i don't think i care for it but like they're getting more bang for the buck in america oh well yeah you guys you guys got it good they do they do um do they call it a 32 ounce soda because two pounds sounds too aggressive two pounds those are different units is it 16 ounces to a pound oh i don't know i don't liquid i don't know i'm pretty sure i don't know what ounces i don't know is 32 ounces i'm no scientologist but i don't think i think you're talking about gallons i don't think those things i don't know man i haven't been in 32 hours a very long time it says 32 ounces is two pounds

Starting point is 00:18:11 yeah but we're not we're not measuring weight yeah we're fluid these are fluid these are liquid okay 32 fluid ounces this is the dumbest conversation we've ever there hasn't been an nhl game since thursday as easily top five dumbest conversation we're trying folks we'll get to it shut up 32 fluid ounces is equal to a 0.25 gallons exactly one quarter of us gallon there you go can they i know they're fucking can you stop stupid um stop yeah okay the world switch in the united states was like not fucking us okay if you don't win gold at the olympics you have to stop imperial all right sucks ass let's put it that way put it on the line you have to stop all right now jesse what else you got here so pretzel sticks uh 10 bucks they come

Starting point is 00:18:56 with tostitos cheese that's pretty cool uh pepsi product assorted 850 what on earth i mean that's probably like lazy is that like a pepsi flight they're just no they're saying like if you get a can of something or a drink of something like whatever the pepsi product is it's a sort it's 8.50. I want a flight. Here's Pepsi. Here's Diet Pepsi. Here's Pepsi Blue. All the Pepsi products are 8.50. I don't think we need to deep dive into this. Gatorade

Starting point is 00:19:25 is 8.50. Aquafina is $8. Assorted Frito-Lays chips, $6. By the way, Pepsi owns like Tostitos and Lays and shit like that. Yeah, they're all kind of Pepsi. I want to say this. I grew up in a Pepsi household. There was going to be pop in the house. Pepsi was the thing

Starting point is 00:19:41 and my mother is a Dr. Pepper person. I grew up in a Stephen can't be trusted with sugary cereal household. Hey, that's fair. That's fair. They made the right call on that. So, yeah, it was a crazy Super Bowl. Wanted to know what you got.

Starting point is 00:19:53 You don't want some of the foods? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Let's get into it. So we'll do two foods. The Silicon Valley Nacho, $20. It is Tostitos, tortilla chips. I'm going to mess this up.

Starting point is 00:20:07 suadero beef beef brisket and chorizo queso bravo queso bravo guacamole salsa chili lime crema radish pico de gallo you're you're not talking about what makes it the silicon valley nacho is is after you pay they rug pull and you get nothing stop no you have to pay a subscription for it right that's what it is no yeah it's $20 a month hand over your money and don't get any food yeah are you getting the silicon valley nachos uh i'm i'm into it sorry are you renting the silicon valley nachos are you ordering um i'm into it yeah i i'm not i'm not a huge nacho guy you guys know that but i need the brisket off of it brisket and chorizo i'm turning this down this this would never be worth it for 20 dollars no i think you're probably restaurant nachos like

Starting point is 00:20:56 i go to fucking jack aster's better nachos you can get a whole sheet of nachos oh yeah but jack for 20 bucks in my seat though i'm not i'm i'm not ordering the silicon valley nachos so other option we go to the links and tenders section the gilroy garlic steak frites 30 california hanger steak sauce because somebody french this oh uh put pouvet oh where's jerry where's friggin julian when you need him i know oh that thing the sauce and then pink peppercorns and fried garlic i've never had pink peppercorns this sounds this doesn't sound like enough for 30 dollars i think it's super bowl foods also hanger steak is like the toughest steak out there but i would probably get this and just eat the steak part uh because

Starting point is 00:21:51 there's obviously fries with that but i i would want the steak part i would get this listen i don't need this menu no i don't i already know just one right there that's right also on the links and tenders menu is chicken tenders and fries 18 dollars steve's getting that garlic fries are 10 50 french fries are eight dollars polish dog 11 bucks a hot link is 15 and bacon cheddar bratwurst is 15 so i bet that polish dog's delicious but i also bet my tummy would be really mad you'd be in the washer yeah for the second half yeah it's out of heartburn let's order off the adam menu one single slice of white bread no i don't eat bread oh my god that shit that no it's it's more like i want to eat uh like meat

Starting point is 00:22:40 and veg most of the time okay and then some fruit but not polish hot dog you know what i would do before the super bowl eat beforehand yeah have some have some eggs have some avocado toast would you have a pocket full of almonds are you almond dad i'm not almond dad no no no no you can't you can't uh you can't get full on almonds like what are we talking about here everybody who says they can you're full of crap no one no pocket full of yeah they're full almonds no they're not though they're not no they get you your proteins and whatever but there's a lot of a lot of sneaky stuff in there especially if you're like me trying to shave it heavens um now what else do we have jess anything else uh how did you guys like the game uh i thought the game was awful boring

Starting point is 00:23:20 fourth quarter was more interesting i think than any of the others uh kent walker was pretty cool uh he uh he was great but like the game was i don't know the thing about the super bowl we've been sort of spoiled over the last 10 years we had that crazy atlanta hawks um new england patriots come back wins falcons excuse me um and you know we've we've been spoiled with actually some pretty good games um and i just feel like people forget that before this last decade ish um a lot of super bowls were ass and i think i think listen no no disrespect to the patriots fans you got there your team got there if bo nix is playing the broncos are in the super bowl and apparently he broke his ankle celebrating um so that's why you know that's why i think

Starting point is 00:24:10 around the second last play was the second last play game yeah yeah so like to me it's like again no disrespect you got there whatever but i think it would have been a better matchup had it been the broncos yeah we had a run of three really good super bowls in a row it was the rams bengals won the chiefs eagles and then the 49ers chiefs and then the last two super bowls have been blow out of the eagles and then this nonsense where nothing happened and the patriots shouldn't have been there yeah it i wanted the seahawks to win and then i just wanted drake may to get a touchdown why i felt really bad oh you felt bad oh no i felt bad for him yeah i don't know he seems like a good guy drake may i don't know people love him he's also like a little boy how old is

Starting point is 00:24:56 this person i know and he's married already i was like dog how are you married already dude it was the end of the third quarter and I'm like, how isn't he in tears? He's very obviously losing. They're building something cool in New England again. Sure. And I think they're building it with people who are less annoying than Bill Belichick, which is nice, right? Maybe

Starting point is 00:25:14 they'll be more likable this time. Give it time. Yeah, we like Tom Brady early on too. When he was the last end of the draft pick underdog coming in. I still don't eat strawberries. All right, Tom. Listen, Tom's difficult but it's not that I dislike Tom.

Starting point is 00:25:30 He seems fine. He's just weird. Yeah. Right. Bill Belichick's an asshole, I think. And I think he would be like, yep, I am. I think Tom Brady is run of the mill elite athlete insufferable. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Run of the mill. Like Nathan McKinnon would be run of the mill elite athlete. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, but he plays for Canada, though. So I tolerate it. Yeah. It's great.

Starting point is 00:25:53 Did you know that for the next two weeks, Sam Bennett's never done anything wrong? He's our beautiful angel child. Tom Wilson, too. Brad Marchand, too. damn we have a lot of them the tom wilson oh man um i i want to know uh i want to know what you guys thought of the halftime show i really enjoyed it yeah i really enjoyed it i thought it was um it wasn't what i expected um because like his biggest song is actually kind of sad yeah right um what is it uh i forget don't ask the whole name of it d t m f yes maddie yes the i

Starting point is 00:26:32 think it's the breed uh there are my photos yeah i can do it if i sing it yeah um because the first time i had this the uh the experience listening to it that a lot of people did they're like this is a banger and then you look up what the words mean in english and you're like this is actually saddest freaking song i've ever heard yeah the so i knew what the lyrics meant and it's basically a song of like um uh it's i should have taken more photos like when i had you right so it could be about someone who died it could be about someone who moved away it could be about someone you're just not friends with anymore someone you grew apart from or you know you don't have to use your imagination too much you know maybe something a little more sinister uh these days when i uh

Starting point is 00:27:24 listened to it after knowing the words i was mowing my back lawn where iggy used to oh no and i literally just had to put down the lawnmower go to the garage and cry like a baby oh just cried like a baby bad bunny made you sad bad bunny made me he made me sad bunny so and funnily enough Iggy used to kill bunnies in your backyard He very literally killed about a dozen of them They should have Baby ones too They never did babies

Starting point is 00:27:55 Yeah Babies Anyway Don't cry No I know So that's like his biggest song And I'm like I'm like how is he going to work that into this

Starting point is 00:28:09 Yeah And we were sort of talking about it afterward And Instead of um making it this big somber event he made it a party right he in a way the whole halftime show was an homage to the moments he talks about in that song that he barely sang he it's a it was a celebration with friends it was a celebration with family it was a celebration with his past self um so i love that even though like most people i didn't understand a bloody word

Starting point is 00:28:44 jesse what about you what'd you think yeah it's interesting watching a halftime show where you didn't really you didn't understand the lyric any of it i don't know any of it i don't know what he's saying this thing happens but i really enjoyed it it was good yeah i don't think like you know anybody that's talking today that it's like oh it's the greatest halftime show of all time it isn't like i i just flat out it's not it was good um prince i think is up there michael jackson is to me this got to shoot down still the number one no i like listen here's if you enjoyed this yeah you know what you're fucking you're wrong it's if you said yum here's a little bit of yuck for you well no but i i think it's my point is that it's like it's when we talk about

Starting point is 00:29:21 like because you can't talk about this halftime show without talking about the fact that it was counter-programmed by turning point and i think well you can well you can but like it's that you're not you're not talking about the whole picture and it's interesting because i did watch both and bless you uh and i have to say that like the thing that struck me about bad bunnies is of all the super bowl halftime shows that i've ever seen that that one was so interesting and probably the most important i told you i just started off by saying it wasn't the best i think it's the most important one and i don't think he when he signed on to do this i don't think he was like i'm gonna make this a protest and i still don't think he was trying to but what was interesting is the

Starting point is 00:30:02 reaction to him was so negative from the culture warriors that were oh i can't believe he's not even american they don't even know that puerto rico is an american colony they know they don't care um that that it became a protest and i thought he rose to the moment by showing united states that this is a part of your country and has been since the mexican-american war where we got california new mexico texas all those like this is this has always been here and i thought that part was really powerful and really interesting and you know i watched the turning point one and And I saw Kid Rock and I saw the country artists. It didn't sound particularly great.

Starting point is 00:30:42 Kid Rock's lip syncing was off. And, you know, they did the typical with rock artists when they fire them up out of the stage and whatever. When you're trying to show that it's like high energy in there, they flip the camera a million times. But by doing that, they threw his lip syncing off. I'm pretty sure. And it didn't look great. That's crazy to me that you volunteered your time to tune into something like that. I felt like.

Starting point is 00:31:03 And gave them the clicks. i felt like it was i felt like at least five million i felt like i at least needed to watch it and be like or watch clips of it and be like okay so like what really happened here um because we do this for a living and i was like i'm gonna watch the i'm gonna watch that part of it i wasn't impressed i mean i've kid rock puts on an intense show wherever he goes whatever but like the obviously the messaging behind it is not something i'm behind and the the production values were shit it did crazy numbers in magnetagorse though well i'm sure it did that's the thing like it's so weird there was guys online and the chat like there was like all these people

Starting point is 00:31:39 watching and nobody in the chat i'm like that's suspicious that's pretty suspicious anyway i think bad bunny put on the most important halftime show we've ever seen and i think that's pretty cool um rose to the moment it was lovely yeah and i did i did love the fact that he mentioned canada in Yeah, I love that too. And frigging Tate McRae has just become a meme. They're like, bad buddy is Canada down. All right. I like that.

Starting point is 00:32:06 Okay, so Jesse, should we go to Paterka or BetMGM Big Story? Probably the Big Story. Let's get to it. Sometimes life throws you curveballs and you don't have time to get to them. And that's where TaskRabbit comes in. And I think you should check this out because here's the deal. One of the things, one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to rappel down and clean all the windows,

Starting point is 00:32:29 but they never clean my windows. Uh-oh. And their way around on that is like, well, it's a patio window. You can do that yourself. And I'm like, well, hang on a second. What if I don't want to? I don't have the stuff because you've got to have that scraper thing and the washer thing.

