The Steve Dangle Podcast - Oh Mo | September 30, 2026

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Visit https://orangeshirtday.org/ to learn more about National Day for Truth and Reconciliation On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, 00:00 Marchenko for Knies 40:00 Leafs lose to Habs 1:07:00 The fans in ScotiaBank 1:18:00 Oilers lose to Canucks 1:38:00 Red Wings find new ways to fail 1:52:00 A 3-way Helle deal 1:59 :00 Should teams have captains? 2:08:30 Ryan's imaginary NTC Visit this episode's sponsors: Light The Night is a national movement that brings communities across Canada together in support of people affected by blood cancer. Funds raised in Canada support Canadian blood cancer research, vital services for individuals and families, and advocacy for better access to care. Learn more and register, form a team or donate at ⁠http://lightthenight.ca/⁠ Watch all episodes of The Steve Dangle Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEidkgWpSiHVkYT7HrIzLPXlY Watch clips of The Steve Dangle podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEieOJuIrqWyZPWSIJtVMCbLz Buy SDP merch https://sdpnshop.ca/ Visit https://sdpn.ca/schedule to see when our next live stream airs! Check out https://sdpn.ca/events to see The Steve Dangle Podcast live! Watch hockey with us! Live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEifCTX0vkKEaGg9otrW4Zl2k Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1Join Subscribe to SDP VIP!: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0a0z05HiddEn7k6OGnDprg/join Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/thestevedanglepodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sdpvip/subscribe - Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MtTmw9rrz7 For general inquiries email: [e-mail] Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Steve the Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake. Let's go! Okay. Wow. Wow. A lot has happened. Wow. A lot has happened.

Worth mentioning, by the way, that we are all wearing orange today in recognition of National Truth and Reconciliation Day, something that we do here in Canada. To recognize not only the mistakes of the past that we've made as a country, with regards to our indigenous population, but how to move forward together, bring people together, and obviously when you buy shirts and that sort of thing, you make donations,

it helps with that. And it's, we're long overdue. Yes. Shout out to Jesse Blake for providing me with this shirt because I went to the store this morning. They're all sold out.

They are. Which is great. Awesome. Which is great. Awesome. You can go to orange shirtday.org. You can find out more about orange shirt day. And you can get a shirt there.

Like, Steve didn't do. I didn't do. Yet. Yet. No, I went to Giant Tiger. They had this huge display of them. And I didn't see it.

I'm like, oh, surely they moved it to the front as it is orange shirt day. And I see someone working there. They're wearing the shirt. And I go, I would like the shirt you're wearing. And they're like,

yeah, no, sorry, they're all gone. That's great. That's awesome to hear. They're sold out everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, well, listen, I'm wearing my McLaren shirt as I always do on, on this, but I'll make the donation separately. That's sort of how I've always kind of handled it. Because you know me, I don't like extra stuff in my house if I don't need it.

Adam doesn't own a couch. He doesn't sleep on a bed. No, you bring your own lawn chairs over to my house if you come over, okay? We don't need things. Adam sleeps in a coffin like Dracula. Yeah, I do. Now, you got to thank people for correcting, for saving your life. You're saving my life.

Oh, your puffer use. Hang on. Let me go get it. Give me a set. Okay. Adam, demonstrate how your puffer is used. So, okay, so I was at the hospital Sunday night into Monday morning. So when we did Monday show, I was only several, I was, I think we recorded at 9.30.

Yeah. I'd gotten out of the hospital at 6 a.m. You're dumb. It was sexy. So they gave me one of these, which I'm calling my asthma bong, but it is, it's called an arrow chamber. And I thought that by doing this, you know, you hear that? Yeah. Well, apparently a bunch of ER nurses emailed and said, hey,

Hey, quick heads up, slow down. You don't want the harmonica sound from it. And Jesse sent me a message. And then Christina, our sales lead, send us a message. And she's like, just so you know you're not using it properly. And you replied to none of them. And you didn't let us know if you were using it properly or not. Well, I did it on the stream last night, actually.

And I was to showing people that I know how to do it now. And I appreciated them. And thank you. So thank you to all the ER nurses that reached out and said, hey, it was funny because I was doing rounds of these over the course of an hour because I had like an asthma flare up where your puffers just do not work anymore. And so this is like one of the things I'm taking here is like a steroid. And I did like, it shows, brother.

Rounds of rounds of eight of these with this clear puffer and then rounds of eight of the blue one. And I did that three times over the course of an hour every 20 minutes. And it makes your heart rate like explode. You're sitting there, you know, and nobody told me that the harmonica thing was a bad thing. So the ER nurse is there. We're not that worried about it. But, you know, now I know how to perfect my inhalation of my asthma medication. So thank you to all.

And now that they told you that, we're saving lives. That's right. Now, I want to talk about this. I want to start the show here. We decide, okay, I'll just, full disclosure, we decide on Monday we are going to do the show early because Amazon invited us to the, press conference for the launch of Wednesday night hockey, which starts tonight. And I would like to ask you guys how that went because I didn't go because I had just got back

from the hospital. And I thought, you know what? Maybe I'll just go home and sleep. Yeah. And anyway, when you guys got there, a trade happens. So Jesse and I were good little boys and we sat like near the front. We sat nice and early. And as soon as everyone starts speaking, we start getting like taps on the shoulder. David Alter, I think was sitting behind us. And, he taps us and you're like, hey, check this out. And it's the Fridge tweet of Leafs are deep into Toxomercenko. And immediately I'm like, I have to leave. Yeah.

Like I got to go home. Yeah. So I can make a video about this and right around the time I got home, it was finalized. Nice. Which is crazy. Now, Jesse, there is a clip that I want to play. Although I hope this is the right one. I think I might have sent you the wrong one.

You don't know how to use a puff. You don't know how to send a clip. Jesse, do you have, I just want to make sure. Yes, you do have the right clip. Can you run this video clip? Because this was said, just shows. Was this even Monday? Was this Monday show?

This was, I believe, our first episode. Okay, here we go. I will commit multiple felonies if the Leafs trade Matthew Nyes. Oh, because of what he makes? Under 8 million. I'll do time. I will do hard time. Or you guys prepare financially whatever you got to do.

I'm going back to the zoo. Fraser Minton. I'm quitting. So, Steve Dangle, how do we feel? And this is great that we missed out on the Marchanko stuff on the show because that's the tradition, right? We do the show, then the news breaks and everybody laughs at us. Okay? Yeah.

How do you feel a couple of days later? because I have a couple of things about your trade video initially that I want to talk to you guys about that I want to know if Jesse picked up on too. Are you feeling like you're going to go back to the zoo? And people were asking on the stream last night whether or not we'd figured out your replacement since you're going to jail. Right. Well, the reason I haven't gone to jail yet is I haven't figured out the proper person to commit my crimes against. Ah, I see. And Adam is the closest.

Right, because I cough? Yeah. Okay. So you're going down. That's fair. Apologies. No. Nope.

That's fine. I have to. You promise to do something you got to commit. Be a man of your word. Yeah, you have to. So crime. Listen, watching Marchenko last night was awesome.

That's an unbelievable player. I do think that this trade makes the Leafs better immediately. Long term? Yeah, that's scary, dude. that's real scary. He makes a lot less this year and then he goes on to make what was the 12.5 times 6?

Yeah. Which I'm realizing when I made the video I like kind of glossed right over just because dollar amounts barely mean anything anymore because they're so high. People are like, what do you think about him making more than Marner? And it was like, ha ha, ha.

It's a different context though. It's a different world. Different context, different player. different everything. Like Marchenko, I think, is a better player now. Not that martyr, but the Nyes. Oh, sorry. Yeah. The Nyes. Um, but Nyes is younger, bigger. He's got a crazy bag. He does. Like, what? Bag. Bag. What do you mean by that? His skill set. Bag of tricks. All the, all the different things he can do. It's tantalizing. The stuff you saw in the preseason and the stuff you saw basically almost every night last season

drives you nuts because you see what he can do and you're like where is this every night and sometimes you see that out of Willie last night was the best and worst of Willie mostly the best but some of the worst and but you see the best so much more often I think

it's it gives me pause And it makes me go, what am I not seeing that the living Leafs tried to trade this player and essentially did and miss the trade deadline. Cheka comes in. It's a completely different front office, different staff, different coaches, different players, different everything. And he does it anyway. That makes me go, okay, am I overrating this player? You ever see someone? And let me answer that question.

Yes. Yes. Of course. You ever see someone, you ever see the same joke made over and over and over again? And you're like, all right, which idiot made this joke first? And everyone decided, I don't have a brain for myself. I'm just going to repeat it. Someone kept going, oh, all Leaf fans think this guy is Eric Lindross.

And they said his name, like Lindross specifically. And I'm like, all right, someone started this. Yeah, I don't know who, but I haven't, I hadn't heard that yet, by the way. No, he's a huge young player with lots of potential who's already a good NHL player, cost controlled at a good number. Yeah, I want that player on my team. Are you joking? But a wise man once said, you got to give something to get some. That's right. Now, they got some. I saw Jesse in Steve's video. Like, I got to be honest with you. There is, there are mugs in here and I meant to bring one in. there are mugs in here that say Brad on them. Brad!

I have a man yelling. Jesse, when you put that mug together and put it on our Shopify powered store, okay? Why did, where did that come from? Do you remember that? Why did Steve start yelling Brad? Brad would not make any transactions except claiming Stetcher on waivers. The record he went, it was like a record amount of time he went without making an actual trade. It was nearly a full calendar year. Nearly a full calendar year. And how dare you, Jesse.

He also claimed Caden Primo and Sammy Blaine. Yes. And had James Reimer for that two days on that PTO. You yelled Brad because he didn't do anything. You wanted him do something. Yes. This group is doing something. And what's amazing about this is they are objectively, forget the game last night, going into the game last night better. Yeah. So like one of the top comments on the video I made about it is Steve, uh, do something.

