The Steve Dangle Podcast - Minnesota Wylde | July 14, 2021

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, sdpn.ca to grab your Dangle Navy jersey (00:00), the Minnesota Wild buyout Zach Parise and Ryan Suter (05:00), the Duncan Keith deal could be great! (33:00), Gabriel Landeskog not even close to re-signing with the Colorado Avalanche (35:30), Jeff Skinner waived his no-movement clause for the expansion draft, so who do the Sabres protect? (45:30), the Leafs have talked to Andersen again and Zach Hyman isn't coming back (56:00), Adam thinks the Leafs should trade Morgan Rielly (59:00), Sergei Fedorov is the new head coach CSKA Moscow (1:15:00), Brent Sopel speaks to Rick Westhead (1:18:00), The Tragically Hip (1:27:00), and Steve's Zoo Stories! (1:33:00). Originally aired: July 14, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/NroFfa2pk4A Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://magicspoon.com/sdp https://helixsleep.com/sdp https://freshly.com/sdp https://www.indochino.com/ https://www.betterhelp.com/sdp https://www.getroman.com/sdp Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake what if i told you that pierre mcguire was hired by other ottawa senators this week if i told you that sunday night what would you have said oh uh i can because gulik and ice the puck you might have said that's going to be the number one story in hockey this week wrong What if I told you, oh, my God, hey, Duncan Keith is going to be an oiler this week on Sunday night. You'd have been like, what? Oh, man, it's two days ago, and you're probably right. Number one story in hockey this week, probably.

No, wrong. No. What if I told you Suter and Parise got bought out on the same day with identical contracts? Adam, respectfully, I would tell you to take a hike. You would say, Adam, if that even happened, that would be the biggest story in hockey for an entire week. minimum none of those stories are the biggest stories in hockey there's one story that you have missed you did not know about that is happening now that is the biggest story in hockey jesse blake uh if you follow us on instagram or if you subscribe to our newsletter you would know

that yesterday we released our first ever dangle navy hockey jersey it dropped in our shop and we almost sold out of our entire inventory already off that small group who got the notifications from uh those two places and if you weren't a part of that group this is now you know now you know that they're available right now so we're only able to produce like a set amount before we got to send them off to the manufacturer because they got to know how many producing to put all the names and numbers on them you do get your name and your number on the jersey so um we're gonna have a cutoff time by the time we're gonna send them off so you gotta get your orders in and it would be really cool if we sold out of our first pressing that'd be awesome so yeah this is your

chance hit up stbn.ca get your dangle navy hockey jersey oh baby i love it i love it i honestly can't wait to get this thing it's gonna be fun it's gonna be so cool so we're putting and we're putting on steve's jersey ah hell yeah so so these are special too right jesse because they are they have the do they not have the insignia do they not have the special So on the logo, there's a little first edition little thingy on it. So, yeah, it'll be cool. Neat. Neat.

No, I like it. You're going to get a jersey for free, which you're definitely going to wear for the next decade because it's free. And you're not kind of pumped about the fact that it says first edition. Doesn't that matter to you hockey doll folk? No. First of all, hockey figure. Second of all, Jesse, turn up your mic.

Third of all, I don't think I've ever – I don't think I've ever worn a Jersey with a C really. I don't think so. And certainly not one with my name on the back. I know some people do that. They make themselves the captain and I get it, but captain of the dangle Navy. I am honored.

I am honored. And if it ever goes south, you know, I have to go down with the ship. That's right. That's my role. That's my role in all of this. It's the responsibility that you take on willingly.

now i absolutely i do want to say um these jerseys are super cool and that's why you want to be like your grandmother and sign up for a newsletter i know it's like the last thing that anybody ever thinks to do but definitely in this case do it because we've got exclusives coming all season long next year as well uh who knows maybe even more this summer and you find out first if you sign up with the newsletter that's why that's why we want you signed up there's also a brand new adam wild mug in the store yeah we're always updating little uh little parts of the shop So if you want to get a mug with Adam Miles' giant face on it, you can do that now. It is a big face.

It's a big face. Steve, what are you looking at? You've tuned us out already. My wife, who I thought was out, is home. So I was concerned as to who was in the basement. Did you? Oh, she gave me the finger. Okay.

Did you put the door? I guess you didn't put the door up, eh? No. Not yet. Is that door ever going to go back on the studio? or well it might have to wait until after i'm done shooting all these trade trees because today i shot the first one out of the bunch how many do you have uh like how many have we already done or how many are we going to do how many are you going to do to satiate us this summer 10 so like once a

week oh yeah we're going to bank them so i can go on vacation admittedly there are going to be some where you're like, Steve doesn't have a beard anymore or something like that. But no, we're going to bank them. And should I spoil it? Should I spoil what the first one is? Do it. Do it right now.

Tease it. Give me 80% of the first one. Iggy. That's all I'm giving you. Iggy, there's a big reason why that jersey's in the shadow box right now. My Team Canada signed by Jerome McGinley. also i just i had to give back the habs jersey it wasn't mine so okay well that's good i'm glad i'm glad to hear that um hey so uh big big news in the nhl i did mention it yesterday we saw a

double buyout and i don't think we've ever seen we haven't seen too many contracts that are exactly the same when they're signed and even less i mean i don't know if we've ever seen this before i'm sure Sportsnet stats can tell us. But for the first time, I believe we saw two identical contracts bought out on the exact same day. They were signed on the same day. They were bought out on the same day. And those are Parise and Suter from the Minnesota Wild. Now, there is a lot to unpack here. But, you know, $15 million in dead cap is the number in a couple of years. You know, this year they're going to, you know, they gain a little bit. You know, it's only going to cost some 2 million bucks or something like that. The next year it's 12 million. The next year it's 14.74

million or something like that. And that's for two straight years. So you imagine a team trying to compete with $15 million in dead cap for two straight years. I don't know what prompted this or what started this, but it's a very interesting subject to get into. Now, first off, I think before we get to all of that, Stephen Dangle, you have had an ax to grind with the Minnesota wild organization for a long long time and i'm just wondering couldn't get past can you stop hating them now that these two albatross contracts although honestly suitors wasn't really that much of an albatross oh yeah can you stop can you stop hating the minnesota wild is it possible for you to find forgiveness oh yeah no i'm done i'm done uh because i i never in a million years by the way

suitor and parise only finished the first year of their contracts when this podcast began that's how long we've been doing a podcast and that's how long those contracts they still had four years left each of them it was wild i saw a clip of ours where we were talking about the minnesota wild and those deals specifically where we were talking about those deals being half done that was three years ago and they still had four years left by the end of it it's they're they're unbelievable and the idea that parise was bought out like you said not that wild not that minnesota even but suitor getting bought out at the same time same day shocking i never would have imagined that in a million years and that is why you know how i vaguely and i'm gonna tie this to the canucks

i've vaguely been like you know what i think jim benning is good at some aspects of his job and that's why he should be fired because he's been there for so long and sometimes you just need a fresh set of eyes the minnesota wild bring in a fresh set of eyes with bill garren he's got no allegiance to those deals he didn't sign him he doesn't care so he was able to actually see the bigger picture for the minnesota wild what they're going to be for the next couple years what they're going to be in years three and four and he said you know what the best choice for my hockey team is to buy these two out doesn't matter if you agree with them but the guy who signed those deals was never ever going to do that because it's an admission of failure but that

guy's gone he's long gone so bill garren's the one making the tough decisions and i gotta say i admire the the the big brass ones as elliot friedman put it yeah i think that a lot of credit needs to be given to bill grant for what he's doing because he's really just he's taken everything from the old era and just gotten rid of it. The names that he's since... Not Matt Dumba. Not Matt Dumba. We'll talk about that. In 23

months, he's traded Zucker, Eric Stahl, and Devin Dubnik, and then he didn't bring back Mikko Koivu, and then now he's cut ties with Parise and Suter. He came in here, and he saw what worked and what didn't. He's been here for long enough, two years, 24 months,

and you see, okay, these guys are the leaders, and it's not working. Maybe the locker room needs a change and needs to go over to the young guys. So we need to get rid of the old guard. Like as long as Parise and Suter and Koivu were here, Guerin clearly felt like there would never be a change in the locker room. And hockey is such a locker room sport. You know, there's so much made of, hey, these guys get along together.

