The Steve Dangle Podcast - New York's State | December 16, 2024

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

On this episode of The Steve Dangle podcast, everything is bad in Buffalo (00:00), Jack Eichel's case for the Hart (36:00), the Leafs get 2 of 4 points (42:00), everything is bad in New York City (1:12:00), Jarry vs The World (1:33:00), and Steve's first round loss (1:46:00). Visit this episode's sponsors: 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code DANGLE at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/DANGLE  Do what we did, upgrade your denim with DUER! Right now, our listeners get 20% off your first purchase when you use our exclusive URL: https://shopduer.com/sdp Launch, run, and protect your business to make it official TODAY at https://legalzoom.com/ and use promo code dangle to get 10% off any LegalZoom business formation product excluding subscriptions and renewals. Expires 12/31/24. For all the odds and to learn more visit https://betmgm.com/DANGLE Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. To learn more, visit: https://igamingontario.ca/en/player/responsible-gambling Or if you have concerns about a gambling problem, call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600. Must be 19+ or older to play. Find your push. Find your power with Peloton at onepeloton.com/en-CA Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at https://airbnb.ca/host Ready. Set. Grow! Visit https://constantcontact.ca/ for marketing tools tailored to your business. Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1 Join SDP VIP: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0a0z05HiddEn7k6OGnDprg/join Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/thestevedanglepodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sdpvip/subscribe Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MtTmw9rrz7 For general inquiries email: [e-mail] Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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myself or at least i can't really read them because the graphs are hard but yes that's about 15 of your total potential points which when you go back to the sabers of 10 games ago they had just taken a step ahead of the boston bruins dude they were a-okay um sabers fans like it i don't want to dump on them i'm a saber kick them while they're down or sabers fans aren't holding back why are you no that's true no no so i gotta i gotta be careful about how i say it this organization sucks they suck and like they can't even do the things that they do right right like at the beginning of the season are you saying they do them wrong wrong yes they do them wrong wrong like at the beginning of the season i was talking about how they're

building they're honestly building the way you should and still losing yeah but they've been doing that for fucking 12 years yeah eventually that's not the way you should build the funny thing about the stat you just read adam you said last 10 games yep if you go back to the last 13 games uh they have more points than the new york rangers oh my god wow shit now we're gonna get back to them but listen it's not good to be a new york state fan of anything right now except for the new jersey devils we're doing just fine thank you jesse blake with the pull last 13 games the sabers got a big old nine points they're three seven and three the new york rangers three and ten and by the way people from new jersey are gonna be like new jersey's its own state and

we're like yeah okay it is yeah okay yeah yeah all right are you arguing that it's not a state no i'm arguing it's a state i would just say okay okay that is worse that is worse than regression to the mean i get that they have like a governor and elections and bridges i don't i don't know where they all work i don't understand have you been to new jersey before i have i have so so Well, here's the thing. I played four ball there. Yeah. That's right.

And didn't hop a turnstile. Whoa. We did not. Yeah. We went to this actually really funny story. I do not know this story. We went to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees play. Yep.

And you get this little metro pass. We stayed in New Jersey. And we stayed in New Jersey. So you got to go like through everything. We got this little metro pass. But by the end of the night, it was like through our whatever allocation we had on that pass and we're like we're not paying it was like five bucks to get like a new whole pass and everything but i know i tried to buy one though yeah and the machine

wasn't and it's like what's your zip code and i'm like first of all why do you need that just let me take the subway and second of all i don't have one or do you not have tourists i don't have one now what yeah so we couldn't buy one and it was ridiculous to buy a new one so we simply walked over the turnstile yeah here's my money let me on the train what who do you think you are yeah i don't i didn't understand it i didn't understand it at all and that's why it's not its own state and that's why none of them can afford to put a good team football team or otherwise on the ice because of thieves like jesse and i yeah no i listen uh the devils are actually really good i know they're amazing uh that's what i said i said they're doing just fine

thank you and they're looking over they're looking over their state boundary like we don't rely on you for all of our economy anyway uh i i look at i look at what's happening with buffalo with the islanders with the rangers and i want to start with buffalo please do not talk about the rangers and islanders too much unless you're referencing what jesse did which is they're bad um i want to talk about the fact that the buffalo sabers and lindy ruff people were like wow gosh sure love this guy what were they like gosh you know it's so funny man that as the buffalo discourse is picked up they still defend their position on jack eichel and people like he hates the city no that's the organization putting stuff out there to the media telling you he hates the city jack

eichel didn't hate the city he hated the what ownership the organization the organization which is what you said earlier this this group of of bums and they're bad i is this is not on the players i they have enough talent there to be respectable like i don't know if they should be a playoff team yet they're a playoff team they're they should be in the in the conversation like you look at the roster and you're like what would you send like you you could do this better this better um the sends are a playoff team as of this morning they're a second wild card yeah because buffalo fell out oh my god oh new york fellow too yeah no yeah both it was it's the senators pass and the senators and the flyers pass the rangers in what world right yeah and this is

right oh my god so with the sabers so here's what lindy did lindy did what a veteran coach does and you have to respect him for this said i'm almost at a loss for words it's on me to solve this this is as tough a solve as i've been around but it's on me to get these guys to the right place to win hockey games nobody else just me and that's great he's gonna take the bullets here good for him but But when Kevin Adams walked out a week and a half ago and took responsibility, and rightly so, in that press conference, which has turned into an absolute disaster since,

that was supposed to be the hinge point. Hey, things were supposed to get better after that. That's Buffalo media for you, though. That's why they can't win. The media asks questions. I'm asking because I need to ask. Lindy is a legendary coach. If he's not in the Hall of Fame, he will be.

Yep. Right? sure a lot of his great years were in buffalo 25 years ago yeah yeah a lot of his great years in dallas were or goalie a decade ago yeah and i ask as as many people ask about certain you know coaches age out too and i'm wondering if there's a coach problem there's a there's a general manager problem and it all stems from this and this is the same problem the rangers have an ownership problem adam i flatly refuse to blame lindy ruff for any of this well he's too new on the job he just got here he just got here but also um no it's buffalo the same nothing buffalo does

you mean the sabers please specify oh yeah sorry because sabers fans and rightly so are very defensive of their home city it's not the city it is not the city every here if you hear me speak negatively about the Buffalo Sabres in any way today and I say Buffalo just know I'm referring to the franchise and not the city there we go boom uh I flatly refuse Lindy Ruff could be the worst coach in the league and I would refuse to blame him it's 2024 it is no head coach's fault that the Sabres suck nope uh-uh oh what about this player that nope uh-uh at minimum it's Kevin adams fault but uh i mean it's ownership it's ownership it's ownership beginning middle end they're the common denominator they've been here the whole time the team won't spend to the cap

oh because we don't want to no you don't want to spend to the cap just say it just just say it stop making kevin adams stop parading him up to the podium and having him look like an asshole because he can't speak truthfully because he's got to take bullets for you well i'll be honest with you i think that so there were sabers fans that are upset terry pagula has not spoken to the media in five years he's about to uh and and but there are health issues there and i think that's why he hasn't spoken okay and so he hires people to speak for him and that's what kevin adams was doing a week and a half ago yeah was it a week and a half ago or yeah oh yeah because i heard it it was already four or five days late when we did it last

right yeah um it was it's new for me um it's like discovering an old band oh here's groveling gm getting uh absolutely destroyed by local media uh dude i can't blame lindy ruff i can't blame a player i i mean i'm tempted to not even blame kevin adams like the common denominator here is real they've fired so many GMs since the last time they were relevant they've fired so many coaches since the last

time they were relevant they've gone through countless players since the last time they were relevant it the common denominator has to stand up here has to step up because this fan base is dying for

well they're dying first of all and they're dying for a winner here they're dying for great when they get one a competitive team yep like the the their best years in recent memory they were playing meaningful games in late march hooray you know what i mean that's it that's it yep that's what that is it well and like you're gonna you're gonna fire lindy ruff right so you fire lindy ruff and you replace him with who a head coach who's super stoked to to coach in the sabers organization you're gonna fire kevin adams and get an executive who's

that you're you're their number one choice guys what are we doing what are knock it off knock it off this is ridiculous you're the outlier here the interesting thing about the internal cap that there is apparently under and this has been widely reported never confirmed is so the sabers have they're clearly under some sort of internal cap because they've spent to the cap exactly twice in the last 13 years in their playoff drought so you know you would expect that they are my question about that is what's the big friggin difference between being five million under the cap and at the cap yeah like a couple more hot dogs like i don't understand being cheap about that jesse you win three games four games it puts you in the playoff

some of those years oh my gosh playoff revenue like who cares about the cap when you have playoff revenue exactly in buffalo yeah also sell a couple more bills season tickets like i'm sure you're sold out for that new stadium you're building yes i don't understand the internal cap thing when they have billions of dollars so the thought is apparently and again unconfirmed because no one will talk about it at least on the record is that until you prove you can win we are not going to invest big dollars in this team because it needs to build the foundation first it's the same sort of thing that you're seeing in anaheim with the samuelis now the difference between anaheim and buffalo both smaller markets but buffalo has a very strong television market um they're they

were for a long time i don't know if they still are top five in the league in terms of television viewing and uh uh you know obviously they compete with the bills for the first half of the season But we all remember when Buffalo was good. Those buildings were packed and loud and rowdy. And, you know, again, I ask, if you're really operating with an internal cap, you look at the way the Ducks have done it. They're like 15 million sometimes underneath what the cap is. That's saving real.

What's five million bucks to a billionaire? Right. What's five million bucks every single season? And you're telling me that the Sabres can't cover those costs? I'm sure they could. Yeah, Terry Pagula is worth $7.6 billion. $5 million to his hockey team shouldn't mean anything. Which tells me, Jess, that it's a philosophy.

This is a philosophy. This is how you've run your other businesses, and it's been very successful to the tune of $7.2 billion. You own, oh, 6.2, excuse me. 7.6. 7.6 billion. Numbers are my thing. Did I tell you that?

But you own sports in Buffalo. You own both of those franchises. You bought the bills out from under Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment with Bon Jovi. They were going to buy them and bring them north. They were. And you said, nope, mine. And the bills were awful back then. And I think about this and I'm like, okay, maybe that strategy worked in those businesses.