And then Leifes actually do something and Steve, no, not that. I don't recall ever saying no, not that. They're better now. They're better immediately. But there is risk long term.

And this deal is a big enough deal that if you get this wrong, you're not going to be relevant in the playoff picture for the foreseeable future. I agree with that. But at the same time, I want to say this. Marchenko is Nye's might He might be

He might be Marchenko is And so you know And in fact With Nyes And I'm not trying to denigrate Matthew Nyes I love Matthew Nyes I think he's a great human being

I think he's a phenomenal hockey player I think he needs to work on his foot speed I think he needs to work on his vision And his playmaking I think that was the problem with him in Matthews Sometimes it's a great player who's Cost Controlled There just isn't a fit for them in the lineup

and here's an opportunity to not only solve that problem, but get better. Fit matters so much. And Marchenko is immediately, I know they lost last night. That first line was dynamite. They were crazy. They were dynamite. They had like at least five scoring chances. They look fantastic.

We'll get into the numbers of it later. I've got some great stuff. And fit, I think, is going to be what defines this team this year because there's, Adam Wilde's middle name is vindicated because, holy moly. Wow. It wasn't even Riley's fault. Let's be honest. I didn't say his name.

I didn't say his name. I'm not even going to blame him. And also, yes, it was. But we'll get to that. We'll get to that. No, fit is going to define this team. And I don't think there was a fit. And there were rumors, and I'll just say this now,

there were rumors around the team last year about the Nyes Matthews pairing. It didn't matter when Marner was there. Because Marner and Matthews were so good together, so knew each other. that it really, it was like, well, Nyes can just do whatever, right? He can just bulldoze and that's great. But once Marner disappears and the two key players, the principal players on that line become Nyes and Matthews, and there's no chemistry.

And I told you in the preseason guys, you know, towards the end of that Montreal game, Nize brings the puck in, McKenna's with him, and he just holds, holds, and then dead zones it. There are real decision-making things in that game. Maybe he improves it, and in fact, I think he will. I believe in Matthews. He's so young, man. But Marchenko's only two. years older and fits what they need to do now, which is turn it around right away. Yes. And so I could

sense, here's the other part of this that I think is really interesting. And I want to bring Jesse in on this too. Jesse's a little bit more. Jesse's, I don't know if your cold light of day kind of take guy, but there's an emotion. What it means. What it means is that you don't get it. I think it's just mentally healthier than the both of them. Well, that's fair. Probably both of them. What is your, what are you trying to get it? Well, Jesse, do you get emotionally attention? to players anymore. Because I do. Yeah, I like some guys.

So what I sense from Steve's video, because we know our friend, is that part of this thing is Steve loves Matthew Nyes. And Matthew Nyes, the player, Matthew Nise the person, the whole thing, fan favorite. And I think a lot of the fan base, Jesse, felt that way. Did you not see that in some of the reactions before we saw the game last thing? But I think both things can be true. You can have a guy that you really like on your team and you're like, oh my gosh, this sucks. I own his jersey. He's one of the guys I pick in fantasy every year. When I'm playing

Chelle, I score a bunch of goals with him. I really like this player. I'm really upset. They traded him. And then you look at just how pro sports work. And you're like, yeah, this happens to all my favorite players. And eventually. And the team got better today. You know, so, and I think both things can be true there. There's so much risk involved with buying a jersey with the name on the back. My wife just got an ice jersey last year. She was miserable. Yeah. And what was It was cheap? It was super cheap. Yeah.

The cheapest. It's, it's hard. Let's just, I want to acknowledge the emotional part. It sucks to lose a guy like that. He was a fan favorite. Yes. And it sucked to lose Wendell Clark when they traded him for franchise legend Matt Sundeen.

Yes. Yes. Not everyone liked that trade at the time. People hated, Don Cherry hated that North American for this Euro softie, blah, blah, blah. Matt Sundeen turns out to be the greatest player that's ever played for the team. He was incredible, right? He was incredible. But fans were attached to one.

Clark, right? It's not apples to apples or anything. And, well, you got to give something to get something. Yeah, but I want to have my cake and eat it too. Like what if? Do you remember, okay, one of the silliest things that we talked about, I think it was in like June or July, was the Leafs are going to potentially get Zach Werenzky from the Blue Jackets and not give up nyes in the process. That was silly. I should have never believed that for even a second. I shouldn't have even entertained it. But I was like, wouldn't it be fun?

Because why? Of course. That's awesome. That's great. That's hilarious. Never going to happen. No, no. No.

I don't think, I think you could catch Don Waddell first thing in the morning and be like, you have five seconds. And he wouldn't make that trade. Yeah, the emotional side of losing nyes is that it really sucks about it. Today, or from like Tuesday morning to Tuesday evening, the Leafs are a better team. Through that period where we got the tap on the shoulder that a trade was happening and then now it's done, you look at the lineup and you say the lineup makes more sense with Marchenko, and that should be a better fit for this season.

Who knows what Matthew Nyes goes and becomes in the future, whether they're a better team five years from now if they had Matthew Nyes or not, who knows. But today, their goal is to win this season and it makes them better right now. it sucks to lose that person and that player, but they're better. I, Matthew and I's with a chip on his shoulder could be terrifying. Like in the Metro Division, the one thing I think he might struggle with, like you said, when he was the third most important player on his line with Matthews and Marner, he was really, really effective.

He got 29 goals and everything. He's going to have to create a lot in Columbus. Marchenko was their leading forward score last year. Well, yeah, because like, listen, And Fantilli's great, but like, have we seen Varankov skate? Do you know what I mean? Like, he played with Varankov a lot. I don't know enough about his game.

It's slow. Great on the boards. Not great in the open ice. And there's value in a player like that. Marchenko drove play. And, you know, Jonas and James actually did a little emergency podcast, leave report. And, you know, they always have the numbers nerds. I love you guys.

And they had, you know, they were talking about Matthew and I's expected goals with and without Austin Matthews. And like with Matthews, it's like over 50. Without him, it's like under 42. And there's no reference point for Matthew Nise that he can drive play yet. That's the problem. And some players are unreal. Complementary players.

Complementary is probably a better word. You know, I don't want to say role because he's not a role player. He's far, far better than that. Remember when Chris Kunitz was on the Olympic team because he was great with Crosby? Dude, Canada has won a gold medal with Chris Koonitz. I, did they win with Chris Draper? I can't remember.

I think they did. Kurt Maltby. Like, role player. Or like even guys who have been on the team, like, let alone, you know, they won. There's value in, in guys like that. He's, and his potential is so much higher than that. Yes, of course.

It's so much higher than that. Like a future that contains Nyes and Fantilli should make, make Blue Jackets fans very excited. And another thing is, you know, it makes me sad because Nyes embrace being a Leaf so much. Yes. That footage of him with Nealander when the Leafs won the draft lottery, that footage of him celebrating the Raptors winning game six over the calves.

This guy loved being a Leaf. One thing we know is Marchenko did not love being a Blue Jacket. and, you know, who wants a player like that on their team? Right? Well, Fantilli said this morning, as much as we love playing with him, super smart, skilled fun guy, we want guys that want to play for the jackets and want to win here, and it sucks that it wasn't him. Yeah, dude.

Like, that sucks. That sucks. Like, and you shouldn't want a player like that around. The problem is when everyone starts doing it and players start forcing their way out of town and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is the blue jackets getting a, real, real good asset for the future. Cost controlled, no trade protection.

Yeah. And I'm less worried about the future of Matthew Nyes. And if he is a really good player, I think the Leafs in their minds, and I don't know, I kind of agree with them. They win this trade if they're just having a really good year this year. And next year, they're in a playoff hunt and Austin Matthew sticks around. Yeah. I mean, if five years from now, Matthew Nyes is, I don't know, it's something we

don't expect. He's this other worldly All-Star, but this team was in contention and make a deep playoff run one of these two years. And Austin is a leaf until he retires because this successful little run here and he gets $22 million on the next contract and it's seven years or whatever it is. If that future exists for the Leafs, then they won this trade. And there's a scenario both teams win. I think that's the reality of sports too.

And we can get into it a little bit when we get into the game breaking down. But they had chemistry last night. They didn't even practice together. Sure. Marchenko was less than 24 hours off the plane. And playing is off wing. Yeah. Which I don't know how much he did in Columbus.

I don't know either. I was like, why wouldn't we maximize the guy we just got? Yeah. But I mean, I'm like, but does that make Rosavik really not in a good spot if you take him out of that? Like, can Marchenko handle it in Roslick not? I don't know. And like it's funny. You see analysts like last night on hockey night.

They speak hockey. but it's important to also speak Leaf fan, which has been a common criticism of the Sportsnet broadcast. One of the things they said about the line is all three of those guys are shooters. And this fan base is like, awesome! Great. Great! Yeah.

Because I don't know if you noticed, but last year they were getting outshot 35 to 14 every night, and I wouldn't mind a line with three guys who want to shoot it. The Leafs see Matthews is a 50-gold guy. They see Marchenko as a guy with 40 goal potential and probably 45 assist potential. That's the thing with him. And then, you know, obviously, Roslovick is probably a 2020 guy. But, you know, you look at maybe a 25, I don't know, but you look at Marchenko can make plays.

It's not just that he shoots, but he will shoot. And that was sometimes the frustration with martyr is he was such a pass first guy. And then Domi, even more so a pass first guy. Now, one of the things, as we break down the trade, I do want to quickly get into some of the details that were lined up. Frege kind of broke this down in 32. thoughts. And he said the delay in completing the Marchenko trade was due to NHL tagging rules. I forgot this was even a rule.

He said essentially, you can't have more salary committed for future season than the current cap allows. So Toronto was not allowed to extend Marchenko without clearing cap space beyond this year. And he suspects that's why Emil Andre was included.

