The Steve Dangle Podcast - Noise About Noise | January 23, 2025

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Come see The Steve Dangle Podcast live in at Boston Pizza in Stouffville: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/steve-dangle-podcast-live-tickets-1205603405239?aff=oddtdtcreator On this episode of The Steve Dangle podcast, Crowd Gate (00:00), Hildeby & Murray (50:00), Morgan Rielly (1:10:00), the salary cap (1:24:00), Team Canada (1:40:00), Columbus at the trade deadline (1:52:00), and the Stadium Series jerseys (2:01:00). 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 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 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!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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I guess Jesse didn't get the quarter zip memo. I did not. Wow. No. Although I'm a quarter button. You're a quarter button. Yeah, there's no zip on Steve, so he didn't get the memo either. He does have a quarter zip.

He does. It's not. There's no zip on. No, but he does own one. He just didn't wear it. Yeah, I own one too. You know what? Maybe we need to institute a monthly quarter zip tag.

You know? You know? We used to have blue shirt and khaki shorts day. Yes. Back in the day. We need to have our... He's like, ew, what? Why not?

No, the reason... Matty, we got to show off the gams, you know? Yeah. Come on. Listen, the people want what Adam and I provide. That's right. That's right. just just no fashion uh and complete uniformity just our um the the quarter zip or quarter button

we were assigned in the hospital when our kids were born that's right as a dad yes you must blue shirt and khaki shorts day is may 26 okay we're not missing that again we've missed that for like eight years may how did you look that up by the way no i didn't like i put in my calendar and so it's still in your calendar unbelievable it comes up every year you're the best as a I've had it for whatever we started it You just hit like a holiday I know but it's crazy that you didn't look at that One May 26th throughout the years

And went you know what we're probably never doing this again Why'd I do that It's not taking up any room anywhere There you go Digital calendar Write things down it'll be good for you Like writing down when Tuesdays are and Wednesdays are Oh Adam

I was going to go into that adam listen i'll talk about this in a second but yeah listen february 12th happens to be a wednesday oh a-holes okay oh all right i'm kidding i'm totally kidding you're absolutely right you're absolutely right it's there the a stands for actually correct i did i did see all the comments i did see all the tweets um and i thought god uh only only me only me so it's wednesday february 12th at stoville boston pizza it's the bomb there are you sure canada versus sweden will be playing later on that night but we got a live show beforehand yeah right so uh 6 30 live show uh canada plays sweden we're gonna be hanging out

uh along with you and here's the great thing molson canadian uh the official hockey beer and partner of the toronto maple leafs and pwhl um they've got uh they've got this little special going on okay so every time you order a molson uh they will give you a chance to call the shot where you get to make score predictions for your chance at forty thousand dollars worth of prizing uh so you get a pin code uh you score points to win vip hockey trips game tickets gift cards and more call the shot can be played at boston pizza restaurants across the country yanni hockenpah bet right there you think he's gonna play no you don't think he's actually i kind of do i actually kind of do too we can talk about that but uh anyway molson canadian wants to bring everyone

in on hockey and we want to bring everyone in on bp stovill so come join us wednesday and by the way i just want you guys to know that i look at this this sheet that we have okay i have a sheet of notes where i where i do on this sheet gentlemen i didn't write it at the very top what does it say uh adam's gonna fuck the date up anyway so just uh just do it just read it tuesday february 12th 2024 wait that's incorrect the year is wrong yes and so is the date so i just want you to understand that when i do these it's a little ron bergeny and a little bit of flower like we put some flourish in there too just show up 11 months ago okay i just want you understand i just want you guys to understand it was coming from an honest place i am february 12th

was a tuesday in 2024 so whoever did this was like oh that's a good point all right adam i guess that's where the mistake can i get a little bit back a little bit of credit back no you don't get credit for being ron burgundy okay all right fine uh the other donkey i want to talk to you though what is this weekend alan and i and jesse are heading down to london ontario to speak at the ivy school of business um i am not people like oh congrats to you for speaking at the ivy school i'm like i'm not i'm helping alan speak at the ivy school of business uh if they have ever have a conference on how to be a turkey on the air that's me but alan uh along with a huge list of people in sports business across the country uh there's like a whole thing tim haraney is going

to be there talking about formula one which is cool so he's going to be doing that tomorrow that's why we're doing the show today because we got to travel down jesse are you going down friday you're going down saturday no i'll be there to watch tim okay yeah i gotta i can't i wouldn't ever miss that no not adam that's the biggest event i'm gonna be there tim no i'm there to watch adam i thought tim was next tuesday no the uh the speakers list is really cool maddie if you want to pull it up pinballs speaking which is awesome i find this fascinating like if you're interested in canada soccer and you've been following that drama that happened at the olympics over the summer and everything with soccer canada

um we're getting kevin blue the ceo jesse marsh the head coach and uh phil king the uh c is the chief business officer of mlsc but he's not relevant in this conversation because we're getting two of the main people at play at canada soccer so i don't know if there's gonna be news coming out of that i would love to know it's gonna be it's gonna be a good watch did you notice how quickly by the way tfc moved on from their head coach after that incident they were like yeah you can leave bye see you and he was one of the most popular people in canada and he's just disappeared yeah there now the main event that picture is old how old are you in that photo i gotta be 21 22 in that photo they took that linkedin i gotta change my link so if you'll see 2025 speakers we got a

lot of important people uh gulf canada ceo as i mentioned the chief business officer of mlse So one thing there, quickly. First off, John Chayka, former GM of the Coyotes. Yeah, we're getting there. Oh, sorry. John Chayka. Sorry. Phil King was one of the builders of TSN.

Jesse, just you take the day off. All right, you go. Don't worry about it. I just thought it was worth mentioning. Like, oh, who's Phil King? Well, he built one of your favorites. Adam, you're not going to like this, but you really pulled a me there. I did.

I did. All right. Tuesday. We're getting to Adam. There's Adam right there. How old are you? How old are you? That?

21 or 22. Why did they use this photo? that is my linkedin photo and i don't know they might email me and ask for a photo and i just never emailed them because alan looks like alan in his photo yeah alan looks like modern alan they're gonna i'm gonna show up they're gonna be like are you related this is 10 years ago oh easily 15 i think oh my god i'm 36 man i'm gonna be 37 this year and how old were you here 21 22 i was doing that's a virgin radio shot yeah uh virgin radio the original the first time yeah probably 2009 2010 oh my 15 but i look good right this is like pre crosby gold medal goal

yeah like i look hot i mean ravishing man it's just not accurate well okay uh but like it's not a dating profile it's not like you can't find video of me elsewhere no but people who don't know you are gonna slip into their program like steve quick question yeah is adam catfishing the ivy business school you know is adam a catfish i you know i think a lot of people are going to be disappointed that they they don't get to see someone so thoroughly boy band hot yeah they gotta see can you can you do the face Put them next to each other and then Adam do the face. That was the meanest transition of all time.

Other way. No, other head. Other head? No, your head was the wrong way. Is it this way? Adam's head was the wrong way. Is it this way? The tilt.

No, the tilt is backward. There you go. Adam, can you mute? Can you give us a good mute? That's good. Look at that. All right. Move on.

All right. Two quick things. If you scroll up just a little. paul jones um is an excellent storyteller that all right that's tim not paul also tim tim that's an older photo of tim too no he does not have highlights like that anymore that is a linkedin photo though yeah for sure tim tim does not frost his tips anymore okay he should he should bring it back tim come on time bring it back that's not that's not recent yeah the guy next to him looks like he was just arrested yeah jeff payne he does like are you gonna tell him when you see him

what's with that photo it's weird and he's gonna be like uh you're one to talk and he's gonna i'm gonna be like true we're getting uh blue jays people alex wong who is the vp strategy and of analytics and then vp of fan experience and concessions michelle paul jones good storyteller and up at the very top if you've never seen pinball clements uh speak in person you are in for a freaking treat you want to run through a wall after that guy he was the uh he did a speech at the con smith gala uh raising money for easter seals and like he's he's he like gets you happy and smiling and then by the end of it people are just in tears dumping their wallets and purses upside down on the table yeah has he been given he's unbelievable he must have been given the

order of candidate at this point right he should have if he hasn't he should there was a time and it might still be that time where he could have run for mayor and won easily of of toronto yeah but why why the hell would you want to be mad i don't you don't i don't know he probably couldn't pay cut he couldn't pay cut yeah i just i feel like um uh he has done so much for this uh for this country every time he came into bt2 i remember he was just like everybody's like well pinball's here and we don't have to work that hard in the segment because he's gonna crush it he'll be the highlight of the show yes you're like yes you ask pinball two questions and he goes and he takes it and everybody's like wow that was beautiful and you're like wow i did no work and he begins with

yes um yeah so uh listen let's get into the show and i want to do i do want to start with the leafs unlike yesterday uh and it's not specifically to complain about what happened last night although I do have my complaints. I want to start first with a complaint that Austin Matthews has for the city of Toronto. Now, this is an ongoing complaint. Last night, though, there are times where I think it's been unfair. Last night, I think he actually had a really good point. Jesse, would you go ahead and play it?

It was great. It was great, obviously. And that's still a big part of the game. And he's a big part of this team. And we'd like to see that. We'd like a little more energy from the crowd after that. I thought, you know, it's a little quiet tonight, especially after, you know, a guy, you know, two guys like that go at it. You know, but it was, I think, a great moment for him to give us some energy on the bench.

And obviously, you know, he's been looking for one for a while. So you've got to give kudos to the guy on the other side as well. So he's referring to the Ryan Reeves fight, Ryan Reeves' first fight, and obviously Olivier too. And it was a really good fight. It was it appeared this morning on first take. Stephen A. Smith was a big fan. That's crazy. And I think Austin has a really, really good point.

Like when when Joe Bowen was upset about how Leaf fans sounded in the playoffs last year, you know, I kind of went after him a little bit on that take because I thought, OK, this is a team that has perennially not come through. I can't blame Toronto fans for being anxious. Also, those tickets are, you know, in the lower bowl are like fifteen thousand dollars in the first round. I'm like, they're insane. I mean, we always joke about weeknight games against Columbus. Right. It doesn't help that the Leafs are probably losing. Well, Columbus has their number.

But let's keep it to the crowd for a second. Because I agree with you. I know. I agree. They suck against Columbus. It's the strangest thing. Even when they're good, they're bad. But Jesse, you're in there.