And maybe there is some, in the case of the Ducks, some, oh, there's some intelligence that I can get behind that. Smaller market team want to cover costs, whatever. But what I'm looking at here is I'm looking at six, seven general managers in the last 10 years. I'm looking at a first overall pick who got traded and almost immediately goes on and wins a cup with his next team. Second overall pick. Oh, sorry. Second overall pick. Yeah, that's very important.

They wanted the first overall pick, and they were very vocal about how grumpy they were that they didn't get it. Man, it sure sucked to get Jack Eichel. Oh, yeah. You know, can't win with him. And by the way, that second overall pick who did win a cup, who was a huge factor, 26 points in 22 games, Sabre fans, I know you don't want to hear it, but it's true. That guy signed an $80 million deal to stay in Buffalo.

Oh, but enough about Sam Reinhardt. Oh, to stay in Buffalo. He wanted to be there. Oh, I thought you meant stay where the palm trees are. Okay, got it. I just, listen, people are saying, well, it's impossible to blame Kevin Adams for the whole failure the last 10 years.

I don't do it quite easily. I don't think anybody is. I think we're blaming them for the last five. Well, I still, I'll beat this drum. I think they've done some good things. I really do. I don't think they're a miracle away from being relevant. I think they're a new set of eyes

and spending to the cap away from making the playoffs, honestly. Or being in there, right? Like, the two wildcard teams right now are Tampa and Ottawa. yeah and you you look at the uh the situation at the bottom of uh well not at the bottom like right in the wild card picture it's a it's a clump of teams you could easily you should easily be at very least at the top of the clump you should be competing well into the spring and like last night what i saw is a team just completely deflate um the leafs it was either the leafs tied it or went ahead and devin levi

who that team is ruining ruining and the sabers are the common denominator there too he was unbelievable before he turned pro fantastic in the american league cannot catch a cold in the nhl and he actually did make a couple pretty big saves he did yeah and but you see his body language and he sags and really underratedly i i thought i i i i often push back against the uh the toronto media narrative um because i think it's just a crutch for oh yeah this is why the leafs lose right i i hate it as a crutch but there was something that happened last night where i was like we would have made a huge stink about that um dylan cousins when the empty netter goes in taking that misconduct for abuse of the official is that what they called

yeah it's abuse of the official oh i thought it was because he he slapped the puck into the net well i i think the official probably was like you shot that raffle close to me oh that's what they called it at the time i'll check the box score but that's what i remember last night i'll check it right now either way either way and like he's lucky yeah it's officially goes down as dylan cousins abusive officials at 17 48 oh okay so he might get a fine today no no no no no that would take a cross check to the oh oh yeah we'll get to that no oh yeah we'll get to that um but so i saw that and i'm not calling for greater punishment here um yeah okay you're down two there's two minutes left and it's the nhl in 2024 that's a winnable game i know i know their odds are

very bad not for this team well maybe that's the problem right but it's it's a young important player to this team getting kicked out of a game in that is still attainable yeah well i i think that that lends to just how the buffalo sabers have been playing over this 10 game losing streak well winless streak because they did have was it two or three ot losses in there um so they collected some points but no wins in seven of those 10 games they led at some point in that in that game whether it's a one nothing lead whether it's a colorado game a three to one lead against the leaf whether it's three to one against least whether it's four nothing against the colorado avalanche this team is able to get leads in seven of these 10 games and they're not

able to hold them and maintain them and close out games and it lends to just how this roster has been built by kevin adams where it's extremely young it has okay the bottom six kind of it's kind of tough you know they have some bodies down there it doesn't really push people around though but it's just it's just so young up top with no real um uh just scoring there that spooks you You know, there's nothing there that's going to keep a lead, that's going to really be dangerous. It's not a very well-constructed roster. It's too young in my mind. I think it's definitely too young, but the attitude is brutal.

It's brutal. Those guys don't like showing up to the ring. These are people who've never won anything in their lives at the NHL level. Not a single one of them. They've all been raised in this system of losing for 13 straight seasons. And when that press conference took place last week, guys, that we talked so much about, one of the things that apparently precipitated it was the lack of ability to get Jake Truba to wave his no trade to come to Buffalo.

Apparently, there was a deal in place. And hey, there are palm trees in Anaheim, which is why we're bringing them up, right? um i i wonder with the truba thing if it points to an organizational issue which is yeah they've developed they've drafted and developed some great young guys they got some guys like tage thompson too that fantastic trade the ryan o'reilly one uh tage thompson coming back like that was great it started really not good it started not good but hey they they salvaged it tage thompson they held on to a guy and he turned out great yeah we will take nothing from this experience but i ask you okay owen power bo byram have been putting up points on on defense as has rasmus

dolly yeah dolly and who's out does jake truba change the trajectory of the buffalo sabers really not that i don't think that he's valuable i think he is they need a righty okay they're like they need an impact righty i think okay personally so a guy that's not particularly known for his defense you have to remember truba was the role he was playing in new york was not the role he was playing in winnipeg he was asked to play a different role in new york he was supposed to be a little bit more defensive and in winnipeg he was playing a lot more offensive shifting he was and he was a lot more involved in the play and i think they're going to try to do that with him in anaheim with cam fowler out the door right in buffalo he would

not have gotten anything other than the same types of minutes he was getting it with the rangers and so i asked how many you want to play how many towering defensemen do you need you've got no i don't think you would have steve look dallying power byron okay you've got three guys there with almost 20 points yeah what's your second pair then you're playing with one of those guys right One of those guys is playing the right side. You've got Samuelson, who is an important player to your future, right? You've signed with a long deal. You've got Yokiharu, who's making three and a half, four million bucks.

Is he really? Yeah. I'm trying to figure out here, and he's 25 years old, where would Jake Truba have fit into that? And you look at the poor defense for the Sabres. You've got Darlene's 24, Power's 21, Byram's 23, Connor Clifton's the oldest at 29, Yoki Haru is 25, Samuelson's 24, Jacob Bryson is 26.

Like, these guys are young, and that's before defensemen really hit their peak. But my question still remains is, what exactly, if the Trouba deal goes through, and you're celebrating at the podium and waving the Sabres flag a week and a half ago, what changes? I think it solidifies your top four, it brings in a veteran, it brings in a leader. Trouba's only 28. I just want to throw that out there, too. Yeah, he's still...

That's insane to me, because I spoke to him, like, when I started at Sportsnet. Basically, that's crazy to me. Are you sure that's right? Yep. He's 28? Wow. Jesus. Anyway, because I still remember him...

Oh, sorry, sorry. Wrong. 30. Okay, okay. 30. Okay. Even still. Hey, the last time I checked two years ago, he was 28.

Yeah. You know what? Get off of Adam's back. He's right. Okay, fine. 30. Two years ago, that information was correct. No, he's older than Connor Clifton by a few months.

There you go. Like, I think he was beloved in New York by the players. I know the fans were over it. He was with the Jets for the back on track suit thing. Oh, wow. Yeah. The Evander Kane, Dustin Bufflin track suit thing. Yeah.

Wow. I asked him a question at, he did one of those media car washes when I was still with Sportsnet. And I asked him about his teammates and what's the first thing that comes to mind. And if I remember correctly, I go, Dustin Bufflin. And he goes, oh, he's a great guy and everything. Don't leave your tracksuit hanging around. Don't leave your tracksuit lying around. And he just looks into the camera with like a...

Adam, to your point on the defense of the Buffalo Sabres, The way I've seen Bo Byram fit into this defense and their core, there's a lot of argument for he was redundant in that trade as well. That trade probably wasn't the direction they needed to go in at all, and they didn't really need Bo Byram. They needed Casey Middlestat. They needed Casey Middlestat because he and Casey Middlestat right now could be a very useful piece on this team.

And you know what that frees up Dylan Cousins to do, Jesse? Get easier minutes and live up to his deal. And a puck-moving young defenseman who's now an RFA at the end of this year who you have to give a bunch of money to isn't something the Buffalo Sabres need for their roster and don't need going forward. And it just lets the – Kevin Adams isn't very good at his job. I don't hate that trade in a vacuum, but it's the wrong trade for the Sabres.

Exactly. And I think they thought that they had better – like, if the Sabres had Lucas Dostal, this is a different conversation, I think, a little bit, because they have – because then you can argue, well, they've built from the defense out. But if they don't have good goaltending from Ukapeka Lukanen, if Devin Levi is not progressing the way that they want him to,

this is a problem because you've got a lot of money wrapped up in that defense for a team with a reported internal cap, and you haven't figured out the goaltending situation. Let me throw this at you, too. Eric Engels, the Buffalo Sabres right now are in Montreal. So Eric Engels, friend of the show. Oh, I'm sure the story will go away then. Yeah, exactly.

Welcome to the not real NHL. uh the he has a video of the sabers in the hallway getting warmed up uh sabers have emerged from their team meeting and canceled practice at the bell center okay so here's what i'm just i'm interjecting the the rumor this morning on 32 thoughts is that terry pagula was in montreal meeting with the sabers oh so that's interesting too just throwing that out there continue uh so okay his last few games 900 his last game 926 game before 821 903 878 818 967 917 a shutout like i know no the he's had some good games he's had some bad the team shit around him yeah like yeah it's just a miserable being a buffalo saber is consistently

generationally a miserable thing to be like always the leafs at very least get like stretches of the regular season where people are like hey what's up cool to see you and then you maybe get yelled at in the spring yeah like you have to change what the sabers are so here's the question then guys what do you do uh i do not hold back um i have uh i have god's ear today like i have an opportunity to talk to the owner i'm i'm letting them know exactly how i feel and this is another problem with having such a young team like they might not have uh you know necessarily the fortitude to do this like i don't know if i would have the fortitude to do this at 23 to my boss um you gotta let them have it and what's he gonna do trade you

gives a shit you're gonna trade me away from the sabers oh no what a punishment you know what i mean let them have it you have nothing to lose jesse what do you do uh i fire kevin adams i fire lindy ruff clean house you start fresh again what can you do again and bring in who and they somebody better woodcraft's available anybody anybody who is not i think the people there is better than what you got you know it's not it's he's he's proven he can't do this like i don't know you don't keep banging your head against the wall and be like no kevin adams is gonna do it he's good he's had enough time you know you know who's probably circling And I think they missed their opportunity this summer.