Starting point is 00:32:41 The chemicals. You've got to have the right chemicals. See, that's what I'm saying. That's why I used TaskRabbit, and I employed a tasker. Here's the thing. TaskRabbit connects you with taskers in your area for furniture assembly, home repairs lawn maintenance mounting window cleaning all that stuff here's the deal 3.4 million pieces of furniture have been assembled 700 000 home repairs 1.5 million moves and counting

Starting point is 00:33:03 go ahead and get ahead of your to-do list 15 off your first task at taskrabbit.ca or on the task rabbit app using the promo code dangle taskers across canada book up fast especially for same day tasks get 15 off your first task right now with the promo code dangle at taskrabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should download that, TaskRabbit.ca, code DANGLE. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters.

Starting point is 00:33:35 On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. So today you can hear our interview on Agent Provocateur

Starting point is 00:34:01 with one JJ Paterka. Before he went to the Olympics, he was just about to jump on the plane. Jesse, what clip do we have? We, in this episode, it's really good. If you get a chance to listen to it today, go listen to it. If you get a chance not to listen to it today,

Starting point is 00:34:16 make time in the rest of your days. It's going to be huge. Because you get to learn about a guy who is a hockey player who actually has, like, interests and a personality. He's building a hockey rink back home in Germany next to his house with his parents. And it's going to be, like, half a rink. It's going to be, like, a little just one zone kind of area. But he wants something where people can, like, rent it out. And during the summers, people can play hockey and everything.

Starting point is 00:34:40 That's awesome. They have a warehouse next to the house. They're building a hockey rink there. That's why they bought it. And they talk about how the boards went up, like, a couple days ago. and everything so like it's really cool back there back home in germany he's doing a lot of awesome stuff for the community there and then he also like i said has interest outside of hockey which isn't very which isn't very common amongst hockey players and one of his biggest things is

Starting point is 00:35:02 music house music because of course he's german yes and he's done some dj so here's him adam and alan talking about his little dj career what kind of music do you like i i like house music i also started to DJ a little bit, which is super fun. What's your DJ name? It's Turks. It's a T-E-R-K-S. Oh, I like that. I had to come up with something at some point when I was playing a small gig back home in Munich this summer. I had to come up with a name and that's like the first thing that popped up in my head. So I was riding with that since then. And how many times have you done that? Probably like three times. It's so much fun, but I can't even tell you how nervous I was doing that for the first time.

Starting point is 00:35:47 Having like 100 people in front of you and it depends what you do now. I was definitely way more nervous than playing hockey overall. You do realize you play hockey in front of 18,000, 19,000 people. That's legit what people were telling me as well. I should just relax. But I think it's just so different. And when I play hockey, I'm like so zoomed out. I'm like just like worried about the game.

Starting point is 00:36:12 And then when I'm like DJing, it's a little different. i feel like it got better and better the more i played the more comfortable i got as well but yeah like overall it's it's super fun i mean you can play the tracks you like you can like see how the crowd reacts to the to the stuff you play um and kind of like play with it so pretty cool i i understand like i could talk to a building of a thousand people and then it's like okay now talk to this wedding of 75 are you getting all right terrifying yeah the smaller crowds are more nerve-wracking oh it's horrible but also like i think being a dj like you know very quickly whether you're good at it or not and it's whether or not people are moving dj jj was right there dj jj you

Starting point is 00:36:56 think dj jj oh my god what's wrong with dj jj steve one thing that didn't make the clip is uh he says oh my name's turks oh this sucks right i hate this so much uh bad he missed he missed i didn't get the reference he didn't he didn't get it it was it's a little cringy that's why it doesn't make the social clip appreciate that where's that from yeah i was like wait a second oh no you were a little sleep deprived i would like to in my defense i was doing 4 a.m all week last week all right watching it was a little crazy i was like adam it's his name and he was nice enough not to make fun of me yeah so i he was i think he was a little confused by the follow-up question because i think he thought it was kind of obvious where turks comes from but yeah adam

Starting point is 00:37:43 asked the follow-up where's that mean hey yeah because his nickname for alan is cacos turks and cacos oh stop it it's very good please clap um what do you what do you think about adam's blunder uh um been there yeah done that i get it sorry bro it's all right yeah he he was very nice answered it like it was a question yeah that was kind to him i gotta tell you i i i spent the whole interview going damn i wish this guy was i actually made it to toronto i want to know how adam reacted when he realized i was gonna come back actually and say it but then i'm like i don't know like like it's not the last it's not the first and last best bad question i've ever asked there's nothing yeah it's it's so bad when you fuck up and you you're not allowed to outwardly show that

Starting point is 00:38:34 you fucked up because you're still on camera yeah and inside you're like you're just inside yeah i hate myself oh yeah you're gonna be in the shower later going it's the worst i i you know what i'm not gonna lose any sleep over that one that one in particular i'm okay you're not gonna bat a thousand you can move past that one it was fine you're a mature professional i'm not it wasn't like you asked something insensitive and they stormed off and blah blah blah like it was actually it was a it was a fine moment um there's one other thing from the interview though i did want to play oh uh because we had that moment go listen to the full thing but we also had this from uh alan walsh so let me just bring it up here and i think this is

Starting point is 00:39:17 a good uh jumping off point for steve if he wants to weigh in on what alan says okay here can i guess what he's talking about oh i think you can probably guess just based on his face can you show his face george baros in the kangaroo court that is the nhl's department of player safety so here is a man who works within the nhl with players all of the time weighing in on charlie mcavoy getting smacked in the jaw in the noggin in the noggin and here's what alan had said at the same time that we're seeing these dangerous hits to the head becoming more prevalent than ever in the nhl comes more and more research on cte that is irrefutable definitive that repetitive blows to the head are a cause of cte the the people at the forefront of advocating for player safety

Starting point is 00:40:22 talked about making all hits to the head a penalty. Ken Dryden was the biggest public advocate of that. All hits to the head, whether intentional or accidental, should be penalized. The severity of the penalty commensurate with the severity of the hit to the head. Logical. makes sense. And while there may be a lot of penalties called initially, player behavior would change very quickly. No one wants to take hits out of the game. Nobody wants to have the NHL become a no-hit league. That's not the discussion. That's not what we're talking about.

Starting point is 00:41:15 but players can learn to hit without having the blow go to the head and that will incrementally make the game safer um alan i don't know if i don't know how much longer he's gonna do this like that was just too logical i i i did ask him about um the fact that you know because marco after that hit was like they asked him about um uh you know what did the ref say to you and he said nothing and i said alan what what do you think about the fact that refs don't have to talk to people he said i i think any pair i'm paraphrasing he's like i think it would be a much more honestly reffed game if they had to answer questions and i was like wow yeah but they don't they don't so it was it was kind of you know i mean that's something i think the players

Starting point is 00:42:13 are gonna have to fight for and if they don't want to then they don't want to by the way the the comments on our our clip uh regarding the mcavoy hit completely predictable all florida people absolutely perfect a lot of florida mans no notes uh-huh um just a bingo card of brilliant folks um this is why i don't read them yeah no i read them and was like you know what i'm wrong you know what maybe reading them i'd be like i'm right yeah oh my god like it's just like metapod harden yeah but it just reinforced how right i was like one of the funniest things going around uh after the mcavoy discourse is well here he is hitting oliver ekman larson in the head when he was with the panthers check and mates and everyone's like he was

Starting point is 00:43:05 suspended for that yeah it was like a three or four game suspension alan's clients have hit people in the head they get suspended bad i think and this is just my theory i have not spoken to alan walsh about this but when an alan walsh client gets a hearing with the department of player safety george peros goes um david braun here's six games for you stupid yeah yeah duran got a game earlier this year for a head shot duran was the first for like two months he was the only switch yeah steve i had a much more flamboyant clip to play for you oh i played the tamer oh even better face look at that tamer one i was supposed to play this one first and that one got it okay there you go i talk to players every day there we go no one knows what's a suspension

Starting point is 00:43:59 and what isn't a suspension because you look at some suspensions and you're like okay but then the same hits go on every three a night and there's nothing it seems sometimes to be team and player dependent too right there just seems to be at least that's how it feels to me i'm not ask you to back that up it just doesn't feel that way it does it does kind of feel like that sometime and like that's and that's what makes it so infuriating because if if it is if it is that's really wrong yeah if it is no question anyways i just my bad uh i had them queued up in the wrong order i i feel the need to point out alan walsh does not currently have a client on the toronto maple leafs miroslav olenka is a prospect i just i just think it's funny how does he have

Starting point is 00:45:03 any on the panthers i think i think gregory campbell's next job the salary will be extremely high he's probably the most valuable managerial asset in the nhl i i've said it for months yeah give him 10 million dollars and let him sit at home he doesn't have to do anything you don't even you can work from home you could be our couch scout yeah here's 10 million go over to cliff fletcher's house so we can give colin campbell's bouncing baby boy a contract that gives us carte blanche to do whatever the fuck yeah i like that listen if you're going to be the evil empire be the evil empire um now we got to get to some of these olympic rosters and captains and that sort of thing so we're getting captains sort of trickling in as announced

Starting point is 00:45:47 And I'm going to go through team by team, but I'm going to start with the captains and then we'll get into it. Sidney Crosby, obviously Team Canada, Austin Matthews, Team USA. I think that surprised a lot of people because of his play to start the season and frankly, his play last year. And I saw a lot of Americans upset about it, specifically Boston media saying, well, he's not a winner. And listen to this point. They have an argument, not but he's also the best center on the team. And it would be very awkward if what's what's the Boston media's argument of who should have been kept? I don't know. They didn't argue that. They just said Austin shouldn't be OK.

Starting point is 00:46:27 But that's not very helpful. I think probably a lot of people would have thought like Matthew Kachuk and stuff like that. And, you know, whatever. Like, I think with Austin, it would be awkward to have him at four nations. They lost by a goal and then they just strip him. So I think that's when he got it in four nations. he was coming off almost a 70 goal a year you know you almost the all the four nation teams you're kind of committing if if you named a captain for that thing you're kind of committing to that person being your captain for the olympics yeah yeah it's awkward otherwise uh landis cog remember landis cog didn't play for like a thousand days or more he didn't play so it's different for sweden he is captain michael granlund for finland because obviously sasha

Starting point is 00:47:10 barkov's not there kov's out so it's different roman servanka who's 40 years old and has i think he played 39 games in the in the nhl in total for the uh checks uh leon dry saddle for germany and thomas tatar is the captain for the slowbacks and that's all we have at this point um but got to imagine yosi for the swiss yeah i think so yeah i think so um now i i wanted to let's start with team canada here um team canada's leadership group uh is obviously conor mcdavid sydney crosby and kale mccarr between the three of them seven art ross trophies five heart trophies seven ted lindsey's three maurice richards uh four con smiths one calder two norrises and four stanley cups they have four con smiths uh yeah i think crosby i think so i mean that was what that's

Starting point is 00:48:01 the research if you're asking me to check that right now i don't know kale got one holy shit sydney got connor got one and sydney got two yeah that makes sense goddamn yeah because remember connor got one in the losing effort right oh my god yeah that's a pretty crazy wow now let me run you down team canada's lines now they had a closed practice today so media were not allowed in however john uh uh john cooper assured the media afterwards even though you didn't see the practice the lines are the same i don't even sort of kind of believe him no he's lying no he's he's a lawyer after all also like who cares so let's see what the let's see what the uh the lines are okay at least what they were in the first practice so we got celebrating mcdavid wilson crazy crazy that's

Starting point is 00:48:50 line one marshand mckinnon suzuki line two very interesting um stone crosby marner i actually all takeaways line i actually love that line i think that's a cool line i try winning a puck battle against that friggin line and then i guess your energy line is hagel horvat and reinhardt which i can absolutely absolutely see working jarvis and bennett were the extras i am dying at least once to see marshan bennett and wilson on the same line but that's not bad for the probably see it forward so jarvis and bennett are obviously the extras and you got tase mccarr morrisy pareko harley dowdy and what was interesting to me shay theodore on the outside looking in because remember he got hurt in game one of the four nations last year with travis sanheim uh and