Is that in the moment what the press box is saying too? No, I don't think. Our attention wasn't on the crowd. there's there's there's so many different ways you can go with this conversation because like you start off with if we want to start from the end of like austin saying that in the scrum it came as a surprise to all of us there like i'm standing off to the the right on the screen there i'm standing there recording the audio and that's fun stuff and nobody expected it because you lost five one it's it's it's it's odd for austin to speak out on such a pointed issue about the fans

in the crowd so that was that was odd because we afterwards were all like okay tomorrow on 10 50 and 5 90 in the morning it's going to be crowd gate like we now we have the story for the next morning this is what's going to blow up and you see overnight on twitter it's all anybody's talking about the second he walked away did you guys do the everyone all the journalists looking at each other thing so we waited okay interesting morgan came out right after and then we got mccabe and and hildeby and all the guys and then brube did that and then after brube speaking they were all done we were like you know yeah really odd for austin to just go there so then you start thinking like okay why did he do that and it you kind of be like okay reeves didn't speak so is that i was

surprised is that how reeves felt in the moment where he has this big fight and the crowd didn't react in the way that i think a crowd that was paying more attention and was more knowledgeable about the background of that fight would have reacted because i think sorry sorry no you go ahead i think reeves expected in that moment i'm gonna throw my hands up there's gonna be a round of applause from the crowd yeah and it's going to be this big galvanizing moment for my first fight of the year because it's been building to this after after schmucks like us talking about like oh get him off the team yeah we've we've been edging this fight all season long and finally we got to the fight so so so so reeves has this giant pop and the crowd doesn't respond in that way so

i wonder if at some point from the fight through to when austin is speaking he voiced that this pleasure or if austin himself just noticed it and he genuinely did that from his perspective it's a great way also to distract from the fact that they lost yeah and he's the captain yep so if it matters is feeling that or reeves himself is feeling that way the captain's job is to go out there and say something but not directly like hey reeves felt this way you know he took that burden on him so i think it was smart if that's what happened i'm just i'm making assumptions here if that's what happened as a captain that was a really smart play there there's there's i think there's two things there um number one i thought that was matthew's coming out party as

uh leaf's captain in a way and i and i want to park that and get back to that in a second the other is i don't think most fans and i'm not i'm not trying to be hipster about this but because matthew olivier plays in columbus i don't think a lot of fans understood what they were watching it's a heavyweight championship fight matthew olivier is what you think matt rempe is yeah because he can actually fight matt rempe is the worst fighter in the league is a charismatic tough nut really young he scored a hell of a goal the other day i was like where the hell did that come from charismatic tough nut will fight anybody any day probably lose matthew olivier will fight anybody in the league

and probably beat their ass. Like, who do you take? Arbor Jack guy or Matthew Olivier? Matthew Olivier. They fought twice this year. Michael Pezzetta or... Matthew Olivier. And put any name in front of me,

it's Matthew Olivier. That guy's a problem. Guy's an enormous problem, has double-digit goals, plays on the penalty kill, wears a letter. He is a lot of people's, like, wet dream of what you think

the perfect player is or perfect third liner or grinder or whatever it is so the second i see play stop and the camera shift i have that split second to be like is it and then i see it's reeves and olivier and i go well i got off the couch i got i was watching with my four-year-old who was like oh there's a fight and then it's the biggest slobber knocker i've ever seen i'm like oh shit gonna have to explain this one and i felt that it fought to a draw i felt they both oh yeah they did well when when reeves went down early i went oh fuck but the refs let him keep going so it's good yeah thank goodness and and that or oh oh no depending on who you ask but like it it ended up being a um

reeves still has it uh moment i thought it was spectacular and unbelievable and it lived up to everyone's highest expectations um and i the reaction like dude that's got to be a metallica concert in there after that yeah that is sheriff versus sheriff that that is the toughest guy in the nhl probably on and off for the last decade fighting the new toughest guy in the nhl for the next so you have the next decade you have the matthew side of it with that and then that's like okay so we go to why wasn't there that pop and then we go back to the same issues that scotiabank arenas face forever and will face forever and it's the ticket prices and the fans who want to be there are up in the 300s or at home watching it on tv and like the fans who want to be there are

once every three years exactly i believe square doesn't look anything like the inside of that building no the people who watch it for free in the in the cold when it's still cold in april and we're in the playoffs like those people can't get in and then you have like the scotia club is great and they've built such a fantastic if you if you're not worth millions of dollars like adam wilde you don't know about like the underbelly of the event level of scotia bank arena where there's so many restaurants and clubs now and that takes people out of their seats because everybody who's sitting in the restaurants inside scotia bakerita has a seat in the lower bowl as well so they're not in their seat for the game and stuff like that pays austin matthews salary

exactly which is well and it's valid no there's so much conversation out of this that's why i was like this is the news cycle for the next 24 hours because you can talk about this in so many different ways and instead we haven't even mentioned dennis hildeby's name yeah we'll get there we'll go ahead anecdotally uh i've had the opportunity to both work for mlse and own it and and own it own a piece of it me and ed uh no work for it when i remember i used to do the i did some leafs tv stuff right adam how could i forget uh and steve you did leafs tv stuff so we did about half decade apart adam and i have both collected mlse checks that's right that's right apparently because they didn't pay well well they don't pay well uh they don't uh because they because like

any sports organization they're like everybody wants to work here and it's a great stepping stone unless you're at the executive level and i think they do okay but uh we've talked about yeah we have we have uh but amazing people like work there like really talented uh yes i loved working at leafs tv it was so much fun but the um uh the thing about it when you're doing business deals there and that is what it is used for you know you have to imagine that uh anybody that you know in your family maybe you've got um somebody who works in finance or somebody who's in law and they're working on bay street those are the people that buy those tickets that buy those suites and jesse makes a good point there's not just box seats around the thing there's suites

underneath the the uh the the platinum section and lots of them and they kind of look like mini conference rooms and then there's five-star restaurants underneath now the players get to benefit from that so when you bring a free agent through after morning skate all the players go to the five-star restaurant and order whatever the hell they want and it just gets served to them and it's free so i've seen them come off a morning out huh i almost wonder if that freaks players out why like well just because like you know you get used to one thing and then you walk in and there's like a club well i've been and i've been like what the fuck is drake drake's got that that club in there and i've been to that club and it's funny one time i was there for raptors game and this

one the raptors were good not not championship run good but they were good and i had to do a business thing there and the the person we were working with was so interested in being at the club that we spent the entire night at the club and never went to our seats that's that's like it's not a majority but there are a significant amount of people who go to games and don't go to their seat that's right or they'll show up like you'll see it like you can because where i'm sitting i can see the whole bowl and where i'm sitting you can see things fill in come like midway through the third right you know like there'll be seats that are empty all game but they're in the building they're just not at their seats and then eventually when the game's tight

it's one one in the third you'll see somebody get in their seat and if um you know you go to games all the time this is part of the reason why i like leaf games being a treat you know when i when i go and get to sit in the seats if you go to them all the time and you're entertaining a client and all they want to do is hang out somewhere else in the building go ahead you missed this game yeah it's a wednesday against columbus i don't give a shit well adam uh there's the but the but how do we afford 13 million dollars for austin matthew well exactly or or 15 40 million dollars for scotty barnes right you gotta remember that factors in and because that's what is scotty making like 40 or something you didn't say it right scotty barnes you gotta say it like darko

every time you say it every time you say it you gotta say it like dark you know and and it's not that the leafs couldn't based on just television revenue but you have to remember all the accoutrement that come with playing with mlse so the leafs have a cap they have a cap they can spend what everybody else can but where you don't have a cap is management analytics medical staff uh flights all that shit the leafs can go uh you know what listen maybe we pay you the same as other market and maybe other market is a tax-free state but here's how we can compete with you uh other market's gonna put you on a on a you know on a cheap shitty plane we're gonna put your first class on our plane you know like we have a couple of those we have you know and and also the

executives have their own private plane that's how they flew mike babcock we flew well that that's So that was different. That's the team plane. You're talking about the executive plane that's smaller and more Learjetting. Oh, that one. Yeah, and so... Oh, they have more than one plane.

But I've always thought, and I think they've tried this a little with the next-gen game, that there is a way to do this to change things up. The first thing is, the next time they go and build an arena, why do we cap our arenas at 18,000?

Because most markets, that's all that they can accommodate. In Toronto, if you went to 22, you'd sell out every game still. they'd make more money and you probably you add another ring a little less you add it you add another fan ring flat and maybe it's far away but i think you you bring more fans in the building the other thing that tfc does and i understand that's not a premium ticket in the same way i get it uh tfc has their fan supporters section it's behind home goal right those guys pay very like

it's not an expensive ticket they pay they all have season seats but it's not in the same way that the tfc mlsc was really smart early on they cut a deal with these guys and they said listen you come in you behave we'll let you shoot your flares off you bring your drums you tailgate in the parking lot you do all the things you create the environment we'll give you the discount to do it we they know the capos of all the heads of those because they literally call them capos they know the capos of all the heads of those groups if anybody gets out of line they go to the capo and go what happened here not going to happen again otherwise we're banning you like That's how they keep control of it, but that brings the environment.

And if you took one section or two, and you put them together in that lower bowl, and you did the same thing, my bet is you make pretty much the same amount of money, but the noise goes up huge. And there has to be a desire from the business side of the business, good luck, to do that. But I think you can do it. I think you can absolutely do it. It's interesting that we're like, could Toronto support a second NHL team? Now, Brian Burke has been adamant that no, you can't. I think he's wrong. I think he's wrong too.

Well, you know, I don't know. I don't know what his biases there are. I think you could just make the arena bigger. But, you know, could they or couldn't they? Well, yeah, but would it even do well? But I think we're all in agreement that 22,000 could easily be supported. Yes, absolutely. Easily be supported.

so uh that is a fascinating thought i hadn't really thought of that if you had like a renovation and you just added an extra ring and the fans are up in the 500s and that's far sure but if they're loud and it's bouncing off the roof gets loud and they're awful fast doesn't it yes and i i think it's an infectious yes you know what i mean like nashville we keep you know talking about i mean it was a stanley cup final so that is a skewed experience but the roof is directly above your eyebrows um if you're sitting up high you are like if you have a fear of heights i don't know how you sit in the 300s um you pay more money i think is what you do you pay for your fear of heights yeah honestly and don't go up do you want to feel like you're gonna die the whole game or

that's how it feels sitting in the 500s at the jays and people will be like oh it could never work for the leafs who's more popular the leafs of the jays uh that's the leafs and and the jays have a stadium still now they have double the games at home yep they have it was 55 it's now 45 i think with the renovations yeah i think it might be less even or even 42 yeah but it's 42,000 and i know the tickets are cheaper but do you see what i'm saying yeah like it's it is completely possible by the way the toronto blue jays used to lead the league uh regularly in home attendance 39 39,000 15,000 seats out of there that's nuts you got to be good yeah you got to be good but i think with the leafs they are going to be good for a long time they've got a good sustainable

business model they've got superstars you can do this now with oh sorry well i i want to say i understand where matthew's frustration is coming from i think any leaf fan who pretends they don't isn't isn't uh looking themselves in the mirror about this yep like i i was saying just again anecdotally like curtis from alberta did a skit about this recently hockey illuminati did this recently and this is like tiktok and and uh and instagram circles and everything but like any conversation you have with a cousin or uncle or anybody is geez that building is a morgue and there are some days where it definitely deserves to be that wasn't a situation where it deserved to be and and you know i'm self-aware enough to be like okay i talk about the leafs

after every game sometimes more than once there are days like today where i do the lfr and it's like 20 minutes and then i get on my hour and a half podcast with my friend and we talk about it for another 20 minutes half an hour whatever um if i'm matthews if i'm on the leafs i'm a little frustrated with the fans right now um even if i can understand where their frustration is coming from they won five straight games and but yes i know i hammered them during this streak just stay with me here they won five straight games then they lose three straight and during that three game losing streak they got booed off their home ice twice then they went another three straight then arguably fight of the year happens right in front of you on home ice you can't ask for

a bigger advantage like what a favor olivier did reeves yep um because if the fight is a tie uh tiebreaker goes to the home player because you get the home crowd pop right yeah yeah to me so you get the favor there. The fans respond with a pretty milquetoast reaction. Well, it's because most of them were Fantillies. I just want to throw that out there. That is fair. They weren't fans, they were Fantillies.