Don Waddell became available, who is a killer smaller market general manager. And Don sometimes isn't the guy making the decisions on the trades. If you ask a lot of people in hockey circles, Eric Tulsky, who's now the general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, was a lot of the recommendation behind some of the great moves Don made. But what makes a great general manager is going, that guy's smarter than me. I better hire him. And I think that's what the Sabres need. They need that guy smarter than me. I better hire him and him and her and this and that Don Waddell would have been a perfect fit

here yeah this summer and I now I ask you like do you go with because the the second runner up in that in that conversation who is now a consultant with the NHL a paid retainer consultant with the NHL is Ken Holland and I'm not saying that's the right call I'm just saying that most teams call gary betman and go who should i hire so i have heard ken holland's name rumored with the sabers with another uh new york state team no kidding yeah it's funny steve you think kevin adams should keep his job i'm not even gonna beat that drum particularly hard i don't think he's done a great job um for me it's just uh who the hell do you bring in if if the sabers can legitimately improve their front office and bring in someone with experience and yeah 100 do it get rid of

kevin adams whatever um but like the sabers have shown us time and time again that's not what they're about to do so you stick with the guy who's not going to get you anywhere i guess i Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm not advocating for that at all. No, you don't stay sitting in your mess. You're right. You're right. But if I'm a Sabres fan, and as just someone observing from the outside,

all right, you're going to fire someone and bring in some other clown. So then you think it's impossible. I don't think it's impossible. I just have no faith in the people who make decisions there. you want the pagulas to sell the team i don't yeah there you go because i'm trying to find if at very least if you're sticking with the gm but the gm can't do it then what's the solution here i don't know what are you what he's staring at i have a thought i'm trying to i'm looking at their staff list okay like just trying to find an answer i'm trying to find names i recognize

honestly um because so it's okay owner ceo president is terry pagula um he can't be the president he can't be the ceo either like if you trust here's what i would do if you trust that if you clearly kevin adams if you look at in the last decade since the team has been owned by these this group it might be nine years it might be 12 years i don't know it's decade-ish that the have owned it guys um the guy that's lasted the longest longest is kevin because the pagulas had a pre-existing friendship with this guy there's a trust there and my question would be okay so oh do you fire the coach do you fire the general general manager if terry pagula flew to montreal today then what i think the team needs is a new mandate from ownership and what that can be is

you don't have to fire kevin adams but you can trust kevin adams to be okay i need you to be president now and not make the hockey ops decisions we need a general manager in here who's perhaps a little bit more experienced than you can you find me you come look after the business be the ceo be the president look after the the business of the buffalo sabers community outreach sponsorship television deals all that stuff i need you to find me a hockey guy and i will then trust you to run the saber so you kick him upstairs it's a great position for him to be in and then you find a general manager who goes okay we got a good base here and they do what can i now do and then you allow the third thing this is the big one spend of the cap did you know that

happened with kevin adams before did it yeah kevin adams used to be assistant uh coach of the buffalo sabers what and when they brought in it was uh ron ralston to be the head coach he got fired he got fired as assistant coach of the buffalo sabers and in that firing they promoted him to senior vice president of business administration so he's done it and as far as i know there's nothing wrong with the sabers business aspect like they're doing well sure so just do that but this is the guy who was your assistant head coach and then he was senior vice president of business administration and then eventually when the gm position came available they gave him that post and now that's where he is and that's that's kevin adams's journey to this job i don't think a

lot of people know that no i i didn't know that so the senior most person in the sabers front office as i can see it is jason carmanos who i believe his dad was the owner of the carolina hurricane he was and they sued each other for a bit yeah he was ex-vp of hockey operations and assistant general manager for a long time he spent some years in pittsburgh actually uh won a couple cup rings there that's awesome vp of hockey operations gets bumped up to assistant gm then he goes to the buffalo savers where he's assistant gm you also have mark jacobowski who i have never heard of and he should shorten it to jacobs he can be mark he pops up on elite prospects.com like his team staff profile they have the best ones um he pops up as assistant

general manager of the buffalo sabers starting in the 2014-15 season which they haven't they haven't been good uh since then then there's jerry fortin all right who's this guy uh niagara university for a while okay okay where's his first nhl job oh it's buffalo sabers he was assistant coach 2013-14 to help get through it then he was amateur scout it says the sabers love their guys and they have three guys in their front office out of four who, in terms of NHL executives, have known nothing but the Sabres organization. No.

You can't do that. What are you talking about? Yeah. If you want to go even back further, Kevin Adams started in 2009 as a player development coach for the Sabres. And he played for them. Yeah, and he played for them.

And he was then a player development coach, then assistant coach and they got fired the assistant coach and they like ran some part of the the like building business like the with the hockey arena stuff and then in 2019 he gets that promotion to vice president business whatever and then he gets the gm job like he's only known the sabers and the pagulas and now i don't know if you could this isn't the right way to do this you know it's proven like the people you like here aren't good enough to to be objective in your hockey team yes you need some sort of outside opinion here so that's why i just don't think he's right for the job anymore when you look at some of the questions that were asked in the press

conference and i don't uh i don't forgive it i'm sorry i forgive anybody that doesn't remember the exact questions but one of the first questions that was asked was why is this team so fragile the sabers were up three to one on the toronto maple east yesterday and if you didn't know this the sabers uh then gave up that lead not to tie but to go behind in two minutes and 30 seconds including two goals by john tavaris in within 70 seconds of each other i was at my brother and sister-in-laws i was leaving in the time it took me to say goodbye to everybody put our shoes on and get in the car we turn on the radio to listen to it on the way home the leafs had gone from three one to four three i missed all three goals which really sucked it was pretty cool it was

pretty cool i liked it and i come home and they have 19 shots they out shoot the sabers 19 to in the third period. Devon Levi saved their butts. It could have been way worse. So, okay. Director of pro scouting. I'm starting to notice a theme. I wish I had picked up on this last night

so I could have come in with it. Jeremiah Crow, director of pro scouting. His only NHL experience, he became a pro scout with the Buffalo Sabres, 2017. 2017-18 season.

Pro scout, pro scout, pro scout. Director of scouting, director of professional scouting it's an echo chamber and this is why i keep going back to ownership like what's kevin adams supposed to do fire everybody all right i doubt he even has the power sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where task rabbit 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 oh and their way around on that is like

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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. so i think it's uh it's important to we talk about the leafs because always they have had um they've not had the best go uh the last couple of weeks and and to start um uh i want to i want to play this put the stat up for you and this is from three in their last days i know it's funny but they've stunk they've stunk and and so saturday at 5 45 sports net stats puts out this jesse i'm going to throw this to you i should have thrown it to you earlier i'm sorry uh it is the um it is going into this weekend where the leafs are in comparison to their past six season

averages so in 24 25 going into this weekend they have 18 wins the average is 17 they have 38 points the average amount of points is 38 and a half their goals per game is actually down a little bit 2.93 to 3.38 and then their team save percentage is up by one point oh geez 9 12 to 9 11 now i want to throw out there there are a couple of things that uh stand out to me the first thing percentage is very surprised it's not to me though because if you look at some of the years where their goaltending really faltered it didn't falter in november it didn't falter in october jack campbell had a crazy uh november like a few years ago and they were talking about going to the olympics and we're like how do you not include jack campbell now he was bad the rest of the way

and i wonder about the the canadian bubble season because that wasn't in the fall but the the first 29 games i think his crazy win streak was in the middle of that so that that could make some sense i wonder too i'm looking at this and i'm thinking um the the way that they have changed the game in in terms of how they played has been different but there has been a lot of conversation this weekend about both games and how they went and if Toronto had lost to the Sabres yesterday uh it would have been a real ugly day for Leafs Twitter it would have been bad and it wasn't great after the Detroit loss and I'll be honest with you after the stream I I said it I was like I for me that was a game that they did not get up for and they should have um and we can we can break that down

in a second here but one of the things that really stood out is the conversation surrounding Max Domi and I think the Max Domi conversation speaks to a broader thing because what's happened is a whole bunch of guys have come back to the lineup after this team was doing really really well with essentially Tavares, Marner, Matthews not Matthews Tavares, Marner, Nylander having to carry them through and carry most of the offensive load through November and they won seven of eight And it was quite the story. And also they had a bunch of time in between games, right?

There was like one game where they played or one week they play two games. It was ridiculous. Yeah. And now they've had to play a lot of games in a short amount of time while taking on guys who were injured and injured early enough in the season where maybe their roles weren't quite cut out.

Max Domi, Bobby McMahon, Nick Robertson had a tough, tough go. Underratedly, Max Pacioretty was just starting to get established and then got hurt for like a month. That's right.

And so I think there's a couple of things when we talk about Max, but we talk about the Max Domi, that is. There's two Maxes on this team. But there is, I think that there is a thing with Leaf fans where we sort of forget, and I think this could be all fans, and you can be forgiven for this. When a player comes back to the lineup, Matthews specifically was having, people were having this conversation about Matthews last week,

Domi this weekend where he'd gone, you know, basically since game two of the Boston series since scoring. That's eight months or something like that. um max patch ready when he came back people were somewhat critical of his first couple and then he scored goals and everybody's off his back and what happens when you have a player come back to the lineup they're not up to game speed uh first period against detroit i was like oh bobby and then uh the second two periods i went hey bobby and people are like people are like well how come how come you can't uh get up to game speed like if you're not ready don't start

the reality is unless you're playing the games you're not going to be up to game speed no one ever understands I was I was talking to a friend about this yesterday like um first half of the back-to-back uh versus second um and I think it's applicable to this like getting up to game speed like well no they shouldn't be tired on the second half of the back-to-back they're pro athletes okay you're not going to believe it was on the other end of the ice and you're going to be embarrassed when you find out is it pro athletes yeah that's great rested pro athletes yeah so when max scored yesterday off of a really cool behind the back pass from nicholas robertson who'd sat for a week uh i and and you could see you could see it come out of him right just the

the raw ah i did it robertson has been on the ice for some of the best celebrations yes he has and weirdly enough that line who during the stream on saturday night i was like that third line of mitten robertson domey i'm watching that not robertson mitten mcmahon domey i'm watching that they switch out mitten they put in robertson and hey smart thing to do on a back-to-back because you get fresh bodies and domey to the middle and domey to the middle and it looked good it did it did it did it looked like something i want to see again there are reasons to think it could work There are reasons to think it won't work. They were good enough that I want to see it again.

They got the Leafs' first two goals in a game where they were dead. It took Max Domi 22 games to score his first goal in 23-24. It took 23 to score in 24-25. It makes no sense. And he hadn't scored a point since I think it was October 21st. I think that was right around the time he got injured. It was a Montreal game. Remember, Jesse, that you were there, that you texted us.