And if he felt like it needed a serious culture change, this is cutting ties. So credit to him and going to like Craig Leopold, who clearly signed off on the original deals and be like, hey, we need to do this and getting his owner to actually convince him and be like, Hey, here's the freedom. Go ahead. I'll pay all of these millions of dollars to no one to play for my hockey team. Well, and Craig Leopold was the owner of the Preds before he was the owner of

the wild, which is why Suter moved from Nashville to Minnesota in the first place. The thing that I don't, that I want to ask you is, is that I think everybody could kind of can see why Parise was bought out. Everybody gets that. far past his best and not worth the seven point what was it four million dollar cap it like just just not worth it yeah so and and we thought you know when these contracts were signed nobody thought hey they're going to be full value contracts all the way through you know but

they might get some time when those 11 and 12 year deals were signed a lot of people said yeah but they'll be retired by them and all these players didn't retire so they just kept going and it'd be worse if they retired because then there's cap recapture which hangs on your books even more yes so so let me ask you this okay can't move parise you know you got to buy him out explain suitor to me because when i look at suitor stats when i look at the way the role he plays when i look at what he brings on the ice this guy's still a top four defenseman in the league And maybe he's not worth the contract that he is being paid for anymore. But tell me how he's worth seven million or sorry, I guess a million in dead cap space this season and then six the next year and then seven the next two.

How does that make sense? And I have a theory, but I wanted to ask because beyond my theory, which really has no basis in anything, I don't understand that. so there's there's a number of factors here and i've i've extrapolated a lot there was a a five minute 10 minute chunk from 31 thoughts especially that i extrapolated a lot from so nick letty and i promise i'll get back to the wild trust me it all relates nick letty with the new york islanders five and a half million dollar cap hit um a lot of people were comparing them to duncan keith because the islanders are making him available wait a sec what the hell why did you go out and get donkey keith at full rate when this guy was available and he's signed for two years

it's etc etc so the same the same has been said for suitor why did you simply not go out and get suitor well one of the things that freed said on the show is would there be teams out there and i'm paraphrasing would there be teams out there willing to go get a guy like nick leddy Of course. Of course. Is it a little rich? Yeah, maybe. Could you finagle it somehow? Maybe there's some retention. Maybe this, maybe that. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. But how many teams would be able to acquire Nick Letty and then protect him? Or acquire him, protect him, and then not lose someone who they want to keep in the expansion draft, right? oh my god well i was looking at their situation and they're not going to lose anyone i'm not sure if that's good the good news or bad like i couldn't tell that's how bad the situation is they're not to use all of their slots can they just be like hey everyone's unprotected whatever it's yours it ain't good we are going to bring them up by the way sorry for bringing

them up early but we are going to have a segment on buffalo of course so there's nick letty the The other thing there with Suter is Freed said he, based on what he knows, he does not think Suter would want to play in Canada. He's a big Hockey USA guy. He's an American, et cetera, et cetera. Now, separate from Freed, I have heard similar things. I don't think Ryan Suter would play in Canada. I don't think he wants to play in Canada. the no move clause was a big deal because why didn't the wild simply expose him expose him

in the expansion draft they can't because of the no move but they could have asked they didn't ask that is confusing to me right because i assume based on that conversation hey like surely the oilers knocked surely ken holland at least picked up the phone surely surely but not also if you see a guy with a no move clause and mc next to their name and they don't play for a canadian team they don't want to play for a canadian team brian burke already said that the 99 percent of guys in the league have their no moves almost specifically because of canada they can't afford the pay cut uh etc etc and like i mean if you're a guy like tavaris it's fine because toronto's home and this is where you're going to build your home forever and ever ryan suiter

doesn't want to do that i have a very difficult time believing he was never asked to wave his no move clause now he might not have been asked recently he might not have been asked hey can you wave it for seattle purposes can you wave it for trade purposes but i'm willing to bet over the years at some point he was asked remember there was an expansion draft a few years ago where this could have been addressed with vegas and i wonder if his answer remained the same different gm though i wonder different gm i wonder if he was boisterous about it um because there were again there were little allusions to butting of heads with leadership suitor and parise and miko koivu again this goes back to what jesse said about the old guard and moving on from that i

think that's a very healthy thing for the minnesota wild i think this is bill garren going you know what i'm not going to be able to trade this player because this player won't let me so i'm going to do the one thing i can do buy them out it does seem odd that you wouldn't just ask though i don't there's no getting around that even if he sat in the dressing room if he screamed it screamed it at the media if he tattooed it on his chest you still should ask the question now this is a guy who just hung up on his gm though okay so he was mad he got bought out but call because he didn't want to leave right so you but it doesn't mean you don't call them and ask there are i just i i assume i assume garen knew the answer but you still call and you still ask guys i still try to explain

we need to keep matt dumba perhaps you're right now what we've talked about on the show especially recently is no move clause forget all that it's it's basically a i am choosing where i want to get traded clause sure for some it is actually a no move clause I'm willing to bet it was a no move no move clause no move clause for Ryan Suter he didn't want to go anywhere so Bill Guerin did what he could and he bought him out Adam what was your theory uh my theory is that uh I think Steve I guess alluded to it I didn't get a chance to catch 31 thoughts today. Sounds like I might've been somewhat close. It seems like there's a personality issue and I'm not talking about like somebody being a bad person. I'm talking about a difference

of where this team is going. And it seems to me like, even, even if all of what Steve said is true, I mean, losing Matt Dumba would be unacceptable. You can't, you just cannot lose him. But if, if I think there has to be more to this, are you telling me a team wouldn't make room for a guy like matt dumba i'll get rid of someone else we'll take him if you want to trade him uh if you can't move suitor uh there has to be something on a personal level here where suitor and wild management did not get along i have a galaxy brain theory what is it galaxy brain so minnesota's in like a truly unique situation they're getting enormous cap relief this season a little teeny bit of cap relief the next season and then they're getting demolished

three and four years from now for three straight years 12 14 14 right that is when they project the cap will likely start to go up so that will help with a little bit of relief but still oh you're still gonna get like hammered like 10 million bucks against the cap So what if Bill Guerin and the Minnesota Wild, this young, exciting Minnesota Wild team who got a sniff with their first round series against Vegas, they got a great chance to evaluate how good they are, how close they are to winning a series, maybe winning a few, you know, and they project that they're going to be better. what if they absolute balls to the wall go for it absolutely a thousand and billion percent go for it for the next two years especially this upcoming year knowing full well last dance style but obviously completely different context knowing full well the three years from now they got to tear this shit down they got to go right they got to go and that's when you trade