That is, yeah, half the stadium was Fantillies and Del Belbaloozes. That's right. Just Big night for Woodbridge. Oh my god. Maple, Vaughn, stand up. unbelievable night for uh the eye ties yeah um so yeah maybe when columbus comes to town there's

just too many ontario born players on that team and that's what sucks the energy out but it was a milquetoast reaction to that fight and even there were a few like and um failed entries on the power play which has been so hot recently like i know on the season they've been disappointing the power play has been legitimately hot it has recently and they failed a couple entries and you hear like boo well because we haven't had a chance to react to the fact that it's actually working yeah well i just think if you're the leafs you understand leaf fans frustration with the crest but you're like jesus you're impossible to please which listen i'm self-aware i get it um i just i understand we're not impossible to please give me a second and a third round give me well like

i was hammering them when they were down three nothing to montreal you know why they were down three nothing montreal and looked like shit but then against columbus they didn't right no it looked good and that one's frustrating because they were legitimately the better team all night they got goalied at both ends and we'll hit that we can talk about the game after but yeah yeah all the crowds but i but i get it steve like i think you're i think you listen you can't be in this city and not be as an athlete frustrated with the fans at some point right like it's it's it's almost like you go back to gladiator one i haven't seen the second one uh and you go like are you not entertained right and and so i get it i get it and i think matthew's saying that and

bringing it back to that this is why it's so key that he's the captain because if he says that and he's not there's just a little less punch to it yeah but this is his team and tavaris would never say something like that it's not in his personality that's not a criticism that's just not john and i think exactly i think matthew's saying that i think you made a great point when you said i think it's part of partially his coming out party as captain this is him he hasn't had a defining moment as captain and if this continues and he says it again i think you're gonna see fans react in a positive way meaning like i think he should lean on us a little bit and go hey come on guys yeah i i like that this is making headlines yeah i also i also look at other situations in pro

sports and i look at mlse and i say matthew some of your complaints are to your bosses because if you want it to be that way you can create that atmosphere and it was it was put into concept by steve ballmer who owns the los angeles clippers he so he was a tenant in the staples center crypto.com arena whatever they're calling it now stable center in los angeles with the lakers and uh he wanted to build his own arena so he bought one he bought he bought the building next door to it because he wasn't allowed to build there and they said no the building you can't build here because there's an arena already there so he bought that one and then built his own arena next to it it's the intuit dome and this is its first year and he created it for the fan experience not

for the suits who are paying the expensive buying the expensive tickets he made it so everybody's in their seat all the time the idea behind the entire concourse is that you're in and out and you're back in your seat so everything and the bathrooms too right everything is cashless there's too many bathrooms in the sense that you can always find a bathroom and there's no lines in any bathroom and people have said like because it's been this entire season adam they dream they it's worked out like nobody's ever in the concourse area because that's not how we wanted it. They built the stadium on top of itself.

So everything is on top of the court and all of the noise is funneled down. And the supporter section that you talked about that TFC has, they have one. They have one in the Intuit Dome for the Clippers fans who are the hardcore. They gauge them by like sound, you know, there's sound meters in front of them

judging how much decibels they have every single game. So you built a stadium for fans, and it's worked out so that they have the best atmosphere in the NBA. And to that point, Jesse, that's such a great point because I was thinking of the same thing, and I didn't know it in that level, but I did watch his 60 Minutes interview, which was spectacular.

The thing about it that you said that really stuck out to me is built it for the fans, get them out of the concourse and into their seats, all that stuff. and guess what market it's in it's in los angeles it's in the money market like la new york miami those are the money markets you could say chicago to a little bit of a show-off market well you know i want you to bring my food and drink to my seat yes and the argument in toronto would be well i mean this is toronto yeah this isn't like this isn't the real nhl this is toronto and and i'm sorry if la can do it yeah you can do it here so that that's my that's my thing about like yes it's

on the fans who are there the the suits who are in the lower levels but it's also on mlse slash rogers now who owns the team outright uh when they kick out tannenbaum and all that fun stuff it's on them to build that atmosphere for the real fans and i think that they will i i think we're not i think we're half a decade away from seriously talking about a complete revamp of that arena there's no there's no land left downtown so no that arena you have to retrofit it yeah that arena is where it will be uh just but you look at the perfect spot though 100 that's why it will be there yeah uh the if you look at uh rogers center which is formerly the skydome and the 300 million dollars that rogers invested in making that a better fan experience because they found out in

the 15 and 16 playoffs if we go on a run it's not just the blue jays that do well rogers communications rci sees like a 20 jump in our share price our share price people buy more cell phone plans people listen and watch our media like our radio stations our television uh it even more like that is the kind of thing that's a reason that there's a business case for that is because uh they've seen it already, right? They saw it happen with the old. So even though the team was garbage last year, um, and depending upon whether Pete Alonzo and Max Scherzer sign, we're not sure about this year. The, if once this complete takeover from Larry Tannenbaum happens and the, we suspect it will happen in 2026 when Larry shares are up, Roger's going to buy that they'll own 95% of the

team. And then Omer's own 5% and Omer's can be like, Hey, we don't want to do that. And Roger's be like yeah that's cool man anyway here's what we're gonna do and i think we're talking about a real retrofit over the course of three or four years right they'll do it in the summer and then come back out in the winter and then they'll move all the concerts over to rogers center and uh and the outdoor one um budweiser stage stage yep and in that time they'll start to retrofit that arena because i think part of the problem guys is we have an arena that was built for basketball retrofitted for hockey and is now 30 years old 25 years old and 99 and as funny as it is like you know what our grandparents generations like well the montreal forum was around for 70 years maple

leaf gardens was 70 years an arena should last about 30 you know and then you and then you then you're outdated build a new one yeah so i get a bunch of taxpayer money you're damn right he's fucking billion i can't wait and i'm sure we'll get free tickets too now now there's two days uh-huh break between that leaf game in this one matthews jumped on the grenade everyone oh man dennis hildeby and this and that and you jumped on the grenade as captain good job saturday night in ottawa against the sense potential first round matchup regardless of that it's the battle of Ontario and they're reeling a little bit their captain needs a big performance too and it's hockey night in Canada and it's hockey don't bring it Canada this needs

to be a defining performance for Austin Matthews he needs to hold up his end of the bargain the other side of that any Leaf fan going to that game knows the atmosphere is better there for a Leaf game tickets probably cheaper in ottawa you are exactly the kind of fan that matthews is asking for you need to make that a fucking concert on saturday night that's on you you got a job here to this team and to this fan base go take care of business by the way thank you uh to all the senators fans that sell their tickets to leave fans and make it a home game for the leafs we do appreciate you 100 and i mean it's not like sense fans want to be kicked out of that building either i know we like to storyline these things but austin matthews doesn't need any kind of

performance he's on a 73 goal pace get out if he doesn't if he doesn't score saturday as a bad game i don't care no i just i feel like that's such a soulless way of looking at it though like i it's a realistic way there's there's a lot of season left there's an element of of truth to it jesse but dude which which game if you're the average fan is more important they're both worth two points right yeah there's the are you serious you you don't think a game against the sends means more oh i think it means a lot more totally i don't think uh austin looks at it that way at all i think he's he's playing really well and we shouldn't take away from a guy who yes has scored every single... He's scored

enough goals for the games he's been back. He doesn't have to score. There's other ways to play well. Austin plays well every game. Yes, he does. Would you agree, though, that if he did... Highest paid player in the league. That statement has more force to it. Yeah, he's going to play well because he's

Austin Matthews. Willie was on a slump. Team lost three games in a row. He said, what's the big deal? We said, uh... And then he went out and had one of the best stretches of his season yeah and he didn't think that was a big deal either yeah but we did we did matthews okay you can't be like we need the fans to be louder and then look at the next game like it's just another one on the schedule i don't i don't think that's how this works at all i think austin

matthews shows up for every single game and it doesn't and that's part of his complaint about the fans is i'm here every game the reason there's no way he's showing up extra he's there yeah at the full that's what the playoffs are he's there at full capacity every single time playoffs regular season or not uh the playoffs are every night in the regular season you give it 100 and then the playoffs show up and you got to find something else 110 yeah you got to find something else i think there's i think there's an extra edge to a senator's game i do on a hockey night can i do uh uh but if but i agree here's what i think if i am listening to this as if i was a listener okay so i'm listening to steve and i'm going yeah but i'm also listening to jess and

going yes well that is a very reasoned argument and i agree with it if austin let's say he has a bad game let's say he's a dash six not that i that could ever happen uh and uh and against ottawa uh am i gonna be like fuck those comments you ask us to be loud and then you don't show up in ottawa that's all i'm trying to say yeah and i get that but i also get what steve's saying where he's like listen man you want to make these comments you gotta get out there if i can show them which i can't wait for your kid to play hockey in like a league when they're like 13 or 14 and things start to get really intense because you're you're gonna be inconsolable on the sidelines i i can't wait to go to those games uh dude he's four i know and i've already had a few

people like hey and i'm like okay so i just i can't react to anything right yeah you sit down You sit there and let the steam come out of your ears. I sit there. Well, it's not steam. He's four. I'm just like, God damn it. I'm so proud. I like the idea of like, yeah, it sends on Saturday night.

But when you're living it every day with the players and everything, you realize like Austin might be dash six on Saturday and they play again Wednesday. And we forget about it. They play Minnesota Wednesday. All right. Well, imagine this. Hi.

Welcome to Hockey Night in Canada. uh yeah well it's just another game i'm not asking i'm not asking there's just two points i'm not asking the television to do that yeah i'm that's that's what they should do because it's television entertainment i'm giving a perspective in that you know what we hype this up but it's not the end of the world uh they play wednesday yeah and here's the thing he's there yeah we're at home yes both perspectives are relevant is what i'm saying and you guys both perspectives i'm not saying you're wrong steve i'm just offering yeah offering an opinion yeah and also there's not a lot of i'm not i'm not trying to shut down all of canada and we just

we play the games with an empty arena and none of it's hype i'm just saying i liked the covet games all right reasonable expectations does not breed success yes now uh i will say this i will say this what does that mean you know english don't you hey guys what does that mean what uh be unreasonable like be this game means more than others it does it does i agree with that sure okay now oh let me move on man let me move on yeah i love that you guys are disagreeing yeah you said it was a little okay something the other thing whatever the opposite of all whatever your impression that much whatever your impression of the hockey night in canada intros was uh yeah your impression of hockey night in canada's intros that's how they are sometimes

they don't bring out the fireworks enough i'm too busy working let's uh let's let's bring out the fireworks yeah you talk about non-hyped atmospheres watch hockey night in canada on saturdays oh my god there you go you guys don't even have to do it anymore when the leafs are in town you're on a stream you're at the game i'm at home going come on it's saturday can we please get excited it's like well here's a here's a poem from 1867 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 they're way around on that it's like well it's a patio window you can do that yourself and i'm like well hang on a second what if i don't wanna i don't have the stuff because you gotta have that scraper thing and the and the washer thing chemicals you gotta have the See, that's what I'm saying. That's why I used TaskRabbit, and I employed a tasker. Here's the thing. TaskRabbit connects you with taskers in your area for furniture assembly, home repairs, lawn maintenance, mounting, window cleaning, all that stuff.

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with the promo code DANGLE at TaskRabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should download that. TaskRabbit.ca, code DANGLE. So anyway, let's talk about Dennis Hildeby, who I was going to say this as it happened, but it is now 20 minutes ago. It was announced that Dennis Hildeby

has been assigned to the Toronto Marlies. matt murray the murdog is coming up from the marlies and that seemed to be he's been so good for leaf fans the consensus now when matt murray was up he wasn't great the last time which is why he went down yes but now he was a second star of the week in the uh i want to say his last three games were shut out shut out one goal which is amazing he's done well and and this is a goalie that's got two stanley cups played under pressure brutal injury stayed here because he wanted to be leaf and make his comeback so there's a great story here that i just don't think has been grasped and i know joseph wool is going to start on saturday but there are two things i want to

start with the positive with matt murray matt murray if he makes a successful comeback especially with his hometown team we need to make more of that oh 100 it's on the media to go hey this is a big deal i know everybody's been doubting this guy since we got him from ottawa in that extraordinarily questionable trade that kyle dubas made and it was extraordinarily questionable at the time and you look back and it looks worse now somehow he still played okay in those 19 games he played that year but this guy coming back and being successful for the time that we need him is going to be great dennis hildeby i think at 20 or 2 or 23 years old is a guy that can have success in the nhl yeah but if the leafs keep running him out this way gentlemen would you not

agree that we are risking a bump in the development a little bit well yes there's a player uh i talked about in the alifari yesterday where i remember watching him early in our in in his career and we talked about him on the podcast and i was like i don't know why this team keeps trotting this guy out harry satari this i was like this kid is not very good and he continued to not be very good and showed some signs, but man, he goes to another team. He's still not very good. And then one year, he just has this, oh, I figured it out moment, and he cruises to great numbers for a few years.