Which, man, of everyone who got screwed in this deal. Emil Andre. Yeah. Didn't play a game for the Leaps. You get traded you signed a multi-year deal with them and it's like, okay, bye. Yeah, you're going to Columbus. The Leafs really hated Joseph Wall.

They just set them away for nothing. They didn't care to get anything substantial back for the Joseph Wall deal. They just didn't want them around anymore. There's three aspects of this deal that I just don't really understand. Why did you acquire three years of mind? Ells would.

Salary. They needed to take it. Three years of it? That was the contract. That was the player that Columbus was like, we really don't eat this. Great point, Jesse.

So then why are you the team giving up the second? Why on earth? Why are you the team sweetening the pot? That makes no sense whatsoever. And yeah, number three, they essentially get nothing for Joseph Wall, which friggin sucks. Well, I think they're okay with that.

apparently so because the end result is they get Marchenko yeah like at the end of the day if Marchenko works out you're not going to care about any of those things like if he's great if he's like 80 point guy 30 40 goal guy nope which he has not done

I know if he achieves those things you're not going to care about them but if it's like close and or just not very good I think everyone is going to be well within their right to be like, yeah, no aspect of this trade mix.

I think so the extra pieces, they were kind of to me, they're just, they have to be in the deal. Yeah. You have to match these salaries perfectly because both teams were capped out. Which is shocking for the Columbus Blue Jackets to be capped out with that roster that I think is definitely not going to make the playoffs. So you had to throw in Andre, Stephen Lawrence, as Siegel likes to emphasize that. That's how you say it.

I was happy. It's Lawrence, Jonas. He's going to get the play. Good for him. Yes. So I feel like Lawrence, Andre, Wood, Merlis Lincoln's. And then so those guys all in there, just fucking fodder for the salary cap. Right.

Leifs don't care about these people. They can get by without them. Mouswood. He's going down the H.L. Whatever. It'd be a good Marley. And then the second round pick is the actual trade. Yeah.

So it's a second and nice for Marchenko. I hate that. And then everything else to me is kind of a wash. I'm with you, Jesse. So Taika really wanted to get this over the hump. Do you want to get this done? Want to cross the line? He had to throw in the second.

I guess. I don't know. That's how I reasoned the thinking on the leaf side of this deal. And if Marchenko is great here, then wipe your ass with the second round pick. Who cares? You've got to give to Gad. No, no, totally. Like, again, if Marchenko works out great.

You'd be lucky to get a guy as good as Nise or Marchenko, who I believe are both second round picks in the second round. I think you're right, actually. But I think it's very fair for Steve to point out, just strictly looking at from a negotiation standpoint, Cheka did lose in the battle of like the GMs and who won the deal in negotiating. Can I push back on that? Because I don't agree with that. Because I think part of playing in this, and I'm not trying to be a dick at all, I actually think part of this is keeping Marchenko away from Boston and Montreal. I think you pay a price for that. Montreal offered apparently a very heavy futures laden deal.

Boston also offered a very future heavy laden deal. And when Columbus went back to them and said, no, we need now people. Boston offered Pavel Zaka. And they're like, no, we're not interested. He's a little too now. And they, well, I think what Columbus wanted was James Higgins. And, yeah, like Boston, we probably like, yeah, sure.

Cool, me too, man. Or Fraser Mitten. And so I think. I think what's underrated about this trade is the fact, especially now hearing what Boston and Montreal were doing, and they were on this all summer, both of those teams and the Leafs were in there too. The fact that you can't, Marchenko was coming to the Atlantic. He wanted to go to Montreal to play with Demadoff, who's his friend, who could blame him for wanting to play in Montreal. They look amazing.

And the Leafs kept him out of both of those teams. There's a price to be paid for that too. Yes, that's the context of it all. but in a vacuum, if you just look at assets for assets, who would you say gave up more of the assets and the deal? Well, I think that Marchenko is a second round pick better than Matthew Nyes. So I actually don't mind it. My opinion is that I think the Emil Andre thing kind of sucks

because it makes the thin defense on the Leafs a little bit thinner. When Jake McCabe went down last night, I went, that is the leafiest shit. Yeah, but he was okay. He's okay, but I was like, of course. But yes, You trade that guy in the next day. I agree with it. You're saying like Nyes, Andre, Lorenz, a second is the same amount of assets as a second as Murchenko?

I don't think that's fair. I'm just talking. If you're talking about just the assets and you're looking at like NHL and they show the little trade thing, gauge, I think one side's a little skewed. But in the context, it makes sense why the Leafs just are like, I don't give a shit about the second. I just want to get this done right now. Yeah. Let me say this.

You can find Emil Andres. You can't find Creel Marchankos. Totally. I think, I think it was. actually it might have been the episode we did the day he was uh or that that trade was consummated hats off to don waddell yeah he did good i've been criticizing a lot recently i mean part part of part of what's been wrong with the job don waddell's doing is he's got all these fires and he hasn't put any of them out yeah he put that fire out in a big way well he got

rid of the mileswood deal which they wanted to get rid of anyway he put a few fires Merz-Likins was signed in the previous administration, which was a disaster. Buffalo fans would look away. And Mers-Likins has wanted to trade for two or three years, right? He's not playing. And he's not playing. And he's not playing.

They don't have to pay the money, you know? Yeah. That's a favorite ownership by Don Waddell. I thought it was interesting that they're like, yeah, his recovery is three to five months. And Chaka's like seven to eight months. Can't believe he's going to be out nine to ten months. Well, Jesse.

That's going to be a long 12 months. Oh my gosh. Man. Jesse, when you were at the press conference yesterday with John Shika, because you were there. Yeah. One of the first things he did was he appreciated, he thanked Rogers for giving him the latitude to make this deal. And I think the reason he did, which is a little bit strange, is because of the bad money

they were taking on. Yeah, it was for me, a little bit of an eye roll moment. Yeah. But I mean, but I think part of that was, guys, we got to take on money from people that are never going to play for us. Like Miles Wood at one point, I think was a. pretty good straight line player for the devil's good for 15 goals but he has had some injuries it's possible he gets called up at some point sure i don't need to hear the name tony staffieri when a trade is

being talked about no yeah that's like we don't need to we don't need to we don't need to gargle here that's how we got the job that's how he got the job is like do you think tony was at home going yeah like i don't you guys watch that yeah listen man i i i i've we've worked there i i i there is a little bit of like It's bizarre. Like, I don't, I don't believe in deatizing or making a deity out of a corporate executive, no matter how much great things they've done, right? Like, you're running a corporation, you're running a business. That's fantastic for you.

But we don't need to, we don't need to worship. I think it's bizarre. But switching off of that and back to the hockey for a second, I want to talk Miles Wood for a second. So let's say the Leafs are like, at the end of the season. Let's talk about Miles Wood. I know. I know, but this is what we were doing at Corson Clubhouse. I know.

And now he's Marley? Marley. I guess. If, you know, he's got two more years left on his deal. So I looked at the bio calculator and said, okay, let's just say they let they expire and then they let it go. So you would save your cap hit would be 1.16 million. If they bought out today? No, they can't buy out today.

We have to wait until the season's over. Right. Okay. But let's say you're going into next year and you don't want my. much of a cap penalty. The penalty is going to be the first two years your savings are 1.33 million and then you're going to have a 666667 savings. That actually kind of sucks. You think so? Yeah. Well, because like you I don't hate that. If you put them in the miners, don't you save roughly that amount? Roughly. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it more useful to have him as a Marley?

I guess. I just wanted to put it up. I thought it was worth kind of bringing it up. Totally. That's kind of caca. No, I don't like that. Yeah. And, I guess as the cap explodes the way it's going to, we're probably looking at NHL minimums going up, obviously, right? Players making NHL minimum that will go up, and therefore the buried salary will go up too. You're probably just better off having them. Here's the buried amount.

So he has 1.275 on the cap right now. So you could save. So that's what the cap is right now to have Mousalwood in the Marley. You could save 50 grand, basically. Yeah. Instead of. So don't buy him up. So you want to have him.

That's a high-end Marley, I think. Yeah, what the hell? Sure. Like, Miles Wood, if he could ever, I think, just get his game in order and be less reckless with his game and just kind of play up and down North-South hockey, he'd be a really decent bottom six guy. I got a surprising amount of techs after that trade. Many of them with opinions on Miles Wood, and I'm waiting for the first nice one. Oh, no. Yeah, it's not great.

I think the injuries have really slowed him down. He used to be just a fast cycle. who could score a little bit. Works hard. Yeah, no, by all accounts, he works hard and is still a psychopath, but everything else is lacking. If the speed is still there, like, there's something. Yep. You know, and I think he'll be good on the Marley's.

You got to be, they kept using the word smart and also opposites of that. Yeah. Like, you've got to play smart hockey. Yeah, for sure. John Chika also said, and he thought Matthew Nice took it well. Now, it was so funny because at the beginning of the day before that, John Chika said to the media, oh, I don't think the trade rumors will ever end in Toronto. And he also said Matthew Nyes was an important part of the team a week ago.

And here's what I want to say about that. We don't need to believe. Go ahead. Well, you were going to say it. I'll say it. He doesn't have to tell the truth. And I just want to say, again, we started the conversation about Brad Trilliving, not doing stuff. I don't care.

The teams that are winning are like, yeah, I'll just tell you what I need to tell you. and I'm just going to go do whatever the fuck I want. I don't blame John Chica for lying. I blame you for believing them. Yeah. Have some pride and media literacy. Yeah. We talked about this last year.

The amount of times a GM or a coach or a player says something and people go, check and mate. Are you an idiot? It's like whatever Paul Marie says something and the Florida media are like, Oh, man, that's definitely true. I'm like, come on. Guys, I'll think, stop it.

Paul Maurice knows what he's doing. Yes. Yeah. And that's fine. And that's absolutely fine. I don't. Lots of people, people be fibbing. People are out there telling fibs.