Starting point is 00:49:34 then we'll get into the power plays in a second here but what do we think of these lines thus far do they ever see the light of day puck media has the best just FYI morris morrissey parejo oh they got morrissey yeah that's what i said too i thought you said harley no harley dowdy oh yeah oh i guess maybe they're the extras we have them i'm trying to say we have them different oh okay well mark masters yeah i'm going off him but anyway whatever maybe they're going theodore sandheim which would make more sense um what do we think um the stone crosby marner line i've already said like very how was that your third line that's so funny um really defensively responsible line i think they can play north south as well as they can play east west you're

Starting point is 00:50:19 not winning a board battle. They're really good vision. Crazy line. Marshan McKinnon Suzuki is that might be the most surprising of the four. Um, Wilson with McDavid is a bit surprising. And then you think about it. McDavid always likes playing with like a grunt and then Celebrini is obviously insane offensively. Marshan McKinnon Suzuki. Like I never imagined any of those guys on the same line so that's the one i'm most curious to see and then hagel horvat reinhardt is a first line on how many nhl teams all of them i think all of them uh and that's your fourth line like the olympics are so fun like you don't necessarily need a shutdown line yeah right your goal is to just dictate play every friggin shift right and if

Starting point is 00:51:14 you really wanted to i'm sure you could concoct some kind of shutdown line for the final three minutes or whatever out of the lineup of killers you have can i can i give you the surprise for me sure is is um mcdavid celebrini together and it's not because celebrini's not great he's phenomenal and having a great year it's because i am surprised canada would be that forward thinking and the reason being is I think they're going to start Jordan Binnington and I think that's a regressive way to think but Celebrini being up on the top line with McDavid first off I wonder how Tom Wilson is going to how much air he's going to have to suck in to keep up with those two but secondly they actually seem like a great match I just I'm not used to a Canadian coach

Starting point is 00:52:02 being like oh this guy's under 25 and we're going to put him in the top six Tom Wilson's job is drive to the net and don't don't be offside basically um here's here's why i think they're they're doing this setup and this isn't so much to do with celebrini adam but um we saw crosby on the wing of mckinnon at the four nation you're going with us with a center depth of mc david mckinnon crosby horvat your first game is against the checks they do not have an answer for that David Kampf is currently their second line center because Pavel Zak is out. You're up the middle.

Starting point is 00:52:40 You're simply going to kill them. The Czechs are a really good team. They're a really underrated team. But if you're looking for a way to completely overwhelm their depth, they don't have an answer for this at all. As for Celebrini with McDavid, Celebrini is such an overwhelming factor

Starting point is 00:53:04 in the san jose sharks offense and he is the second option on this line yeah like he may not get he he may get more open ice at the olympics than he's ever gotten in the nhl you have to account for mcdavid on a smaller rink you have to and then you just leave wilson and celebrini to run amok yeah like we've watched enough nhl games where teams have tried to triple and quadruple team mcdavid and it hasn't worked right the only time that work was the memorial cup yeah when he got triple teamed and and the generals no it was uh oh it's all fun oh it's all final excuse me yeah they literally triple team this guy and i think dylan strome was hurt and that's why they weren't able to really accomplish anything um so like i just don't

Starting point is 00:53:52 know where else celebrini fits maybe on mckinnon's wing i guess but then you're putting marsh and up top with mcdavid which i still i don't even know if marshan should be on the second line with mckinnon well hang on i want to get to i want to talk to jesse about that because i wanted to go celebrating mcdavid see what you guys thought of that jesse what stands out to you about this lineup is there anything any surprises any any things you're like oh that's interesting i think john cooper's done a good job spreading out the forwards who are going to do the extra stuff for the players on the ice yeah i think about marner being on the crosby stone line and how much of a great passer he is i think about marsh and on that second line can do everything that suzuki

Starting point is 00:54:34 and mckinnon needs him to do and i think about tom wilson on the first line uh doing the grunt work for mcdavid and celebrini i think the way he spread out all of those guys who are not necessarily there to be the first options on any of those lines has been it's really balanced like they got everything they need in every single at every single spot here all four lines are undisputedly first lines in the nhl yeah yeah well it's team canada like i know that should be expected i think the reality when it comes to these lines because we saw how four nations played out they're not gonna sit on these line combinations and um 10 minutes into the first period somebody's gonna be on somebody else's line come halfway through the game everything's

Starting point is 00:55:18 gonna be in a blender and we saw that they were a little uncomfy with some of the line combinations and four nations where like Crosby was on a few different people's wings. Marner moved around. Marner moved around heavy. So I think right now, like on paper, this thing looks gorgeous, but they're going to find their comfort zone with different guys as they get adjusted and games go along, especially like the first game against the Czech.

Starting point is 00:55:40 Like there's an opportunity to find your balance with different guys. People emerge, right? You have heroes in every tournament, right? Yeah. And Crosby was hurt last year, really hurt. He couldn't shoot. Now let's talk about the power plays. first power play it looks like is Makar at QB.

Starting point is 00:55:57 Then you got McDavid and McKinnon on the wings. Your bumper is Reinhardt. And down low, you got Sidney Crosby. And then your second power play is Shea Theodore. You're right, Jesse. He is in the tough. Celebrini Marner, bumper Horvat, net front stone. Ah, how did we not do this for 12 years?

Starting point is 00:56:17 Batman's so dumb. That's crazy. Yeah, what a great. I'm surprised Horvat's the number one center on the second power play. I am too, and I'm surprised. Like, Reinhardt obviously is a big-time goal scorer. We know that, and defensively responsible as well.

Starting point is 00:56:32 But he goes from the fourth line to the first power play. Well, your top three centers are on the first unit. Oh. Yeah, but, like, I don't know. I like Nick Suzuki's game, but I guess they like Nick Suzuki more on the PK as opposed to putting him on the power play, and they trust Horvat more there on that power play.

Starting point is 00:56:50 I wonder if Paul is going to give Team Canada a call about having Marner on PP2. Oh, Maurice, what would he care, Jesse? I don't know. Is that who you meant? I was talking about the other Paul. The penalty kill. Hagel, Wilson, Morrissey, Pareko, unit one.

Starting point is 00:57:06 Marchand, Suzuki, Tays, Sanheim, unit two. I think that looks pretty good. Sure. Who cares? Yeah, who cares? The penalty kill is so funny because, like, what if we just had McDavid and McKinnon kill penalties? you could that's it i never do it a million years but like that's an option yeah certainly good

Starting point is 00:57:26 they certainly are spreading this they don't have right didn't reinhardt win the selkie no he's on they put him on the power play he was nominated for this he was like you could have you could have him do it not seeing marner in there is interesting they've really they've used every guy here because they're all top guys so if you have players on the power play you're not gonna put them on the penalty kill so that you're not using everybody right keep them fresh that's kind of john cooper's strategy you could rotate through a million of these guys yeah yeah it's so silly it's great oh stone stone is oh my god yeah you don't need to use your good guys on the pk because everybody is a good guy on the pk like how many selkie votes by the way they over the

Starting point is 00:58:09 last five years hagel wilson by the way no centerman but i guess one of them will just take it oh i didn't even oh you know hang on hang on be fine in the dog i'm sure be fine yeah maddie what's up maddie episode title should be called sure sure um okay like any one of these combinations is just so goofy yeah it's like you're not gonna make a bad line combo now uh dom decision wrote an article for the athletic and it came out this morning And he said, usually Canada is the team to beat at the Olympics. Usually.

Starting point is 00:58:44 This year, Canada enters the tournament as a co-favorite with the United States, despite a markedly better forward group led by the two best players in hockey and a comparable stable of defensemen. Team Canada also has one of the best goalies in the world as a potential starter in Logan Thompson. The problem, there is a high likelihood

Starting point is 00:59:01 that Canada makes the wrong choice by starting Jordan Bennington, one of the league's worst goalies this season. And he'll go into, obviously, the stats as to why. um Biddington on the NHL roster site is listed as the second goalie Logan Thompson as the first do you start we think two goalies are going to get into this tournament do you start Biddington against the Czechs or do you go game two um I don't I don't really think it matters which game you give them because like Canada's actually got like

Starting point is 00:59:33 sort of a difficult group like the the Czechs are underrated the Swiss are underrated and then And then you got France. Hey, Pierre-Edouard Belmar. Belmar. Yeah. Is he even playing? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:59:46 He's not playing. And Alexandre Textier. The thing with the freaking Olympics is they probably already have their minds made up. But if you don't, you have to make it based on these two games here. Yeah. Okay. The goalie situation by now, we've had a year of it. It doesn't feel like something to scream and yell about at this point

Starting point is 01:00:11 because you give Binnington game one, if you want to honor, hey, he has the belt, you got to defeat the guy who has the belt. So give him game one, see how that goes. Game two, you give it to your other goalie, and then you evaluate. This is maybe a terrible way of looking at this, but if Binnington and Logan Thompson both played great,

Starting point is 01:00:29 and then the night before the gold medal game, they decided to have an arm wrestling competition and both broke each other's arms. so they had to put in Darcy Kemper, I'd be like, all right. Yeah, sure. I think both guys get into games one and two and then game three, you kind of take it from there.

Starting point is 01:00:47 If Jordan Binnington looks like St. Louis Blues 2026 Jordan Binnington, you obviously got your decision. But if he looks good, then apparently he can rise to the occasion when he has the greatest defense core ever in front of him, which is something he can probably do. I was tweeting with Michael Amato before the show started he's like you know Jordan Bennington it's like a player has 10 points

Starting point is 01:01:11 heading or a forward has 10 points heading into the Olympics and then you select him to the Olympic team I was like no more realistically it's a forward has 10 points heading into the four nation face-off or no a forward has 10 points heading into the playoffs then gets zero points through the first three rounds of the playoffs then has 25 points in the Stanley Cup final and then to start the next season he has eight you're still gonna be like well he had 25 in the biggest moment yeah yeah we're having doesn't this sound familiar there fellas like we're having the same conversation yeah all over again it gets into a circle with bennington because the conversation's been for so long when he got picked for four nations we were all still

Starting point is 01:01:58 shocked i thought even hill was gonna get into that first game or the second game or something Canada was the only team to use one goalie. Everybody else got to try out there, too. The one team who had more reason than anyone to use more than one goalie. One guy. And they didn't, and then they won. Yeah, I know. I'm willing to give him the shot in front of, like I said,

Starting point is 01:02:20 he's behind the best defense in this tournament, I think. He's going to look better than he did in St. Louis. And if he doesn't, that's why you got all these games. You make the change fast. Yeah, yeah. Canada has won two gold medals switching goalies mid-tournament. And you're not in danger of getting eliminated because everybody makes the play-in round.

Starting point is 01:02:43 The IOC set it up so no one actually gets eliminated from the group stage. 2010, they had to play a qualifying game against Germany. How did 2010 work out? They ended up winning the gold medal. I don't remember. In the qualifying game, Shea Weber put a puck through the net. I remember that. I remember that.

Starting point is 01:03:04 I was in the building and no one really had Twitter. So when the play stopped, we didn't know why. What's more irritating? A razor that gets blunt really easily or one that costs like $30 to refill? I would say both. Or the Department of Player Safety. You're ranking irritating. See, that's a little unfair.

Starting point is 01:03:22 That's a little unfair because we know DPOS is... Oh, they're one? Yeah, I think they got to be number one. Okay. And then I think the cost of a razor is number two. and then a blunt razor which is blunt too easily is number three that's my power ring a blunt elbow to the face that's right that they ignore tied for number one and this is me saying this is expensive razor and blunt razor that's right and with harry's you get a barbershop quality shave

Starting point is 01:03:46 with german engineered blaze they're like leon dry saddle level i'm sure um uh each blade is honed at three different angles to cut hair cleanly at the root without tugging tugging is the worst yes uh blade spacing is optimized to glide smoothly and avoid clogging drugstore blades clog so fast that is my that's why i shave in the shower because i have to like wave the blade to unclog it with harry's i don't need to do that anymore that's why i shave adam in the show that thank you steve i appreciate that the fact that you come over and help me with that now for a limited time our listeners can get harry's plus a trial set for ten dollars at harry's.com stp This set includes the all-new Harry's Plus Razor, one refined five-blade cartridge, a

Starting point is 01:04:29 two-ounce foaming shave gel, and a travel cover to protect your blades on the go because if they're flopping around in your toiletries bag, they're going to go blunt. We don't want them flopping around. No flopping. Just head to harrys.com.stp to claim this offer. And after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know it was the Steve Dangle Podcast. two and five canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar

Starting point is 01:04:57 raised matters on september 19th join thousands in toronto for the princess margaret cancer foundation walk challenge yourself friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life saving research together we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca You gotta try breakfast at A&W

Starting point is 01:05:24 You gotta try breakfast at A&W And what better way than with a delicious Pret organic coffee starting at just $1 all day every day now until December 31st.