You're like, did that Max Domi thing make it to TV? yeah that yeah that's when he got trucks in the middle of the ice and nobody noticed yeah no call no no no nobody it wasn't you didn't make the broadcast remember i had to show you the screenshot of the corner of the screen where you got completely blindsided relief it's fine yeah that's okay yeah yeah so anyway george i think uh i think max was injured and then i and i think bobby was injured and i think some of the matthews was injured and they came back and it took a couple games to adjust just like it did with patch already and when you it doesn't matter that the the overall talent of the lineup is better these are human beings and when you're

playing with someone different you have to adjust and you don't have that thing in the back of your head where i know where this person's going to be because you haven't played with them and this third line is completely new yo completely we've never seen this before no it's not like patch ready stepping back in next to matthews marner who have built in chemistry for a decade or tavaris Nylander who have built in chemistry and by the way I love Pacioretty back with Tavares yeah I just love it um it's it's not easy to do and I think we got to give people a couple weeks before we start sounding alarm bells I know that's not what Twitter's going to do but I do think it's important that we kind of do that because these are really talented guys and people are like well

you got to trade max you know okay you're gonna trade max for what oh yeah the guy hasn't scored 125 games. Okay, yeah, let's trade them now. Nearly $4 million forward. First year of three. Hasn't scored a point since October. Oh, yeah. The line will be out the door of suitors.

Shut up. And did you watch the playoffs last year? Did you watch what Max did with Matthews and Bertuzzi down the stretch? This guy is, to me, a heart and soul guy for the Leafs. Attitude and passion and is dying to be a Leaf. every day he wakes up and springs out of bed because he's a Toronto Maple Leaf this is a guy I want all day I don't care if he has to struggle a little bit time to time well the the problem with leaning on numbers too much is um numbers uh can be just like your eyes liars um no they're

objective no what they do is they leave out context and we talked about it at the time Max Domi's playing terrible that I'm going back a month Max Domi's playing terrible and is clearly hurt so yeah the pointless streak was 17 games that's so many games that games I think it looks so much worse than it really was he was playing games he shouldn't have been and he said that right he said that to the media he said i should not have been playing and mitten was not an option at the time because he was recovering as well you know it's simple just putting nope people forget that as well people forget you see so yeah he was playing terrible he was a net negative um but it leaves out that very important context and now if that third line succeeds like you took some guys

out of the lineup who didn't necessarily deserve it I don't hate Timmons coming out for a game for Myers I think he I think Timmons had a bad couple of games last weekend it was fine I don't have a problem with that Minton coming out is tough but he's young he can be sent down and it won't hurt him to be sent down um only one is uh Holmberg did nothing to be taken out of the lineup I've really liked him uh after not liking him um next game I would probably take out Reeves for Pontus that's about it Jesse yeah I didn't understand your anger at the end of Saturday's game because the team's been playing really well with all Adams yeah after his stream on on Saturday because the team's been playing really well and everything you just said still applies to the team after that

loss on saturday and i feel like i'm very happy with how the leafs are playing this season it feels like even though like i think a lot of a lot of fans are upset with how the lack of excitement with the team because they're not playing fire wagon hockey like very very boring hockey and Craig Berube has taken away all the fun of the team, but it's resulted in a first place in the division team, which we can't say very often about the Leafs. No, surely not. These teams of the past couple of seasons.

No one in the Atlantic is doing better. No, nobody's doing better. And during this stretch where they've looked awful, everybody keeps saying they look so awful, they're winning games despite not scoring, which is a plus for me. And since December 1st, they have collected, they're tied for second in the most points that any team has collected.

They have 10 points, which is tied with five other teams who also have 10 points, and one team's ahead of them with 11 points. Is that better than three points that the Sabres have collected? It is. It is better than the three points the Sabres have. So I look at the team, and I say, I have positives right now at this point in the season. And here's what I would look at, too.

And you're not going to win all 82? You're not. Why? Here are the games that piss me off, though, Jess. Columbus. Montreal. Yeah. Pittsburgh.

Detroit. bottom feeding teams except for Ottawa and Ottawa they did lose a game they lost a game in Ottawa didn't they did they beat Ottawa

I don't even know it doesn't matter I want to say they won one lost one those teams those teams and the way they lost those games

the Columbus game was inexcusable they were garbage remember it was the second half of back to back they had the game of their life

against Tampa and that was Hilda Bionet that Columbus game sucked and then you got really mad at everybody for not talking

to the media oh i get pissed at that that shit still makes me mad sorry dude wasn't that like october uh it it was october it was a while but you look at you look at the pittsburgh game they just flat out didn't show up and frankly with all the heat i'm giving the penguins deservedly this year i expect the leafs to go out there and defend me personally they okay they have been pretty good recently they have the no well the pen they're on they're trending up no they're not did you see what happened this weekend i guess not oh have i got a quote for you i have got i swear i've got a goal wins last and a quote for you steven dangle yeah they do have sick yeah but i'm talking to them last week oh shit what i missed happened four of those wins happened two weeks ago oh god

the nhl changes so fast it does uh this our two book signings this weekend i'm sorry the batherson goal if anybody's from pittsburgh you know what i'm talking about oh yeah yeah the pens lost their most recent game to Ottawa. And I'm pretty sure Johnny let in a goal on like the first shot again. Yeah. And then the game before they won,

the game before that was the Colorado 6-2 loss where they got bumped. Oh, well, never mind. I don't know. Never mind. And then the game before that is the Leafs game

and then the game before that is they lost. Okay, so... They're like 3-3 in their last six. From last time I checked in. Yes. No.

And listen, they're very average. The NHL does move quickly. I agree. There's games every time. Don't worry about the Pittsburgh thing yet. No, no, no. I want to send you guys something.

Oh, okay, okay. Don't worry. My point of being frustrated after the Red Wings game was, this is a beatable team that you need to beat. And this is a, it's not a, I don't know how Panthers fans or Vegas fans or whatever feel about, I'm talking about top teams, Colorado, Dallas, you're going to lose to bad teams.

You're going to lose to teams you don't like losing against. But like the way they got steamrolled by the Blue Jackets, the way they couldn't get anything going against the red wings i'm like guys i get losing games i get it i get it nobody likes it we all want them to be 82 and 0 yes but when the team doesn't play to its own expectations that's what drives me nuts because this is a first place team this is a team that should challenge for the president's trophy and it's when you lose the games to the penguins of the world when you just are like now we had a fart game it happens i get it the leafs in the past the reason they've never really won the division in this era outside of the team canada

or the canadian one is which is sorry it's its own outlier um i'm not going to take it away from them but it's an outlier um the reason they haven't done it is because they yield to bad teams right when you yield 10 or 10 to 12 points per year to a bad team it takes you out of the running to win a president's trophy win a division get top seating make sure that you got home ice advantage should you make it past the first round that's the that's the part that bothers me so i was momentarily frustrated and yesterday what i saw with saturday's saturday's game um i think if his name's not austin matthews if if his name is justin hall or nick robertson or kerfoot the turnover at center ice the tan of past to him at the end of the period where he doesn't collect

that pass and it leads directly to a goal we come here on monday and we're yelling about that player being traded and send him to the moon and all that stuff but how many times does austin do that though but his name is austin matthews that's that's the that's the reason we're not doing that kind of stuff and it's not the expectation we kind of know it's more of a mistake and we forgive that going forward and i think with the team and their effort there saturday i don't believe that they're gonna show up if it was a seven game series against the red wings that started on saturday that might have been game one but i trust this team to win four out of that seven i agree i agree with you completely i even five out you know i i think you know because

you're always going to lose a game that you should have won in the playoffs in a round i look at i look at matthews and i'm like if that's alexei kovalev who was not interested in defense but was probably the most talented player of his generation or one of yeah um i'm pissed about it because dude what the fuck and he did that so many times austin and mitch and john and and willy to a smaller extent are defensively very responsible players and austin has had really good defensive metrics different strengths sure but i'm what i'm saying is that like when a play like that happens people are like austin's clear still injured he sucks like i don't know what i'm gonna do breaking out into flop sweats i'm like guys how many times have you seen him do that

that's why it's so weird yeah the old adage in hockey is that you can't send a bad pass to a good player and we saw an instance where a great player received a terrible pass he bottled a pass he fucking bottled the pass but that doesn't happen like there's a reason that that's an old saying in hockey is because this is a 99th percentile thing to happen to a generational player like austin matthew one of my favorite things about starting to play hockey is it's actually made everything they do so much more impressive and like there was like such a mundane and play the other night where they put someone passed it directly

into Marner's feet and he kicks it up to himself like full stride head up. You can't do that? Fuck no. God, you're so impressive. You should work on your feet. I should work on my feet. All right. Mr. Friggin.

All right, Jesse. You're skipping hockey. It doesn't make you better. No, it's true. It's true. I've missed a few skates recently. I'm falling behind. You are. If you'd be a little better at your feet work, then... Damn.

It's true. It's true. Wow. My odds of making the Leafs are plummeting. I'm sorry, Steve. With the injuries, you know, you would have got a call-up, but they looked at your game and said, he's not trying lately.

With Austin Matthews' goal last night, he's officially scored 50 regular season goals in a calendar year for the fourth time in his career, doing so in consecutive years. No other player in Leafs history has achieved that feat more than once. Matthews? Yeah.

You mean against Detroit? Yeah, sorry. Oh, bogus that. I think 50 goals in a calendar year is something. I think it's something. I don't know if it's anything. Wow, really? Are you guys that hardcore?

The NHL PR put that out. I don't know if it's anything. It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. Does it mean anything? Do we put that on the Hall of Fame resume? He scored 50 fucking goals.