dumba when he's done his prime or at the tail end of his prime that's when you trade a player like him or a player like this guy or a player like that guy maybe i know he's the captain but that's a great name that's a big contract right it's a big contract they've written in stone the core of this team or a couple guys caprizov they're building around him no question yeah to a lesser extent to a lesser extent um but kaprizov who supposedly going to get a year deal and erickson ek who just got an eight-year deal the other little tidbit that we heard is the minnesota wild and bill garren specifically want jack eichel bad can i just say it's not the craziest strategy to go in there and pluck jack eichel away

from a vulnerable kevin adams have him for a couple years absolutely go for it and then when he still has plenty of value trade him i think it would be extremely extremely interesting to see the minnesota wild go for it maybe even get a star at the level of jack eichel and then whether they win the cup or they don't c'est la vie you know in a couple years you're gonna have to make sacrifices surely so you're you're saying you know surely uh you at least approach Ryan Suter and I'm saying surely based on the situation Bill Guerin just put himself in he understands the situation he just put himself in and the situation kicks ass next year and the year after but sucks

three and four and you can sell those guys and get young players right cost less because people are talking about all this situation as it looks no like people are talking about the minnesota wild he has to play his card so people i saw people say oh well this means minnesota's rebuilding no it means they're going to rebuild and but because of the young pieces they already have they're not going to have to rebuild they're going to have to retool big difference now Now, Steve, I think you're onto something there. I think that's really smart. I want to know, and that makes the Suter buyout make a lot more sense,

because even if he waived for the expansion draft, you know that he's not getting claimed. So, you know, still having him isn't really helpful to them if they want to go get Jack Eichel. The one wrench I would say is, what if Kaprizov doesn't want to sign for eight years? i know we've heard rumors that that's what's been offered but what i haven't heard is him and his agent say we're interested in that and remember he is a unique situation because he can say

fuck off i'm going to russia right this is the very interesting thing surely bill garron has an idea of the direction the wind is blowing surely and if i was erickson eck i'm in a good mood because you just gave me millions of dollars for eight years of my life but if you didn't tell me this might happen i think i might be in a bad mood why because what the dude i just committed to eight years of this team and year three and four we're gonna suck well and he but here's the good thing for eric erickson he accepted longer term lower aav makes him more tradable you know if they do have to trade somebody if they are retooling and he's going into his prime so he's 24 years old right now by the time this bad cap situation kicks in

he'll be 26 27 he'll be at the prime of his value the cap will be going up and contracts like his will be hard to find uh guys that can play first second line minutes for four and a half million or whatever he's getting i mean worst that's not the worst that's not the worst contract to take gone that's a valuable deal can i extrapolate again from uh russo and friedman who both did excellent reporting on the story so i haven't been able to read russo and i am dying for the story because i've read little snippets it's great so in there there's a there's a conversation between garen and parise first he tries to call suitor suitor doesn't answer he calls parise he tells parise is going to be bought out they have a long discussion then parise calls suitor who

answers the phone who just didn't answer his gm but instead answers parise parise gives him the heads up on what's happening uh suitor he calls garen garen gets suitor on the phone he tells them then suitor hangs up on his gm so all of that happens and elliot elliot also um talked about how the relationship between um suitor and parise in the locker room how they're the leaders of that team and how parise is kind of taking a step back because his play he's been a healthy scratch in the playoffs his play hasn't been that great his um he's taking a step back on the ice and off of the ice but suitor is still kind of the leader in the locker room so just extrapolating from those couple stories i look at the situation i say these two are a package deal you had to get rid of these

two guys together you couldn't have one stick around and expect a full change if you're going to keep one or the other so i look at that and i say they got rid of these two guys that helps the negotiations with everybody else there because you tell caprizoff now this team is yours you're here for eight years we got rid of the two guys who are the two loudest voices in this locker room now this team is yours eight years join us minnesota wilds face the franchise you're here everybody knows you're now the best player if you want to take a leadership role that's your thing there's space for that now so i think this is just going to help the negotiations and act too like he now he's probably super happy that hey now there's freedom amongst amongst this team we

can build our own thing going together and these next two years when we're going for it like i'm going to be around here for that so i just think it's going to help if i was caprizoff's agent i would turn that around on you and i would say so you need us yeah and here's all you need in the world so what we're going to do is short term so when the country so when so when it's harder on you and i'm closer to ufa now i'm going to charge you more money i think kaprizov if he's smart signs for three years you could that's crazy and and here's the thing he'll be the face of the franchise anyway well and garen is unlikely to do something that will piss off kaprizov sure so i gotta think he's at at very least indifferent potentially even pleased that this

happened the worst situation to be in in the national hockey league is to be a team that sucks by accident the teams that suck on purpose are at least that's rebuilding if you stink on purpose you're rebuilding if you stink by accident you stink yeah you're a second round vancouver canucks team that finishes last in the division oh that's not stinking adam there's there's there are higher standards for stinking trust me i cheer for one but the minnesota wild get to plan When they stink. Most teams don't get to do that. And they might not even stink three years from now.

Like, Bill Guerin has three years to address that issue. And when the issue arrives, he'll be able to stare it in the face. Because he's known that it's coming. He's known that it's happening. And how long is the window anyway? Usually. Three to five years? who knows right for the next two years though bill garren might have taken a look at the

tampa bay lightning who have who listen we're playing with a different deck they weren't cheating but everyone else was playing with an 81 and a half million dollar salary cap and the lightning were not that's the long and short of it the minnesota wild are playing with a higher salary cap than everybody else next year that's the truth that is a great situation that is the sort of situation that allows you to catch the league completely off guard with some really interesting wrinkles in the league we're not even going to pay attention to the expansion team who's about to come in and gobble up a player from each and every team in the league bill garen might be stupid like a fox and watch out for the minnesota wild next year don lecision

you're about to have a very good season i don't think that uh anybody thought bill garen was stupid i think it's just hard to see sometimes the forest through the trees i don't think anybody thought oh those are those guys are pieces of the future the thing i'll say with parise too is i know he'll he'll get picked up by somebody real quick and i wouldn't be shocked if it's two locations Number one, Islanders, Lou Amorello connection. Lou loves his guys from Jersey. Loves his guys. Okay.

And number two, Vegas. Remember, he went to the cup final with Pete DeBoer. So, you know, those are good opportunities for him. And he probably doesn't care what kind of money he signs for because whatever. Right, Eric? Merrick brought up a great point. What's that? Ryan Suter played his best hockey in Nashville with Shea Weber as his partner.