Starting point is 01:05:41 You gotta try breakfast at A&W at participating A&W locations in Ontario. Now, this is a pretty good time to mention that we've got our Olympic picks via Spark. You can click on it right now. We've all got our graphics done, or our graphics, our brackets done.

Starting point is 01:06:01 Excuse me, I'm a little sick. And I have to say, the team we're moving to next is Team USA. And I think they've got the easiest group, easily the easiest group. And so they might be a sleeper to be the number one seed in the tournament because of it. Like, it's a really, really easy go. And they got a great team.

Starting point is 01:06:20 Let's go through the lines here. Kachuk, Eichel, Kachuk. So Brady on the left, Matthew on the right. That's that Four Nations line that really worked for them. Although they did have Matthews between them for a while. Yeah. And then he, I think he got swapped out because it wasn't working better. It wasn't working better than what Eichel was doing.

Starting point is 01:06:38 Right. They could have iced it three times in overtime, that line. and well didn't uh line two uh is i'm just pulling it up here gensel matthews boldy line three connor left larkin center tage thompson right that's a real good line and then fourth line uh no bs himself jt miller brock nelson civil war veteran and jack i can't squeeze my stick hughes now um it's gonna be uh that is gonna be an interesting line one thing we're we're leaving off uh these rosters if i'm not mistaken in the olympics you're allowed to dress 13 forward 70 yes so you're not necessarily you know they're not on top of the blender there's also like

Starting point is 01:07:21 an extra guy you could just yeah throw in yep on defense we'll just we'll just go with the start because it's easier uh quinn hughes charlie mcavoy slave and faber sanderson rinsky what an unbelievable defense group that is so great warrensky on your third pair is psychotic now you still have vinny trocek jackson lacombe uh clayton keller and noah hannafin sitting in the press box and it's interesting the goalie situation for me here is very very interesting because conor hellebuck uh has not had the best year this year i mean he did win the vesna in the heart last year yeah but this year's not been so great ottinger's been better swayman's been incredible he's got you have to think conor hellebuck's gonna get first start

Starting point is 01:08:07 but I wouldn't be surprised to see the United States move some other guys in there, too. I'd be pretty surprised if once they're playing elimination games, he doesn't play all of them. Hellebuck? Yeah. I'd trust Otter.

Starting point is 01:08:23 I'd trust Swayman, but like... Jesse? You have Hellebuck for a reason. Let me ask you a question. Of those three goalies, who's been the furthest in the playoffs? Jake Ottinger. No, Jeremy Swayman.

Starting point is 01:08:35 No. Jake Ottinger. Jake Ottinger. I asked you because he's your guy. Sorry. He's one of Jesse's guys. I had to think about it for a second. And of those three, who has, fairly or unfairly,

Starting point is 01:08:46 a reputation of not getting it done in big games? Kind of all of them. A little bit. Okay, but like what round are we talking, Steve? Hellebuck. And so that is, listen, I'm not saying that's fair. And I'm not saying that's going to continue. I'm not either.

Starting point is 01:09:02 But I'm just saying the results have been what they've been in Winnipeg. and i'm curious about how team usa looks at that i mean i love connor hellebuck he's my favorite goalie in the league but i think you gotta ask the question i mean these are the best players in the world you gotta you know you gotta kind of pick and choose so do you think do you give connor hellebuck the first i guess it doesn't even matter in the play-in round because to me again they have the easiest group group c is insane who is it yeah i'm pulling it up hang on um all right give me a sec give me a sec it is spark and then i'm going to the international hockey tournament and then i'm going into the groups usa germany latvia denmark

Starting point is 01:09:43 don't ah don't listen latvia is always a sneaky they always punch above their and i'm glad canada is not in their group germany's got leon dry saddle tim stutzler philip grubauer i get it J.J. Paterka, how dare you? And J.J. Paterka. And, you know, the Danes are good. But, like, look at the rest. Like, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, that's a tough one. Canada at least has Czechia and Switzerland.

Starting point is 01:10:07 Switzerland also punches above their weights and surprises people. Poor Italy, dude. Yeah, Italy got a rough division. That's so rough. United States, if everything goes well, the United States should roll that division. Yes, they should. They should absolutely win every game 5-0.

Starting point is 01:10:22 Maybe Germany gets a couple on it. Uh, five, nothing's aggressive. Yeah. Well, Germany's going to score. Yeah. Okay. They're going to score. All right.

Starting point is 01:10:31 Well, JJ Perturco was just on. I know. Show some love to Germany. I'm saying Germany gets through. I'm just a hat Turco. That's right. DJ, DJ Turks, as we know him. How did he get that?

Starting point is 01:10:42 I wonder, you know what? I'll ask him next time. Uh, I think the United States needs to roll this division or I'm going to have questions. And I just, I don't know. Here's the thing about the United States. their toughest game to me is going to be against either latvia or germany i think it's probably more germany than latvia latvia and goaltending is always insane though and international tournaments so if your toughest matchup is germany your best chance to evaluate your goaltender

Starting point is 01:11:06 is against stutzla and dry saddle and those guys in peterka and so yeah who do you whoever you put in in that game i think is the guy that you're going this is when we go into the play-in rounds like when we're sorry when we're going into the bracket can i say something about the usa's lineup yeah left wing there fourth line jason robertson would look fantastic there instead of jt miller i don't get robertson nelson hughes yeah makes a lot more sense to me than miller nelson hughes you know the other thing jess is that puts that that would make the usa's like top like all their left wingers be like 40 goal scorers i know brady has i guess hasn't got there yet has he but gensel connor regular 40 goal scorers robertson there too that'd be sick you know

Starting point is 01:11:48 what miller has two healthy hands yeah jack hughes though like you you could be justified doing miller nelson trocek or something like that i'm not saying it's great or even the best option but like i i just don't know the devils didn't medically clear jack hughes and then a couple days later he's off to italy there's a lot of questions there i think those are all fair questions i don't think anybody's gonna doubt that you think there's some friction there in new jersey uh just a little bit yeah yeah it's pretty weird i mean it's jack hughes like he's got crazy game-breaking ability and on the fourth line you basically i mean that just don't screw up it's it's a it's gonna be a what if if they don't win if they do win even if like if the usa gets

Starting point is 01:12:39 into the finals or wins bronze silver or bronze people are going to be jason robertson should have been there if they win gold no one's gonna say shit that's what it is and oh stamp co should have been on the 2010 team for canada yeah no one cares doesn't matter no one cares nobody i look at that defense though and i'm like that is the most mobile that's crazy ugly like that is gonna be not fun for anybody to play all of those guys are the best defensemen on their team and all of those guys are top 10 defensemen in the league well two of the guys are on the same team so that's kind of impossible oh that's true i i still want canada's d ahead of this one you do really yeah oh man i've given them the slight edge warensky sanderson is the third that's what i'm saying like like you

Starting point is 01:13:25 know i know i love shea theodore is amazing but like uh if if if sanheim's the guy that's our sixth guy and i like travis sam samheim a lot but we're talking about the best of the best all of those defensemen are better than Travis and the all of them the seven D and 13 forwards that you can dress throws me off like it was really throwing me off doing the women's game stream on Saturday because like

Starting point is 01:13:49 there's no I can't do line combination just know they're coming out in my head because they're all kind of jangled up right throwing out this extra forward and I wonder if these teams are going to utilize this because everything looks different if you're using Hannafin in the game as like an extra D

Starting point is 01:14:05 to throw in there to break up ice times yeah like i think it's a big x factor that we haven't really thought about yeah like do you genuinely get them into the mix yeah or do you just say hey like you're there sit there you're you're you know break in case of emergency yeah no you're playing and then but it's like then do you want them sitting there all game and cold and then you're throwing them out like maybe at the start of a second intermission it's like okay we're coming out of the second now you're going to be a part of the rotation or it's like somebody's tired in the third and then now we're going to use you yeah you spent too much time on the shorthanded or something it's weird talk about the 11-7 setup like it's the bubonic play like

Starting point is 01:14:47 they don't know what to do with it yeah and now you're giving them a bench with two extra guys like it's and like i'm not saying this within the context of the united states it's interesting to navigate for everyone yeah and i don't know i i think canada goes seven deep better than the usa goes seven deep yep yeah that's just me i can see that i i do have again i i think we can i think it's just a question of whether we will uh the united states has a great team uh should lap that field in the in group c but we'll see you know you got to play the games let's go on to team sweden jesse because this is a um this is a team that is hampered by injuries and you know guys like um leo carlson should be here uh is not here um ricard raquel still got that uh that potential

Starting point is 01:15:36 injury alias lindholm still got a potential injury uh but let's start william carlson as well william carlson is is even playing yeah he's there oh there he is yeah yeah yeah um but let's go through it so on the top left kempi erickson ek kneelander that's your top line forsberg lindholm raymond is your second line that's a that's crazy that's raquel petterson zabina jad and landis cog pontus holmberg leaf great and yes per brought uh and then on defense gus forsling and rasmus dolly and that's going to be nasty uh headman and rasmus anderson on line two also nasty phil broberg and eric carlson on line three and in goal gustafson markstrom and wallstead and if they're smart gustafson and wallstead are the only goalies that play uh no disrespect to jake

Starting point is 01:16:28 markstrom but this is one of jake markstrom's bad years and we know how he operates it's one bad year for every two good years so put wallstead and gustafson in there uh good for the wild by the way for for having that and wenberg eckman larson uh marcus johansson and uh no hampus are on this so what's so interesting to me is eckman larson and hampus lindholm are unbelievable defenseman and technically speaking not in the lineup as of now i would imagine that if we're starting we're starting on defense here hampus lindholm is the seventh defenseman that's dressed but i think oliver eckman larson needs to get into that top six maybe i'm biased but he's spectacular oh we all plays both sides right yeah which which to me makes him a better option

Starting point is 01:17:14 for number seven yeah and i'm not oh yeah yeah i'm not i'm not saying that because he's a leaf I'm saying, like, if any... Okay, Broberg goes down. There goes OEL. It's like having a utility infielder on your bench who can play all the positions in the infield as opposed to just, like, a second baseman who can only play second base.

Starting point is 01:17:32 Yeah, we're playing great. Oh, Rasmus Andersen got hurt. Yeah. Throwing OEL. Okay, I like that. That's a really good point. This defense, besides being pretty strong with the puck, is tough as fucking nails.

Starting point is 01:17:44 These guys are mean. Dahlien, Forsling Dahlien. Yuck. And Hedman, like Rasmus Anderson is tough enough, but Hedman's a bastard on his own. And Oliver Ekman-Larsen, not a guy to be messed with either. It's kind of crazy. Oh, and you left one guy off the tough list. Well, Carlson's not tough.

Starting point is 01:18:04 Yeah. And I don't think Broberg's like mean. Adam, what are your true thoughts on Eric Carlson's game? I think he's a fantastic puck moving defenseman who's working really well in Dan Mews' system. uh i think if it's a tight game and you want defensive defense uh you better hope lindholm or ekman larson are dressed um that's where i think you switch out right i i trust ekman larson or lindholm far more uh in that sixth spot at in a tight game you know than i would eric carlson i think that's fair i just know you're not a fan of i'm not a fan of his attitude when he's losing

Starting point is 01:18:36 yeah um i like uh but he's he's an he's an all-world first ballot hall of famer steve um so here's here's what's always a fascinating aspect of the olympics yeah internal team politics right scratching carlson there's an argument for it how on earth do you do it Not an option. Like, most justifiable decision you can make. Wollstatt backs up Gustafson. You know how I know it works? It works.

Starting point is 01:19:09 The Minnesota Wild. Yeah. Look at their numbers. And like, they know each other's game day routine. They talk to each other on the bench all the time. They bounce off each other. Hey, what do you see in here? What do you see in there?

Starting point is 01:19:23 Is that not the most logical thing? Nah. Let's just throw that out the window to put in an older goalie who has had a far inferior season to Wollstead. You know what I mean? Now, that's the way it's listed. Who knows? Who knows what they actually do,

Starting point is 01:19:42 but I think it would make Gustafsson better to have Wollstead, and it would make Wollstead better to have Gustafsson. So internal team politics, huge role in every team. How about this? and Eric Carlson's going to play because he has to play. 35 and Eric Carlson. Jake Markstrom's save percentage this year.