A contending team trades a king's ransom for him, and he wins the Stanley Cup, and then he hits a blip in his career, and this year he's doing okay again. It's Darcy Kemper. I remember when I first saw him, I'm like, this dude is I don't think so man I don't think so at all Charlie Lindgren's another guy who probably played games too early in his career with the Montreal Canadiens when they needed him and I was like I don't I don't get it with this guy at all last year he's incredible this year

he's still pretty good um look at all the goalies that the Sens gave to other teams in the league oh my god that are now very good Bishop and Robin Leonard and uh Gustafson uh oh no what's Oh, Philip Gustafson. Philip Gustafson in Minnesota. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, totally. They're great at drafting them. Developing them is a bit of a problem.

I will say, though, I think it was Jake B. Leafs. He was a little more crude than I'm about to be. But Hildeby's fundamentals look horrible right now. He's huge every time he gets in the net. Cool. Great. if you're down if you're down too early the size doesn't matter he's all over the place all over the place the amount of times he does these powerful for no good reason movements that

throw him out of the nets um so that he's not covering the thing that he's paid to cover yeah he is in his tracking and the amount of times he's just it's a one-on-one with him in the shooter and he's beaten clean like there were moments last night where i'm like riley could have i'm better there riley could have done better there jake mccabe's a minus three um i think it was connor timmons behind the net led to the dell bell blues goal ah man merzlikens gave him saves make some saves dude jesse what were your thoughts like what do you did you get anything did you deduce anything from players or coaching staff about dennis hill to be specifically i know it probably wasn't a huge topic of conversation no it wasn't it wasn't that great but i think i think

everybody realizes it's time for matt murray to give it a shot you know it's it's wall wall needs the time off just because he's never played this much so you need some sort of steady tandem now that stoler's been out for so long and it's still like a couple weeks away from coming back that and hildeby isn't that player just yet you know he's not there in his development and having him here getting shelled by columbus doesn't really make sense anymore like they try and downplay that he's not missing any steps in his development at the nhl level but it's more useful to have a guy who's a veteran in matt murray who can do this if this is the level of play we're getting out of hill to be matt murray can't be worse you know matt murray can't be worse so you might as

well have the veteran who knows the nhl who's been through it go through this with the team as opposed to the young kid who doesn't know about that side of the game matt murray uh just checking the AHL.com right now in the 15 games that he's played leads the American Hockey League in goals against average 1.68. That's pretty good. Through 15 games is

really hard to pull off. His record is only 8-4-2. Score some friggin' goals when the guy's in net. Holy shit! And his save percentage is a 9-34.

The only guy in the AHL with a higher save percentage than that, Jaroslav Askarov. So, right thing. Probably Wall starts Saturday, and I think they have a game Monday. No, it's Wednesday, Minnesota, right? Oh, it's not. It's Saturday, Wednesday.

Oh, wow. I'm going to get a day off. Well, the Leafs have an interesting choice here because if you play Wall against Ottawa and then decide to play Matt Murray at home against Minnesota, you can get Wall an

entire week off and then you know immediately give him to the oilers in edmonton yeah but you know there's there's an opportunity here um to get him a full week off then you have a western road swing that can always be tough and then four nation face off he's not playing in it there's an opportunity to get wool a big old bunch of rest after playing more games than he's ever played there are only six games left before the four nation by the way are you serious yeah i was looking at the calendar and like there's uh they play the wild on wednesday and that's the last game until february 22nd at home wow yeah you're gonna get like a month off from covering yeah the 6th to the 22nd there's no games to go to so so i have unreal i have a deployment idea because

they uh the wild just activated caprizov so he probably will play next wednesday if you are the Leafs and Matt Murray's looked this good, would it not make sense to keep playing him and play him tomorrow in Ottawa which could be a friendly environment for Leaf fans against his old team

and then you have you bring out Wohl against the Wild and the Oilers who you expect that a player with the contract that he has next year the trajectory that he has, he's going to play those two teams and that's not to denigrate the Senators, I just think you see

sometimes with Berube where he's like uh you used to play here right I'm gonna I'm gonna dress you tonight which is the opposite Babcock which was oh you used to play here uh fuck off fuck you yeah um I understand what you're saying if the decision were made up to me I would play wool against the Sens the only real reason I see to play like okay Matt Murray's hot in the AHL okay wolves are starter though like the only reason to play Murray on Saturday is if you're concerned about wool's health the the logic is with steve like that's what they're probably going to do but i think if if we're if we're pie in the sky yet they'd take adam's advice like that'd be so cool i think it'd be great to see matt murray start against ottawa and they give wool extra time

off and he plays those minnesota edmonton games and then we're off for three weeks it's the better narrative choice oh yeah oh yeah if i was in charge like that's what i would do you know just play matt murray and it's fun you mean if you were a script writer for the nhl yeah yeah like the nfl it's scripted but he's probably right in what they should yeah yeah i just i remember starting to be awesome i love that idea okay um i want to move on to the next thing on the leafs which is is there any news on matthew nyes i haven't seen anything this morning jesse did you get anything yesterday no they didn't have an update okay never do night off game all right it didn't look like i didn't really see it so he had he was hit and then the originally on

the broadcaster like oh he took a hit from the lines but it was actually a player he took a hit from and i think he fell into the linesman but i don't think the linesman affected anything yeah that was just a light grazing i think it was the hit it was awkward here it is um so you see him just got body checked and he fell and then yeah the linesman he kind of just skates into his leg it didn't really have an effect on him but just got hit hard i think yeah maybe he twisted the wrong way around yeah something somebody bumped something on the way down also does it make sense to roll matthew nye's back out there when you're down three nothing or four nothing three nothing end of the sec yeah come on and he's coming off of uh concussion right well that was the first

thing i worried about seeing him fall like that and potentially hit i thought it was back or shoulder they called it upper body so just somewhere somewhere above the waist all three of those things are upper body i guess we know details from yeah what is the cutoff for upper and lower body your waist right belly button i'm gonna say is your low back your lower body or upper body i have no idea mid-body i'm throwing it is it is it your belt i don't know stop it what is this okay upper body you're you're jesse this is you talking my low back hurts right now craig what do i have an upper body injury or lower craig is it nips up is it navel up is it wiener up like what are we talking what's up what's upper body you imagine hey man does he have a dick

up injury Jesus by the way they showed a clip of Berube fighting when he was with Calgary like the one of his last fights in the NHL and I forgot how much Craig Berube looks exactly the same 20 years later yes it's it's literally like you took Craig Berube from the Leafs bench put a helmet on him that doesn't quite fit and his shoulders are like up to here like I was like man that's that's Craig now you know how like some fighters at the end of their career look like a Van Gogh painting yeah um nope nope that's a guy whose face is made of titanium i think yes yep he's got with with berube he's got edges to that face like you know what i mean like cut your knuckles like his nose has a strong chin do you know what i'm saying like he's just yeah i love him i love this

man he's so intimidating i've never met him but i'd probably call him sir uh jesse do you get the sense that Berube is an intimidating guy, chill guy? What do you think? I think there's a good balance to him, is what I find. He can be very calm and chill at times, and you can see he's well-liked by all the players, but

if he needs to get intense, he'll get very intense. I feel like it's a great balance I think they have right now with Berube as head coach. Anything else Leafs-related we want to talk about before we move on? Do we want to touch on the game at all on how they played? I think Steve said it earlier. To me, it felt they got goalied

on one end and goalie on the other i thought they played great i thought they they got goalied in a sense but they weren't shooting enough when they had the puck not enough i the the way columbus played defense is they held them to the outside it was the beautiful defense by columbus and i think they deserve as much credit for making it easy on elvis last night um so toronto had the whole outside of the zone the entire time they had the puck and toronto i don't know what it is about they know what it takes to score goals but they don't do it often enough because they have the puck in the zone to the damn net go to the net fire the puck at the net and columbus is giving you all of this space smartly and every time they at least tried something columbus was able to

collect the puck and receive it and throw it out and go back the other end then toronto bring it back and then dance around the outside i don't say it as a bit like go to the go to the net i There's this gap in logic with the Leafs where on nights where they are successful, they do one thing. And on nights where they're unsuccessful, they do the other thing. But if you are aware of this, why don't you do the thing that's successful every single night? Because it's a bad habit, right? That's what I'm trying to understand about the mentality of the players on the team. And that's the little gap in when I'm watching them play.

I'm like, okay, you know you should be doing this. Just do it. and they did it when willie teamed up with matthews and marner at the end of the game and matthews scored that goal where he was yeah in front of the in front of the net willie comes around the back of the side and matthews just standing in front of the net he gets it by two guys and matthews taps it in i was like where was this all game all and like you know reeves had like a near breakaway opportunity william nylander hit the post they had a number of opportunities Oh, they could have been up 3-0 after the first.

Oh. I mean, they could have. Very frustrating. So I have a theory on that. When this team was truly, well and truly came together for the first time with all the guys, including Matthews and Marner and Nylander and those guys, it was 2016-2017. Yep.

The ethos of the organization at that time was carry, keep and carry the puck. Back pass, back pass, no matter what. Like, no dump and chase, no matter what, maintain puck control. not only does it make your your analytics look great uh even if you're doing dick all which sometimes they are yeah that's a whole it's oh they're they're totally they were totally jigging the analytics last night was an analytics darling night for the league yes and if you watch that game you're like no this is all bad that that so there's the there's a clip of them on the power play on on pp2 i where they have the i i you look at the clock i can pull it up you're

They get the puck at 37 seconds, PP2. They don't take a shot until there's eight seconds left in the power play. And the entire time, they're holding the puck. They make like four passes between guys, and they're all just dancing around. Domi's dancing around. That's great. That's fantastic for the analytics and looking at how much possession time you had, how much you were in a high-danger shot area.

but it was bad hockey because they took one shot and they wasted 30 seconds of ice time having a five on four advantage that's the stuff that their power play was not good last night but it looks great it looks great on a stat sheet and i would say jesse pp1 had similar instances right you guys mentioned it there were even times where i saw bobby mcmahon in front of the net and matthew nye's in front of the net where willie and and mitch and austin are looking for perfection and so the reason i bring this up is because most of pp2 was not here at that time but most of pp1 was you know if morgan riley's out there four or five of those guys were around right so he's he's yeah we'll get to that in a second oh he's been terrible the the i think

that this is a part especially of the core three the top three guys part of the dna part of how they were raised and they got that part right and they were right to teach them that but what they never did and i always thought this was a hole in kyle dubas's thinking i think it was a hole in sheldon keefe's thinking uh which was oh okay so that's step one now we got to get you to step two right and they never quite crossed that and i think that's what berube's been working on am i am i is that unfair no i 100 agree i like i think it is a mentality with these guys where they don't understand what it's going to take to win games in the playoffs and be a successful team consistently night after night after night like they don't they have the wrong habits for sure and it's

like it's changing but it is changing yes change is hard you see it to acknowledge you see it in some games and it's changing that's actually a part of the morgan riley conversation which so let's go we want to do that but i wanted to just show what i was actually talking about with this clip in the power play so this is why i look at the games last night where it's like oh they're out shooting them 22 to seven or actually this is 19 to eight in the middle of the second it's a one nothing game they're right in it but the leafs aren't playing the right way to win the game oh is this robertson with the puck yes this play oh i was screaming at the tv so like i sit there and i'm like yeah people are saying yeah they got goalied and all that stuff i'm like they got

goalied by their own play this is a goal so this is a goal so the leafs here anybody listening the Leafs have the puck in the slot area. Currently out-shooting Columbus 19-8. They're out-shooting Columbus 19-8. It's still a 1-0 game, 14-27 left in the second period. They're on the power play, 37 seconds left in the power play. This time, they are holding the puck. They're passing it around the zone.