So Montreal, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, who coaches. the new york islanders it's barry trotz who was that team of who he is the coach of the new york islanders my friends can i just say can i make it can i make a suggestion here so i think the minnesota wild who are already pretty good are gonna absolutely a hundred thousand percent go for it right they're gonna a thousand percent go for it the new york islanders have been to the final four for each of the last two seasons parise and suitor are often a package deal we know lou wants parise because remember there was that failed trade deadline deal a few years ago that involved andrew ladd i believe yes yeah remember when when that was all confirmed and they had to

take it back exactly why do they have to take that back again what happened because the contracts didn't line up the they submitted the money wrong i think it was yeah it was yeah hey so this trade's illegal so anyway the islanders who have been to the final four for each of the next two seasons could acquire parise and suitor and go to the stanley cup final next year make it out of the eastern conference make it to the stanley cup final where they will face the minnesota wild oh man how good would that be good story good would that be it'd be a good story it'd be a real good story um maybe they'll beat the toronto maple leafs on the way there i mean who knows right we couldn't we couldn't have it all could we ah if they make the playoffs it's uh it is

funny uh just kind of breaking that down yesterday and looking at the the capsies but you know what now that you put it that way steve and i know that minnesota's got some pretty good young prospects coming up so they may not be as worried about drafting and also i mean that they gotta buffalo's gotta get some young close to nhl high caliber talent for jack eichel you think so maybe they do have the bullets i don't know their system well enough but maybe they do well and part of the reason um you buy out uh parise and suitor as elliot mentioned it's not just for some reason dumba got picked on yesterday and it's because minnesota's had to make deals to protect him twice now i hate the twitter narrative that comes out of any deal you know it's always just some

cheap shot and one-liners and it's like okay look at the details of what actually happened and the reporting and the actual contract and the the team at large and don't just take shots at matt dumba because the team likes him it was ridiculous i didn't like that he got picked on i did like his instagram post it's literally like gorgeous cottage country lake two golden retrievers in the water and just the caption have a blessed day i was like i'm fairly certain this is what heaven looks like in in this photo but it's not just dumba it's also nico stern who elliott friedman brought up minnesota man they got some really good players a lot of them are on the right side of 30 even the right side of 25 if you're an athlete i i'll say it one more time just so the

point is driven home the minnesota soda wild are about to 1 billion percent go for it in the 2021 2022 season and bill garren might look like the smartest man in hockey okay we'll see also if you bet on if you bet on futures like all of this is saying that the seattle kraken are going to have a great shot at making the playoffs next year and you might want to put down some money on hey, Kraken's making playoffs 2022. Their division is ass. I think I saw

Justin Bourne tweet something like if you put down 20 bucks on the Kraken winning the cup, it returns three grand. Nice. Man, you got 20 bucks in your couch. I'll do that. Vegas was two games away.

Yeah. Oh, Jesse, three. Don't be ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous. 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.

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know we already did yes okay good yeah well first off there's an extra wrinkle there yeah well the cap recapture right yes so if duncan keith retires at the end of this coming season the oilers will gain 3.3 million dollars in negative cap space something like that it's a little it's it's so People instantly go from Ken Holland's an idiot to Ken Holland is a genius. Well, and it's an extreme version of something the Leafs had a few years ago with Jared Cowan. Remember all that?

Oh, that was bad. Yes. They buy him out and there was a negative cap hit when they were asked, but then there was a positive cap hit when they were good. It was, it was very confusing. But if Keith plays next season and then retires,

imagine the Oilers win the cup. This situation could happen. The Oilers could win the Stanley cup. He, he goes, you know what not going to get much better than that retires because he's not making any actual money anymore anyway and then the Oilers as a going away gift after winning the cup get three and a half million dollars cap space Ken Holland will look like a genius and the Blackhawks would

absolutely be right for asking for a lot because as the podcast on OilersNation.com pointed out who knows maybe this was negotiated into the deal right and the Blackhawks gain cap back yeah they 5.5 right the 22 23 season they get a 5.5 cap hit and the 23 24 season they get a two million dollar cap it oh penalty penalty yeah okay i was like what like uh like what did in uh with florida when he retired in vancouver it cost florida money or cap space so i mean why does it work this way i don't know i don't understand who even came up with the concept it's bizarre i don't think that works i think with the new structures it doesn't work like that but now that these old contracts are coming up we're starting to see it right

the nhl collective bargaining agreement created by the makers of mario party like it's who the who the hell who the hell came up with you know you've friggin yoshi falling off a brick and mario mario all of a sudden gains all these coins and you fall off a cliff i don't understand it It doesn't make any sense. I also want to shout out all the people in my DMs after last episode who said really, really nice things after the DM I got about the Dungan Keith deal. I wasn't even asking for that. And a lot of people, unlike you two, thought it was pretty funny. So thank you very much.

Divorce jokes for the win, baby. Let's go. Jesus. Make no mistake. It's extremely funny. Okay. But as your friend, I'm not allowed to laugh out loud. Okay, fine.

Well, our podcast listeners came out in droves. I got like, I'm not kidding. Like hundreds of DMS from people going, Hey, that's very kind. Yeah. It was really cool. So thank you. I didn't, I, you know, I appreciate it again. It's a stranger. Don't worry about what strangers think about you. It's none of your business, but, uh, but I do really appreciate you guys saying that. And it means a lot. Thank you so much. And let's move on to somebody that Steve was in love with and i can't quite figure out why like i get the player again but the number it's gonna cost to get the player is i think a lot hit me at least for the leafs gabe lanis kog now the apps and gabriel lanis kog you think my name is drew huh do you think my name is drew

you put it in the group message the other day you're like oh that'd be great if hyman doesn't sign you said that you yeah oh yeah yeah but he's gonna be more than hyman he's gonna be far more than hyman which is makes me sad i'm just okay fine so you so you said what i thought you said right oh yeah like landis cog if he wants like eight mil or whatever it is that he's asking for no not in a million years and that's what they're saying eight to nine million dollars for gabriel landis cog and the abs obviously don't seem to want to pay that buddy like okay you're a one gabriel landis cog is a wonderful leader he's a good defensive player he's a decent offensive player he ain't miko ranton and he's looking at miko's deal and going i want that and i'm here

to tell you no that is far too much now he's going to unrestricted free agency right you get paid i'll say what i've said several times guys who are ufas looking for the big payday i'm sorry but the world decided you're screwed and by screwed i mean i mean not compared to most people you're going to be a millionaire no uh no matter what but the payday you were going to get two years ago simply isn't available so why not why not take millions of dollars from the colorado avalanche who really genuinely cannot be that far away from winning cannot be that far away from winning they're further away without them they absolutely are you're totally true you're totally right there sign with colorado gabe it would look wrong as an external fan if you went

anywhere else and you have such a good shot at winning with colorado you've built a life there i don't understand why he would go anywhere else and he's been the captain since he was 19 yeah like stevie eisenman age yeah a decade it's a very it's a small group of guys who were captains at that age steve eisenman jonathan taves maybe sydney crosby i don't remember mcdavid was 20 yeah it's it's real it's a short list man man i remember interviewing connor mcdavid and asking him if he was going to be captain of the oilers and then him going i'm not going to answer that question and then yeah he actually said that and then my producer went up to me afterwards he's like you know maybe you shouldn't have asked him that i'm like why

like why and then uh and then a week later they named him captain was this for channel one no it breakfast television i interviewed him live and uh it was on it was remote like it was a connor mcdavid golf tournament or something like that so i asked all the questions that you want to ask about the golf tournament first and then i asked the last question was are you going to be the captain of the oilers next year i remember that that that's i forgot i need to interview him but yeah that's and then a week later literally okay what's what were the words literally i'm not going to answer that question they were uh it was you know it was a it was basically like it was like a yeah i'm not not gonna talk about that basically which is fine i was totally cool with it like i

didn't care i had nothing to lose the interview i was gonna say if his actual words were i'm not gonna answer that question and you did everything you were supposed to do with the golf and then got into sports that's rude oh i don't think that's rude but no no but he didn't use those words uh as your friend i was ready to go to bat but he didn't i kind of expected that it's sort of like you know sometimes you got to ask questions that you know the answer to or you know that you're going to get a non-answer for yes you did and i had to ask the question as the captain of a canadian nfl team you think you'd be prepared for that but well the producer they came uh they they were like well listen this is breakfast television like it's not sports not like we

you know whatever i'm like it's conor mcdavid i gotta ask the question so i did uh but that's that's bad feedback i don't know who the producer was but that's bad feedback it's it's a-okay i just now i'm just kind of remembering that yeah connor mcdavid 20 years old when when he would became captain so here's the thing is is gabriel landis cog going to get eight million dollars a year on the open market steve boy i really don't think so i really don't Um, again, if he takes a short deal, maybe, uh, I mean, long deal, $8 million wouldn't make any sense. Uh, he's one of those guys who he's been young for so long that we forget how old he is.