Starting point is 01:20:04 Can anyone hazard a guess? 8.94. Jesse? 8.88. 8.82. What are we even doing? Now, Wallstead's got the injury thing, but he was just had an illness,

Starting point is 01:20:16 so I think he'll be fine. You got it. To me, it's time for the young guys to take over Sweden's goaltending. Now, let's go down to the power play. Speed, speed, speed. You don't want to do the forward? Oh, shoot.

Starting point is 01:20:26 Yeah, sure, we can do the forward group. Why not? I think in terms of scoring up the middle, you are going to miss Leo Carlson here. I mean, he was on until mid-December. He's got the left thigh tear, I think. He was on such an unbelievable heater that you're, you know, Erickson Eck, very strong forward, obviously, for the Minnesota Wild.

Starting point is 01:20:49 Lindholm doesn't score like he used to when he was playing between Kachuk and Goudreau, and I don't know if he ever will. again patterson hasn't scored since he signed the extension and pontus holmberg is where offense goes to die so up the middle guys like i'm looking at this and i'm like okay strong defensive no no question uh the goals are gonna have to come from the wings they remind me of the minnesota wild in the way that yeah the up the middle is the light point in this lineup and they're so strong on the wings and defense and in goal they have the wilds goaltenders and then ericson x their number one center i'm fascinated by how sweden uh deploys pontus homeburg fascinated by that

Starting point is 01:21:30 because it's based on the way he played last year it's shocking he's there at all um but he's had a much better season in tampa john cooper friggin loves him and he's good enough to be canada's coach so you might know a thing or two about this player but also he's kind of a swiss well swedish army knife um you could play him at any one of the three forward positions so how many face-offs does he take what end does he take them in do you have him in a penalty killing role like i'm are you up one who do you throw out there my assumption is joel erickson um but i'm fascinated by as of now the new guy play right as of now like pontus holmberg If we're being honest, he's not in the lineup if Leo Carlson is healthy.

Starting point is 01:22:19 Yeah. Like in a paper world where all this is just outlined, everybody's perfectly healthy. He's not there. No. And by the way, Pedersen shot blocking King. He's not listed. Holmberg is not listed on the P.K. currently either. No, he doesn't need to be.

Starting point is 01:22:36 No, he doesn't. But I just think that's I mean, that would be his role if you were going to do it. And brought on your fourth line is nuts. Holmberg brought is going to be an interesting combo. Yeah, Brat was, to me, a top three, top two forward on Sweden at the Four Nations, by the way. Yeah, Brat. Sorry, you keep making that mistake.

Starting point is 01:22:53 I don't think Brat's going to stay there. I think he's going to supplant Zabina Jad at the very least. Adam, is it going to be Brat winner? It might be Brat winner. I think no disrespect to Mika Zabina Jad, but I think he's had a rough year, and I think there are, as you said, team internal politics. You can't put Mika Zabina Jad on the fourth line to start,

Starting point is 01:23:11 But if Bratt has a really good game, I think I don't I don't see what Raquel Pedersen Bratt. I mean, listen, the guys ahead of him are Nylander and Raymond. So it's hard to hard to imagine him getting higher than that. But I think that third line might need a Jesper Bratt and then Zbigniew Jadlandeskog and Holmberg make up the fourth line. That's still a very strong team is going to score a lot more goals than people think. They have a lot of good finishers. they swedishers actually the way the way they're built is kind of all right the center takes all defensive duty wings that's what i'm thinking oh yeah philip ford fly phil ford ford's gonna

Starting point is 01:23:53 have a good time i think actor i think it might be just like really advantageous to them that they're not they don't have they don't have a bunch of high scoring centermen you know and that the guys who should be the most defensively responsible can play that position on the ice and that they can let the wings go wild and the centermen just like do the responsible things against guys like mcdavid and crosby and mckinnon like wings green light and like you know in terms of generating offense uh look at their d they'll be fine yeah and then all the puck movers on the back end i don't know i i think sweden's a little underrated here i i think they're a sleeper yeah And I think, I mean, they do have Wenberg in the press box, too.

Starting point is 01:24:32 And Mojo, Marcus Johansson's had a good year. And Brodine can't be there. Yeah. David Carlson. Yeah. Bummer for them. Let's move to the power plays and penalty kills here. So power play one's got Bratt, Erickson Eck, Raymond, Nylander, and Darlene.

Starting point is 01:24:45 Those are some killer shots. And then power play two's got Forsberg, Lindholm, Kempe, Raquel, and Eric Carlson. And I think that kind of makes sense. Yeah, same evaluation. True. Those are some killer shots. On the PK1s, Abinijad, Eriksson-Eck, which makes sense, Forsling, and Anderson. And then number two, Patterson, Bratt, Hedman, and Carlson.

Starting point is 01:25:07 Eric Carlson killing penalties. I mean, he's been doing it in Pittsburgh, too. We'll see if they end up going with this. I would think that if they're going to address a sixth defenseman or seventh defenseman, I could see a Lindholm or an Ekman-Larsen. That'd be an interesting way for a coach to use the seventh defenseman in 13-4, just like you're exclusively PK guy on both units. Like that would be really interesting.

Starting point is 01:25:33 Especially when you've got Carlson on the power play already, right? Like free him up to do what he does. It's sort of what Canada did with Patrice Bergeron in 2010. Like it's crazy because it's Patrice Bergeron, but if you go look, he barely played, right? So you can have specialists. Double IHF. It's kind of a stupid rule.

Starting point is 01:25:53 Well, they have a lot of stupid rules. I'm glad we're going through them because I think in international hockey it's a far greater factor than it is in the NHL the NHL is going backward in that regard you're just allowed to do whatever the hell I think the double IHF rules are going to be a culture shock for a lot of these players

Starting point is 01:26:17 two in five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar raised matters On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. You've got to try Bread First at A&W.

Starting point is 01:26:51 You gotta try breakfast at A&W And what better way than with a delicious Pret organic coffee starting at just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast at A&W at participating A&W locations in Ontario. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, and let me say this. It's February. you know there's the big tournament going on but it's also the month of love oh and if you're on

Starting point is 01:27:25 the if you're in the month of love and you're on the outside looking in and you're feeling a bit cold about that maybe you need some help identifying the green flags in your life like steve when you met your wife at 19 i'm sure you knew immediately that she was going to be the one you married right oh yeah that's i need someone to run my show she's perfect can you can you remember what what what was her green flag for you initially can you remember that like what did she see in me no what did you see in her oh you're like oh man oh she was pretty cute but also she was really nice to me she was really nice to me that's a big one and runs my show uh and runs the show and listen is organized organized is key organized is key especially when

Starting point is 01:28:07 you're dating steve or myself 30 000 credentialed therapists on better help by the way uh world's largest online therapy platform has served over 6 million people globally and it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars for a live session based on 1.7 million client reviews uh the great thing too is you get uh you get matched with the therapist in a very short amount of time which is often a lot of people's challenge even to just get in the door so if you want to sign up and get 10 off you can right now go to betterhelp.com and use the promo code sdp again that's better help.com slash stp sign up and get 10 off let's move on to team finland um so this team is a lot deeper than you would expect instantly what pops out to you about team finland is the fact

Starting point is 01:28:52 that barkov isn't playing but i look down the center i'm like well yeah it'd be way better to have them here yeah you can bump eric hollow but they're not doing so bad right uh this team is I think that center, sorry, the B division with Sweden and Finland in it, along with Slovakia, is going to be a very tough division. So you've got Grandlin, who's the captain at left, Hintz, center, Rantanen, right, Lekkonen, Aho, Terravainen, Lusterainen, Lundell, of course, the two Florida guys, and Kapokako, Tolvinen, Hala, and Yoel Armia, those are the top 12 as of right now.

Starting point is 01:29:29 um and then on defense uh you're gonna have uh lindell heiskanen which is obviously the dallas pair which is perfect nico micola they have so many panthers on this team that's scary rasmus ristelainen oli mata who's as steve said guy who's had great guy career uh and henry yokiharu who was left off the four nations uh team last year was the only full-time finished defenseman who was but he's there uh Oliver Kapanen, Yolkivi Ranta uh and Montepallo are the extras along with uh Letnan and in goal Soros, Lankanen, Corposalo so let's start it up front that's a pretty damn good group they're going to be feisty I think they're going to score but they're going to be not fun to play against no not at all there's a a couple players I look at

Starting point is 01:30:23 immediately and i'm like okay you need to be game breakers for this group and this is definitely galaxy branding it but i don't care it's the two seattle kraken players capo caco's job is to be brad marchand here because lusterine and lundell marchand was the line that turned around the panthers playoff last year and they were able to go on to a cup like paul maurice likes to talk about the fourth line um from that series against toronto the fourth line was incredible but the big change was putting lundell on the matthews line instead of barkov so caco's got to kind of model his game after that and ellie tolvanen is having a ridiculously underrated season and he's been a jerk uh for everyone to play against beyond that um you try to be annoying wear down your opponent

Starting point is 01:31:16 and give the puck to miko which one this is team finland that's not helpful right sorry Rantanen. Give it to Rantanen and be like, you know what you did against Colorado in the first round? Yeah, okay, do that. Jesse, what stands out to you about the forward group? I would like Oliver Kapanen to crack this lineup. Overhala?

Starting point is 01:31:37 What's that? Overhala or you want him at center? Or even Armia. I feel like there's room for him. There's a dynamic young player who's coming into his own for Montreal. I think he can crack the lineup. It's a little light on the wings,

Starting point is 01:31:50 in the wing depth is we just went from the sweden team to this one there's a noticeable drop off i would say uh in the forward group but i don't think they're so far down that it's still not a kind of four team tier at the top there with those teams better centers than sweden but yeah you're right the the wings in specifically yeah you know you have the star and ranting in but from there it's it's i think a noticeable drop off it's sharp yeah yeah it's it's i mean it's unfortunate that barkov isn't on this team because i think you look at it a little bit it would change it change a lot yeah put barkov there and you're pushing everybody around the one thing i would say is a holland bell you know yeah that's a that's a different lineup yeah i look at this

Starting point is 01:32:32 lineup and it is guys who are mostly in their in their primes or just out of it i wonder if a guy like if they allow like if if barkov is a is is here is letting in who's on the in the press box or is Kapanen here, right? Like it might open up an opportunity for a guy like Oliver Kapanen because he might not have been on this squad otherwise. Do you know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:32:55 Now on the defense part, this is a pretty nasty group. I think the one area I'm curious about is their mobility. Obviously, Heiskanen and Lindell, you're not worried about that. Mikul is a total bastard. Ristolainen is a lot of things,

Starting point is 01:33:10 but he's not known to be mobile puck moving defenseman that I think he was built to be coming out of junior. He can move the puck, but I'm... I have questions. I don't know how well he does it anymore. And you got to remember too,

Starting point is 01:33:23 like we're grading these guys against Canada, United States, Sweden, like this is the best of the best. And then Mata, Yokiharu, they're just going to be tough. I think defensively responsible. Finland's D to me has one of the biggest X factors in the entire tournament.