How many? Okay, okay. Four times in a row. If Colin Campbell is allowed to be like, hey, I coached these dudes who became GMs, which means. hey guys i i upgraded our video replay from vcr to dvd uh like you really you really claimed responsibility for steve eisman like i i really i oh my god when do we ever evaluate anything

with hockey in a calendar year there's a reason they play a season like from yeah from zero to 82 you know what jesse you know what i don't know how many games are there in a calendar year uh there are 82 right yeah calendar it's it varies yeah yeah but it would be around it depends on how many you play from october to january that previous season right yeah but it's about the same in theory it's gonna be within 78 to 82 you right right play like 90 yeah yeah right plus the playoffs like are they including are we diminishing 50 goals four straight calendar i think it's i think it's pretty you know what chat there's no chat comment section can you bat me on this i think you know what chat that's a great freaking all right

chat all right chat like almost like bomb all right like spike let's go um i want to say this but like i don't know the other thing that pissed me off against detroit that they didn't do against buffalo is the leafs get cross-checking the teeth well we'll get to that the leafs take a lot of penalties and i had drew look it up while we were on the stream and they are the fourth most penalized team in the nhl right now well i i bet they get a lot of power plays though they don't and people are like hey why are there five on five numbers or why are they not as great as they used to be uh well when you take a lot of penalties kind of throws off your five on five game doesn't it i'm kind of annoyed by it and the problem i have and steve's gonna be like well conspiracy

i think that they're taking a lot of stupid penalties i think there's a lot of uh grabbing sticks and grabbing guys and you know around the waist like basic shit i think that they can clean up and i know that the leafs are going to take i know that listen the reality is the leafs aren't the real nhl sheldon keith said it there's a bit more of a spotlight especially on a saturday night for a referee and they're going to be either not blowing the whistle at all or they're going to be calling it super tight you're never sure what you're gonna get fine know that and stop doing the stupid shit that puts you in the box well i i can't remember if we talked about it on the podcast but i i was trying to think of the minutiae and you know you always hear look at

the game notes right uh colby armstrong told a great story about that look at the game notes kid uh i think part of preparing for your opponent is looking i mean you're always looking for guys you can expose and how can you expose them can i get around this guy can i overpower this guy can i sucker this guy into taking a penalty and i think it was robbie fabry on the ducks because he's on the ducks right there's been so many games recently i think it was robbie fabry on the ducks gets into a puck battle with simone benoit benoit reaches around him so he's already asking for it he's asking for a holding call fabry chicken wings him yep his legs stop working like a toddler throwing a tantrum and he drops to the ice holding onto benoit's arm so hard that when

benoit went to pull his arm away fabry came with him and the ref said that's normal because benoit's got a i think refs fly around north america and they got to do a million friggin games and their job is hard and the game is unbelievably fast i think they look at the notes and they have preconceived notions about certain players benoit chief among them and they're like all right i'll uh i'll keep an eye out when benoit's out there and luckily for robbie fabry he's thinking the same thing and the guy gets bit and he gets bit often and what do you do i'll tell you what you do i'll tell you what simone benoit should do sign some sticks? Nothing. Oh, nothing. Michael Bunting drew a shitload of penalties until he

didn't. And then he adjusted his game and he's like, I'm going to let myself get punched in the face. And it didn't come out in the wash for him in terms of, oh yeah, the Leafs are on the power play now never came out in the wash for him his teammates weren't grateful oh no they were not for the sacrifice that he made he should have kept being a shithead he should have kept seeing red mist he should have become and even no don't improve queen get more toxic like he should have been a worse version of himself going forward he really should have been um benoit cannot change a damn thing i don't need you to play more gentlemanly and more responsible because eventually it's going to be the spring and when it becomes the spring the rule book that you

don't succeed with gets thrown in the freaking garbage so don't worry about it you don't need to change why should you change when every year the rules do keep doing your thing Benny you're fine yeah they take too many penalties now the Leafs have tried that they tried the other way didn't work keep doing this way punch dudes in the face cross check them trip them do whatever you need to do soften them up for the spring uh Detroit Jonathan Bergeron uh with the with the penalty kill stuff um according to quant hockey the leafs are 96 power play opportunities for 106 against which is a 10 power play difference but the that 10 difference there is similar to other bad teams in the league like columbus is at a 14 difference the blackhawks are at a 10 difference

the blues are at a 10 difference so there is definitely a case to be made for the maple leafs taking a little bit too much bad penalties and you want to be in the area where the boston bruins are who have taken more penalties than the toronto maple leafs maple leafs 106 as i said and the bruins are at 111 power play opportunity uh penalty kill opportunity so against that's the amount of penalties they've taken but the amount of power play opportunities is 115 so they're actually plus four on power play opportunity even though they've taken you know amount of penalties that's where you want to be as a good team you know you want to be of the chip in a way so they need to definitely need to get a little better at what penalties they're taking it's

evidence there and i think over time they've got to learn to adjust to be that team but there's so it's not like egregious it's not the worst but there's room for improvement there's by my count there's one according to nhl.com the leafs are negative seven in terms of penalty differential Okay, so Kwon Hockey has them at negative 10. Okay. So it's a little off. Right. I don't know.

Yeah. By my count, there is one playoff team below the Leafs. Blue Jackets, Utah, Montreal, Buffalo. Rangers are no longer in a playoff spot. Blackhawks, the Kings. Ding, ding, ding. There they are. The Blues, I don't think are in a playoff spot.

They're not. Flames, are they still? Don't think so. I don't think so. And Preds. reds vancouver's negative six washington's negative six those are two really really really good teams so i don't know it's not a phenomenon that is just the leafs but i just think it's funny how yeah i think i think it's a case of they need to clean it up a tad bit i don't think it's

egregious in the sense that like hey it's awful they're at like a minus 20 or something the worst in the league but it's in that little category where you're seeing other bad teams in that area because those bad teams tend to take a lot of penalties. And the good teams are at the top there, and the Kings are the outlier there. They were at, like, what, negative 14 or something. Here's the thing with the Leafs. Take four penalties, not six.

Clean it up. The top three teams in the league for net penalty are Seattle at plus 21, and they're meh. Islanders plus 20, and they're meh. And Sens plus 19, and they're meh. Sens are three-game win streak, first time. Three-game win streak, that's right. But overall, on the season, meh.

Playoff team. Jets are really good. Avalanche, meh. Golden Knights, really good. Clean it up. That's the only thing. It's not egregious. Just be a little better.

No, get worse. Get worse. Be toxic. I think so, too. 2024 going into 2025, be a genuinely terrible version of yourself. Detroit's Jonathan Bergeron was fined $2,148.44, the maximum allowable under the CBA for cross-checking Toronto's Connor Dewar in the head. now uh detroit fans were quick to jump to bergen's uh defense here because he and this is interesting

cross-checked a guy in the head cross-checked him but he hit his shoulder and it rode up have you ever heard that as a toronto fan you ever you know what that no rules you've never had that uh oh well oh well uh well you know what that's fine then it's actually a two thousand dollar fine then so i meant to shoot the apple off your head not you in the chest like what well but here's the thing in the past it wasn't fine like it wasn't fine for matthews on dolly i don't give a shit what you were trying to do you hit me in the head it's uh whatever it's listen we'll move on i think leave fans would be a lot more up in arms if this wasn't exactly what we expected at all times yes failure uh craig berube on anthony stallers uh we got good news on him day to day

right now didn't go on the ice but we'll see tomorrow if he can get out there um a reporter probably jesse asked do you expect him back this week and uh when jesse asked this i don't know it wasn't me it wasn't john jesse uh yeah i do but he's got to get on the ice it was good news overall let's just leave it there now what's interesting about this is because they put him on ir he's not able to come back until friday's game um and the leafs are playing wednesday friday saturday and then monday before the christmas break they have a back-to-back every week this month yeah jam-packed december but you get the luxury of having most of november off yes yeah played one game in like eight days they'll take it is it january or february there's

one month where the leafs have one home game oh no probably january because the league is off for like a week and a half uh let me see it's no it's freaking nuts it's yeah it's not january they do have a ton of games february they're on their western road trip then it's the uh four nation face off they play one game at home and then they go on another road trip oh sorry yeah four nations is in february my bad yeah that's what i meant uh leafs by the way have the best home record in the nhl right now uh they are really 14 4 and 0 away they're 5 6 and 2 uh but they're below 500 on the road they are they are uh because of that detroit game they're actually they're two games below 500 if you if you but their home record is so cracked it's crazy

holy that's actually really good though because you kind of need that if you're gonna have home advantage going into the playoffs you probably want to be good at home yeah i'd prefer him to be again i want him to win all 82 and it's realistic and reasonable that they win all boston almost did a few years ago yeah they did actually yeah uh so anyway i thought that was uh that's interesting information if you're not wearing doer jeans what are you doing put your butt in the that was terrible i actually like that thank you jess what are you doing what are you do you know what when justice says that it works you know what i don't like this but i do like what are you do i love their jeans and i love their other clothes too they have other things but

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Now, let's move on. Off of the Leafs. and on to one of the other under fire New York teams, the Rangers. The Rangers slogan this year was no quit in New York. And I am here wondering if they have quiet quit on Chris Drury, Peter Laviolette, and ultimately the owner, James Dolan.

And I mean that because if you watched any Rangers hockey this weekend, you saw a husk of a team. This is a team with, listen, I know they got problems, but that's an enormously talented team. Of course, they're really not very different from the team that won the President's Trophy and went to the conference final. They're really not that much different.

I asked around, and I asked, I said, are the Rangers quiet quitting? And the responses I got were yes, and this has happened before. And what somebody pointed out to me was Pete DeBoer in that one season where Vegas missed the playoffs. Now, they had some goaltending issues that year, but they had done some pretty vicious things. That's where the Vegas sort of viciousness was coming out. And now we just sort of expected of them.

It's their brand. But players can quit on management. And the thing about players quitting on management is Drury might have another trade left in him today or tomorrow. But how much longer can this go on before Chris Drury is the one that gets fired? It's a lot easier to fire a general manager.

it's a lot easier to fire a coach so i did some sniffing around too okay uh insider stevie and all those players are going to sign in the mlh no no nice for them yeah so they're gonna sign for saudi money yeah they're all gonna yeah we can make more doing that no uh so did some did some sniffing around what i was told and another person told me they had heard the same thing is there was a players only meeting and the players only meeting was not to discuss peter laviolette as far as i can tell the relationship with laviolette is fine between him and the players so there's a lot of chatter about him potentially getting fired i don't get the impression that they think he is either the problem or their main problem like if they do

think he's a problem he's not the main problem their main gripe was chris drury the so the rangers are it's so rare that you hear a team collectively having a problem with management it's usually a little more in the room oh the coach has lost the room this is an example where a gm who was an nhl player with a very respected career very successful career has lost a room full of today's NHL players. Jacob Truba, like we should have made a way bigger deal about his comment that, you know, getting fired by MSG is a rite of passage.