No, John Jika is like kind of a known liar. And as long as he makes my team better, I don't really care. Do you remember when Steve Sisman's called him a salesman? A salesman. A salesman. Not a snake oil salesman. Just a salesman. which he misspoke, but it's very fun.

Hey, I just want to say. It's still one of my favorite things. Every time I see John Chikas face, I think, salesman. Me too. You know, as somebody who's a part of the sales team here at SDPN, Steve Simmons, what the hell, man? What's wrong with sales?

You salesman. Now, Puckpedia said, we believe the Leafs 26, 27 opening night roster is now 37K of optimal LTIR space. There is so much complication with, this, I don't understand. But essentially, it looks like this leaps will be an LTIR all year long, which is, you know, we're, hey, we're from the Clarkson era. We remember. We know. It's Ed Rogers money. I don't care. Yeah, it makes trading a little difficult. It does.

Because you got to, now you got to match salaries and do all the cap finagling, but they have so many smart people in the front office with the number crunching that they'll be able to do it. The deadlines will be tricky because, you know, if you're under, you're going to accrue all season, then you can take on these big contracts, whatever, at the, at the, at the deadline. but now they're going to have to do some more swapping here. Chris Johnson and Pierre LeBron on insider trading on TSN yesterday. I don't know if you guys have heard of Chris Johnson. Kind of a big deal in these parts.

From Canadian press? That's right. Cute journalist. Basically, he said the Leafs are patiently aggressive and they feel even after giving up nyes, they have other futures they can move to have help now solutions. And that includes the Colorado first round pick, young prospects. that'd be Ben Danford. And, you know, they're looking to upgrade even in the early days of the season,

maybe get their business done early. Because, you know, sometimes when you make the deal at the deadline, not a lot of time for the team to gel. And this team, and we'll get into it, we'll get into the game breakdown. Sure. This team's going to need some time to jail. It is. And there's added incentive to get this stuff done now.

Yeah. So I was looking at the schedule. I did a little side rant about this last night. In October, they get too kind of nasty, road trips out of the way right away that they don't usually get out of the way this fast into the season they got the i don't really know what you call it the mountain time road trip that involves like central Vegas Colorado Utah yeah then there's the western Canadian road trip the only one that's not included in that and i forgot this last night is California i forget when that is but essentially

after October you're staying in your time zone for 95% of the rest of the season they're at home for like 18 consecutive days in November with a ridiculous amount of days off. No, like October is when you bond and you gel and you figure it all out. November is when you make a move. If you come out of November and kind of stink, it's really going to hurt your chances

of making the playoffs. American Thanksgiving, the American Thanksgiving rule. Yeah, right around, right around them. They have one back-to-back the whole month in November for the Leafs that's unheard of. Yeah, it is. And it's not even. like a true one because one of those

the first game is a matinee like you got an opportunity to make a real yeah Jesse's got it up on the screen there you got an opportunity to make a real move in November it kind of has to be there if you plan on being relevant now in the context of last night's game we saw

um Montreal first off we saw the Montreal Canadians they looked good Dobish looked insane Dobish was fantastic he was just amazing. I thought he was the difference, honestly. He has perfect positioning. He does. Every single angle that you can take away from a shooter, he's there.

Whenever a pass goes cross ice in the offensive zone, like he's able to come across and he's right where he should be. It's fantastic watching him play. Goalb. Bob was fine. He gave him a chance to win. Dobish. I mean, the third goal was a fluky goal, but that happens.

You could argue Dobish stole one. I thought the Leifes maybe had better chances. They won the deserve to win a meter. I pushed back when we did our Montreal Canadiens Preview, Season Preview, because I think as Adam brought up them winning those games against the Lightning and the Buffalo Sabres And they're getting outshot to oblivion. And what if good goaltending is just a feature of your team?

It's allowed. It is allowed to be a thing you have. And that can be a strategy. And that player is on the ice as well. Now, I reject the framing of that, Jesse, because it's going to set Habs fans against me. I just made the question. question.

Why did he go to show? That they had nine shots in both of those game sevens and one, which does not happen. I think that's fair. Those were so fun to stream because everyone the whole time was just like, I can't believe they're not losing. I wasn't saying, I wasn't saying specifically that it's bad, but they do play a scrambly style and give up chances that some people would say perhaps in a perfect system, you wouldn't. They work hard.

They have some talent. They get goaltending. They do. And their third line was their best line last night. which is great. That means you can rely on. Zach Bullduke was the best player on the ice of both teams.

I don't know. Everywhere. I don't know how to say this in a way that isn't insulting. I don't think they're particularly special. That's insulting. They have some high in talent. I'm insulted.

Yeah? Jesse is insulted on being able to. I keep dissing them. No, no. Like they just, I think they're very simple. Like they're young, energetic, work hard, get saves. That's really.

really it. Like, it's not a team where you're like, yeah, they have Kutrov and they just rely on him being insane or like the avalanche can at times be Nathan McKinnon in his band of merry men or Kail McCar in his band of merry men, right? They're just, on any given night, a different line could be their best line and the reason that they win. I was joking. I'm not insulted. And nobody should be insulted by what you're saying if you're listening to that Habs fan, because you know what team you just described. What? The Carolina hurricane.

Yeah. That exact description you gave is exactly how the hurricanes became Stanley Cup champions. And the Montreal Canadians have that same roster breakdown. On any given night, especially during the playoffs, the hurricanes could have had a different line be their best line. Oh, yeah. And it's worth mentioning it took the canes a long time to get there too. Yes.

All those kicks out the can in the Eastern Conference finals. You know, you go up against Florida those years and you lose. you go up against the Rangers they lost that one. Yeah, they did. It did. Yeah. Like, they were a lot of second,

second round and outs. But they thought so clearly the better team. Well, and I think with Jeff Gordon there, I just have so much respect for Jeff Gordon. I think that Montreal, just stay the course. I know the media can get crazy,

uh, coming from a crazy media market here. I actually think Montreal's media is crazier because it's two languages and people forget how insane the Quebec, like the front French side is, it's insane some of the stuff they say there. And I just, the expectations are cresting.

They are, but I think that even if, like, the problem in Toronto was we couldn't get past the first round, which is unacceptable. You get to the second round and you lose to a team, fine. I think people have a lot more patience for that. I would just encourage Montreal, even if this year or next year, even in the year after, it's not the year. Stay with it. Carolina, you got it. They kept doing it. It was like eight years of that stuff.

And like even the sweep against Florida where they get swept and Brinmore's like it's not actually a sweep. Didn't feel like a sweep. They didn't panic after that. No, they did. Telski made all of his crazy Telsky deals like the Rantan and thing. And he just kept doing his creative GMing. And I think Ken Hughes has the same like philosophy in that. Like he's just going to keep doing his thing.

And you know who did panic? The Rangers. At the same thing happened to them. And they actually won two games against the Panthers and then blew their fucking team up. Blackhawks in 2016. Yeah. Well, that was just Stan Bowman being the worst general manager. I don't know how he's still working.

But greatest team of their generation. And they went, what if we just completely self-destructed? Yeah. Panar and Saad, one of the worst deals in NHL history. It's crazy. It's just completely self-destructive. I do want to talk about this. So to start the game last night, although it's tradition for the rookie to come out and do their lap,

Sergei Barovsky still needed to be the first guy out in the ice. Some people were like, oh, that's lame. And I'm like, does anyone actually give a shit? Don't screw with the goalie. Yeah. I don't give a shit. This guy's a three-time cup, well, in the finals and two-time cup winner going to the Hall of Fame. Does Gavin McKenna give a shit that he hits the ice first?

Anyone else on the team? I'm like, hey, man, don't screw with the goalie. Yeah. Especially the old one who's like successful. Yeah, Bob's like, I need to do this so that we can win this game. I'm like, okay. Do it. Do it.

He got out of the way. Oh, yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. No, I don't care. So we're not going to go through this goal by goal, but we are going to go through this a little bit more like storyline by storyline. Or line by line by line. Especially because by the time you're listening to this is probably another game.

Yeah, exactly. So I just want to quickly shout out. I think I think the good was because it's back to back. You're right, Jesse. I thought no, absolutely no practice, Marchenko Matthews looked great. Awesome. And Rosavick. And Rosavik too. Yeah. And you can look at his speed. Giveaways are still a problem with Rosavik, but that's followed him his whole career. I thought they won most of their shifts. They did actually. And in fact, there is stats on that. Let me see. I got, I got your stats right here. Give it to me. I got your stats on either side of my nose. All right? I got your stats right here. With Marchenko on the ice, the leaf shot attempts. High test. This is insane.

Marchenko on the ice shot attempts were 2314. Hell yeah. Nice. Shots on goal were 16.6. Hell yeah. Scoring chances were 14 to Dobish had an incredible game. It was amazing. High danger chances 10 to 1.

Yeah, come on, man. Come on. And it felt like that. Like your eye test thing, you're joking about it, but it's true. Like watching the game. you see Marchenko and Matthews out there and you're like, oh no, they're dangerous every time they're together. And Matthews had a beautiful set of, I think it was Rosavik that found him and Dobish just had the angle. Remember that? That was crazy save. He had two saves, I think, that were

just completely stupid. One on Matthews, one on Richiecko. It's not like he's Broder out there making acrobatic saves. It's not positioning. This is Willie for Hart, who by the way, posted this. He tied Nylander, Marchenko did with eight shot attempts and that was second behind Tavares in scoring chances with five. And I think two of those came on that third power play where he was like shovel-shodding it. And you know, what's interesting, too, and I want to talk about the good first, because there was some bad. Sure, clearly. They didn't win. But even if they had one, there would still be some bad. The Marchenko part with Matthews, that was the part where everybody's watching. Do they have chemistry? I saw more chemistry in the first shift that I've ever seen

with Nyes and Matthews on the ice together, ever. And then you have McKenna-Nielander-Tavaris. and I thought from the first shift McKenna looked like a little bit lost like an 18 year old might in the NHL and I don't care I don't care afraid to make a mistake sure and then he made one anyway

and he's going up against a team that should be now considered a Stanley Cup favorite so this is a very very good team the pace is obviously a lot better than what he would have faced in the preseason and by the way in the preseason he faced two AHL squads

right? Yes. And so Yeah, some NHL players, like he was going up against like Dino and Dobson. Yeah, but not Suzuki Caulfield. Right. You know. Yeah, it's different.