Starting point is 01:33:38 Lindell with Haskinen is the biggest difference for any of the four teams from the four-nation face-off because uh dallas not dallas sorry might as well be dallas um finland did not have heiskanen right huge huge factor you could argue mcavoy with the states as well quinn hughes with the states as well but finland missed heiskanen i would argue more than the states missed those guys right like finland was scraping the bottom of the barrel yep right especially because it was only NHL players allowed to play in that tournament um the fact they have Haskin in the in the fact he gets to play with Lindell huge advantage for them uh Jesse

Starting point is 01:34:23 do you roll that Lindell Haskin in pairing like 30 minutes a game against top teams like because that that's I think what they're gonna have to do yeah this is a team where I think that seventh defenseman really comes into play in Montempaolo like he's gonna get some playing time I would assume with the other defenseman rotating that but you have a clear number one pair who's going to be responsible for the top guys on the other team and unfortunately against a team like canada if you're like hey this is the mcdavid shutdown line then you're leaving mckinnon or the crosby line to the other guy yeah so a team like that is going to be able to get around something like this but this pair is going to really dominate some of the other teams in their group underrated

Starting point is 01:35:01 possibility miko letnan for the power play oh interesting okay all right uh now uh in goal none of the three nhl goalies that they have have a save percentage uh above 900 this year what was what's upl because he's supposed to be on the team uh can't make it he's injured he's obviously much better i would think i'm pulling that him up now too he's got a 903 there you go so they should have corpus allo 893 lincoln and 876 man first year of that contract and then 892 for uc soros um listen uc soros has been phenomenal his career kevin lankanen was phenomenal last year eunice corposalo for me has never been my favorite goalie but he's the third goalie anyway big bounce back season though you know corposalo oh yeah yeah that whole team i mean

Starting point is 01:35:53 his yeah yeah low bar i mean he's he's got the exact same save percentage this year as he did last year so i don't think what's the record uh it's not that different he was 10 he was 11 10 and 3 he's now 10 8 and 2 no it's swayman that's that's the that's driving that bus i guess yeah um but he's not gonna play like it's soros and uh and lincoln well it's soros's net yeah i think with this team we've kind of reached the one where it's like clear number one we're not even having a conversation uses arrows when he's at his peak one of the best goalies in the league and this is his net and he's had he had a recent good run with Nashville right they were in the playoff picture they were sort of falling out of it again but we'll see what happens I still think he's a better

Starting point is 01:36:39 goalie than his numbers show yes much better yeah and I feel like he'll he'll rise to the occasion here not unlike Jordan Binnington where if this if Saris is gonna have a really good team in front of him and he'll look good Kevin Lankanen 12 save shutout against Italy yeah something like that's gonna happen uh okay let's get down to power play and penalty kill um Lekanen seems to be the seventh defenseman that's going to be uh or sorry seventh uh player that's going to be sorry what are they you can dress 13 13 forward 13 forward 70 sorry I'm still high on cold medication Lekanen is on power play one which is interesting hints Aho uh Rantanen Lekanen and Heiskanen power play one grandlin luster ryan and kako lundell and uh lindell lundell and lindell on power play two

Starting point is 01:37:25 um and then uh on then i guess penalty kill holla terravine and lindell heiskanen and then pk2 is armia tolvan and micola and ristaline and what do we think about the power plays what do we think about the penalty kills gentlemen for multiple reasons i think leckanen and rantanen on the same unit is very funny um they're too well they're ranting in is the former av uh playing with his former av teammate but also do you remember the mini scandal where i believe it was leckanen's dad who is a media personality in finland was talking crap about ranting yes in the press uh very interesting that they're now both representing finland um listen that they can they can score leckanen is super underrated in his role aho's always been a

Starting point is 01:38:11 very underrated player that top unit can score um i don't think we're going to see much of the second unit um and i think they're underrated penalty killers jess yeah the pk is some some place i can see them really thriving i think you got guys there who like did it do it for their teams and they can they can uh they'll be able to manage against some of the better teams in this in this tournament and we talked about maybe taking armia out that's why you don't yeah he's been a pretty dependable penalty killer for a few years miro heiskanen i think is the way this team lives or dies right he might play 45 minutes yeah he might and i think for them to take down sweden he's gonna have to uh i don't think they're gonna have any trouble against italy i think

Starting point is 01:38:50 that's fair um they might run into something against the slovaks but it's it's sweden it's sweden that's gonna be heiskanen's gonna have to have a norris trophy sort of game right and he can do that can you do it for six or seven games that's that's all you need and yes he can we know that okay let's move on we're gonna go to uh hang on i'm just pulling up uh whose rosters have been uh available let's go to team check here the alan walsh palooza i'm kidding um uh it's a you know there it's a mix of some nhlers and some not and former nhlers as well uh so and the it's not bad that first line's pretty spectacular it's unreal niches hurdle posture knock scary crazy that will do crazy and then there's a bit of andre palat uh big goal score

Starting point is 01:39:42 for the islanders last week david comp leaf great and andre kasha still playing also former leaf great roman cervenka uh i think it's yuri sedlak and david tomasek on line three uh stronski Foxa who is a Alan Walsh client and Dominic Kubelik round out the top 12 and then Tomasek noted Connor McDavid line mate from earlier this season

Starting point is 01:40:06 on left defense Simek Roenick and then Michael Kempney and Radko Gudis Spachek and Ruda how many you got now how many how many are yeah that's at least is Spachek and Alan Walsh client too I know Ruda allowed to cheer for Canada

Starting point is 01:40:24 Hronik and Ruda are. And then you got, who else do you have on that? Foxa. Yeah, I think he's got three at least. Three's pretty good, man. Yeah, that's solid. That's pretty good. Now, in goal, Lucas Dostal,

Starting point is 01:40:40 who is going to be the X Factor for this team in this tournament. 100%. Dan Vladar, who's had a pretty good year off and on in Philly. And then Karel Vemelka, who's also had a really good year with Utah. You know, they've been streaky, but Karel's been pretty good. Very good. You love Karel Vemelka. I do, and I'm looking at this, and I'm like, yeah, I guess he's third.

Starting point is 01:40:59 I think they all have game-stealing ability. They do. And when he's been around forever, he's still only 28. I can't believe it. That's crazy. That's Sam Gagne syndrome. How is it possible? And Andrew Cogliano.

Starting point is 01:41:12 And Andrew Cogliano, both of them. Andrew Cogliano right now is 27, in my mind. Probably. Still, he's 27. It's sort of like 34-year-old Tyler Bozak. Is Luke Glendening still playing? Because that was always that guy for me. Yes, not Czech though.

Starting point is 01:41:25 Not Czech, but he's still playing hockey, Luke Glendening. He's 36. Now, so the goaltending, I think, is a strong thing. And Lucas Dostal being 25 and getting this opportunity and being young, and he's played in plenty of international competition before, you know, this is a team that could surprise some people. If there's a goaltender of the tournament award, my money would be on dostal as an underrated choice to finish number one like he has an

Starting point is 01:41:52 opportunity to be the star goalie out of this tourney he's the reason why i had checkia as my sleeper all the way up until the announcement that pavel zaka was out yeah because you need everyone to punch above their weight with a healthy lineup and then losing zaka i'm like I don't know how you overcome that. It's tough. What do you guys think of the defense? It's clearly tough, and Philip Perona gives you great puck mobility,

Starting point is 01:42:20 but I think they're going to have to manage this, right? I mean, we obviously know Radko Gudis can excel in international hockey. They won the gold medal at the World Hockey Championship, but he's one of several players at this tournament where I'm like, huh, how do you handle that double IHF whistle where you're not allowed to murder everybody?

Starting point is 01:42:42 they're radco yeah i think they're gonna be tough like i think i think they're gonna play the most grindy kind of hockey in comparison to the other teams who like a lot of puck movers on the back end of usa and canada and sweden that like the czechs are gonna play a different style and it's gonna be a change of pace when like a team canada goes up against them yes yeah 100 like chronic if team canada goes up against them because they are in the oh they're in the other group i believe they're no no oh no no i'm pretty sure yeah canada czechia slovakia and czechia how dare you how dare i know terrible no heronix got that bomb of a shot they're they're a good team they're they're always a good team always punch above their weight uh camp with a line

Starting point is 01:43:25 mate like palat who's a pretty big game player is very interesting to me um andre kasha like i don't know what he's still got in the bag that's pretty interesting and don't underrate pasta and what he can do on his own that's a that's a single game-breaking player we see it on teams with boston where like like the playoff series against the leafs like that's that's a guy who can do it on his own so if he if he can will some of that to this team i think like you're gonna get a lot of scoring out of him yeah deployment is going to um mitigate a lot of the depth issues that some of these countries have i think i think most glaringly you're probably looking at czechia and germany and like we've seen dry side will play half an hour or whatever like on one angle yeah like if

Starting point is 01:44:18 you can you can easily uh be like all right pasta you're getting a shift on the fourth line like just to double shift them and then the next time around all right it's niches and then the next time around all right it's hurdle so you may get a nightmare for an opposing coach to manage that right i think you're gonna have to i mean just if any team was justified in making a decision like that i mean it's these guys yeah yeah no it's it's a very it's an interesting roster and i think the the thing about the the checks that's always very interesting is that they play a system there is a czech system and they've had tons of international success recently you guys saw the i think it was 2024 they won the world championship and the entire country showed up

Starting point is 01:44:59 uh for the parade like this is a big big big thing is their head coach for this the same one they keep sending to the friggin world juniors to beat canada because it's like yeah i mean of all the teams to see in your group i mean what country is more upset to see czechia there than canada brutal and in their groups it's either latvia or czechia you gotta get through one of them that's annoying man uh uh let's go down to the uh power play penalty kill jess if we can so it's hurdle niches poster knock palat and heronic that's a pretty nasty power play one i'm assuming palat's just sitting in front of the net uh power play two thomas x cervanka kubelik kasha and spot check and i think that's not going to see a lot of time well

Starting point is 01:45:42 no i mean they're 40 year old roman cervanka i don't think so right but don't under uh don't underestimate how tricky it is because like you have so little time especially with the condensed schedule you have so little time to prepare for your opponent and the nhl guys going over there they don't they don't know what the non-nhl guys are going to do necessarily they don't know their tendencies they don't know what their what their weaknesses are what their strengths are it's it's always a very sneaky factor in these tournaments uh jesse anything that stands out to you on those power play that first power play unit's really good yeah it's like i'll take that like i have no complaints about that pp1 like steve said pp2 is a question mark because i'm not familiar with

Starting point is 01:46:30 how these guys are playing right now but like the power play one's gonna score goals i i want to be complimentary all the way through you don't have to that's not what your job is because i'm not um don't take penalties yeah so radic penalty killer yeah david kampf campney and gudas is your first one and then stronsky sedlak simek and spotchick on penalty killed steven how would you rate david comp's penalty killing abilities his penalty killing is fine yeah okay yeah so it's but you're you know you're gonna get put in a blender by by some of these guys right like Germany's power play is going to be frigging insane uh Canada's is laughably hilarious um you're not gonna have a fun time like what what we've seen with all these setups on uh Puckpedia

Starting point is 01:47:22 is the guys on the power play are not on the penalty kill like it's spread out like Hronik's got to make his way into this group right yeah like the same way that we talked about Haskinen playing like half an hour a night for the Finns like Kronix got to do the same thing for the checks yeah you might as well use them you have to yeah and if you're him you know you're

Starting point is 01:47:43 not going to the playoffs so go leave it all out there dude get crazy man this is you got your contract yeah you're good win gold go for it two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar raised matters on

Starting point is 01:48:00 September 19th join thousands in toronto for the princess margaret cancer foundation walk challenge yourself friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research together we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer register today at pmcfwalk.ca hey listen sometimes things get a little stressful around especially this time of year when you're watching a major tournament you know might be time to break out the lucy might be time to jump into let's see here um mint mango berry citrus apple cider apple ice espresso espresso would you express really no i'm telling you how to say it oh but also yeah oh okay espresso espresso you hate that don't you i

Starting point is 01:48:47 do yeah jesse what about you i like a little mango oh okay i like this now lucy's is the only pouch that gives you long lasting flavor whenever you need it get 20 off your first order when you buy online and use the promo code steve how do you spell that s-c-e-v-e spell it one more time yeah there you go and if you don't want to wait you can just go to lucy.co slash stores to find a lucy near you and you can grab it today now here comes the fine print lucy products are only for adults of legal age and every order every single one is age verified warning this product contains nicotine and nicotine is an addictive chemical. Okay, let's move to Team Germany.