That wasn't one player being an entitled brat. I think that was a guy speaking for the room. That's how those guys feel. The one piece of good news that I had heard is I think these guys want to be Rangers. well yeah i can see that they want to be rangers the one player i had heard uh would like out is kako um because i mean he needs more opportunity i'm sure he wants to make more money and you can't do that in the role that he's he has and he's a healthy scratch what is it tonight

or yesterday last night it was last night yeah against the blues did it help no they lost three two well there you go yeah he's not the reason they've been stinking exactly right so i i kind of expect something to come down soon there maybe not today but soon um but i get the impression these guys want to be rangers and the reason they're so upset and not necessarily being like trade me right now is they just they want chris drury uh to either change his ways or be gone and i think that is one of the major issues here is that every level of this team is in disarray and can't help itself because if you're the general manager you can't reward a group of guys who have given up effort by firing the head coach because that that's what you're essentially doing

you're rewarding them by saying the effort it's not on you it's on the head coach so i'm going to get rid of the head coach bringing somebody new and we'll all be happy and if you're the guys you shouldn't be you should be upset at chris jury for the way he's handled the gujro situation and the truba situation and all that and you you don't respect him at all and you think a different general manager should be in there and i assume everything you guys are saying about the quiet quentin is true and they're not giving effort for good reasons but also you have to be giving effort because every day you have to win in the nhl and this is your career on the line if you don't give effort we're not gonna we're not gonna keep you around here and if you're peter laviolette and

he's complaining to the media about the guys not giving effort that's your job to get these guys motivated something has to give everything is wrong here with each level and the only guy who's at the top of the food chain there to make uh to make decisions is chris jury yep no matter who feels what something has to change now the way they treated goudreau bad uh the way they treated um truba bad the name i heard more than once was crider they're furious with well because he was mentioned in the memo that went to 31 other teams they're like we want to get rid of them I was thinking about this. So, okay, he's had a very good NHL regular season career,

scored over 300 goals. That puts you in the top. It's like a crazy percent if you reach 300 goals. 123 Stanley Cup playoff games in his career, 48 Stanley Cup playoff goals, 28 assists, 76 points. I was thinking about it, and the Leafs are not the team that you should base your standards on, especially when it comes to the playoffs.

the Leafs have dudes hanging from the rafters like their names and numbers immortalized forever who did less for the Leafs than Kreider has done for the New York Rangers sure but the bar is different the bar is different he's been to the final four uh at least three times Stanley Cup final in there he's he's been nothing but incredible for the scene he's not even really having a bad year and how much he's having a not the best year and then now chris crider's playing on the fourth line like he played on the fourth line on sunday against san luis he had 75 points last year he's only got 11 this he's only got 11 it for for whatever reason he is not picking up assists i can't explain that phenomenon but his goal scoring pace is not far off yeah but he's

amongst the group of players here who are giving very poor efforts on the ice yeah and that's in for a guy who you know has more in him that's inexcusable so here's here's what i would say to the rangers having their little players only meeting because i don't know what it's meant to accomplish who's above chris drury right so really what you're hoping for okay we want chris drury gone so we gotta we gotta send a message to his boss well as i see it on the rangers website um there's two guys listed above chris drury and there's greg siebert who's the vice chairman and executive chairman james l dolan but you know what okay maybe you can't get through to them directly you know who you should go through you know you should complain to you should complain

to the strategic advisor to the chairman do you know that person's name is the end with a dolan it sure does Quinton Dolan oh there you go his son yeah guys legitimate as your gripes may be I think you're screwed here I think the best thing here would be to play good hockey play out of it play your way out of this thing because the coach isn't getting fired because the GM's not doing that because you hate him and he's not relieving the coach because you want that done and and the GM has all the power here unfortunately even though i believe like the way chris jury has acted recently and hit the moves he's made and in constructing this team i don't think he's probably the best fit for this role going forward but it

doesn't seem there's an avenue to remove him from that post so the only thing here is if you want to stick around in new york play better hockey unfortunately and guys like zabin ajad and lingren was awful on man was he bad he was bad there's a there's a a puck going to the neutral zone that it was him and jordan kairu just going to get it it's just one-on-one battle for the puck and lingren loses that battle results in a breakaway for kairu who ends up scoring and putting up the blues to nothing and lingren was the most vocal coming out of saturday's loss five one of the kings being like we're getting that worked we need to win all these battles and on sundays the guys losing the battles and that stuff is so disrespectful to the the fans there that are

rooting on this team i hate this crutch and i don't like doing this you've watched him a decent amount yeah yeah is he hurt lingering yeah i don't think so also i don't care well like okay so the reason i ask is how did he all of a sudden just forget to be good this is the thing he's in a ufa year he's 26 he was a great piece of their run again like crider i wonder if crider is right He should be playing into a contract that brings him generational wealth. And he's playing himself into a healthy scratch. Into a one-year deal. I hope you still have it.

Keiondre Miller's out. Panarin is day-to-day. He didn't play Sunday at all. And it's not just Lindgren who's been awful. Mika Zabinijad. A lot of Ranger fans want that guy gone. But unfortunately, you're not trading that contract. I don't know if anybody's going to take that deal.

But Zabinijad's been awful, too. and he got demoted to the third line yesterday because he's been so bad and also didn't put in the greatest effort. You know, you're seeing from top to bottom, it's been a lack of production from all of these guys. And you can't give this sort of effort and expect to get backing from the fans and the team

if this is the way you're on the ice performing. The worst players, or at very least up front, are the staples. Like the dudes who have been there forever. Panarin is having an unreal season, 36-24. No complaints about Penn. 29 games, no complaints. Except it's his defense sometimes.

Sure. It's not great at defense. Adam Fox, 25 points in 30 games. Do you complain about that? Of course not. No. Adam Fox hasn't been Norris Trophy. No.

That's the level I expect out of him. So is that the conversation that we always have with Matthews, where he can't even score 40 goals because that's not good enough because the standard is 69? Right, okay. No, Adam Fox hasn't been Norris Trophy level, and that's been disappointing. Will Cooley, 23 points in 30 games.

I mean... This team doesn't run through Cooley. No, but what a step, right? So if he's doing that well, all right, great. How's everyone else doing? I guess what I'm getting to is the dudes who have been there for like a decade. If they're performing to their usual and they get a performance out of him like that, they're doing great, but they're not.

Lafreniere, 21 points in 30 games. That's probably below what I expected of him, but he's still fourth. You want to chirp? It hasn't been great since he signed that contract. Zibanejad. You got your money and you stopped trying, Laf. Zibanejad, 21 points in 30 games. Too much money for the third line.

Trocek, 18 points in 30 games. Now we're getting a drop off here. Riley Smith, you know what? You got him for pennies on the dollar. You're scoring at half a point a game. Actually, a little bit more. That was the correct free agent acquisition by Drury. I'll give him that.

That's what they needed. Some winger help. And Riley Smith should have been perfect for that role. He should have been perfect in Pittsburgh, too. And it makes me wonder, does Riley Smith still have it? Guess who else is scoring at about half a point a game? And it's fine that he's scoring at half a point a game. And you usually keep half a point a game players.

Capo Caco. Healthy scratch. Healthy scratch. Which is a curious decision because... He played a great game the game before. That was the thing. Like, he was good before he got healthy. And people, like, Rangers fans are like, why him?

Yeah, no, it was a very odd decision by Laviolette. and that's somebody grasping at straws who doesn't who's probably is just talking to dolan or dolan to drury who doesn't like caco it seems like drury's not the fan of caco and that's your gmn head coach skewering a guy who shouldn't be skewered i watch be a great player i watched him in the playoffs i don't get it i don't get it either i like uh okay is he second overall pick good no sometimes guys wear that like a friggin uh like weighted vest like i i like a backpack full of weight they i someone was like if he played for like medicine hat in the whl and was named tanner like everything would be fine yeah but he's capo caco and second overall

pick you know if he was a fourth rounder from medicine hat he'd be fine yeah the scratching was a weird thing to do from lavi let's decide the things heedles at half a point a game and you missed him last year and then you get into Kreider who has just a genuinely bizarre stat line with the 10 goals which is good and one assist which is horrible um if your main stays Zibanejad maybe Trocek finds his way into that conversation and Kreider the dudes who have been there forever if they're like average they're great another guy I I gotta say is really disappointing like he and he he's disappointing to the point where he like negates what you're getting out of cooley is jimmy vc has played 16 games and he's got three points would you say he's

vanilla oh he was so good though he was no i'm just saying with the leaves it's annoying yeah it's just an amazon joke there's not amazon no no i won't give you that like uh connor mckee reading i know connor mckee slugging it out on on saturday against the kings was fun to watch you You know, you're like, oh, he's getting to a fight and like it's all for nothing. You know, it's like, oh, we're going to do the thing where we get into a fight and we're going to galvanize the guys and everything's going to be cool. And they lose 5-1. Now, this team should be a GM's dream, though, because you have a team that is struggling and you need to make a move. OK, that's bad.

We don't like that. But everyone's confused as to why they're bad, which means you have talent. You have names. You have names that people want. Get moving. How's your phone doing? You got itchy thumbs? Scratch them.

It's hard to make a deal when guys are at the complete bottom of their value. Well, that's a problem. Yeah, that is a problem. The guy you want to move in Kreider is like, I keep saying, he's on your fourth line on Sunday. How are you going to move that? You know where Kreider makes so much sense to me, based on what they did this weekend, is St. Louis. New York? St. Louis.

St. Louis? If they were going to trade him. And the reason I say that is because if you look at the St. Louis Blues, they got Cam Fowler because Nick Letty is probably going to be a longer term than we thought. And their top two scorers have 25 and 20 points. Wouldn't Chris Kreider look good next to Kyrou and Thomas? I'd call for Lindgren too.

Well, I don't think St. Louis needs more defense. No, I know. Well, screw it. I think they need more scoring. We're going to do 10 and 8. We're going to do 10 and 8. We're going to have four pairs. We're the Blues.

We do things different around here. Jesse's face. I didn't know. He's just very. You're pretend Doug Armstrong. We're doing it. Well, someone. Don Cherry and a drunk neighbor there.

Someone, I mean, should be like someone is going to take the bet that Lindgren didn't forget how to play hockey. You know what I mean? um they're a fascinating team i if crider becomes available if he if he genuinely becomes available every playoff team should be in on them i'm just and here's the thing i need the leafs to find their third line center inside the organization like i need air because i would love a nice patcher ready crider left side you need a established 3c i know you do i know you do tempted don't be tempted you need an established i'm dying though i'm dying i need it i need it

Kreider as a Leaf, come on, man. I need it. As a fan, I need it. And that's the thing is that it's too bad that he's not a center because he'd be perfect. He scored 50 goals so recently. I know. The Rangers downfall doesn't make any sense to me.