We don't even need the details of how they're passing. They pass it down low. They go back up top. They keep going around the side. Columbus is just playing a diamond in the middle. they're just letting Toronto play with the puck all around the edges we are now at 22 seconds no shot has been taken Toronto has gone all the way around the zone and I pass it I love the guy but the Blue Jackets like you're outnumbered you gotta make choices and they're like let Domi have

the puck no what's he gonna do shoot first of all he's not second of all if he does I don't care because it's a muffin so we keep going we're now at 20 seconds Toronto still has the puck they've passed it every man has touched it so far there's two guys in front they're not going to touch the puck at all because toronto's still passing it around the back we're at 15 seconds now that's morgan riley passing it over to the next man who came up to receive the pass and they just keep going still no shot taken yet they're still playing on the outside by the blue line they still have the puck and finally we get to nine eight seconds left and we have a shot on goal that is bad hockey it looks like you have possession the whole time and you're you're

dangerous but all you're doing is passing it around the zone that's garbage and that's not how you win hockey games i think that's why you've got to be careful with that you got to watch too you got analytics or a tool watching as a tool combine them please that's a good look at the system jesse can you go back to the first screenshot you had on the screen of robertson because this oh my god i don't know who the columbus uh penalty killer is you're he's giving you the biggest triangle in the entire universe to pass the puck through.

Who's the assistant captain there? Who's the guy wearing the letter? Is that Riley or Matthews? I think that's Moe. It would be Moe, right? I think it's Moe because Matthews is in front of the net. No, that's Minton. Yeah, Matthews would have been already off. PP2. Minton's in front of the net. That would be Riley. Oh, okay. So, dude, this is

a scoring chance! No. This is a score. Pass it! Pass it! You got... Riley might score this. He might. probably not but he might it's a scoring opportunity you got mitten there for the rebound mitten there for the tip mitten there for the who knows maybe he's capable of some jvr shit dude no why did you hold this uh this no i'm screaming 37 seconds left in this pp and we get that shot at eight seconds oh that's a waste of time oh robbie so killing me dude

killing me so so with this let's segue to morgan riley yes uh because you're right we do need to talk about this you know steve said last week i'm ready to have the morgan riley conversation since then it's only gotten worse the noises are getting louder uh from the fans anyway i have no idea what the organization thinks i can't imagine there's a scenario where he's not injured but i also can't imagine a scenario where he's injured enough that he's sitting out or should be sitting out and playing because with everybody else slight injury they're out of the lineup we have the depth what what does this organization do this is a seven and a half million dollar player this is a guy who has shown you before that he can be great especially in the playoffs

but this there were some giveaways last night that were bad and here's the thing it's not a one-off thing these are trends we're seeing these over and over and over again find it in his feet oh just screaming at the tv just screaming morgan buddy like okay we we were talking about joseph wall and how do you manage the schedule coming up yep they they got uh sends hockey night in canada then three days off a game against minnesota um if you take those two games off you get a week off then there's the western road swing and the four nation face off i am not convinced that uh if you keep him out of the lineup for those six games the team is significantly worse off you replace him with take a pick like you replace him with

philippe myers and you you throw those guys around mccabe's back on the left uh klingberg would have helped you replace him well you replace him with are we gonna finally get to see some marshall refi action you know what i mean i don't know if it's dakota mermith's time yet um do you think the organization would hesitate to hold him out like healthy him because he's an assistant captain not healthy well to healthy scratch him though uh they could they could couch it and uh he's he's battling a blah blah blah but do you think that there's reluctance because he's been such a great citizen such a great soldier has been through everything okay with this organization do you think out of respect they're like we got to give him more time but I

get the sense time's running out guys I don't know John Tortorella healthy scratched his captain last year and when we criticized him for it Flyers fans pretty unanimously came to us and they were like well no he's been bad i like it's got nothing to do with i've i've said this a thousand times morgan is a treasure i love him as a guy great person what's that got to do with any of this you know what i mean like i'm sure he wouldn't want to he probably doesn't want to miss the game in vancouver because that's roughly where he's from i don't know bc or just a burnaby something like that yeah bc he's from bc probably doesn't want to miss that game okay fine you know what because you're such a model citizen you get to play in that game thank we have to manage you

now because they're already managing his minutes yes he's i what percent of the games is he their top played defenseman well what percent of games is he second he's only down about a minute in overall ice time versus his career average although down two minutes versus last year well so 23 to 21 what i'd be interested because the third pair did not get used very much last night like oh yeah played more than him last night dudes in his 30s um i think go whale is better yeah tana plays more than him better mccabe plays more than him better in his role better he he's the fourth of the top four yeah on a lot of nights he's number four that's not okay it's not okay like is there a problem here most fans assume there's a problem here

all right let's fix it let's get this solved because this isn't helping anybody well and i think if morgan riley was at full tilt we have a defenseman on the first power play yes and he's obviously not close whatever the reason i i just i find it i think we're gonna at some point we're gonna know i'm afraid that morgan riley just might not work with craig berube because he said something i thought was fascinating to jonah siegel because siegel did an article i think it was on monday he's trying to figure and there's a part part in it we're trying to figure out like what's struggling with morgan riley and morgan riley talked about playing within craig berube system and how it's an adjustment and i can read the quote directly he said i'm just trying to play

within structure and hold the net front as opposed to going to the puck we kind of did change our structure a little bit our d don't really stray as far away from the net as they used to so that just takes some getting used to he compliments mccabe and then he goes on to say there are certain things that we have in place in terms of i don't want to say rules but policies that we try to follow that are new and different and it just takes a little bit of getting used to so morgan riley is admitting there to seagull that he's been struggling and trying to work away from his instincts because sheldon keith has been playing a certain way like babcock had him playing a certain way and that's all he's known his entire career and i think craig really comes in with a

system that he's never played in before but i hear that and i look at the calendar and i say it's january it's mid-january you're an nhl veteran who's in his 30s what do you mean you can't get used to a new system well that's that's inexcusable to me and if it's mid-jan you had a full training camp with this guy it's not like this was a mid-season replacement like how the la like the la kings ruined their entire defense but when they switched coach mid-season riley's had time here everybody else is kind of getting it you better get it too that's not an excuse and if you can't get this maybe you don't work under the set coach well and and jesse to that point you know i Jonas and CJ put together

an article about the top 10 Leafs center targets, right? And by the end of it, they just about talked me out of everybody. Brock Nelson, honestly, go and read it. By the way, shout out Jonas, who I personally think is one of the best guys. But Jonas did try to

trade Max Domi in one of those deals, which I think is hilarious. You know what? We love a brand. It's his brand. We love a brand. If you go through and you read it, The top two guys are the two guys I've been mentioning, Nelson, Brock Nelson, and Ryan O'Reilly. The cost of those guys is exorbitant, right?

And the Leafs are not willing to part with a first-round pick this year, and I get that. Well, that's right, they don't have one. They don't want to part with next year. Completely understand that. So then we talk about last episode how if Fraser Minton comes in and he's great and serves their needs, and maybe he's not Ryan O'Reilly or Brock Nelson,

but he fills the gap, there are four guys making over $10 million, bucks uh and and if fraser mitten comes in and is good is half a point a game that's better than what they've had so fine he's looking passable right then it gives you the opportunity to go should we make a move on defense because we did talk about winger depth uh before the season starts i think they're okay on that but i look at this hawk and paw i mean we could talk about him playing in four nations uh he's gonna do it i think he is i legitimately think he's gonna do That's his conditioning stint.

It's so goofy. I think that's his conditioning stint. Instead of going to the AHL, he goes and plays Four Nations. By the end of the Four Nation face-off, he will have played more games... For Finland. For Finland than he will have played for the Leafs or Marlies. Myers, Timmons, and Benoit have both had ups and downs this year,

but overall, I'm pretty happy with what those guys bring. I do want to see a Marshall Refai. This is the time to try. This is time to find out. They don't have the organizational depth beyond that. They're not fans of Topi Niemela. I haven't watched much AHL this year, so I have no idea how he's performing.

His offensive numbers are down, and he's not a big guy. I think he'll be in the Pittsburgh farm system pretty soon. I do. I think they'll give him a chance, and I think... I think maybe in the Pittsburgh system, he would. I think he'll play NHL games. I just don't think he's a fit here. Yeah.

So, this actually... So, I've said this with Craig Berube before. I just want to say, just to finish my point. Go ahead. You're making a point about Ryan. My point was... Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I am too.

wouldn't a left shooting puck moving defenseman which are cheaper than the right shot guys and we got enough of those now when have we ever said that i know a marcus petterson makes some sense right like if marcus if we're to believe cj and i do that a second rounder might fetch marcus petterson or equivalent tell me that there isn't the leafs can't do that they can't so what does that look like can you get and it doesn't have to be marcus peterson please don't get hung up on the one name no peterson for niamal straight up uh is there a package you can put together with what's in your system that west clark and kyle dubas who just love their guys and also love to believe that they're smarter than everybody else they do they might be so like all right but it's

not peterson but yeah specifically if you can get a player like that does that give you the opportunity to then whatever morgan's issues are does that give you the opportunity to then go okay uh we're going to limit his minutes in games where he's got it we'll play him more in games where he doesn't we'll play him less and it gives us more puck moving options oel gives you puck moving options chris tenev's a good puck mover oh he's decent like like and by the time the playoffs come around you have benny as an extra and and which is that's how teams operate and you didn't sell the farm for a rental center to do it so here i i like examining when you get a coach who when you get a new coach you take a look at the team that he had the most success with

uh or at least i like doing this take a team that he had the most success with with barubi it's the 2019 blues who won the stanley cup yep and i go okay who on this team is that guy who is that guy who is that guy who is that guy his top minute guy was alex petrangelo then it's big will beat your ass that's unfair great offensive capabilities yeah the Leafs do they just don't have that now that's fine Colton Pareko good player offensively capable um not a huge offensive guy was he that season team Canada let me 10 goals 18 assists he was he was pretty good that yeah it's this year but I'm not talking about I know I know 2019 Tanevish big minute eater shoots right okay Jay Bomeester.

Oh, yeah. I think if Riley's healthy, that's the kind of player he can be. Jaybo? Really? Kind of. Minute eater? Yeah. But he's not.

But neutral outcomes. Jaybo was good for neutral. Yes. Hey, Jay, get out there and make sure nothing happens. You got to coach. I never want to hear about your name. Joel Edmondson. Serial killer will kill you.