Starting point is 01:49:58 Now, this one's interesting because their forward group's pretty insane. On defense, it's Moritz Seider and his merry men. There's another guy who's going to have to play 40. Yeah, well, and what's interesting about Germany, too, is, again, like the Czechs, like the Slovaks, they play a system. And, you know, that first line's pretty sick. Dreisaitl, Stutzla, Paterka. and then you got samansky sturm reichel and then uh mcallis who i don't believe has ever played in the nhl is that tobias reader uh oh wow uh stackwick stack i don't know he's a lightning

Starting point is 01:50:34 player stacco uh tipples dominic kahoon and i don't even know who that is ill we got the european hockey league yeah that's right alexander ill uh and then look at defense the defense is hilarious um you've got uh leon gawanki you got maurit cider you've got you've got two mullers all right uh they're two different ages which helps thank you wisman uh and this the first muller who's in the top four is jonas muller steve you ever heard of jonas jonas muller no and then in the five spot fabio wagner we love fabio and then the second mueller is moritz mueller who is 39 years old good for him i love here and you try and get these names yeah it's it's it was the german names are very tough you are names are fun not excelling uh austria i remember the first time

Starting point is 01:51:31 we did the olympics and we went through some of the monsters and we went through the austrian roster and try to give us the press box uh press box shoots gable to me and cable cable it's cable because the a with the things i don't know man and then their goalies are philip grubauer uh nita burger and franz reb and you know what if you've heard of franz rever nita burger good for you i've heard of nita burger i have good for you i need a burger right know good for you um grubauer who i have been all over for two or three years now do that all over um because he's been bad this season he's been very very good they're in a playoff spot for seattle yeah so a lot of what team germany accomplishes at this tournament is gonna have

Starting point is 01:52:22 to go through grubauer in the same way that we talked about lucas dostal for the checks grubauer is going to have to steal a game or two here the first line for germany is one of the scariest at the tournament that's so good there's i mean dry sidles obviously completely absurd but one of the most underrated performances i've seen in recent memory was the duo of tim stutzla and jj peterka at the i think it was the 2020 or 2021 world juniors it was the covid one um germany had no business beating anyone who they beat. Stutzla

Starting point is 01:53:04 and very underratedly, Paterka put that team on their backs. So there's already built-in chemistry there, even if they haven't necessarily played that much together in recent memory. And then taking whatever line mate they had in that tournament and replacing

Starting point is 01:53:20 them with Leon Dreisaitl. Yeah. It's crazy. We know Dreisaitl's going to play 25 minutes. yep uh Stutzel is going to play the same I would imagine Paterka plays the same and from then everyone else just has to pull their weight and and I think uh in the group that they're in I could see them beating Denmark I could see them it's going to be a tough contest but I think they can beat Lafayette USA is obviously going to be the favorite in that but this is a group that can get in oh a hundred percent hundred percent cider is having like he's gonna get norris votes this

Starting point is 01:53:56 year might even get a sneaky heart voter too like he's having an absolutely unbelievable year um underestimate team germany at your own peril i'm serious i i know we talked about how i don't really know this guy's name i don't know this guy's name like even like tobias reader dominic kahun like these are all guys who who have played have played and would would know a lot of the guys who are who are coming over underestimate these guys at your own peril a lot of crazy top end talent if they get a few saves and they get some uh performances from their non-nhl guys like they could meddle i'm not kidding jesse a guy that stands out for me and that top sick is is lucas reichel is a high draft pick for the chicago blackhawks uh didn't work out there so

Starting point is 01:54:41 they sent him to the canucks and now the canucks are trying to trade him this could be a tournament where a the Canucks are like hey we're gonna get something for Lucas Reichel now um but it's also a tournament where he can say this is why I was drafted this high right like you can you can take a tournament like this and maybe get a team to a third team to take a chance on you no yeah you you're thinking he uses this as motivation jumping off point well yeah I just feel like look at what I was able to do on this team Germany right because I think anytime you have a first round pick especially the guy that went that high and they don't work out you're like well there was a reason though that they were drafted there international tournaments are great for getting

Starting point is 01:55:19 paid professionals to ignore an abundance of evidence for a very tiny bit of evidence yeah right so i i agree with the sentiment uh that you're throwing out there i think he's he's almost like a victim of his own success and uh sometimes uh you'll see an example of a player who is extremely talented but maybe made the nhl a little too early he's almost like a prisoner within his contract right yeah that could be it like that he's i mean he's on this team for a reason okay and we're gonna get through uh a few more teams but very quickly okay it's just on the germany front like as much as as much as i love to chuckle through adam trying to cough through all of these names um and how much we're like we don't know ehl and what he can do just the way this tourney's

Starting point is 01:56:08 laid out this could be the team that gets one of the four buys past the playing round yeah they can beat up on the other two teams in their group and then if they hang tight against usa especially because they have two stars on their team that are as good as anybody in this entire tournament you have dry sidle on the top line and you have mo cider at the top of your defense those two guys are going to drive everything everything's going to be through them and if they have good tournaments you can easily see them beating them the other two teams in the group and then hanging tight with usa and then having a decent shot through the elimination bracket the two greatest players in german history on this team right now jesse in their prime exactly exactly and if and if you get

Starting point is 01:56:54 a performance out of jj purturka that we know he has the abilities to have if you get tim stutzla to play at the best of his abilities and then you get the european guys who i don't know how much they've all played together but they play a certain style of european hockey that might throw off the north american skaters there's a chance here where germany looks really good in this tournament has a really deep run i like if you're looking for a dark horse to medal and at least get into that bronze game germany would be my pick let's let's not forget and i i think a lot of european hockey fans watching this right now are going to feel this in a very serious way there is something that canada and the u.s and maybe sweden and finland bring into

Starting point is 01:57:39 these tournaments and that's hubris yeah they're gonna overlook these guys these these non-nhl guys and they always give them fits like you you watch tournaments all the time and you're like oh they're gonna win 10 nothing and it's like you squeak out a 2-1 win if you're lucky yeah something like that and the one last thing i was going to say the list of players who have been better since christmas than tim stutzla is extremely short it's basically nikita kucherov and maybe that's it it's short um just quickly their first power play unit i did want to throw this out there dry saddle stutzla peterka reichel insider that's pretty nasty yeah don't make a penalty against german and steve you mentioned those teams that the bigger teams take advantage

Starting point is 01:58:25 of and they underestimate i should say the thing that those smaller teams do is they get great goaltending yeah you know that's the x factor with a lot of these teams and grubauer despite the years of evidence before that has shown this year that he can be that goaltender and have a really good game he was runner up for the vesna once yeah yeah at what point there's a reason he has the contract he currently has and it's because of that if grubauer gets hot here like i don't know i like germany yeah i do too it's a good looking team all right let's move on to and we're gonna start to condense these just a little bit because there are fewer and fewer nhlers the further down you go and uh drew's clipping these out so we're gonna do a slovakia and a switzerland

Starting point is 01:59:04 in the same one and then we're gonna do a couple others okay so let's go to slovakia jesse uh you got some former nhlers here obviously notably thomas tazar uh ruzika i think was an nhler for a while and your ice love kofsky is sort of the big name up front um some guys just get so much better when you put them in their country's jersey yeah that's that's Slavkovsky uh Liska Dvorsky and who to check and then that's the second line uh Kellerman uh Pospisil from Calgary Regenda from uh uh San Jose and then Takic, Sukal, and Okular who is from Florida I hope I pronounced his name right he's an RFA I don't think he's playing right now here um and then on defense martin farivari good defenseman uh nemich in in um in new jersey great defenseman

Starting point is 01:59:52 uh gurnat uh and then cernak that's your second line on defense and then marinchen leaf great oh let's go and then sarah's knack uh is his partner god he made the team he did he did and then in goalie uh the third goalie so all the wild goalies are at this tournament uh i hope i say this right Halavich Halavich Halavich and then Gajan

Starting point is 02:00:20 who is a pick for Chicago and then Skorvenik who is a European is that

Starting point is 02:00:29 Ivan Ivan that is Ivan Ivan Alan Walsh client noted he's got to get in

Starting point is 02:00:34 come on he's playing the NHL this year he's got to get in there they don't have his team

Starting point is 02:00:41 next to him maybe it's not the same I don't think it is anyway it's it's listen this is a guy this is a group of guys but it's not bad again slovakia is one of the not

Starting point is 02:00:53 ivan ivan oh that's too bad oh it's michael ivan yeah the lesser of the avans let's be honest um this is a group of guys that are gonna have to play insane hockey for this to work of course um um what well the thing about that is in comparison to canada and the u.s like this team can hang with the other teams in the in their tier of hockey teams like yeah i'm putting them amongst you know the the middling pack here but they're definitely a step above the frances and the italy's no question no question and i look jesse the the only thing that's going against them right now is they're in that group b division which is sweden finland slovakia italy There's one easy out there.

Starting point is 02:01:35 One. Yeah. And that is it. That's going to be there. And you're in tough against Sweden and Finland. If you're Canada and the United States, imagine Slovakia. But you don't think Slovakia could steal a game against Finland. That's all they need to do is they should get one.

Starting point is 02:01:49 Just one. Because then you pencil in the dub against Italy. I mean, that's probably the game you point to. Yeah. And you go, this is the balls to the walls game. Yeah. The whole tourney rides on stealing one. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:02:02 Sweden's going to be real hard. like finland on paper is slightly less scary than sweden but like they're both pretty damn good uh i like their decor and it's it's all guys who have you know played pretty tough minutes in the end oh yeah yeah um and like for barry's no joke nemich is no joke cernak's a brilliant defender especially in like tight games i mean even marinchen was on an nhl penalty kill for how long yeah probably too long but probably too long uh but he was very good at at moments especially you know where he was really good dominant the ahl yes and and and listen you know everybody's gonna laugh at that that's a fucking hard league it's the second best league in the world

Starting point is 02:02:47 most of half the players in this tournament don't play in a league he would have been an ahl all-star like he and the thing with marenchin is it was always you always did the gandalf thing you shall not pass yeah zone entries he eliminates them yes and with a shorter neutral zone like i know i know it's that is one of the most under talked about factors everyone's like oh the arena's smaller well how is it smaller they took all three feet if i'm not mistaken out of the yeah the zones are the same that's a big factor and i think that's going to screw a lot of people up it was weird to watch um with the women so far um yeah because it's it's so little time it's just all of a sudden you're at the blue line and you're in d zone two strides and although there's the blue line it's

Starting point is 02:03:36 been very weird to watch and it'll be fascinating to see how every team adapts how do you if finland's the game how do you how do you do it you're talking about lindell heiskanen like that matchup is going to be really tough for this group how do you do this it's got to be low event like berube's perfect style of hockey yeah the thing you got to try to have it be low event and sometimes you just need one guy to be a complete battering ram and you just gotta go listen i need you to play hero ball here and right uh for slovakia that's your eye slavkovsky this is why the the performance you put on for your country is what got you drafted first overall right we need you to do that again otherwise we're cooked i'm not familiar with the wild goaltender but he's

Starting point is 02:04:29 undrafted has zero career starts in the nhl so i wonder if he's gonna be able to hang that's one thing i'm really worried about if i'm not that's why i'm not like too high on this team being a dark horse team because i don't know the goaltending uh well if he's with the wild he's probably good right yeah uh i i gotta say this i mean they're they're great goaltending evaluators no question with the wild um i want to move us to switzerland if we can this team is might if you're if you don't want to pick germany as a sleeper you might want to pick their next door neighbor switzerland they're very very good uh this team's really good and it's uh top uh top line is fiala he sure meyer like timo meyer yeah that's extremely good nita rider pew suitor and

Starting point is 02:05:14 philip kurashev as your second line and then sven androgetto who played some some time in the nhl androgetto uh uh dennis maulgan former leaf uh barchi i think that's sven barchi it might be i gotta check vengeance uh no christoph barchi not sven barchi uh and then we've got a six round pick in 2021 in simon knack uh we've got an undrafted god calvin turkhoff turkhoff you think calvin cal uh and then you know on the bottom line right wing damian riet uh who did drives a fiat stop uh defense is pretty good too jonas siegenthaler some guy named roman yosi never heard of him jj moser who's who was the return for sergachev in the trade uh between utah a couple years ago uh bernie from the columbus blue jackets kukan and fora who i i'll be honest with you i

Starting point is 02:06:14 don't know them and then oh kukan kukan kukan i want to say i think he played games for the blue jackets here you go yeah and then in goal uh you'll know akira schmidt if you're a devils fan and a uh vegas fan when you when all your goalies are terrible akira schmidt is good when they're good he's terrible it's it's a really weird dynamic but that means he might be incredible he might because uh red obera remember red obera 39 years old he's got to be one of the oldest hockey players in this tournament so i don't freaking bear it very interesting they got amazing they got two old guys here red obera uh had an nhl career uh genoni he has five swiss league championships with three different teams oh okay he is the carry

Starting point is 02:07:05 price of switzerland all right all right i like that a lot more championships oh i didn't understand the comparison what are you talking about jesse sorry i'm wearing a team canada jersey he won you won gold for canada you can't say that he was unbelievable in that he was oh yeah oh my goodness no we just but we're talking about league championships balancing out his montreal thing it was currying favor with them on friday i love nick suzuki let's move down to the power play because the first power play unit don't take a penalty against switzerland no fiala that's dangerous meyer curashev and yosi and then you've got nita rider suitor barchi andra ghetto and bernie uh on power play two

Starting point is 02:07:48 Roman Yossi quarterbacking a power play is going to be effective in this tournament. That's a better power play than what Nashville puts out. It's a better first unit than Nashville. It's comparable. It's better. Stamkos, Forsberg, is Marshall on PP1? Ryan O'Reilly.