And what I'd be curious about is this players-only meeting. What was Igor Shostakhin's role in it? Because I think it also probably rubbed players the wrong way, that it was very nakedly. like have you seen that meme of uh the rangers trade truba and it's like chris drury at igor shisterkin's house half an hour later and it's just the door opening and a guy holding out on literally on his knees holding out a bunch of money like yeah it's we did a so that we could accomplish b we traded our captain and kicked him out the door despite his wishes because we signed

this guy and like i'm not criticizing signing the best goalie in the world but it's a little difficult to be sitting there as eager going yeah fuck the establishment like i just got all my money yeah damn the man who just gave me unfathomable wealth yeah you know it's i wonder i wonder if buffalo the rangers and the islanders could all fire their gm in the same season lou lamorello is not getting fired he will step down whenever he chooses to um they got it they got to do something there i i played the game i played our cliff fletcher game with lou lamorello oh yeah um so he was born october 21st 1942 adamal like this he was born during the battle of stalingrad oh wow that was a long battle to be fair and someone was born not the same year

not the same month they were born the same day as lou same day little baby lou was born in ron island he was probably bald then too so he was probably bald then too he was wearing a suit out of the womb came out with and beside his side hair and this person a famous person okay was born in brooklyn that same day october 21st 1942 um brooklyn i don't know judge judy wow oh that's a fun fact judge judy was born the same day as lula amorello well it must have been like they must have been born under an ironclad sign yeah in the celestial system because both of them are about the law oh astrology with mers with igor get on the stirkin god bless his heart um he got pulled saturday and it's like okay we're paying you 11.5 million dollars moving

forward we can't have you uh be pulled against the la kings but also every goal in that game was harlem globetrotters la kings can just come on a two-on-one past the buck where they want the zone score goal so for him he's not delivering on no save percentage you want out of a goal you're paying that much but the team in front of him has been so dog shit lately you can't really blame him for anything so they they ask they have to change things up because you can't just torpedo a whole season exactly um you're you well you can't make the playoffs you are right at current moment you are you should make the playoffs there's no reason for you not to right now you sit out of a playoff spot and with the whole conversation i just i don't know where you move forward besides like

jury's the boss so he's gonna make all the moves and he's gonna make some shifts and he's gonna be really antsy and call gms openly and all that fun stuff so there's gonna be more stuff coming out in new york and it's gonna be just more hell and disaster and chaos i don't know how the players win this battle yeah that's i'm at a loss for you're a good player you've been here for so long We know you can do better, but you don't have any of the power. Talk to the owner or his son. Marcus Pedersen is going to be out for several weeks at least for the Pittsburgh Penguins after a disastrous game yesterday

against the Ottawa Senators. Now, I want to play for – we've got – there's an overhead shot, but Jesse, there's also a video I sent that has a Drake Batherson goal that I would like to specifically point out, okay? I think you and I were sent the same screenshot from Cassie. Oh, it wasn't that. I was just looking at it on Twitter. But Penn's fans are not thrilled.

Oh. Penn's fans are not thrilled. Okay. Which one do I go to first? Go to the video one first. The first one I sent you, go to that one. Maybe we're talking about different goals. Why don't we stop guessing and just play it?

Yeah, so let's have a play here. Now, we don't have to scan through this, but the way this goal goes in is very interesting. uh because of drake batherson's positioning and it starts in the send zone as we can see here uh puck carrier brings it up almost nobody even challenges him through the neutral zone i don't even know who that is it might be brady i don't even know doesn't matter doesn't even get challenged till he gains the offensive zone already not great but maybe you caught the pittsburgh penguins on a on a on their heels right that happens now penguins sort of regain possession a little

bit here jesse if you move forward they sort of regain possession uh we we're gonna turn it around nope sen's got it again yeah they pick up the loose puck there now i'll give the pens credit here they've got good coverage down low there are four forwards back that's commitment ricard raquel's there you got matt grizzlick there you got uh uh ryan graves there i believe that's uh 87 uh bad at hockey actually who's that called um uh and here you go you got a shot from the point that's uh i think isn't that bacho no yeah that's uh yeah hot sand bacho um oh that's a nice move what a move on crosby oh here we go look at this the balls to do that against yeah this is crazy now that's a nice little dangle by pause there so bacho's got uh crosby beat there and

it's a great move and only a guy like oh no now look at the side of the pen's net you've got a senator behind a defenseman and you got another senator behind a senator, okay? And the goalie can clearly see Thomas Chabot, right? So what does Thomas Chabot do? Because in theory, one of those senators

is completely, like, what use are you? If you move a couple steps to the left, like forward for the senator towards his, you know, away from the net, maybe you're more valuable. But what happens? Let's have a look. Drive and feed the slut. Let's see. so so here's what happens now you got all right two cents freezing wide open Crosby is still on

Thomas Chabot because he's Crosby and Jari is down before the shot even happened that's a lot of net it's it's a lot of net the shot has not happened and Jari's already on his knees and there is again five Pittsburgh Penguins three Ottawa Senators including the puck carrier but if the two senators that are open are open now because they've repositioned to the top and the side of the blue ice, watch where Thomas Chabot puts this, okay? And it goes.

Throws it into the crease. Throws it into the crease and it goes into the net. Now, what's interesting is how it goes into the net because it goes off of Drake Batherson's well-placed skate, which is right along the post. If you look at Batherson, he's the one closest to the post. He's just giving him a bumper. You see the pucks going right there.

And that's what he did. Now, if we look at the overhead on this, which makes it a little bit easier to see. Okay, you want me to pull up the other one? Yeah, is that okay? This is a fascinating goal, which led to a fascinating quote. And I think a quote born out of frustration,

but it's not going over well on Penn's TikTok, Twitter, Penn's Talk, Penn's Twitter. Okay. You know, whatever. Now, look at Batherson here. Look where his foot is. And the puck's already gone off his skate, and you can see it's about to cross the line.

Jari sees this the whole way. Graves sees this the whole way. Gryzlik does not necessarily have Bathurston totally tied up, but his stick is tied up. So you don't hate the Bathurston. And yeah, you don't hate Gryzlik's positioning on this. But that puck is going in the net. Now, let me give you the Josh Yohi, Tristan Jari breakdown of this.

Because Josh is the athletic writer for the Pittsburgh Penguins. and he introduces it like this jari's explanation of the goal is one of the most bizarre you'll ever read oh jari says i thought it was going wide jari says it's a shit goal i don't know how you take that out of the game but i don't think you should be allowed to stand there and let a guy shoot off of you i think it's almost impossible to stop like he gets in position on our player and he just parks himself on the back post and their guy just shoots it off him it's a tough play and i don't think it should be a part of hockey i think there's an argument to be made that batherson directed the puck into the net if he deliberately set his skate there to bank a puck

into the net like i which he did and that's legal yeah i don't know you can't kick a puck into the net there was no kicking motion though right no but the idea in jari's mind if he's doing this in real time obviously he's not watching a slow motion replay if he sees batherson set his foot you know because you need to move your foot to set it and then it banks off of him to get that i can see how in his mind in real time that that looks like a kicking banking deliberately into the net situation now here's how spicy the do i agree no but i can see how he thinks that now here's how spicy it gets because because here's what josh follows up that quote with there was no kicking motion the rules are the rules i'm not sure precisely what jari was upset about make no

mistake there wasn't a lot that Jari could have done on that play it wasn't his fault in the least and it wasn't a pretty goal but it struck me as rather strange a rather strange reaction Crosby has scored a dozen goals in his career that look just like that I suppose those should be abolished from the record books and I think it speaks to the frustration that Tristan Jari has right now because he did go on a four game run where he was great he looked good and I last update I got I was under the impression he was doing well and it speaks to the frustration that penguins fans and media have with jari with how he has played this year and sometimes and this is where kyle dubas is extremely frustrating now i'm not oh how does he factor in well i'm not saying that there is

actually a taker for tristan jari i don't think there is no but kyle has this thing where it doesn't really matter to him how toxic it gets between the fans and the media and a player if he if you're his guy you're his guy and and it didn't matter how many times people were like hey justin hall in that position is not enough we need more from that the guy in the you know playing with jake muzzin it's so crazy how his play went up with jake muzzin it's so wild could it be that jake muzzin's good no it must be the justin hall no uh it couldn't be that alex kerfoot who did score a couple of like important playoff goals i'm not going to take that away from him but mostly did a lot of zipping around a lot of zipping didn't matter that that that that was going on

kyle really didn't care and he shouldn't in a vacuum but when you get interactions like this when you have a goalie worried about the goal that the probably the one goal of the game that really wasn't his fault frustrated like that it tells you that something's off and their defense grizzly's been bad graves has been bad and that's a kyle dubas signing pair both of them except for grizzly on the power play is somehow god nicholas lindstrom i don't know i don't know how unbelievable this team needs something they need a change and it can't be just philip thomasino who was already injured here you go jesse no i wanted to show you guys the angle where you can see batherson you can't play this maddie where you can see batherson angle his foot i just want to give jari some

leeway in that bathroom kind of does backhand kick this into the net like it's it's not egregious and that he doesn't do it bang bang that's fine it is that's legal it is legal but from his perspective of jari here like it's instantaneous and it looks like a little back he's even still sliding while he kicks it which you can't do like it looks like a backhand kick from the goalies perspective like he probably hadn't even seen the replay when he made right but i don't know i think see a sliding boot and he kicks the puck into the net like i don't know the spiciness of it is what i'm speaking to it's less about the goal and more about the reaction to jari i actually for the media and the fans i think in this instance if this is a goalie who's winning and everybody is

happy with this quote isn't taken and everybody's yelling about it you don't see a lot of rule changes uh being called for by goalies who just won yeah i think if if this is somebody who who everybody in the media and all the fans like that it's not an egregious quote it's a guy being competitive and he wants that goal back um i think this is speaks to hey everybody's mad at tristan jari and he can't make a point and that includes you adam who's looking for every negative pittsburgh i i'm bringing up something that they put in the athletic a a real publication here you know what else they should take out of the game jesse can you bring up what i sent you sure yeah They got to take this out.