Yeah. uh vince dunn then at 17 minutes 32 seconds underutilized underutilized at the time but this is like young vince dunn to me that's what riley's playing like and and like a less offensively capable young vince dunn now listen we can debate the merits of a seven and a half million dollar defenseman playing 17 minutes a night but it's what you have right now unless you're trading morgan in season and he has no movement clock yeah he might he might even be playing like the number six guy at under 16 minutes and that was carl gunnarsson well so if you have morgan riley on the third pair that's a pretty deep defense core i mean

as as as a as a band-aid solution for this season sure but like going forward that can't be but we can't talk about june and july right now yeah we need to talk about what gets them to hopefully play a game in june yeah if you're talking about uh tomorrow is the only thing that exists sure and i think there is a bigger conversation to be had with morgan this summer i think you're absolutely right i think his name definitely comes up on the block they're already managing his minutes but i and maybe jesse you're right i think that you know there's a system adjustment and the fact that not necessarily totally through his own fault morgan riley has never had a steady defense partner here in toronto that's ever worked and i and listen you run over names it's thin man

been over 10 years man but it also has been over 10 years and at a certain point are you just one way for what he's giving the lease right now he's not even close to worth 7.5 million dollars jake mccabe currently his deal is two million dollars well four no currently paying two but chicago's paint yeah yeah but this season his cap hit for the lease is two million dollars the next season it goes back it goes back up to four but like for for the price points you see what other defensemen cost like morgan riley's playing like i don't know it's four million dollar defenseman three million dollar defenseman so at that price point you gotta look and say okay if we're a team that's always up against the cap how are we justifying 7.5 for this guy maybe we have trade

discussions in the offseason with them so this is something to keep an eye on and this is actually very funny riley does currently lead the leafs in average ice time um but but it's down it's 21 21 ekman larson is within seven seconds and jake mccabe is within 16 seconds tan of is uh a couple is about a minute and a half behind watch that number and see if any of those three i'll tell you where it changes lack of power play time that's where you're going to see it come down he's still playing on the power play yeah on the second unit which gets 30 seconds a power play how much yeah well he'd still be on it if it worked yeah yeah anyway uh that's uh i think that's a conversation that will be ongoing i don't think there's any like exclamation point you can put

on it right now don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life you know the same way you can skip an ad i get it i'm siaya and i live in ice cove i've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way i planned and today i'm still figuring it out somehow things usually get worse before they get better apparently that's how i roll so bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride don't miss the new season of north of north starting september 8th on cbc gem let's move on to a little shout out from uh our good friend uh elliot friedman uh who shouted out the agent provocateur podcast in 32 thoughts the column column uh and he said this on agent provocateur this week alan walsh said i am telling you right now the upper limit of the salary cap

will be 97 million adding that it could be 105 by 27 28 walsh has better sources than i do i'm quoting from him uh but he's uh so he's got better details on the numbers but it fits with salary cap being set for three seasons and what stood out to me was the word smoothing and what alan was discussing in that is we could get an announcement of not just what the salary cap will be this year but also the next two because there is a gigantic jump coming whether teams like it or not alan mentioned that when this cap jumps um there's going to be teams that can't reach it and they're going to have to operate with internal budgets because they're let's be honest some of these guys are cheap uh some of them some of them say they can't afford it but uh that's crap i

believe um uh you know like i can understand an organization like the jets for instance who do lose money in aggregate every year but gain money in the asset value stop it you're not losing money stop and god i don't understand uh but i but i i i look at this first off thrilled that that it gets the mention that alan gets the credit he deserves because that show really does break news and people are like there are people that are like alan walsh like you know i go to the church of alan and then there's people like he said something i don't like on twitter six years ago to so and so and i so i'll never give it a chance and it's i'm telling you you're missing gold by not listening to this show yeah that was the part jesse when we were recording that on

saturday it blew me the way the most well a three year salary cap we know beforehand which means teams can plan all this take it from me regarding alan people are not who they are on twitter oh yeah but i i remember i was like exactly who he is on twitter i was like who is this guy oh really i think he's he's loud and bombastic that's why he makes such a great podcast yeah but i i just want he's also like but i've hugged the real him yes i've never hugged his twitter account he's also warm and a family man and just one of the best guys to hang out with so i got a christmas card late let me say this post thank you uh that let me say this that alan uh i think you know as this information starts to come out what i find interesting guys is the point is 0.6 and how it

pertains to this here's what free chad to say miko ranton and in colorado need a deadline deadline spur actions no more bluffing true cards on the table the big question the avalanche consider march 7th to be that deadline or are they willing to take their chances if he's unsigned by then even though Gabriel Landeskog signed in late July 2021 no one thought he was going to leave does everyone feel the same here and I don't get that sense guys I don't get that sense at all you listen to the way the insiders talk about Mikko Rantanen and it seems like it's not just a small golf like sometimes like that with the Bruins with Jeremy Swayman it was like well we want to pay him 58 over eight years and he wants 62 which works out to like

what is that a quarter million dollars a year half million dollars it's nothing it's such a joke. It was worthless. I get the sense that the difference between MECO and Colorado is in the millions. When you hear people talk about it, and that's not millions over the course of the contract, we're talking millions per season. So if you get a thought on as soon as this cap comes out, this is why I think the Marner extension is not done. This is why I think the Rantanen extension is not done. Why would you sign an extension without knowing what the cap is next year and now you're going to know the next three years if you're the player or the team yeah why would you do yeah so i have no incentive it's really going to help teams plan and i think that

you're not going to see a marner extension or a rent in an extension until this news is out yeah but everyone involved i think is a smart person for the avs and for the leafs that could be after the trade deadline not that it matters for the leafs because at least they're not trading marner well you know what i'm saying i think i there's probably some gms and owners that are kicking the shit out of gary betman's door right now gary it's their version of brad no they i mean yeah hey guys trying to conduct business here and i don't think their request is unreasonable we hey we have like a hundred million dollar decision to make can you please help us with some details yeah both players we have a tenth of a billion dollar decision to make

and you're making it hard to do with one person. Yep. Like between, like Rantanen and Marner combined are going to make somewhere between $200, $250 million combined. Yeah.

And you're not giving us an answer. They'll be the biggest contracts in NHL history until McDavid's new one. Maybe. Both of them. No, no, not maybe. They will.

They will be the big, unless they don't want to sign. Maybe one of them. Well, maybe they don't want to sign for eight years anymore. The other thing that Allen brought up was you know when when the nba cap what did it go up 25 million in one year in 2016 it was a lot uh one thing that alan said was hey listen remember that um uh a lot of those guys were

on rolling one-year deals like lebron james would sign a contract with the calves and then opt out of the second year of it and then re-sign with the calves so he could make more money because the cap was jumping that much does that happen here so if mitch marner and you got to remember this is a trot of it we're used to eight-year deals being like that's commitment to the team the reason matthew signed for five was because he was like i know the cap's going to be a five and then four yeah i know that's it's going to be uh it's going to explode why would i sign away those years i think mitch will do the same expect i think for the marner and i have no insight on this i would expect that deal to come in at three to five years max well i don't see an eight-year

deal here i don't uh i mean willie signed for eight it's it's interesting right because you have two huge comparable contracts on the leafs that go in completely different directions but i think you got two different personalities well you you got you got willie who did the full length and then you got um austin who did half that and which way does marner go i mean if you go with the money it's the austin route yeah if you go with security it's the willie route jesse would you pay miko rantanen or mitch marner 14 million dollars a year starting next season i think with the cap jump that's expected i think 14 looks a little different so yeah would you so you would Especially if I'm a team who doesn't have a Mitch Marner.

Would you do it? Would you do it over three to five years for either player? I'd want five, yeah. Three, no. I'd want more assurances than that. If I'm paying you $14 million, I want a little bit more years than that. And if you're the Leafs, a three-year deal means he comes up the same year as Austin. Yeah, no.

You can't do that. Can I throw something out there? Yeah. So Willie got his big raise. Matthew's got a raise. remember uh this summer when the free agency and everything died down and i'm like hey i don't want to alarm anyone but the leafs have basically the same forward group except for more money and not tyler bertuzzi because of the raises that everyone got and then what could potentially happen the

summer is the cap goes up marner gets a three million let's say three million dollar because it's 11 now right and then nize gets what i don't know it depends on the length of that deal too let's say the sense is they want to go short let's say nize gets a six million dollar raise that's nine so he goes to so nize would make seven mil yeah like slabkovsky deal i think if you're going slabkovsky deal you got to go let's say five you're gonna get more years let's say five so then it's eight so Tavares comes down right and okay Tavares comes down Marner can't make more than 1325 on the Leafs you don't think that's not it's not a discussion point for me if I'm if I'm Bradshaw living and Brendan Shanahan him making more than Austin Matthews right now

is not it's not a starting point both teams are in a similar position where I think the Leafs are probably saying that about Austin and the Avalanche are saying that about McKinnon the difference is mckinnon makes less um but like yeah you can't make more than nathan mckinnon you can't make more than but i think the lightning operated for a while where no you can't make more than stamkos and then braden point and nikita kucherov are like yeah you can and andre vasilevsky yeah you can actually yeah you can the i don't know because the uh the mckinnon one's a little interesting because it's 2.5 right 2.6 uh 12.6 i believe 2.6 yeah so 12.6 sorry i'm saying 2.6 um it's a little less than 13.25 so can you can you justify it that way because

dry side over half a million difference dry side was making more than connor yep because everybody understood in that circumstance this was signed so long ago 12.5 isn't what 12.5 is now you're gonna make more than connor now he's gonna make 15 in like a few months just because i'm circumstance you're gonna make more than connor but with matthews the deal feels like it's still fresh he just signed it it is signed it it's fresh and it's based on the cap that's currently even though it's going up and you there's i don't find a way that we can justify the one the optics of you making more than matthews and even at that price point we're pushing it so this seems like a good bar to set for this player so i i don't know 13-1 is my bar for mitch so i i want to do the math

here because adam brought up a great point with tavaris so marner gets let's say the number's 14 no let's say the number's 14 okay okay so you're hypothetical you're saying you know what mitch more than matthews no no no oh i don't want that but i would like him to take league men but that's not an option so let's say he makes 14 that's an extra 4.1 mil so 4.1 plus okay keep going there we go nice gets let's be really optimistic he gets five so it's a three-year deal it's going to be a short deal sure five so that puts him up another 4.1 i think because he's making 925 yeah so let's you know let's not get down to the 25 grand so he goes up 4.1 4.1 i'm good at math that's 8.2 tavaris signs for i'm gonna say five to six let's say 5.5 hey there you go so that reduces

he's at 11 oh math 6 million. Oh 5.5 that reduces him by 5.5 so what is 8.2 minus 5.5 3 something like that. Okay. Let's say 3.5 because screw it.

The cap is going up roughly 10 million dollars if this is to be believed which I believe it is. And this eats up 30% of it. 35% of it. Or yeah. And let's not forget here, Steve, that they probably were having an offseason conversation. The Morgan Riley talk comes up and Joseph Wool goes up from less than league minimum to he goes up nearly three million dollars. So this is this was it's it's scary to me that this is nearly the same conversation we had last year where it's like, OK, you get the same team for more.

But you would have a point if it was going to 92 and a half, which is what we were told. I think where you should be less worried. Like, I think you'd have a salient point if it was going up to 92 and a half. It goes to 97, like we all think it will now. Then I think we're okay. And remember. Still, every other team is going to get like $10 million to play with. But they're not, though.

But they're not. Because they also have signs, contracts they have. I guess that's true. I guess that's true. And then you look at, okay, and you do hope that players take a hometown discount. You also, as a player, go, why would I do that? No, you abandon hope. Why would you do that?

I get it. I think that there is maneuverability with a guy like Morgan Riley. I think a lot of teams would be interested in him. I think you've got Fraser Minton coming up. I think you've got Easton Cowan coming up. You probably take a look at Ben Danford as well. You have to take a look. He's probably going to the AHL, but you have to look.

You have to look. yeah so there are another year after this huh he doesn't have another year of eligibility well because he's 19 so he can probably move to the now they're going to move by the way in case it hasn't already happened and i can't remember if it has they're moving in a direction with the ahl where 19 is it's not 20 anymore it's gonna be 19 oh gotcha and so you know maybe easton is on the ahl squad which makes a lot of sense that's fine i'm just saying minton's probably a part of the team cowan's probably threatening you got danford in the system you're you you know you were able to get oel on the contract you got him on you were able to get tanev on the contract you got him on

you were able to get mccabe on that deal can you find pieces to augment yeah i think you can and i think you know you do go and you do explore the center market no matter how good fraser minton is and go can we upgrade and can we put the pressure down uh you know on him and if you hang on to pondus holmberg does david conf at two and a half million dollars become extremely valuable because two and a half million dollars when the cap was 82 and a half that's crazy there's all kinds two and a half million dollars when the cap's close to 100 you're like for a fourth line center who's who's a veteran who kills penalties wins face-offs regularly completely dependable net negative on offense i'll pay it i'm just saying the raises you're giving out are eating up

a significant can i give you the math on what you you just delivered please so mitch marner making 10-9. Matthew Nye is making 1. 11 for John Tavares. 11-5 for Willie. 13-5 for Austin. 1 for Joseph Wall.

I ballparked all the numbers. Sure. That equals $48.65 million. Got it. Okay. So the raises that you handed out. Mitch at 14. Austin at 13-5. Nye's at 5. 5.5 for JT

11.5 for Willie 3.5 for Joseph Wall equals $52.75 so it's a $4 million difference so a lot of this comes down to JT because we gave him $5.5

$4 million is all it's going to cost more which is nothing if the cap goes up to the numbers that Adam said I'm saying I have a suspicion that the Matthew Nye's negotiations are going to be harder than Mitch Marner's. Oh, I have a suspicion.