It is different. And so I look at that and I go, yeah, whatever. And he said that, yeah, it's probably not my best game. But I think, because I think we're playing tomorrow. Your game is based on being a playmaker. You can't be playing with nerves because so much of that role that McKenna has developed for himself throughout his like hockey playing career is like, I'm going to be a great passer. And a lot of that is instinct.

and also knowing where your teammates are and being a great hockey IQ. But if you're thinking too much and you're there and you're nervous, all that's going to be thrown out the window and your entire game is not going to be, it's not going to translate if you're playing nervous. So he needs to just get comfy out there,

which is going to come with time. Now, when he was dropped down to the third line, they talked about it on SportsNet. BX has said, I actually think that's a good thing what Hiller's doing because he's basically desensitizing him to being put down. He's like, if you'd put him on there and stuff,

him there for five games and then demoted him, that could hurt his confidence. But getting him and Cowan switching around, he's like, okay, we're going to get used to the fact that this is, you know, we're going to try this. And by the time the third period came back, he's back out on the second line. Yeah. But he was, he was underwater a little bit. And then Cowan set up like this absolutely sexy goal that brought the Leafs within one. Like, how could you possibly criticize the decision? It was a great decision. He was playing well and then he played even better. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How could you possibly have a problem with that. The lineup, by the way, when the Leafs started the game, and this is where I think

I mentioned it, I might have mentioned it in our season preview. I think I've said it on the show. Like, I told, I think I told you guys, I would not be shocked to see the Toronto-Map beliefs, have a slow start because of all the new names in the lineup. And check this out. The starting lineup last year versus Montreal featured four or five players that are back. Matthews, Tavaris, Neelander, Riley, McCabe, Tanev, Ekman Larson, Stollers who didn't play, and Cowan, who was scratched. I forgot Cowan started the season.

Craig Barubi should be in prison. Yes. Dude. Yeah. Oh, Dakota Joshua, too, but he didn't play last night. Oh, my God. And so, like, that is an enormous turnover.

And at times it looked like it. The third line I wanted to quickly talk about, and then I want to talk about the fourth line, Cowan, Paul, Sisson, sometimes McKenna on this line, too. I thought they played well in their roles, penalty kill stuff like that. I didn't see as much as I'd hoped through the neutral zone stuff.

The whole bottom six was kind of disappointing. I don't see I disagree. I thought the fourth line was good. I thought McEwen was good. I thought Du Hame. People are going to love De Hame. I did like Du Hame. I did like Du Hame.

I didn't feel enough of an impact from the rest of them. I don't really notice those guys. Yeah. I like McEwen too. And some nights, that's your role. That's, look at the composition of that line, though.

It's Duham, Blugher, McEwen. You don't have that fourth line for them to be unnoticeable. You have them to smash the other team through the boards, and they didn't do that. There was one very good shift, I want to say, in the third period. But beyond that, meh. Well, they've got to find their game. Now, on the defensive side, and I mean this for the forwards as well,

the breakout passes were atrocious. And I'm talking about guys like Oliver Ekman-Lurson. I'm talking about guys like Chris Tanev, who are usually aces for stuff like this, just missing guys going up the boards. Okay, fine. The Leafs are trying a new system where it's a one-two, and they're trying to get through the neutral zone as quickly as they can,

which is good. Works for a guy like Marchenko and Matthews, but they are going to have to start to clean up their passes. Jim Hiller mentioned that in the press conference after the game, too, Jesse, that they just looked weird. But let's zero in on the defense pairing that we were all kind of worried about. And let's be honest, Darren Radish's giveaways, and I think there were five of them.

He had a bad night. They were bad. Yeah, he had a bad night. But I think where Steve mentioned off the top of the show is, is it that Darren Radish is bad or is that everybody that plays with Morgan Riley tends to. No, no, he's right. No.

At what point? Enough. And I'm not the one, I'm not the only one saying it this morning. Radish was on the ice for the second goal, but like it's Riley. And it's just a pile of what's going on here. And there were other people to blame. So Riley's directing traffic, and I think he's telling McKenna where to go. Nealander, you see the enthusiasm drop offense versus defense.

How do you burn Nick Suzuki like that and then get killed by Mike Matheson? Because one is in one end and the other is in the other, I think. That's what it seemed like to me. and then you see him get his second goal and you're just like, yeah, this is the Willie experience and they came up, you know, up to one so he won his minutes, good, great. But like just drives you nuts,

just drives you insane. But Riley's just standing there in, in, frig offland, doing nothing when he drives the net. He has no one, he has nothing. He's not covering a man, he's not covering his own, he's not covering anything. and

like plays will break down look at this shit this is Morgan Riley right look at this shit but it's Darren Radish's fault no it isn't Darren Radish is at very least vaguely where he ought to be

and like Bullduke gets lost Tavares Tavaris loses Bullduke here he does yeah listen there's a lot of blame to go around but there's only one guy I see doing nothing

Riley's puck watching he is he's completely Completely puck watching McKenna looks a little lost too. I think everybody was bad. Tavares at least throws in a couple panic crossovers make you feel a little bit better. But like he's not doing anything, Mo.

And I was talking about fit, right? Nyes is an incredible player. I don't know if there was a fit with where he needed to fit in. You're committed to radish. You just spent eight and a half million. dollars. I watched him on Tampa. He does not suck. He goals went in when he was on the ice. Both nets. More in the other one.

Mo is a capable offensive defenseman. I just don't know if he's good enough offensively to justify his defensive deficiencies. And how many more... He used to be. And here's the other problem is there's no way out. And I'll tell you what I mean. When the Leaf signed Chris Tannav, we were like, oh, well, there's Mo's guy. And that did not work. Mo played with Luke Shen and it was good and we're like, okay, okay, wait a minute.

This could be the guy. And they put them together and it's atrocious. The lucky thing out of all that is then you put Tanna McCabe together and it's great. And you're like, all right, there's found money. great. So they go out and they spend more assets and they go out and they get Brandon Carlo. And for a brief time, that looked great too. And then it looked garbage. Okay, so, okay, Mo and Radish. We got to break that up. You got to break that up. You can't. Even if McCabe Radish is great, you put Moe and Tanev together and you know it doesn't work.

All right. So you put, OEL? Why not? Why not? I think he's too old for that role. And also, we overrate him he's great value i don't think he's i wouldn't put him on a first pair in the nchl in twenty twenty six he's not playing special special teams though so his so and radish is so i actually think you probably could keep oh we all's minutes to about 18 a night easy and i i actually think he is the better fit i think even that's too much well if you because if you look at it like okay so maybe it's too much for now and that speaks to what cj was saying about inside on insider trading which is the leaps need to need to upgrade the

the problem with and again Mo is now running the second power play unit same problems as before does not have a shot how is OEL not running that I really I know you think we overrated

it and I know that Oliver Reckman Larson's defensive numbers last year weren't good but let me ask you something who's were on this Leafs team who's were right that's the problem I have with public analytics

is that it actually doesn't show it only shows you that the team is bad it doesn't show you who's found money and who isn't. The stuff that's available privately, the stuff that like Megan Chaker's group has or some of the other ones, those guys can tell you. The we have available player cards, shit like that, no idea. And I think if we don't stop doing the same fucking thing, which is defaulting to Morgan Riley being on the first pair because of the contract that he signed, we are going to

get similar to results. This guy has had how many cycles of partners and it's never worked. Now, he's an, he's a hard guy to play with guys. He is. Now, this is where we're going to struggle. Like, Jesse was talking about the cap situation. It's going to be hard for them to make trades. I think Jake is going out there and he's still looking. We know they obviously looked with Morgan Riley earlier this summer.

It is, we're, we're battling on two sides of a hill here, which is Riley and Radish have played together for exactly one game and we need to calm down versus we've been doing this song and dance since 2012. Yeah. And I'm enough. Enough. You don't have McCabe for the whole first period. I understand that. Yep. I get it. Ultimately, a couple of those mistakes were radish. Mm-hmm. And who did not have, he had a rough day. He had a bad night. He did. He had a bad night. Individed, of Morgan Riley. Like I looked at the second goal and I went like those weird little giveaways that Radish had.

I'm like I can I can attribute that to being the first night. The second goal is the one where I'm like that's the kind of goal we're going to see night in and night out if this doesn't work. Right? Like not bobbling around a bouncing puck or getting muscled off the puck or like on the first goal he tries to dangle Philip to know. to exit the zone. And you have Austin Matthews with a stick on the ice, man?

And OEL is out there on the ice with him. You can't blame Morgan for that. No, you can't. Oh, was it OEL? No, no, no,

no, no, no. Like the first goal, that one's all ranch. That's all ranch. This is raddish. So Paul, Nick Ball wins a puck battle against Kirby Doc.

He's able to kick it to Darren Radish. Yes. And Darren starts turning up ice. He's like, okay, time to exit the zone here. I'm going to dangle Philip Dunneau. The best defensive center of the age.

exit the zone here and Dino just gets his fucking skate on it and then the puck's going the other way and Montreal is able to get it and it leads directly to a goal. That's terrible. Yeah. That's terrible. You can't do that. Can't happen. The other guy on the ice, like I said, his pair at that time was OEL.

That's not Morgan Riley's fault. No, of course. And the third goal I looked at last night and yeah, he gives it away and it's bad. They actually got that fire under control and they had the puck. They did, Jesse. They had the puck and they had it with time and McKenna gives it away. You know how you avoid that. You make the first play.