Starting point is 02:08:05 If this were five years ago, I would give it to Nashville, but I think this is better. Khrushchev might tip the scales, but Adams, you're not totally off, man. like it's a that's a good unit yeah um and also not bad on the power or penalty kill to either i mean we saw dennis malgan kill penalties in in toronto he's on pk2 jj moser plays a bunch of different roles for the lightning siegenthaler obviously for the devils strong listen the devils have had a bad year but they do have a lot of talent on the back end and siegenthaler is in

Starting point is 02:08:37 that lineup no they're not scratching him they're scratching dougie hamilton you know what i mean well a lot of guys in this tournament are there like a lot of defensemen are in this tournament because they put up a ton of points uh siegenthaler doesn't do that um he shuts her down yep so those guys are always fascinating in best on best tournaments yep um you know like a slaven as as well um switzerland like boys i'm gonna be honest i think they could have got their own video That's a good team. That's a very, very good team. And I think Czechia, because they're in the Group A with Canada,

Starting point is 02:09:14 Czechia, France, obviously Switzerland, because we're talking about Switzerland. Czechia better be careful. Canada better be careful. What I think you need to do is you've got to get Akira Schmidt off his game early. You've got to get him off his game early. And again, where the Czechs are vulnerable is they're,

Starting point is 02:09:30 because of injuries, thinned middle. Swiss might have the advantage there. So you find your advantages, find their weakness, and attack the hell out of it. Okay. One more two-team video. Are you ready? Yes. We're going to go to Latvia.

Starting point is 02:09:46 Woo! Now, this is a team that gives Canadian teams fits every single time, and it's a much deeper team than you'd expect. Latvia is always known for good goaltending, but Vilmanis... No, this is about how deep I expected it. Okay, well, maybe you. But Vilmanis is the guy that lit up Charlie McAvoy. They're going to play in game one, which is hilarious.

Starting point is 02:10:10 Teddy Bluger from the Vancouver Canucks. Zemgis Gergensen's at right wing. And that's the first line. Trollmax. Lechemis? Lechmelis? Lechmelis. Lechmelis.

Starting point is 02:10:20 Zirkels, line two. And then Ravenskis. Okay, now these are... Krastenberg's, Dogovins. I know that's Dogovins. Kaspar Stolgovich. And then Balsers, Botna, and Bukartis. Bukardas?

Starting point is 02:10:34 I think Bukards. Bukards? Whatever. It's very hard. It's not whatever. On the Olympics page, they all have pronunciations of their own names, and they say them. Oh, that's cool. We can play them at some point.

Starting point is 02:10:48 Balanskis and Rubens, left and right defense. Smits, Friedbergs, Zeal, and Yox. And then their goaltending's really good. Yeah. Merzlikens, Artur Shilovs, and the guy that almost beat Team Canada, christers good left skis who has been a like that guy that's got that guy's got to play some olympic games you can't let him sit on the on the sideline he's a monster in international tournaments it's crazy how good mers leakens has been uh since um who's the new coach in columbus again uh bones

Starting point is 02:11:22 bonus yeah rick but is it are they allowing him to be the head coach of latvia because if so they might win gold i'm serious he's been really good for him now it's a it's listen there the strength with latvia at any international tournament is always going to be the team play and i can't believe casper stockvins is still playing that's crazy can i give you uh give it to me can i give you good levskis yeah yeah good levskis since 21 22 he played in sweden had a 921 he played in the sweden just under league won a championship 9 20 and then his last three seasons in germany 9 14 9 30 and 9 21 he's gonna play they should maybe play this freaking guy yeah i like latvia because whenever i watch an international tournament they're like old reliable yeah

Starting point is 02:12:16 they're gonna play a tight game and i rarely see them get blown out i can see them maybe the score looks a little wonky in terms of the shots or the time of possession, but it's always a reasonably close effort and I'm never disappointed with a Latvian game. So, I don't know, just pure vibes of watching

Starting point is 02:12:37 international hockey. I like Latvia in any matchup. Extremely disciplined. Yeah. Well coached. Balanskis is an interesting one. We saw him, we've seen him kind of emerge in Florida this year because of the injuries. I think he's really good. and he's a late bloomer but scored a playoff goal against the Leafs of course he did of course he

Starting point is 02:12:55 did um like a and Zirkels was not was he not a Leaf draft pick by the way he sure was and if I'm not mistaken he ended up in Vegas uh I want to say that was in the three-way Robin Leonard trade oh yeah I was gonna say was it a motto but that was a waiver pickup wasn't it that was waivers yeah it's that it's it's a team that always play like it's I'm gonna sound like uh uh Pierre Dorian here but they always play like a team oh there's this there's a latvian way it's low shots low low scoring whatever or um you're gonna break through our defense but our goaltenders are huge this is gonna be the least impressive roster amongst teams with nhl players right like yeah but we are all kind of confident in the style of hockey that latvia always puts out at these

Starting point is 02:13:44 tournaments so i think there's a reasonable expectation that they'll be able to hang with the teams with higher end nhl talent well so 2014 uh for canada i mean there wasn't much drama carrie price just decided i'm actually a divine entity and won't be beaten and we were sort of talking about it the team that came closest to beating canada at that entire tournament was freaking latvia this country it was latvia yeah it's completely crazy and it was chris it was chris who they've decided is the third best option who's next the next one and this is the last one uh we're not going to do italy france because oh we're not at all do you want to do italy france we can't it's okay uh denmark i think we have to include denmark this top line's

Starting point is 02:14:30 not bad nick eelers lara zeller uh bjork strand that's not bad at all uh then it gets a little thin at least in nhl talent doesn't mean they're bad yeah uh fisker mulgaard what a great name Second line center for the Seattle Kraken. He doesn't play that there. But anyway, Jensen, Blitchfield, Poulsen, True, Russell, Bao Hansen, I think that's Weiss, and Storm. And then on defense, there are no NHLers currently. Lauridsen, Larson, Koch, Jensen, Abdo.

Starting point is 02:15:05 Really? Abdo. Abdo? Sorry, Abdo. Really? Koch? uh lordison and brugas here sure sure uh freddie anderson uh starting for them makes a ton of sense mad so guard who was good last year um you're gonna have to make a big old bunch of saves and yeah freddie and i i bet carolina's like oh no please don't make him play too much yeah no i think he's great when he's healthy they got bussy they don't care oh yeah it's true and then

Starting point is 02:15:35 nissen de chow is their uh is their third goalie listen how what do we what do you say about the danish hockey program other than it's been spectacularly successful and coming on a la germany lately it's just uh perhaps a few years behind them that germany's a good comparable because germany like us talking about the german hockey team the way we are was unimaginable at 1.5. They didn't make the tournaments most of the time. When it was like Marco Sturm and Marcel Gotch who were like driving the

Starting point is 02:16:08 bus for them. Juve Krupp. Yeah. And like now it's, they have a gaggle of not just good, but elite players. Yep. I mean, the Danes, it wasn't that long ago they won their first ever game at the World Juniors. And now any game they win, I don't think

Starting point is 02:16:24 is shocking. Like that's a very good, very capable line. Probably a solid second line on most nhl teams true i recognize i think he's played nhl games he's definitely at least been in the ahl it's it's not a bad hockey team one thing looking at the ages of these guys who are playing on the team obviously a lot of guys i'm not familiar with but they've gone with not a young team at all you're right it's a very mature team who's i assume in the prime of their careers if they're all 33 27 28 and i wonder if they're gonna have

Starting point is 02:16:59 some sort of really good stable play there because all the guys, you're not trusting a bunch of young talent to maybe just go out there and we play a fast game of hockey where they're trying to slow this down so they can actually hang with some of these teams. You're going to have to.

Starting point is 02:17:13 Yeah. So here's my question, you guys. Obviously, they're in Group C, which I said for the U.S., they need to win every game. They should win every game. But it's not like that division's devoid of talent. Obviously, Germany, Latvia, Denmark rounds it out.

Starting point is 02:17:26 If Denmark's going to get a win, which would, I mean, sometimes at these tournaments, getting a win if you're in that position. Like I can imagine Canada at the World Cup this summer, if they get a win, that's going to be national celebration. I remember, was it the 2004 World Cup? Trinidad and Tobago was in it, and the whole thing was score a goal.

Starting point is 02:17:45 Yeah. And they scored a goal, and the whole country celebrated. So for Denmark, what team, USA, Germany, Latvia, do they have the best shot at getting that win against? And listen, they could come in and surprise everybody. But at this point, I would think they're ranked 4 of 4 in that. What do you think is their best opportunity to have that moment? It's going to be tough.

Starting point is 02:18:07 I guess Latvia. Basically, you're counting on your top line showing up. And does one of Merzlikin's or Grubauer just have an off night? That's pretty much what you're hoping for. maybe a team like team usa doesn't take you seriously and you surprise them and you can maybe even take them to overtime you're asking for a lot of miracle saves uh freddie anderson yeah yeah you're right you're asking for 2017 yeah you're asking you he needs to be otherworldly like this is how like teams who cannot or outclassed on paper get ahead you know it's

Starting point is 02:18:48 with starting from the back end it's goaltending right freddie anderson's stolen a lot of games over his career yeah he's it's not 36 possible no i and i'm not saying it is no no i didn't accuse you of doing that um it's hey denmark you suck uh i'm just saying like if you get a really good freddie game against a latvian team they could win that they could i'm not i'm not ruling that out i'm not saying oh three losses here denmark can easily steal a game and nick nick ehlers is no slouch in terms of scoring he's also you know good defensively adam don't say denmark sucks what kind of an asshole would have a problem with denmark he's making a political joke jesse you see denmark and the greenland yeah he's making anyway um so so okay so that

Starting point is 02:19:33 that kind of rounds out the top 10 for us just because you don't get geography doesn't mean it wasn't a hit that was a banger um it's uh it's going to be a very interesting group with with apologies to france in italy you know not a lot of nhlers there i think there's two nhlers between the two teams every team we're like i could see i could see i could see and then it's like but it's cool that they're there right because those programs could be the ones on the come up france always surprises me that they have nhl players at all like it's like christobal huet oh yeah from france they're beau gruel in the same way that we just spoke about denmark aspiring to sort of be like the german program yeah and then the swiss program before the german program

Starting point is 02:20:19 i kind of see france is that yeah every time i see them they're incrementally better um damian clara goaltender for the anaheim ducks starting goaltender for italy let's go let's go oh wow that's one logo yeah oh in terms of nhl there's yeah yeah there's two on france name them two delmar no he's not the nhl anymore and he's 40 he doesn't count taxier yeah oh yeah who's the other one the other one you i don't think you're gonna get beau grew should be there i'm very upset about that i can't believe he's not that's that's my france hot take is dominic no dominic russell's not even in the league anymore i don't know uh it is antoine keller uh who was a seventh round pick of the washington capitals he's 21 years old he's not currently under contract is

Starting point is 02:21:04 a veto there a veto for france yeah uh avi too yeah uh left defenseman how do you know him I don't remember. Okay. But I'm pretty sure he played in the NHL. And is that Stefan DaCosta? Am I right? Stefan DaCosta? Stefan DaCosta is playing fourth line for France.

Starting point is 02:21:24 That dude got rocked in a Leaf game in like 2011. And he's still going. Still going. Good for him. Good for him. All right. We'll wrap it up there. Obviously, we're going to be back.

Starting point is 02:21:35 This week's schedule is all the same. Next week's a little bit different. And be on the lookout. Jesse doing streams. Steve starts his streams later this week. So do I. Jesse, you're doing all Team Canada women's. And it was a pretty damn good start.

Starting point is 02:21:47 Yeah, let's go. That goalie, though. She made that game close. She did. That was great. The shots were nuts. Shout out Mauer. S-T-E-P.

Starting point is 02:21:58 The Steve Dangle Podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter. At Steve underscore Dangle. At Adam W-Y-L-D-E. And at Jesse Blake. Connection complete.

The Steve Dangle Podcast - Milano Minute | February 9, 2026

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.