I have a suspicion. Adam, give me that mug right now. There's drugs in it. Adam, give me that right now. Give me that right now. I can't let you drive into these conditions. I think $5 million might be... What the...

Very conservative. Okay, so you want to bump it up a little? No, no, listen. If it's $5 million, it's two years or three years, right? Sure. If it's $6 or $7 million, you need to get six years out of that deal.

Nye's is going to be harder than Marner? I think so. Adam, you're on meth. I know. I think the decision with Marner will be very easy because it'll depend on the playoff performance.

Yes. I feel like they're just going to know. We're going to be like, okay, it's game seven and this happened. Let's do this. Whereas Matthew Nise's agent is going to go,

he's among the scoring leaders and sophomore players. So I understand Adam's logic there. So I do think there's going to be a fight there. And the Leafs, the Leafs are in an era and I'm glad they have

a veteran general manager here. The Leafs are in an era where you need to not roll over on RFAs, Bradley. Right? That feels like a slight. no no but listen can't imagine it who listen kyle kyle you know what he does it sparingly kyle did a great he does it you know what give adam a break he does it sparingly are we oh we're

all thrilled we're all thrilled with how it all worked out aren't we yes i am personally let's put joe let's put 48 year old joe thornton on the first line for 900 grand because that's what we backed ourselves into remember when they did that kyle remember when they signed them and they're like yeah they're gonna play him with austin and mitch and we're like nah and then they did it and we're like oh and then it failed anyway yeah so uh i do want to hit a couple other things and then i know i know we're gonna we're getting towards the end one other interesting note uh with all the noise around the penguins i believe they have interest in some of buffalo's younger nhl ready prospects it fits what they want so would it fit for buffalo to grab some of the older players

which they need for their team and give up some of the younger players to pittsburgh which they need i don't hate that for buffalo at all i don't hate that for either side just depends on what the deal That is fascinating. And well, Buffalo has, at least according to Scott Wheeler of The Athletic, the best prospect pool in the NHL. So that is fascinating. Lastly, and I don't know if this bothers you, Logan Thompson has the third best goals against average in the league.

He has the third best save percentage in the league for goalies who have played a certain amount of games. I don't know what their threshold is right now. logan thompson did not even receive a phone call from anyone in team canada management yeah does that does that bother you as a team canada fan jesse and steve um it bothered me more if it was the first time i'd heard some shit like that you can't be bothered by something you're expecting yeah no they're like listen i don't want to take a shot at like anyone in particular because like i don't know dubious the decision making process probably dubious yeah

right adam high five i think i think come on now i think bennington being there of all the guys well montembeau i'm like what what do they have a responsibility to call bennington and montembeau every day and be like are you healthy how healthy because you should be wearing out the knees in your jeans to beg logan thompson to come and play for you well so interesting he said if there was to be an injury and this is an interview with sports net i know i probably won't get that call and that's okay they've got their guys and i just hope canada goes out there and wins it all which is the right attitude but it's very canada which is let's not take the best team let's take our guys and make this political and i cannot listen

i don't like it to be successful no but if they're not i'm going to point back to this yeah you have to didn't we hear a rumor that like they had him for some sort of tournament years ago and they didn't like him or something like that they'll hold a grudge against the guy forever so will vegas apparently trade the guy at his own autograph session oh i bet the capitals feel on the the capitals this summer were like bring us your problems please we're begging you to they were the statue of liberty for players that needed a yeah a refresh logan thompson bring us your sick Pierre-Luc Dubois. Yeah, oh, what a cross to bear.

And now look at them. Yep. With a significant Ovechkin injury and everything. The USA-Sweden final is going to be great. It is. I know that's what it's going to be. Yeah. It's USA-Sweden.

Hockey Canada has just been a disaster for a long time now. I don't hope this happens. Well, it's like the discussion we had with the NHL last game. I am simultaneously cheering for them to do well because I need them to as a business owner and also kind of wouldn't mind if things got significantly worse because management desperately,

desperately needs to change. Hockey Canada, same shit. I'm going to be watching every game going, go Canada, go. And if they get thumped eight nothing three times, it also might be good for them. I feel bad for people like Sidney Crosby who you might be going out on a note like this.

He could win it though. Oh yeah, totally. Could win it though. I don't want to take away from that. I don't want to be overly negative. I'm just saying if it goes bad, I'm going to look at this. No, sure. Could have been.

They've had the right perspective. Like we're all cheering for it to go good, but like it might go bad. I think because we all know there's a bit of a fall coming and it's starting to happen at the junior level. And I think it was Frankie Corrado said, you know, somebody asked him about the, I think it was Frankie. Frankie, if I'm wrong on this, I apologize. But they said, hey, what do we, what does Canada do about this goaltending problem they

have? And the goaltending problem also extends through the junior ranks. and he's like well it's kind of an issue because uh not only is it an issue now but like that takes like 15 20 years to correct well because you need to start young because uh like i was in a hockey store with leo and he's looking at the goalie equipment and i'm going oh fuck who wants payment oh right dude in the car that's a terrible sound i'm sorry yeah uh we're we're in the car driving away from hockey and i'm like so proud and he's learning how to skate and everything and he goes daddy when i play games i want to be a goalie oh he said that verbatim and i go oh no oh shit did

you tell him about the merits of being a right shot defenseman hey so goalies are so okay it's a harder position it's lonely and you don't make as much let daddy to explain this to you yeah first of all you don't get to talk to your friends as much yeah um you tend to at the professional level not make as much money and there's a ton of daddy can't afford that many flights because you're gonna get put on waivers and you're gonna get anton forsberg and you're gonna play on four different teams at the same time and also these pads uh they're not the little canadian tire ones that drew got you for your birthday these are like professional pads and um daddy doesn't have five grand right now yeah yeah it's uh yeah yeah it's tough it is tough it's it's hockey it all

comes back to we we keep saying hockey's so expensive hockey's so expensive and we talk about equipment but we're not talking about goalies we're talking about players and registration fees and tournaments and the goalies are the worst version of that like and you you got to drive your kid potentially to you know two three hours to a tournament they might not even play in you want to start uh you want to start a good business here's a good business uh leasing pads damn not not everything but you could lease the major parts of a goalie pad out to a bunch of different goalies every year and that way parents don't have to pay keep sell buy whatever and you so it's cheaper for the parents but also you get to blend those pads out every year and also have a have a second

business that just gets rid of goalie pad smell yeah that sounds stinky adam well well the idea my my one buddy uh uh one of leo's friends he's got an older brother and uh his dad's like oh yeah it's his turn to be goalie next week i was like his turn to be goalie they just take turns being goalie oh wow and i was like please leave that shit in your garage while the weather's freezing yeah no oh my god i think i think renting equipment is actually a fantastic idea out of it just it might smell a little well i hope they're good at the cleaning part yeah they should i agree that's there there's a hole in the business like sometimes i'll like do even like just a casual skate outside and then my skates will stink like it's just fucking disgusting oh

How are my feet so sweaty? I remember the smell of my hands after I'd done my laces, like pulled up my laces. Especially in a hockey tournament where they get wet and they're wet all weekend. Yeah. Last thing before, I don't know if we're doing a press conference, but I did want to say big shout out to Newfoundland today. The QMJHL's Newfoundland Regiment have been announced. So they will start hockey in 2025.

Hockey returns to the rock, which is great. I hope one day we get to go out and I'm going to reach out to them anyway and say, can we do a date with you guys because i would love to go to newfoundland and do that uh just kind of like what we do with the ohl it would be stellar i've been to the rock i desperately want to go back it was a great time great people great everything if you know anyone please reach out uh are we doing a press conference uh we don't have to we can't we're good i'm happy your call your call jess sure hear that it's your money calling it wants a promotion elevate your savings with the scotia

high interest savings account always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest conditions apply visit scotiabank.com hisa to learn more scotia bank you're richer than you think. Yeah! The Presser S.D.P. The Steve Dangle Press Conference. You shouldn't leave things up to me. Oh, okay. Next time I'll just be like,

Jesse, hit the button. Yeah. Smack it. Yeah. Give it a good spanking. You made the topics for the show include the press conference if you want it. I do want it. Do you guys care that the Utah Hockey Club got rejected for using the name yeti yes i had this story but i read up on it and they just have to challenge it

because it was rejected because there was it the patent office said it might cause confusion which is such a bureaucratic bullshit way of going why i'm i don't have the authority to say yes or no because yeti uh is also a uh like you know they have the yeti cooler mugs and they you know i listen i know well that's why they can challenge it every day i read some sort of story about a politician or a judge and i'm like where the fuck do we find these people hey steve you understand now a little bit why people are listen maybe it's misdirected but people can be a little upset with the government for stupid shit someone's gonna show up to a utah yetis game and they're gonna look down at the ice and be like

why aren't there a bunch of mugs on the ice the yeti brand what are you fucking stupid the risk that you would take if you're the yeti brand and you and you have the the traveling mugs is if something bad happens with the utah hc or vice versa let's say the yeti mugs um they have a they have a compound in them that turns your face gray or purple um then then the worry for both brands would be could their brand negligence affect my brand is that reasonable not at all but that is the kind of stuff they get into google stanley cup and see what comes i know i know it's not going to be the stanley cup i know it's going to be does anyone get a say in that pink glittery cup that holds way too much water like more water than you need in a day anyway we spend money on

the dumbest fucking shit jesse how do we interpret it a little differently as a species jesus christ i think you they run into problems with like yeti the brand the mug brand sells things like t-shirts that simply say yeti and it's hard to go to market in a world with copyright when there's already a brand with that copyright on a t-shirt so like it's hard for the utah yetis to sell a t-shirt that says Yeti on it when that already exists in the land. Who has a Yeti t-shirt? I can buy it.

They make clothes and stuff. You wear a shirt for a mug? I'll show you. It's just, they have a whole clothing store on their site. Let's see if I can bring this up. Yeah.

So yeah, there's a whole thing on that, but we don't have to get into it. Yeah, let's not get into it. It's just silly. Listen, they're going to challenge it. They're going to be the Utah Yeti. They're going to get this.

We don't know that. I think they will. I think they will. I don't know how you're so confident with that opinion. Because it's bureaucracy. It's just, let's make this more difficult than it needs to be. Brown 03 Buckeye writes, I think it's because Leafs played Columbus last night. This topic is relevant.