Yeah. He's close to 30. Is he not right? So term doesn't really make sense. He's 28. Again, I just, dude, like take God, like what, what are they offering you? seven take seven and win a cop in colorado like have a really good shot like i was talking to drew who's you know uh producer drew residents colorado avalanche fan and he's like well maybe

he'll go to st louis because him and ryan o'reilly are friends and i'm like he thinks the place to win in 2022 is st louis who's like okay you you put him on the st louis blues right now they're closer to the cup yes absolutely no argument for me don't they want it doesn't tarasenko want to trade well he hasn't been a big part of the blues the last couple years yeah because he's been injured which is why he wants to trade yeah because he doesn't trust their medical staff anymore i i don't know i don't know i i told drew i go listen you as an avalanche fan are not used to dealing with this horse shit i'm a leafs fan i am he's posturing he's trying to get as much money as he can out of the colorado avalanche and that is where he will end up signing they have a gabriel

landis cog sized hole in their cap and on their roster that gabriel landis cog can fill a lot of teams don't have both of those things the avalanche do that's where he's going to end up the money will eventually work out avalanche fans don't worry chill one thing i wonder is if they're asking him to take less than nathan mckinnon because mckinnon makes 6.3 which is the best contract in the league which is 6.3 million dollars below where he should be it should be like 12 so i wonder if eisenman or sakic is in a tough negotiation with him right now and is saying hey you can't be making more than the best player on our team you're a captain take like six you didn't say that shit to rancid and well i think i think it's a different negotiation i think

landis kog he's a he's a point of game player like he's you're getting somebody who you can guarantee is going to put up the numbers you're going to get a great leader obviously uh captain but it's not he's not rancid and he's not mckinnon he's not he's not kale mccarr he's in terms of the the the performance on the ice he's probably number four on the team number five even could you not make the argument too that some of those points are boosted by the fact that ranton and mckinnon are there a hundred percent so do you probably asking him to take around that mckinnon number and he's probably saying no if i go somewhere i'm gonna get seven million so why am i giving that up here fair to him too that mckinnon deal was signed a long time ago and if

i were him i'd be like i don't fucking care what he what he devalued himself at at the time i'm this now yeah so do you not know that doesn't mean that i mean listen i'd love to see gabriel landis cog skating around with the anaheim ducks just for something weird that is one of the teams where it's like weird you always go oh yeah they played for the ducks do you know what i mean there's like some certain teams are like oh they played for that they play for the ducks rangers sometimes the leafs i need the ducks to do something to make them relevant this offseason boy they're underratedly they don't take enough shit they're bad where does making eight million dollars for gabe landis cog in the league makes sense like as in the team isn't handcuffed by

that deal and i can't find a team tampa how's he gonna make eight million in tampa because he can anybody can yeah they'll figure it out well just sit stamkos for the year i mean i mean they probably could like we said but what i'm saying here is that like in all honesty let's say we're playing we're playing the non-ltir game guys is there is there a team where eight million dollars for gabriel landis cog makes sense and they're gonna win that's not his job his job isn't to figure out the contract structure of the rest of the team his job is to go out and get as much money as he can well that's his agent's job and true and then his job is just get money you know go sign a contract and if he if he wants to win then you re-sign in colorado like that's it but

if you just want to go get money and get a $7.5 million payout for five years, go somewhere else. Somebody will give it to you. GMs just hand out money all the time. Huckpedia. Gabriel Landis Scott. His agent is Peter Wallen.

You know who I was looking for. Not Darren Farris. You know who I was looking for. Gabriel Landis Scott going back to Sweden. Bullshit! Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Oh, wow. Wow, this agent has some very very good clients victor headman who signed for less and ended up winning imagine that uh

jonas brodeen elias lindholm john klingberg marcus petterson ricard raquel jesper bachwist mario ferraro i i don't italians i don't know why i say mario i do i know i'm wrong i'm sorry uh and uh timothy lilligren oh and he is a busy bee this offseason very busy bee he's got a bunch of free agents eric ustafson uh matthias yanmark but landa scog is definitely priority number one guys my instinct tells me uh they're just playing hardball with the abs that's where he's gonna end up or they'll end up signing zach hyman and he can pass the cup to nazim kadri when they win it and i will i'll just burn all my leaf things i'll just burn them i'm i'm this close to doing it anyway that'll do it jeff skinner has agreed to uh waive his

no movement clause in buffalo because i mean listen it's it couldn't go worse for him so if he does get selected by ron francis who he knows quite well hey that's cool but we all know that it's not going to happen nine dollars a year for the next 800 million years no now this does give the Sabres a chance to protect an eighth forward from Seattle. The final two spots came down to Anders Bork, Tage Thompson, and Rasmus Asplund. It looked like it was going to be Bjork and Thompson that were protected, and Rasmus Asplund might have been a really

interesting thing for Seattle to pick up from Buffalo. Do you have the first seven names? do you have all the names i don't have that i basic sorry i only had the names that were sort of it was in but i can actually pull that out so here i actually i do oh baby i'd love to know the list it's a list so i was talking to good old duane duane steinel because i was trying to figure out what on god's green earth the buffalo sabers are doing now if let's assume the jack eichel trade happens after seattle which i'm now forced to assume that is what's going to happen they're going to protect they're going to go seven and three okay they're going to protect jack eichel

obvi they're not going to protect jeff skinner kyle akpozo why would you protect that contract 33 years old um he's had terrible terrible luck terrible luck in general six million dollars so you're not protecting their contract. Sam Reinhardt, of course you are. Restricted free agent, though. You don't have to protect him. Yes, you do. UFAs, you don't have to protect.

RFAs, you do, because Seattle could grab Reinhardt and then they could sign him because they'll have his rights through free agency, right? Someone could offer Sheetum still, but he's an RFA, right? UFAs, you don't have to protect. So the Sam Reinhardt one, he doesn't on-cap friendly. he's not checked in green so you don't have to protect him no you do so he doesn't meet exposure

requirements that's what that means so you need to have x amount of guys under contract exposed to see up so even so there's two requirements right you have to protect x amount of guys but also you have to have a certain amount of players under contract which is have a bunch of you can't just have like your players protected and everybody else is UFA because then everyone would just have everyone expiring right now the the Leafs until they signed Travis Dermott actually did not meet exposure requirements for defensemen right so are is Buffalo even going to reach the exposure requirements uh yes they are okay so and and well this is very interesting Jesse so So Eichel, I assume, obviously, Skinner waived.

Ocpozo, there's no point protecting him. Sam Reinhardt, you protect. Victor Olofsson, you protect. Cody Eakin, one year left, 32.25. I say they don't protect. Zemgus Gergensens, I think they do. Anders Bjork, I mean, they better. Tage Thompson, I think they do.

He's only 23. Casey Middlestad, I think they do. He's only 22. And then there's Asplund, who I think they'll leave exposed. and then the rest of these guys. You think Asplen will be? No, I think they're going to protect him. So who would you leave unprotected?