I agree with you. And then on the other play to the second goal that's talking about, McKenna's also there and kind of lost in that zone. I'm willing to just give everybody a pass on game one because it felt like preseason game number three. I watched that game. Before that game, I watched Hurricanes Panthers. That game was a fucking preseason game. Some of the worst hockey I've ever watched. It was awful.

Everybody is just taking their time. Nobody knows how to skate out there. Nobody scores. There's no shots on goal. I think they're both under 20 shots on goal. Yeah, it was 1914 going in overtime. Yeah, in overtime. That game started two hours before the Leafs game.

William Neelander had the first goal in the NHL. Yeah. He had the first goal in the NHL of the season. Because Gus Forsling doesn't score until like 730 or like 8 o'clock or whatever. Five seconds left. Yeah. And Neelander scores in the first minute. Thank God for Boko and Mama giving them something.

Yeah, that fight with Nick Dolorea was awesome. Yeah, that was a monster. So I'm willing, because that was terrible hockey for three periods. And then this game starts and I'm like, oh, we're kind of still in the preseason for everybody, I think. I think just with so many new guys too on the Leafs, there's even extra that. Like Montreal, they brought back a lot of guys is the team from last year, right? So they're kind of more ready. But even the Hurricanes who are the Stanley Cup winning team, they look so sloppy.

And Brindamore after the game, he was. It was like, I don't think we advanced the game at all tonight. I don't think we made it to do. How many times? Thank you, Adam. Very funny quote. What I'd like to know is how many times over the last five or ten years the team raising the banner won that night? You could probably look that.

I feel like they're on like a four or five year slump. Yeah. Maybe the, because of how long the pregame starts and everything, you're kind of going out and you're all excited. And then the other team just kind of waiting for you to start. So, yeah. Can I just say this? Brindamore also said, Jesse, we were just not used to that kind of pressure.

You just hadn't seen it in practice or even in the games in the preseason. And they're half the pace of that one. You could see that our top guys were fumbling it or passes weren't connecting. A lot of rust for us for sure. And I think that's going to be, CJ said it on the CJ show last week.

The first month is going to be real sloppy across the entire league. Those are the reigning Stanley Cup champions with virtually no turnover. And they're like, yeah, we were surprised. What? And the coach in the league who were. works his team the hardest.

Yeah. Yes. And I assume he would have ran his training camp just like that. And that team still wasn't ready. So I think like sweeping judgments about how much they can play together needs to, you need to give it a week. Mm-hmm. You know,

I'm willing to give these guys a pass here just because I think everybody's a little shaky these couple days. The one thing as long as we're taking a little side quest on that game, Brandon Bussie, knock it off at the pity party. What do you mean? Knock it off. After the game, he's like, yeah, I didn't let in a back. goal. It's a one-nothing overtime loss enough enough of shit. Yeah. Also, because I need you,

I have you and that's giving Jack Campbell. Uh, dude, Lena Solmark. Yeah. Yeah. Goalies are weird though. They are. No, Jack used to do that all the time where it's like Jack. You can't friggin, like, criticize yourself every time a microphone's put in your face. Yeah. You allowed one goal. Most goalies would take that every night. Yeah. Your team didn't score. You can't win. If your team doesn't score a If you could have got a shutout And still lost Yeah

Yeah Because I think I probably take the Panthers In the shootout If I'm going to go ahead to head With those two teams Barkoff Yeah, that's what I'm saying I think Chica is going to look at this roster

And say we need Upgrade on D Yeah Like the I think the free spot for everybody is Morgan Riley So I think that is going to happen eventually

I don't know if this This game is the driver of that Well, it doesn't happen You guys look at J.J. Moeser and Radish and what they were able to do last year. And J.J. Moser is very, very underrated. He's a fantastic defenseman, right?

They're going to need... You know, Jonas and James were talking about how they need a number one. I'm not totally convinced that that's what... First of, I don't even think it's possible. Although, who knows? I didn't think Karel Marchenko was possible a week ago. I don't know how you get that done. But I don't know how you get that done in season.

I could see it in free agency in 2028 if Roeinsky is available and you have all the money in the world. It would have to be that because you don't have the assets. That's exactly. But I can see you getting a player who's steady next to Radish and lets Radish be Radish. Yes. I can see that another mid-level defenseman and you do it by committee. Right? Like not, I know, Carolina, listen, they have great players on that roster who are not, quote, unquote, stars in the marketing sense.

Jake Slavin, if you could find a guy who's 80% of him and put him next to Radish. Jake Slavin is, for my money, the best defensive defenseman in the NHL? Well, and then the Hurricanes went out and got frigging Keandre Miller. Yeah, who's also phenomenal. Rangers just fired him out the door for no reason. You know, that's the type of thing that we got to be looking at here. Fit. Fit matters.

And so that pair stunk. We'll see what they do tonight. We also know from, I'm just seeing on Twitter the Jim Hiller talked to the media, and it looks like Boghru's coming in. We don't know who's coming out. Nice. Oh, I love Bogor. I do love Bogor.

I'm excited for that. And honestly, the fact that it was amazing during the stream last night, we had so many people tuned in, which was awesome. And it was insane, insane stream. It felt like Steve Dangl stream. Not going to lie. And what was amazing afterwards is I asked Habs fans, okay, what do you think of the Leafs? And they're like, honestly, not bad. And I felt that way, too.

They look good. And I was like, no matter where this season goes. even when they won games in the 24-25 season and won the division, right? They were painful to watch, right? That was the last murder year. That's where they went to the second round. Fucking painful, but you won.

But they won. So you feel good. When they won games last year was painful because you're like, man, they got lucky and they fucking suck. No, they spent two years under Craig Bouroubae playing the worst hockey imaginable for television. This is going to be an entertaining product.

Yeah. It's going to be fun. Also, the one-three-one. He didn't do it. He didn't do it. You're the one-two. which is yay, I guess. That's basically NHL standard, everybody.

But yay. Woo! Go for it. They outchanced them. I don't know if they ended up out shooting them. Yep. You're not going to win every hockey game. I would like to.

But I think, forget the deserve to win a meter. I did make that joke, but they did win it. I think a couple of those goals go in. Marchenko had a couple of great opportunities. Matthews had one or two. Tavares had the two shovel shots. The power play is going to take a while to gel. It just is my question with the power play is you've practiced all preseason with Rossevick on it.

And then you threw Marchenko in there. I wonder if you just try the Roscovick thing for now and then let Marchenko cook on the second power play unit. I don't know. You're doing what's best for tonight versus the investment thing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. The investment is Marchenko's the high bumper.

And is that the rule for him? Like you could do him on the second unit. Cowan looked great on that second unit. It'd be nice if he had a shooter to send it to. Well, it's not going to be Riley. Who's going to, who's going to shoot on that second unit? Well, last year it was Nick Robertson. Well, yeah.

That's who it was. Upgrade. Who, by the way, is going to play with Sidney Crosby? Nick Robertson's on the first line. But Cowan, Paul, McKenna, Rosavik, Riley. There's no shots there. Yeah. Put Marchenko in there.

McKenna can shoot, but it's like it's not a bomb. I understand what's. Mike, what's McKenna's role on that, though? His role is to be the playmaker. Right. Right.

So don't ask him to be the playmaker and the shooter is my point. That's why I'm saying, like, adjust this. You better not, you better not fucking sneeze. I couldn't hold it in.

Don't you dare. Sorry. I think that's where I would say, like, just give, Marchenko's your weapon. And I would pull Morgan Riley off that, put OEL on it

because he's got a shot too. Dude, I put, I'm so down on Riley. like I'm just so disappointed. Like, you know, you know, okay, devil's advocate. Last year, game one of the season, all summer long, we were talking about Morgan Riley. And Brad Trulliving talked about is like, come to Jesus conversation with Morgan Riley.

Which I want to say I was at the time very suspicious of. I do want to say that I won't put that on the record. People forget this because last season was horrendous. Morgan Riley was the best player on the ice for both teams in that game. Scored. They won. And it was the best game he played all season. Yep.

Yep. So the way you start is not the way you end. I will look forward to tonight. And hopefully it is better. Yes. Light the night is a national movement that brings together communities across Canada in support of people affected by blood cancer. Now, you've heard us talk about this before. We've mentioned it. Funds raised in Canada support Canadian blood cancer research, vital services

for individuals and families, and advocacy for better access to care. This fall, gather your friends and family and raise a lantern in solidarity with Canada's blood cancer community. Last year, light the night, raised. This is a crazy number. You ready for this? $6.2 million. Wow. 5,000 participants joined, which is awesome. And this, and this, This year, I feel like we can help the momentum and get it even better. Join us. Unforgettable, family-friendly evening filled with hope, remembrance, and celebration. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada funds life-saving blood cancer research. Every single lantern raised, every step taken, every ounce of support, big or small brings us closer to a world free from blood cancers.

And we will have a link in the description. But if you can remember this one, which I always have trouble remembering things that people tell me. Yeah, I go to the description, hit the link. It'll be a lot of easier. Lightenight.c.ca, but go to the link in the description. Check it out. My name is Siyaya, and I live in the most beautiful place on earth. Seven months ago, I blew up my life, and a lot has shifted since then. Everyone is moving forward. I'm still working on that. And that's me. Welcome to Ice Cove. Where are the penguins? That's Ant, Antarctica. We're the other one.

North of North. Available on CBC Jam. Now, a couple of things. Jesse, you pointed out on your Twitter account that you can have the same experience as Steve Dangled did with the San Jose Sharks and ride the Zamboony for a mere $70. It's called the Fanboni Experience. Yeah, so they added some plus ups to the Leafs app and, you know, those things where you can wave the flag and all this stuff.

So one of the new plus ups is that you can ride the Zamboony. And apparently there's dynamic pricing as well. So I clicked on a game to add the Zamboni to my cart with the ticket to see how much it costs and actually get it. And it's like 60, what did I have, $63? Yeah, yeah. So if you go to like a weekend game, it's like $100. So they dynamically priced the ticket prices.