I think I want to hear your thoughts on this. I do want to hear your thoughts on this. What does Columbus do at the deadline? Currently in a playoff spot, but has very valuable trade pieces in Provorov or a few others. does it make sense to sign one to two year bridge deal or stay the original course of trading him for picks slash players and then also stadium jerseys yay or nay i'll bring those up after you guys answer this it's very interesting because for a team that's so above expectations on where they are they still have guys to sell off what do you do at the deadline well it's

don't don't fall for it oh well so we're speaking from experience as league fans because the very obvious choice was like all right let's trade tyler bozak let's trade jvr and let's trade this and and we can restock the system and and and we'll still make the playoffs and it'll be great and they didn't yeah so the blue jackets are better they're ahead of schedule it's a really interesting spot to be in because it's not unfortunate but it is confusing um provrov just seems like business they want to do anyway i don't get the sense that either side wants that to continue and that's fine yeah you can just go your different direction business that's gonna get done anyway you should do it trade pro also he's a puck moving defenseman

at the deadline yeah you'll get we just talk about the leafs needing you'll get more value from trading them than keeping them yeah is my bet you can also replace him by taking some assets and and replacing them the blue jackets are interesting like if you want to get like a depth veteran i think that's okay um but with such a young team uh i think i'd rather you go into the playoffs like if they earn a playoff spot i think you let them test their metal in the playoffs and see what they're made of i think it's a house money team yeah you you you you do sell proverov and you sell a couple other veterans if there are good deals out there yeah i don't do the kyle dubas oh we didn't meet our price so we'd rather get nothing and then let them walk for free

stupid don't do that uh go and sell these pieces let the young guys take you to the playoffs and go guys this is about being young and silly and not even knowing like this is your one no pressure playoff run yeah do you want to take do you do you want to take burden off of adam Fantilli or say go nuts that's what it is right if you go and you trade for pieces now you've put burden on these guys this year if you let them make the playoffs or miss this year the burden starts in September 2025 and the burden will for these guys in this group forever be there this is the one run you get that you're like there's no pressure house money have fun that is why you have to do as a management group the responsible thing sell use those assets and maybe

that asset so let's say provarov's worth of first right a low first maybe you don't care about the low first because that player is not going to be available for you for five years maybe you take that low first and you save it for the next deadline when you want to deal it for the next thing right that set yourself up for the next trade deadline when you will want to add if you're in the position you're in right here let me uh get a goalie get a goalie that's that's uh my main feedback for the blue like elvis elvis is good i don't like the other guy there's got to be goalies available to the columbus blue jackets currently sit in the first wild card spot they have 53 points the senators are in the second wild card spot with 52 the montreal canadians

are tied but lose on the tiebreaker regulation wins to the senators also with 52 points the boston bruins also have 52 points and lose on an even deeper tiebreaker bruins are tumbling down So, with the Columbus Blue Jackets sitting right there, does it send the wrong message if you enact your plan, Adam, in selling everybody to a team? Let's say they hold this position at the deadline, and they're still really good, and they're in that first wildcard spot, and you get rid of all the guys who brought you to that point. Well, I think the guys that brought you there are Zach Wawrinski, Kirill Marchenko, Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli. You're not trading those guys. Those are your guys. I think if you're Columbus, you can still add.

As Steve rightly points out, you can get veteran defensemen or you can get your Brian Boyle Leafs in 2017, right, for a third or a second or whatever they dealt at the trade deadline. You can do that. But sell your big pieces because it's not about this year. and how this is where managers get paid their money you don't get you get paid to make trades and set direction you really get paid to sell players on a vision and i think these guys are smart i think they've had enough bad years in columbus outside of the johnny gaudreau tragedy to know okay uh we're on the upswing here and these guys are trying to make sure that we're When we're really on the upswing here, when we're challenging for division titles, when the expectation is we go beyond the first and second round, that we have the assets to do it.

And you can point to, fairly or unfairly, teams that didn't. The Leafs could be one of them. You could be like, see, they didn't have the assets to do it. If you got any issues, let's have a whole private conversation about it. Your job, Don Waddell, and I have a feeling he's good at this. He's been doing this a while. Sell them on the vision. You've got Carolina.

You just walked off the ship in Carolina, and they've had a great run for a decade. Guys, I'm trying to build a franchise that gives you a chance every year. The way to do that is to do this, and you'll be fine. There are some players in that locker room who have never had a management group. Tell them credibly, we believe in you. But you are saying we believe in you, which is why you're reinforcing for the next few years, We believe in you this much. Athletes, I don't think, think like that.

I think they can. I think you're not giving them enough credit. I understand that they might be disappointed, but I would also say to them, guys, listen, it is a business. We got to set ourselves up for success in the long term. Do you want it to be just this year and go in, or do you want it to be sustained for the next five? I got a direct example.

Give it to me. Let's situation this, because they don't have an overabundance in UFAs who they can send out the door and everything. Provarov's the big one. But they do have a guy like JVR. They signed for $900,000, came in on PTO. He's been playing okay.

Let's say a team like the Hurricanes come to you and say, hey, we want JVR for winger depth. We're going to play him on our fourth line, whatever. We'll give you a middling round draft pick or a prospect for him. They don't care about that. Columbus doesn't want that. You keep him. You keep JVR.

And also, I think Freedj even pointed out that Columbus is not interested in that, in his 32 thoughts. Okay, so that's, to me, rewarding the guys. Yeah. That's you're sticking around with the people who got you there. I also think... If you're last in the standings, you could sell off a JVR for a fifth. Unless someone is willing to give me literally a first for Matthew Olivier.

Like, I'm not even kidding. I'm extending him and keeping him. Sean Corrali? What do they have on defense? Can I just see? They've got a good, strong defense. We keep in Corrali and Fabbro. Branson has barely played this year.

He's injured. I don't think you get anything special for any of these guys. No. And so Provorov is your big sell. Sell him. Everybody else you just keep. Yeah, even though he's been the piece that's gotten them into the first wildcard spot.

I think Zach Rorinsky is that piece. I think you can... Ivan Provorov is a left-shooting 28-year-old defenseman who can move the puck. You don't move him in division. When you say the Carolina Hurricanes, I'm like, well, we might play them in the first round. So, no.

I think you replace Provorov with another rental guy. Don't they have a good system, too? they do and like i'm just looking denton matejuk um you know that's why you get the rental guy and then next year it's like all right kid go nuts and doesn't yeah and that's like the leafs rolled into the first round against the washington capitals uh who was on their defense it was like riley zeitz of gardener riley well we said riley pole oh sorry riley zeitz of gardener Carrick. Carrick.

Marincin. Connor Carrick. Martin Marincin. And was it Ron Hainsey? No, Matt Hunwick. Matt Hunwick. And Roman Polak. Holy shit.

Hey, guys. House Money. It's the House Money series. And that was the series Polak broke his leg. Yeah. Oh, poor guy. Yeah. Wow.

Do the jerseys and we can end it? Yeah, let's do it. Let me just pull this up. All right. Greg Orsinski. Oh, I love that. Last week wrote a story about the story behind the Blue Jackets and Red Wings Stadium Series jerseys after the NHL released them.

Here is the Blue Jackets one. That's primo, man. That's cool. For thousands and thousands of reds. Do you want to describe it for everybody listening? It's a canon. It's an 18th century canon. It's supposed to be like Civil War.

I think it's very cool, especially because that's what Columbus is known for. Very subtle. The A on Wierenski's jersey, is that an outline of Ohio? Yeah. I would guess so. I would guess so. I don't know what Ohio is shaped like. That's what I'm saying.

That's a real... Steve, what are you giving this out of 10? Out of 10 cannons. What are you giving it? I'm going to give the jersey 10... No, no, sorry. Eight cannons out of 10. I give the toque nine.

That's a nice toque. They could do better with the stripe at the bottom, I think. I like the star on the pants. Star on the pants is great. Yeah, stripe on the bottom, for some reason, isn't doing it for me. The rest of it's pretty good. I like that they didn't go too busy around the cannon, too. They just made it the cannon.

But I just think you could have moved that gray-silver stripe. You could have moved that up a little bit, and I put the red underneath it and maybe a red above it. So you have the silver in the middle, red above, red below. How many cannons are you giving it? Oh, that's a 10 cannon out of 10. What? I love it. You had complaints.

Listen, you can always make it better. Okay, nine and a half. Sure. You literally can't when it's 10 out of 10. Nine and a half, then. I love it. I think it's great. Good for them.

I'll hear you. All right, Redwood. Here, one last question. Oh, I like the red one. Oh! That's cool. The CBJ with the hockey sticks. Love that.

Love that. So that's the shoulder patch. Yep. Final question from the press conference. The Blue Jackets have an outdoor game this year? Yeah, the stadium series game at the stadium in Ohio, right? Gun to my head. Steve, you have 30 seconds to answer this correctly or you die.

Couldn't... Oh, it's Detroit. Yeah. I said we're doing the Detroit jersey. I had no idea. So this is the Detroit. Absolutely no idea. I've seen these.

These are great. I actually like this. These are the Detroit ones. So much better than last. Stadium series game they're playing against the Blue Jackets. The best part about the Red Wings, dude, is going to be the thing that Jesse shows you next. Oh, yeah. This is amazing.

That's not even what I'm talking about. Oh, what are you talking about? Oh, the helmet. Yeah, the helmet has the wing. Actually, they don't have the... Why don't they have that? Ah, Greg. All right.

You know what? You know who's got it? FNAX has got it on their Instagram. Yeah, I'll pull it up. Wait till you see this helmet. I'm not even going to tell you. It's so sick. I'm like, more teams need to be doing this.

You remember when Vegas came out with the glittery gold helmets and everyone's like, this is stupid. And then everybody's like, actually, it's pretty cool. Someone was saying the Leafs, when they wear their black jerseys, should have matte helmets, which I totally agree with. I agree with that, too. I like that. I like that a lot.

Those can look really good. All right. Here's a better look at the jerseys with the helmet. How? How freaking unbelievably hard does that go? So they're playing the game at where Ohio State plays football. So Detroit went with kind of a football theme for their helmet. They have a stripe down the middle, like old school football helmets,

and they threw on the logo on the helmets just like how football helmets have it. These should just be their full-time helmets. Yes. Gorgeous. And I love that Detroit jersey. I really do. I do want to get away from just putting the city on the jersey because it's lazy, but I do still like it.

It is lazy. It's fucking lazy. He's right. okay what do you give it at a at a 10 what should we octopuses it if it if the helmet was just red this would be a 7 out of 10 but because of the helmet i'm upgrading to eight and a half eight and a half octopi octopi purple octopi uh the jersey i think gets an 8.5 i think that's very fair the helmet gets 40 40 out of 10 it's the greatest helmet in hockey history it's a lot of tentacles like i literally like for a player helmet non-goalie because goalie

helmets are special yeah non-goalie that's the best helmet in the history of the game right why doesn't the nhl do this i think they will after this there's gonna be this copycat league right they're gonna do this they're gonna it's so you got wings you look like super mario it's just the dominic hasik helmet this is what he had except for not the stripe in the middle but that's that's just dominic hasik's helmet true looks great god that's sexy they did a great job hey you know it's great it's not the bumblebee like black and red and black and red and stripe stripe stripe stripe all the way down like chicago and detroit and everybody else has done the last few years this looks good they took a step forward with design rather than going let's go retro let's

go 30 at some point someone in the nhl head office was like you know not everything outside needs to be old yeah you know there's still an outside there's still an outside there used to be an outside there's still an outside we can be new outside yeah nailed it because every out winter classic game they do the same thing they're like okay so this jersey is going to look like it's from 1932 and they're gonna wear guess this brown what wait a second it says classic in the title let's put the seattle kraken in the game and ask what their jersey would have looked like in 1960 remember the red reverse retro shit that they did let's hearken back to a nostalgia no one connects with anymore right how many people do you know have seen people play a real game

in brown pants and gloves and the over 60 retro uniforms even how dare you what the over 60 crowds going steven how dare you but everybody else there's not nearly as many of you as there are under 60 like if you pull up a shot of wayne gretzky okay who played over what 40 years ago from that era okay he did not have gloves that color he had oilers colored gloves like the brown pants went away i think at the end of the 60s what are we doing yeah nobody's a lie well but this is the problem when you have a league run by 75 year olds that's retro to them yeah right that's when they were kids dude gretzky predates us yeah i was born we were born the year gretzky traded to the kings jesse was uh not alive jesse was alive the year he went to the finals the whole

oilers front office is upset at you guys because that's those people i don't care yeah listen it wouldn't be the first time and it won't be the last that the oilers front office is upset with us um but yeah yeah man i love it so there's an outdoor game coming up on march 1st at ohio stadium that's gonna be cool uh columbus ohio detroit versus columbus and we got yeah we got the ones next year already penciled in there boston tampa as well as the florida one which isn't on the chart on wikipedia but yeah outdoor game coming march 1st it'd be a shame it'd be a real shame if fanatics sent those jerseys as well ah man that would suck i'd be i hate to have that as well as the blackhawks one i certainly wouldn't do a full video going no no that'd be awful

That would be so bad And a helmet They don't make the helmet I don't care I'm sure Fanatics can make it Come on They couldn't make that happen They're not cool enough

No way And at Jesse Blake.