I don't see. I don't mind this. I think what I'm trying to say here is it's that's the goal. That's not Jari's fault. The toxicity there, though, has got we got to move on here. Adam, if you're a goaltender. Oh, no. Ten the goal.

Here he is just going for a little adventure. He's having a fun time. I don't even know how he got in that position. I have no idea. And again, it's calamity in front of the Penguins net. How many guys is that? Two, three. Oh, my God.

I thought they were getting better. I did. Oh, well. All good things that last for four games come to an end. Are you allowed to direct the puck into the net with your skate? Yes. Yes, you are. As long as there's no kicking motion.

As long as there's no backhand slide kicking motion. Well, he was being pushed by Grizzly, Jesse, is what I would argue as his lawyer. I don't know. So what was he supposed to do? By the way, I don't know if you guys saw the video of the Senators e-bug, Zach Deitz running to the arena. Unreal. Because he was stuck in traffic.

Bardown had it. I don't know if we want to put it up, but it's pretty funny. And it's too bad he didn't get in. I know. Whenever there's an e-bug situation, like Julian sent us, they're like,

we might have an e-bug situation. I was like, ah, come on. E-bug watch. Very quickly here, Marshan got booed in Vancouver this weekend and then scored and then immediately taunted the crowd. I don't know how this guy keeps doing this

wherever he's hated the most but he it does bring out the best in him i think uh it's on canucks fans and uh let's throw leaf fans in there too and maybe even have fans um to cheer every time he gets the puck have you seen cheer it takes away his power have you seen the mason mctavish goal where he gets a goal but then is immediately called for goaltender interference no and i know drew sent it to the group chat i missed it it is hilarious so he scores a goal that counts it counts and then what does he do so that i assume the puck goes in and then he just steamrolls a goalie yes uh now i want to know what you guys think of this if you would have called it yourselves and listen we're not we're not pro officials but sometimes i would argue neither of the pros

um this is this is an interesting one uh because it is a goal and it is after the play oh shit wow and he really takes out the Columbus goaltender like crushes him yeah he got hit though he got hit and he got called for goaltender interference on the play oh god damn who which goalie is that Merzlikens I don't know who's starting oh my god he absolutely wrecks him I I don't know I'm not really seeing how that's his fault yeah isn't that wild yeah i kind of thought that was on the defenseman as well is that wierenski i don't understand that holy shit does he get a piece of him though

yeah that can't be fun to go down there and take that like that no brutal no did he stay in the game damn yeah crazy oh my god you're whoa yeah man that's bad uh last thing if we do a press conference this is just the last thing before we get to it there is a guy who uh is a rich guy who hired a plane to drive over giant stadium and you know how they have those little things that you can write a message in the sky yeah uh or like a flag that follows behind it he said mr mara who is the owner of the giants enough we won't stop until you fire everyone he fit all that on one banner yes he did a long banner he is an apathetic Giants fan who has who works in I believe finance and so he has some money and he thought you know what I'm gonna use this for

some good because the Giants the Jets are taking up a lot of oxygen this year with how bad they are and Garrett Wilson yelling at his offensive coordinator on the bench that yesterday but the giants are bad and they've been bad for a long long time okay and i feel like people fans in new york just generally are kind of fed up and pissed off even yankee fans are mad soto left right mets fans are thrilled i think they're the only ones left who are happy you see where you're playing you see where you left the yankees for soto you mother no yeah no all the the the content's been wonderful it's been great yes um yeah so i guess um uh the giants have missed the playoffs 11 of 13 seasons since their 2011 super bowl win they lost 35 14 to baltimore last week

and i guess that uh um high exposure incorporated uh was the company that does this and they reached out uh they were reached out to to get the banner sponsor and it cost him fifteen hundred dollars to do it um and he wanted to embarrass the owner and and the guy the owner or the guy who wrote it said uh the biggest thing that the mara family prides itself on is pride in themselves and so if you're able to make it more embarrassing for them it will further force them to take action damn geez that's what was that face it was just like oh like you're going at billionaires like that adam's bearing the lead what's the lead you talk about giants ravens which happened yesterday oh it was yesterday the the implications that giants ravens had on steve dangle's life

and how it brought him to the depths of despair oh my god i forgot jesse as a derrick henry fantasy football owner oh god angle was just distraught watching him put up only 6.7 points in the week one of fantasy football playoffs and steve do you want to talk about how you're the entirety of your fantasy football season started and ended dude i after okay last year scpn's fantasy football league 10 teams i missed the playoffs in an eight team playoff eight teams made the playoffs i lost a tiebreaker to christina and sales it was only me and grav played with us last year and he essentially didn't set his line he stopped playing he stopped playing i was the only active person to miss the playoffs

I was horrible I was awful this year I put together a team I thought was pretty good week one I played Drew he has someone I don't remember who it was they put up 45 points I have no chance against that after that I lost twice

all year all year I was first place heading into the final week I lose in the final week and I missed the President's Trophy of our league on a tiebreaker to producer Nick. Who did you lose to in the final week?

Justin Fisher. Our social lead, who is a piece of garbage. You're a piece of garbage! He's never going to... You're a piece of... There he is. He's never going to let you forget this. Look into the window.

You're a piece of garbage! So week one of the playoffs, I'm like, I'm going to make him... I'm num-num. Eat a little humble pie. you know also you lose the president's trophy in the last week of the season right on a tie on a tiebreaker which is so you beat justin you don't have to worry about the tiebreaker you're you're in the league there's also like a prize associated with the president's trophy so you

lose out on it's just short of like 100 bucks or something like that to win the president's show and then we go to the playoffs and because you fell to second place in the league standings you get matched up with justin again again in round one of the playoffs which is this past weekend how did that go for you i had a failed waiver claim for sam darnold which might have changed the tide for me i don't know how he did all i know is producer drew as we're setting up for the stream that we did on thursday goes oh you got brock purdy in tonight is that every position i'm super strong my quarterback's a bit weak you got purdy and geno smith right yeah yeah um and drew goes oh no you got pretty i go what do you mean oh no he's like it's torrential downpour

they're not going to be passing the ball so he was projected to get 18.5 points he got just under five oh uh what's this guy's name i don't even this is by the way this is why i shouldn't even be in this position what i didn't know my i didn't i don't know the players names i barely know who they play for i shouldn't have finished second um friggin derrick henry 10th ranked 10th in all of fantasy football was supposed to get 18 points he got 6.7 derrick henry who is could easily be fantasy football mvp this season like him and saquon and lamar and alan are like right there for fantasy mvp and then the week one of the playoffs he puts up six points which is a disaster for henry tyrone tracy jr was supposed to get 11.7 points he got four and the henry thing comes in a

game where the entire game went towards henry running the ball a lot yeah they beat up on the giants the game you're talking about the giants yeah they beat them up they're they're up by 20 plus all game long you should be feeding henry the ball but it just didn't work out that way for the ravens and chuba hubbard who's been an absolute rock star he's been great all season He was supposed to get over 15 points. He got less than seven. Yeah, Dallas decided to be a football team again and beat up on Carolina.

Jesse, what was my worst regular season point total? You didn't have a week below. I think it was 99 points. Oh, my God. Every single week this season, you put up at least 99 points. And I finished second last, and you got one more week than I did.

I'm one of two people that didn't make the playoffs. Yeah, you're Steve from last year. and i put up 90.48 and justin had one hell of a week like he's still going who has josh allen in our pool because he had okay he had the best two fantasy weeks of all time yeah yeah he put a 40 points last that's insane man that's so insane ah anyway justin let me stupid face let me see your stupid freaking look at this is he there oh yeah there he is so steve i think the moral of the story is you embody the things you enjoy fire keith you enjoy one thing in particular fire keith and that's the toronto maple leafs

great really did choke in the first round great regular season you're shaky down the stretch and everyone's call it out and they're like oh my god he's having a bad couple weeks or should we be concerned and all my best players underperform you get to the first round of the playoffs and you lose how does it feel adam if steve steve now is not doing the thing you hate he's showing up to the press conference yeah he's in front of the microphone he is he is he is post round one loss you're taking the podium adam what do you want to ask steve steve why does your team have such a fragile mentality well you know it's uh i i don't i i i think we have a belief in ourselves um you know uh i was you ever heard the the uh the tale of the chinese

farmer you know will we choke again next year maybe maybe but i don't think so and that's why I'm going to run it back. If I have a chance to get Derek Henry again, I'm going to run it back. If I have a chance to get Brock Purdy again, I'm going to run it back with him. I love my guys, and I'm confident as the fantasy football cap goes up.

Even though the 49ers are not supposed to be that great going forward because they're getting old and hurt? No. You're going back with them? Adam, ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears. what about my love of my guys oh no oh steven steve that is a complete disaster you are the story of our fantasy football season no matter how it plays out for the next two rounds in the championship you're the story of this season i'm a bum i'm a bum what a clap i cannot believe it

i don't think i lost two weeks in a row all year no uh final two weeks of the year though what a bum it was three one it was four one it was all of it it was i'm a bum i cannot believe you always got next year yeah you also you also have next week because you can play for your like final seating yeah i'm gonna play like the uh was a fifth and sixth place game oh no did he get it you can't even get it into the top three no no he's done your weight i'm getting a call guys what's that oh okay yeah sure no no i'll bring it to the guys so even though i failed miserably i'm actually gonna take a promotion with another fantasy league you're moving up yeah i'm moving on up yeah have you been i was gonna take some time off like some much needed time off but i'm

actually gonna take a promotion how did those negotiations come together so quickly oh could you have been talking to them before this yeah you know i've been talking to another league since february oh that's crazy it's great man well done and we'll wrap up sitting over there on the right uh yeah you didn't make the play i had a horrible year and a horrible strategy and you're the only one left i'll do it never do it again three of us yeah i'll never do it again but i finished third last year and i expect to be back up where i belong next season all right third place third second or first jesse blake okay i'm i'm scared because i think i'm gonna face justin the way the seating breaks out next week and his team looks really good it's peaking right now which

is dangerous so i might be out to the semi-finals but i love this this is very good stuff all right let's we'll be back wednesday and friday this week by the way i was gonna get a raven's jersey and wear it when i won we'll uh we'll explain the schedule for the Christmas break next episode. Yeah, yeah. I don't think we need to do it right now, but there is episodes coming. Are you listening to the music this time?

Yeah. I forgot. I forgot. The Steve Dangle Podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle at Adam W-Y-L-D-E and at Jesse Blake.

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