Shut out the Kack on Twitter who quote tweeted me with the dynamic pricing of the Zamboni rides. The Kack's a good account, by that. That's our boy with the with the jersey. Hey P. Why am I blanking his name? Ranger shootout goal through the legs. Merrick Malik jersey. Yeah, that's the Merrick Malik jersey.

We're not here to sell jerseys. We are also here to sell flag waving and zamboni riding. To children. To children. Literal children. No, it'd be way better if you had a guy pushing 40 sitting on. Well, and the reason I'm on a shark-shaped zamboni. That's why I bring this up, though, because the Toronto Maple Leafs are once again

the most valuable NHL franchise by a lot. 4.8 billion compared to the New York Rangers at 4.15 billion. I'm sure that would be better if the Rangers hadn't tanked themselves. Montreal in third place at 3.8 billion. L.A. at 4 basically tied with the Bruins 3.33 versus Boston 3.31. Now, the Edmonton Oilers at 3.11 billion are the most profitable. So they're the ones making the most money year over year, but the franchise valuation is not as high. but I think the lease are going to try to change that.

There you want to be more profitable too. Stupid question. Like, is that driven by Connor McDavid? What, the franchise value? Yeah. Yeah, Connor and Leon. And Evan Bouchard, who had a fucking hat trick last night. That was five points.

Yeah, of course, your assets in any business, your key assets are your driver of revenue and your driver of value. So if you no longer have that player... A little bit. Yeah, you'd see it. especially Connor McDavid and Leon Drysaddle. You don't have those guys. You can lose a lot of value.

Because anybody that might buy it is like, well, I'm buying the best two players in the world. Right. And potentially the best defenseman in the world. Right. At least offensively. So anyway, I thought that was interesting. And I think the least we're going to try to break that. By the way, Cliff Fletcher, there will be a tribute to him.

His family couldn't make it for this particular game. It would have happened here. But I think it's October 15th that it's going to happen. So there will be a cliffletcher. Can we do a tiny side on the crowd last? night. Yes. Please would you? Because everybody said from the beginning that it was the quietest crowd they'd ever heard on the broadcast. Go ahead, Jesse. So the two main things. Number one, at the beginning of the game, crowd was really good. It was a great crowd and you couldn't hear it on the television.

Sportsnet, they turned down their audio that's on the crowd a little. Amazon does not. Tonight's an Amazon game. We'll see how that compares. Every year, people go, oh, that's weird. weird and every year they don't fix it. Yes. At the beginning, it was raucous and it was really good. Towards the end of the first period and from the second period on, the crowd stunk. The place was a morgue. And it was bad on a couple levels where one, if you want to bring up this picture here of the OKC Thunder in the place.

Wow. Look at that. They got everybody in their crowd wearing the t-shirts. They got the stripes along the crowd where it's like one side is white shirts and other one is blue shirts and it goes around. Everybody throws on the shirts. The Leafs tried to do this last night. They had shirts on every single seat in the arena.

Their arena looked like a fucking normal game. It looked like it could have been a Tuesday in November and it was just normal game. And if you look at this angle here, there were, I'd say, 30% of the lower bowl was Habs fans. Well, that makes sense. And even the lease fans there didn't. participate and throw on the shirts. Oh, they had suits on. They, well, they had their suits and whatever.

They didn't want to throw on the shirts. And I don't think you can ever get over this. This is who the crowd is who can afford tickets to Leafs games. I think that is the fact from now on. It's either going to be the out-of-towners who are going to go in and pay the expensive because they want to see their team here for the couple times a year. They come to Toronto. Or it's the people within the city or wherever who can actually afford the seats.

And that's it. You can't get the real fans in the building. So game one, it sucks and nobody's participating, throwing on the shirts. It's silent during the games. It wasn't great. I agree with you, but I would challenge that. Don't let Rogers off the hook. No, this is a problem you need to fix, Rogers.

The way you fix the fan experience with the Blue Jays, we've seen you fucking do it. Now, the Blue Jays, cheaper ticket, more of a family event. But I don't want any excuse given to that corporation on fixing this. I don't think you don't know who I am if you're thinking I'm providing any excuses for Roger. They would just they would take that. No, no, I don't mean you. But I mean like they would take that and go, yeah, well, there's nothing we can do. Let's not spend any money on it.

Adam, that's so unfair. They won't spend any money on it. They spent so much money this off season trying to improve the fan experience. Didn't you see what they did? They renovated the owner's suite bright red. Yes, they did. All the box suites on the 600 level got complete renovations because they've been slowly every offseason and doing renovation of Scotia Bank Arena actually like them.

And it needed it. It looks better and everything. But they have created an environment there, a game day experience that does not lend to a raucous crowd. They've cultivated this environment of a morgue at Scotia Bank Arena. And these are the people that they have in there. And this is what they want them to do when they are there. The game day experience sucks if you're an actual rabid hockey fan.

It's Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. Like, so that social video they posted yesterday of nobody likes us and Nielander's like, oh, it's always the fucking Leafs. That was hilarious. None of the people who liked that video were in that building. No. None of them.

No. None of them. And also all those like AI animations of people with their faces painted going, like literally yelling to the point of shaking. Mm-hmm. You encounter any of those? Any of those, were any of those folks? No.

They have an enormous problem. We're like, listen, sometimes you're going to win. sometimes you're going to lose. They're down 3-1. With the Leafs, it's never, we're down 3-1. It's, we're down 3-1, and I paid a grand. That's a stressful night. Yeah.

There was a moment where all the Montreal fans got an O'Lay chant going. Yeah. And I was shaking my head just like, how do, how is there enough of the road team at your home opener to get their own chant going? You are the team that does this to other team. teams. Right? Yeah.

You're the team who does this to other teams. It feels like 42 times for this season. Like the Leafs are playing at a neutral site. Yeah. Well, the Canadians, first off, have earned that with the confidence they have in their team and the roster. If the Leafs at any point in the Matthews era had gotten to the Eastern Conference final, I think that we might not have this problem.

But they haven't fucking earned that from the fans. And as you say, the stakes are kind of high when I've dropped a grand. for two tickets and they're they might lose on this Tuesday night. I've never seen a fan in Maple Leaf Square with a suit. Exactly. It's totally different. I've always thought, you know, the TFC and this, this happens, I'm just using TFC an example, but there is, there's, this happens in soccer all the time.

They have discounted tickets for fan groups that are sanctioned by TFC. And what are they there for? They're there to sit behind the net and go, ah! They hit the drama and they're firing off flares and they go, why does it, LSC do that. They do that to create a great fan experience so that, because TFC fans are nuts, even though that team sucks fucking ass. And the reason, if they would just take a couple of spots in that arena and take a little

bit of that and go, here are our sanctioned motherfucking fans and you can be a, you can be one of them and you can win a lottery and you can be in it for the year, right? Imagine. But you have to do these things. You got to put on the damn shirt. You got to bring a drum. You got to be standing all game. you got to be partying, whatever.

That could change the whole thing, and it would cost them less than half a million dollars. I guarantee. If they have the drums, like from soccer. I disagree and I'll tell you why. It would look ridiculous. The rest of the building is so quiet. Get them going.

It would look stupid. That's not going to work. I agree with you at the start, but I think in the long term it would work. I think at the beginning it would look silly. I think in the long term it would work. You have to. do you have to do something i don't think you're putting enough thought into the kind of person who would

wear a suit to a hockey game yeah i i guess why are you doing that i think you can get people going people are suggestible in a crowd why yeah crowd mentality crowd mentality make booze free i'm telling you i'm telling you i'm well it's swearing free in carolina uh so stupid i just i wish we could go back in time and rebuild this arena in a way where you could keep all of these big wigs to the and have the fans in the seats because right now it's like, oh no, I've like glass seats or whatever and then I'm also down in the Scotia Club

and like I'm the fancy big wig. But like I want the true fans in the arena and they're not there right now and the arena sucks. Yep. And then there's so many road fans. Like it's ridiculous. Like look at what we do. And like you go to games because of credentials.

I have no plans to go to Toronto a Toronto Maple Leaf's regular season game this year. Yeah. You bought a preseason. game just getting you're like no and the only reason you did that was so your kid could go yeah and like he doesn't know the difference like he thinks it's cool

yep yeah like I even told him I'm like yeah this game doesn't count but like there's Gavin McKenna oh and he's got white skates he's starting to notice stuff like that and that's great they have one matinee game this year in Toronto this I've been beating this drum for a few years now they have one matinee game it's $250

obstructed standing room prison underneath it. No, I'm just not going to go. I'll love you from afar. Yep. Home, yeah. I'll love you from afar.

Yeah. What? I got to pay $500 to stand obstructed. You have bumped your fucking head. Who is paying that? Do we know people that have ever paid that for those obstructions?

Yes. I guess they sell them. That's the only way. Do you know anyone who's ever been to a game? that's how they got in it's the cheapest ticket yeah Adam I'm I'm like

okay this is the one time of year I'm gonna talk about it because I think it's gonna be like this for 41 more games because I don't think Rogers is able to fix this do you think it's ever fixable it is fixable

yeah you're gonna have to re you have to revamp the arena like they did like let's be honest remember the skydome it's a fucking tomb yeah but they took 10,000

seats out that was a 55000 000 seat place it's now 45 and the experience at Rogers Stadium, Rogers Center, center, whatever. Rogers big fucking building

is so much better, so much better, which is why I think Mark Shapiro was going to run MLSC, which is what I've been saying, and I think Mark Shapiro was going to go in there and go, we need to change this. Take out, not just the fan group that I was suggesting,

but take out one of those sections and turn it into a fucking bar where you can stand. Like, when we were at the barricuda game, they have a bar that's at ice level. Yeah. And we did a podcast. podcast from there. It's great.