Thompson? I'm just saying that's what John Vogel tweeted out today. So he thinks Thompson will be exposed. Yeah. In our latest expansion projection, the final two spots came down to Bjork, Thompson, and Asplen. Now there are three spots and the Sabres can protect them all. So that's really easy then.

So I take out Thompson, they protect Middlestad, they protect Asplen. Done. Easy. On defense, I protect Rasmus Ristolainen. who still does have trade value. Dwayne thinks he might not. Then their second highest paid defenseman is Colin Miller.

I ain't protecting him. Right. So then there's Jake McCabe, who you probably should protect. Oh, no, he's a UFA. I screwed up. No, no, no. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry, sorry.

Ristolainen, I protect. Miller, I ain't protecting. McCabe, I don't have to because he's a UFA. Then there's two RFAs, Darlene and Yoki Aru. Now, do I meet requirements? Yes, I do. The reason I meet requirements is because Colin Miller is under contract and I'm not protecting him.

If I do protect him, and let's say I leave Yoki Aru exposed, I no longer meet requirements because I don't have any defensemen under contract exposed. So I take the check off of Miller. I put it on Yoki Aru. There you go. Now I meet requirements. And the other interesting thing with Buffalo is the goalie.

Oh, so they got to do a little bit of homework, these guys, because you have to protect a goalie and you have to have a goalie exposed. They only have one goalie under contract and it's Dustin Takarski. Oh, so you expose Takarski. You expose what? So you're going to protect an unrestricted free agent. you can technically do that yeah you protect all mark and then that's it if i'm i think you can technically do that if i'm them i am calling montreal and we've heard rumors about this

montreal signed jake allen uh what traded for and then signed jake allen to an extension for just this reason but now he's played really well so they don't want to lose him for nothing so bergevin is trying to move him jake allen would be a steadying presence that even if you have Linus Allmark uh coming back I'm not no guarantees that you do but let's say you do let's say you're able to bring him back Alan Allmark is not a bad pairing to have and here's a guy that just went to the Stanley Cup final you're gonna have a lot of young players in the room I know goalies aren't like captains or assistants normally except for Roberto Luongo but at a certain point that's kind of cool right like I think you know he could bring a lot manageable contract short term and you could

probably get him for very little people are going to look at you sideways for saying jake allen and the stanley cup final but he was a significant part of dragging the montreal canadians to the playoffs absolutely absolutely to hold the fort for a long time absolutely and it helps it helps the habs too because then they can open up a little more cap space so it is interesting that the sabers could potentially be the swiss bank account for one or two teams because man they really don't have a ton of guys worth protecting even some of the guys we are protecting if you lose them ah well like that doesn't sink most teams no but they're significant pieces of the and i'm curious about what other teams are worried about losing their second goaltender

like habs have got to be one of the only ones you know but like you you gave up so little to get alan like i understand you're gonna hear i think over the next few days you're gonna hear tons of stories where we really don't want to lose this guy for nothing because they've probably had trade discussions with this player or they know how good this player is they know that there's a market for this player nothing about your feelings nothing about those players abilities is going to change the fact that there is a big scary monster named the seattle kraken hiding under your bed and they are going to eat someone you love for every team except for vegas every single team in this league 30 teams they're taking someone there's and okay so montreal hides jake allen they trade him they

get you know a couple picks back then who do they lose you're still losing somebody you are but you probably can have some ahl goaltender under contract right you can do something like it's like the leafs they had michael hutchinson under contract for this no i mean like i mean like like not even necessarily in net like are they get then gonna lose a forward are they gonna lose a defender everybody is going to lose a decent player who is not worth giving away for nothing but every team has to give away a player for nothing that's how this works i don't know i like jake allen for buffalo i think that if they could swing something like that i like that it buffalo should absolutely explore it montreal i don't think they end up

doing it doing it really i don't think they end up doing it well they're saying the rumors out of montreal is they're looking to trade them they're calling anyone i'm sure but you're gonna get shit all if you're the because again you're the desperate one so you're not gonna lose them for nothing but you are gonna lose them for close to nothing but that's the point right yeah and better than close to nothing's better than nothing higher than zero is better than zero is that are we agreed on that i am oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah agreed on that higher than zero is better than zero but i think that's they should probably shop it yeah they should why not and this is why you hold on to Jack Eichel until the expansion draft is done,

by the way. Yeah. Cause you're not going to lose anybody. And then you're going to make this big blockbuster trade, hopefully get a bunch of actual living, breathing human beings who you're not risking losing to the big, scary monster under your bed named Seattle. Hmm.

Hmm. Oh my God. This, the rest of this month, it's going to be going to be so stupid. Crazy. Now on the goaltender front, the Leafs have,

according to Pierre Lebrun, talked to Frederick Anderson. It doesn't look like any offers were tendered, but I guess they're talking again and they're discussing. And it wouldn't make sense to sign him right now anyway, because why would you wait till he goes to market? And it looks like he will go to market. Also, it looks like Zach Hyman and the Leafs are super far apart. And I think rightfully so.

Like nobody on this team, I guess Tavares accepted, has taken a pay cut to play for this team. And I don't think that they should, frankly. I don't think that you should. I think you go after the most amount of money that the team will give you. So on that regard, as much as people resent, you know, whatever contracts have been signed by Dubas,

that is Dubas' fault. That's not the player's fault. Why are you signing in Toronto? For a chance to win? Because everyone else is taking a discount? Click. Hang up the phone. Go somewhere better.

So if you're Zach Hyman and all of your buddies have not signed at a discount and this is the height of your value, this is the most you'll ever be worth as a hockey player and you're going to the open market, why would you take a salary cut? They really do make me sick. Well, I mean, but don't blame Zach Hyman for it. And actually, don't blame the players for signing for it because they got the offer. when you see all the stars not take the discounts and they're like but you know the guy who's the plucky plucky hard-working guy he's gonna take the discount no screw you fellas this is how it happens this is how it happens people get in this business and they grew up cheering for a team it lasted for me a little bit longer cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs and then they slowly

drift into i don't cheer for teams i cheer for players and i think i finally get it i'll stop it i'll cheer for zach hyman go zach hyman team zach hyman i'll got if i have to i'll get a black jersey with no logo that just says hyman on the back uh and i'll cheer for him wherever he goes uh i i gotta tell you real close to the end end of the rope here jesse toronto maple leafs you still leaf fan yes yeah okay me too i just i don't under the rope for what's the yeah yo man yo i hate them everything goes south next year and dubas and keith get fired and they trade everybody i'm still gonna be a leaf fan and so are you right just be let's let's see who else is up who's who's the next owen power you know like like that's what i'm an adult i'm an adult

i don't have time to waste uh i'll still watch hockey still cheer for hockey i have a great time watching hockey um but the leafs are uh becoming a waste of time what you're hearing becoming a waste of time dude they've been 54 years of a waste of time sometimes you cheer for a waste of time and that is our that is our choice and i stand by it when my ship comes in by the way that's the words of a man who needs a vacation desperately so don't take steve at his word right now august 1st holy shit i can't wait uh i i have to say um i i was thinking about and what's that hyman not coming back no hyman not coming back i have a question and this is a crazy idea what is the most valuable asset this time of year for an nhl team cap space bingo

now this isn't going to make me popular but is this is this it adam is this what you tease in the groups yet no i don't think no no this was that was the wild thing um i have a crazy thought and it may not make sense but i would like to explore it with you too if you would indulge me so what if the leafs left morgan riley unprotected stop stop what if so let's see for instance i'd I'd literally, I'd create a Kyle Dubas voodoo doll. Okay. I'm saying if you roll back the defense that you had last year, the exact same as it was,

we're seeing a diminishing role for Morgan Riley. If you want to go out and get Dougie Hamilton, which I think they should, Morgan Riley, yes, it would make more sense to trade him to a team for assets. maybe i mean listen if duncan keith could get assets so could morgan riley or jake allen even but but freach made a good point and he has said this before too the most important thing in the national hockey league asset wise is cap space and i wonder did he say it in the context

of losing morgan riley for nothing no but i i wonder if just it's a crazy idea indulge me for a second no what kind of flexibility does that give you not ability to go spend your money like a dumbass somewhere not enough for it to be worth the storm that would ensue i promise you i'd never choose the least again if if morgan riley was a 10 million if he was an eight million dollar player i think it makes a lot of sense hey we're gonna lose them we're gonna trade them instead of trading them just lose them to seattle for free and take the cap space but it's only five million dollars i feel like that's such a tradable asset you might as well not lose it for free so this is my thing then we know that the Toronto Maple Leafs do not trade pending free agents did you hear how

I was in a good mood five minutes ago we're just talking about hockey like just talking hockey with my friend hey hey and now you bring up the Leafs and I hate it so so here's here's the thing we know that the Leafs do not trade pending UFAs what have we seen Hyman's gonna walk Anderson's probably gonna walk no we saw Van Riemsdyk walk we saw Bozak walk we saw all of these players for nothing because they do not do the things that smart hockey teams do you're absolutely they believe that it's keeping their players is kind of their trade deadline acquisition where hey we're going to make this run for the playoffs we're going to hold on to our guys and that's our get for the trade that's one day stomach one day somebody one day somebody's

going to do a report on the amount of assets the leafs could have gathered to support this young team with players they could have traded away a year before they expired. Genuinely learned anything. What's that a sick to my stomach. If we've learned anything, I hate these guys from watching the Leafs.

It's that you should probably do it. You should probably dump these guys before from nothing. Can I just have a fucking conversation here? No, no, especially considering how in 2019 or 2020, they

didn't make the playoffs you know considering right at that point in February hey you probably should have instead of holding on to everybody and then and not acquiring anybody if you guys remember that trade deadline yes go after anybody and they didn't trade anybody instead of doing that maybe trade some assets you still miss the playoffs in the bubble and then now you have guys heading into this previous season that you have that were under contract that can help boost this team if if I had a time machine I would go back and put clear tape on Curtis McElhinney skates so that Sidney Crosby scores and the Leafs miss the playoffs

and Tampa makes it. It might be the worst thing that's ever happened to this franchise. They were 17. Yeah, they thought they were too good before they were good.

And it set them back. I think I don't think that they did. I think that they had a philosophy of own rentals, which is a bullshit philosophy unless you've got someone coming off LTIR like Tampa,

like with Kucherov. This whole idea that you make your team better by holding onto the same players. No, you make your team the same. Yeah. And at a certain point, you need to trade current wins for future wins.

That's how you have to look at it. And the Leafs have blown opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. What do you think JVR at the trade deadline would have been worth? I know they were going to the playoffs. I know there would have been a fucking, people would have lost their fucking minds.

I'm miserable. I'm in physical pain. Imagine after the David Ayers game, the Leafs had quote overreacted and moved some of the guys they should have moved where would they be and I know we're playing the what-if game here but welcome to sports that's what we do and I'm talking trying to figure out so we have way forward in a cap is we cannot hang on and the other thing is is that listen I love Morgan Riley I love Morgan Riley as much as the next person Morgan Riley does something spectacularly and he has some severe limits to

his game his defensive numbers are in a word pretty terrible and so he is playing frontline minutes i have a question is a stanley cup winning team a team with morgan riley as your best defenseman he was great in the series against montreal and it didn't matter they sucked anyways right so i again i ask you the question garbage is a stanley cup winning team a team with morgan right because morgan riley at his best is not ever going to be dougie hamilton is not ever going to be alex petrangelo he's not he's not so my point is even at morgan riley's ceiling going into his prime which is where he is right now he is not going to be one of those players he is what he is and he's a great player but is he what they need and i don't think i'm not convinced that he is

Riley gives it to Hyman gives it to Kadri and I give myself to the ocean I think there's a lack of foresight that we've seen from this management team in the last couple years what are you talking about they signed Matthews to 5 and Marner to 6

lack of foresight what are you talking about Tavares to 7 what are you talking about they're walking into free agency what are you talking about they don't get rid of their pending UFAs and the guys they they do acquire like felino for a first this year you think like hey that first round pick is such a big asset and we we spent it to lose in the first round and it seems like

there's no there's no building towards the next thing it's always hey what's right in front of us what's within the next couple months then we're going to make deals towards that and trading morgan riley would be a move with a ton of foresight and just looking forward to this team seeing where we're going to be in the next year, next couple of years and getting some value out of that instead of just playing it out like they always do. It would be a terrific deal if they moved him this offseason. Trading him makes sense.

They traded Patrick Marleau and a first-round pick to Carolina to get rid of Patrick Marleau to refine Kapanen and Janssen. Would it not have made sense to just suck it up for a year and trade Kapanen and Janssen at that point? No, that would be looking ahead at them. And that's not what they do. And you have a first-round pick. They do what's needed in this moment.

So you bring in assets and you have the first-round pick instead of keeping the assets that you have and trading your first-round pick. No, and Kapanen and Janssen, you know, they're going to be great on this year's Leafs because they're still here and doing great things. So it was definitely worth it. And they weren't worth it.

When they re-signed, they were not worth it. no they're still here so it's great i would love to go back to the michael hutchinson saturday night game against the montreal canadians because babcock's a fucking crazy man and puts hutchinson and against the canadians on a saturday night at home where capitan threw his half stick and you see max told me from the bench sure but i'm saying capitan you fucking idiot well done this conversation is the worst thing that's ever happened to me so so here's the thing Asset management was supposed to be the strength of this Leafs management group. And I understand that you can make mistakes along the way.

But what I am seeing with this Leafs group now, and I was a big fan of them coming into this. I really was. High hopes is they are not managing the assets properly. And maybe it's time. And maybe it starts with Morgan Rielly. As tough as that is, and I'm not saying you leave them exposed necessarily. I'm just saying you got to find a team that'll take them. You do.

Or you protect them and then trade them afterwards. But the point is, I don't know how you move forward with Morgan Riley. Because I don't know how you can call yourself a Stanley Cup contender without a better defenseman back there. It's not that TJ Brody's not good. It's not that Jake Muzzin's not good. It's not that Justin Hall is at best okay. It's not that Sandin doesn't have some sort of ceiling.

We don't know what that is. and Dermot's Dermot he's other Caleb Jones apparently Eastern Conference Caleb Jones my question to you is how do you call yourself a contender without an A-plus defenseman every team every team had one one thing that's that's interesting is that defense wasn't even the problem no it wasn't it is interesting Jesse isn't it interesting isn't it interesting what's a movie where Steve Carell jumps out of the passenger seat. That's how I feel right now. I want to jump out of a moving car

just to escape this conversation. I hate them. I hate them. Viscerally. Every time I think of them, they ruin my day. Every time we talk about them, it ruins my day. What is it, Steve? I'm so much more excited to talk about the Minnesota Wild.

For fuck's sake, the Buffalo Sabres! We didn't... I didn't react this way when we were talking about the god forsaken, literally the Buffalo Sabres. So the defense wasn't the problem. So it's either, hey, we take from the thing that's working, which I think isn't a bad strategy

because they have an excess of defense, plus you can get an asset back, and we add to the thing that wasn't working. So you probably would move Riley for a defense piece plus to bolster the forward group, would you not? I think you move him for assets you can remove. I felt the headache in the last 10 minutes. You know, like, if you can go get Dougie Hamilton

and then boost the forward core somehow, great. But I don't think... You wouldn't use Riley for the forward group? Because, listen, I think part of the reason the power play is not good is that it's not good. And I think if you don't change the personnel on that power play and they go into the next year with the same people,

how do we expect a different result? This power play hasn't clicked literally in about 18 months. Really. And we all agree on that, right? It was like Sheldon keeps first 20 games and then all of a sudden it fell off a cliff. Couldn't score against Columbus. Couldn't really score last year on the power play, especially like this past season, especially

towards the end. Could not do it against Montreal. Now, other teams have problems with that too, but the Leafs have enough money up front. You would expect that. I am saying, can you see a Stanley Cup win from a team with Morgan Riley as its best defenseman? And I don't think I can. Adam, bud, let me save you a lot of time.

Okay. Here. I'm ready to join the conversation now. Let me save you a bunch of time. What the Leafs need is – the Leafs currently are not good enough to win. Is that what you're saying? That's what I'm saying. That's what you're saying.

Which means they need change, correct? That's right. Significant change, would you say? Well, they haven't significantly changed anything. And we've had first round, first round, not made the playoffs, first round, first round. So you agree they need significant change? Yeah, I would agree. would think yeah kyle dubas is already verbally committed to no significant change we can and we

will he's gonna go down with his guys rightly or wrongly in this spring he will either be right or fired that's it we can and we will i suppose we'll see because he ain't blowing up that core i don't think he's trading riley bro they're gonna win with this group or get fired trying what's the narrative if they win let's say they win two rounds next playoffs what are we sitting here saying kyle dubas stared death in the face and didn't blink totally but we have every right at this point to doubt it exactly bro like anybody that anybody that brings this up a year from now and goes are you fucking idiots i knew all along no you didn't right five five years in a row and they can't get past the seventh game of the first round you didn't know shit here's why i won't feel

bad okay if the leafs win the cup next year first of all they will have won the cup not feeling bad if they win the cup second of all the vast majority of people agree with me whether they're brave enough to say it out loud or not and the people who don't don't for any particular reason it's just blind faith it's just blind loyalty to the Toronto Maple Leafs you don't think they're good because of anything you've seen you think they're good because you think the team that you cheer for is good but right now all the evidence is they're in deep deep shit so if they win next year it'll be because of something i ain't seen they're in deep mediocrity which is the worst it's the worst it's torture win it win every division you want it does anyone care that the president's trophy

winning vancouver canucks won the president's trophy and then lost in the first round after going to the finals i don't think anyone cares no one cares vancouver doesn't care well that's nice so it's what i'm saying is i'm trying to find solutions for this team i don't know if you expose riley maybe that's crazy probably is but i think you got to move them i think you've learned from all of these players that have left that if you don't go get the value back for these players you lose it and there's no getting it back you lose it and don't allow it to go into next season where it's like like so for a lot of people be like okay it's for james van reams day man he's coming off a 30-goal season.

And you can't trade him. Was it 40? Oh, yeah. So you can't trade him at the trade deadline, like I mentioned earlier. You actually have to trade him in the season, like the previous offseason. So that way you don't go into the season with him.

You move. Get on that. Get it out of the way. Coming off a 40-goal year, what would he have gotten? 36 goals. 36? Holy shit. That would have been a haul and a half.

It's not the way they operate, man. It's not the way they operate. It's a smart thing to do. I agree. Your idea is good. It's not the way they operate. A couple of news and notes before we get into the press conference here. Sergey Fedorov is the new head coach of CSKA Moscow.

Now, Steve, you're our resident KHL expert. And really, the KHL operates a lot more like, I know they have a salary gap, question mark, but they operate a lot more like the EPL where there is no salary cap and it's just sort of the same these same three teams seem to win each year it's weird they don't have cap friendly they have paper bags it's a little different so why is this a big deal and why is CKSA Moscow a big CSK uh well that's central red army um or at least it's the new version right so uh anyone who's roughly our age probably had those packs of hockey cards and every now and then you got a a russian one from the super league and you were like oh neat um and they were probably from two

teams the blue one is dynamo moscow the red one is cska moscow um both teams still exist dynamo moscow uh you might remember them from the lockout short and season where they had a first line of alexander ovechkin nicholas backstrom and you guessed it leo kamarov uh cska moscow uh who is also incredibly good um was the home of alex radulov for a very long time um i don't think tarasenko played there too in the lockout i think i've got his jersey right tarasenko was SKA so this is the confusion um so there's CSKA and there is SKA SKA plays in St. Petersburg the capital uh CSKA plays in Moscow um Sergey Fedorov yes so he is now the head coach of the team that he used to play for from 1986 to 1990 so he played there uh was drafted by the Red Wings

in uh 89 he's been a big part of the uh russian hockey program and uh like valeri bragan has been the head coach of basically all things russia for a very long time and at some point uh you're gonna need to go to the new guard and by new guard i mean um 51 year old sergey fedorov the bragging 65 at some point he's eventually going to call it quits at some point he's going to retire um and Fedorov is a known name beloved name hockey hall of famer uh good for him hope he has success um and I think lastly here we should mention this Brent Sopel in an interview with Rick Westhead of tsn uh said that almost every player and coach on the 2010 team was aware of the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled by former blackhawks players against former video coach brad aldrich

so that interview if you'd like to read it is available um you can find on tsn hockey account um again he keeps up story keeps going now what is interesting about this and i want i do want to bring particular attention to this we do know that the nhl has hired a firm to do their own negotiation we also know that the we're pretty sure anyway at least these are the rumors i'm not sure if this has been confirmed yet that the player is not certain or certain or does not want to participate in that particular um in that particular uh uh investigation i read that as And you can understand from the player's perspective why they wouldn't. And after a decade of not doing anything and after a little bit of public pressure and me finally, you know, putting this out there, oh, now you want to bring in a third party. And who's the third party paid for? Now, we've mentioned before that, you know, a legal institution, you know, a law group, you know, they're going to get these cases based on their reputation. So it's in that particular group's best interest to be as fair and as open as possible.

The question I have about this is how much of this, since the NHL is paying for it, will make it to the public? Because they, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe that they've said we'll share every detail. and if i am it doesn't mean it doesn't mean the lawyers on the floor here aren't trying to do a good job because the lawyers who are doing the investigating they don't get paid by the the nhl they get paid by the firm the firm gets paid by the nhl but if i'm the player i don't trust the nhl's money in this if uh i'm the player the only way i can trust the nhl's money and sincerity frankly in this is if they say we'll print everything we'll put everything out there once the investigation's done we'll put the findings out there we'll put the evidence out

there this is what we got and i have not seen that and if you're the nhl and you're gary batman and you are a lawyer yourself why would you do that right just going to make the league look bad now you and i people would say well you put it out there because it's for the betterment of the league and the betterment of things like this. But the first allegiance in this case is to the NHL. It's not to the player. It's not to the cause. So it'll be very interesting to see how that unfolds. If I am the player, that is my ask. And imagine how valid is this third party investigation going to be if the player who was assaulted, allegedly assaulted, we have to say