Remember that? It's great. It's awesome. I think you can do that. When you go to the Hamilton Hammers in Hamilton in the new TD Coliseum, their box seats aren't up high. Their box seats are at the ice. And they've got fan experience stuff too, not just for rich people, that are like right

there at the ice. So it brings you closer. That arena, we have to remember, is over 30 years old. It was built for a different time. It wasn't even built for the Leafs. It was built for the fucking Raptors, which is why the ice sucks. Like, there's a lot that needs to go into the game day experience, and I think they can do it.

That's why I was saying, Jesse, don't let them off the hook. I know you're not letting them off the hook. We've seen that you can do this. You did this in Toronto with your other sports team. You better do it here. It needs to change. It's enough. It's enough.

And you could probably make more money to. There's a way. There is a way. There is. I told you from the day they took over the majority. Ed Rogers has a favorite team, and it ain't the leaves. That's true. Now, let's move on to the Edmonton Oilers. And I tweeted this last night, and I was very proud of this tweet, which is why I'm reading it. The Oilers, to me, are a team that can't stop anything and cannot be stopped. And I think last night's game, I don't know if anybody in the East stayed up for it. Holy shit, I could not stop watching. It was so dramatic and amazing and a complete fucking disaster. Turning off an Oilers game makes me judge you.

Yeah. Like, especially a third period when they're down. And they were down five, too. I'll tell you. I missed the first, but from the second period on as locked. Oh, it was great hockey. The biggest mistake the Vancouver Canucks made last night was scoring the fifth goal. Yeah.

Yeah. You should have left it at four, two. Instead, you go up three goals, so the Oilers go, all right, we're going full offense. They tie the game with like an alarming amount of time left. Or they get within one with an alarm. alarming amount of time left. Of course they crack the code and get there. They do lose an overtime. When we were talking about them preseason, I said this is the same team. The oilers are the same as they ever were. They have a complete force up front and they have the best player in the world

and an incredible supporting cast. Their decor leaves a lot to be desired, but they also have a guy who can provide you with a five point game. Yeah. Yeah. And they're goaltending is a house of horrors. Yep. You have, how is Tristan Jari your opening night starter? So let me. I don't care that Freddie's hurt.

Let me, that's unacceptable. Well, and Frege after the game was like, well, I really think Devon Levi could be a guy that, that does really well for them. Like, yeah, no shit. So Josh Yohe, who obviously had a lot of experience watching Jari in Pittsburgh, said in 18 games as a member of the Oilers,

Jari has allowed four or more goals in 10 of his last 12 starts. He's only played 18. team games? Yes. Oh, wow. Goals allowed per start. 341, 4-0, 0,0, 6, 4-5-4-5-4-7-2-16-4. That's fucking crazy. That's crazy. What are we doing? What are we doing? I'm positive it's not this hard. Vancouver's three, goals three and four, if anybody missed them, both of them were shots

that Jari saw that went right through his legs. Yeah, the Lettermackie one is the most egregious. This is like minor league gold tennis stuff. How does this go in? Lettermackie is just coming up the wing there. He just has a simple shot that's five whole and it just beats him. Like there's nothing creative about it at all. And like it's a good shot.

You give the shooter credit, but like you got to, for the love of God, stop that. Yeah, and a two two game in the third? There's good shooters in the NHL. And they got to be thinking, uh-oh, there's great goalies in the NHL. They don't think that. They think it's Tristan Jari and it's frigging free cookie night. But, you know, the next goal, that's crazy.

Goal number four for Vancouver was, it was just a redirected five hole that he saw. I do want to say I also called this weeks ago. Yeah, you did. Remember opening night, Oilers Canucks? And we were laughing. Go, ho, ho, the Canucks didn't even hit 50 or 60 points last year. I'm like, they're going to win.

They're going to win that game. Yeah, the next goal, goal number four for the, Vancouver Canucks. Max Sasson, which I've always called the Max Sasson. I'm still calling a Max Sasson. I know it's Sasson.

I was like, oh, it's Sasson. So I'd learn that. Is it? By the way, somebody said, no, not at all. Somebody was saying that we pronounce Mucca Madoulin incorrectly. We do not.

That's how you pronounce Mooka Madoulin. Is it? Yep, because that's how they were doing it on the broadcast. I don't know my favorite. Mucca Mucca Mood Lund we've always got. People are like, you guys, you guys don't pronounce it.

No, that's how we pronounce it. Max Sasson, though. I've never said that in my life My faith has been shaken I thought I learned some I was like holy shit It's Sasson Hey let me ask you about this

You're gonna tell me It's like you're gonna ask you about it You know I do want to go out of no But let me ask you with this Jesse Steve Can Tristan Jari see this? It's visible Go ahead Jesse

What happens next? Yeah so Drew O'Connor Passed the Pucks Sasson Who's on a little bit of break there He beats all the defense And he does a simple just a little forehand to backhand play, that goes five hole on Jari,

because Jari's five whole whole is wide open all night. Like two of these goals, at least two of these goals, are just goalie one-on-one with the shooter. Ultimately, that's a team breakdown. The majority of them were. Yeah, you gotta make saves. Yes.

You got to make sense. Like, the shots tell me for the majority of the night you were the better team. They were. They were on Vancouver from shift one. No one came away from that game and thought the Canucks are better than the Oeers. Yeah. Right?

Which means something went wrong. Now, even on the Marco Rossi goal, he's one-on-one with the goaltender. Like every instance of Edmonton allowing Vancouver to have on a break, it's like one-on-one machari. It's just you don't have a goaltender who can help himself. I help you out, sorry. I tweeted last night after the third goal, Jesse, by the way, look at this. Rossi. Oh, my.

I actually gets a little bit of a piece of this one, but he makes so little effort. Yo, I know. Yo, I also think Marco Rossi in that Quinn Hughes trade was actually a really low-key good pickup for Vancouver. He was just injured all last year. But I think that's a good player. They did. Like shout out all the pieces they got in the Quinn Hughes deal. Ogren was a factor.

Ogrin was in on everything. Paul Carter, the Shorty. Like, oh, Zayden's. mad because there's all of his favorite plays. I'm not mad. I'm actually like really happy for I just want to say Adam said Ross he's been injured like people forget this kid during COVID almost died

because of COVID he lost his ability to walk so I think that he's a first round pick like this kid is going to be a player. Top 10 I think and he was a 60 point guy two years ago. Just give him some time. Oh yeah. Well in that playoff where he was so awful that they had to get rid of him he was actually like

pretty good. Yeah he was funny. I think it's small. Is it Evan Bouchard and Paul Cotter won in two in goals in the league? Yeah. Which is crazy. A double hatrick night. Crazy. Paul Codder, he had two.

Oh, he had two. Sorry. Sorry. Sometimes you're just like, are my eyes liars? Are they dirty, dirty liars? When Paul Cotter was a golden night, I remember the first game I saw him. I was like, who is this? I fell in, it was love at first sight with that player.

I was like, I want him on my team immediately. And then he goes to the devils, and I don't know if it's him or, let's be honest, like Sheldon Keefe struggles with rugged players sometimes. It's not saying he's a bad coach. I actually, I still to this day believe what I said when the devil's hired him. I think he's a great fit for the devils. I still believe that. But Paul Carter, that's Paul Cotter in the nutshell, that overtime winner,

First of all, Paul Cotter on the ice in overtime. Yeah, what a decision. Insane. Insane. How is he out? Bandy Malhotra, put his balls on the table. Just ball hotra. Just ball holtra.

How? That is nuts. I'm putting Paul Cotter out there. I'm just, yeah, Paul Cotter highlights. Let's go. Oh, God, stop that. Here we go. Well, that's your fault.

So many subwulfers just blew up. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. No, that I had to illustrate. Mani Malhotra Big balls

Yeah And then the other goal he scores Is short-handed Which is awesome And it's not even His most impressive goal of the night He just went Get off me

On Jari and Stan Bowman I don't think there's a take Too hot you can have right now About how Stan Bowman Has run the goaltending in Edmonton It's a complete disaster He's bad at it You can say whatever you want

I'll be like yeah No that's true Here I'll be the best I'll do you one better. Stan Bowman has never been a great general manager. He inherited a Ferrari that was warming in the driveway and was able to keep the five guys together that mattered in Chicago. And as soon as it came time, he was gifted Panarin. As soon as it came time to make a change, he fucking fired that guy out the window and they never recovered in Chicago still has not made the playoffs.

The best time since. The best time to fire Stan Bowman was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Yes. I believe is the, the first time. famous saying. Yeah. The Oilers made one very substantial change this offseason that everyone is talking about.

What is that? What is it? Mike Babcock. Mike Babcock. Yeah. Who's responsible for that? That'd be Stan Bowman? No.

No. Connor McDavid. Connor McDavid. Connor McDavid, Leon Drysidal, Zach Heimann. So what did he do? You traded a nurse. He decided to make his. Thrandom.

Thrandom. Thrandom. Yeah, he brought in, Freddie always injured Anderson. Always injured. I saw him in a play. He's a 22 game max. Somehow the timeline keeps getting pushed.

Like the first thing I heard it was like two months and then now it's like three to four. He's broken. I'm like how he just, how is he keep getting injured more? This is what Bab said before the game. I need people to understand how miraculous what he accomplished in the playoffs last year was. He was unusually. usable had I think a losing record or near a losing record on the Carolina hurricane.

Yeah. An 874 safe percentage. You wasn't a reason they made the playoffs. You can't use that goalie. No. 874, you can't use that goalie. That's crazy. And it looked like it.

And then night one of the playoffs were like, all right, let's see how this goes, gets a shutout. Is incredible until he's not. And that's fine. You give it to Brandon Bussie. He gets you across the finish line. Stan Bowman said that's my guy. Right. He said that's my guy or Tristan Jari's my guy or the Buffalo Sabres fourth stringer. Yeah, who they had to trade because they don't want to lose them on waivers.

Are you out of your mind? Why didn't they sign Labby Maryland? That would have been the perfect. They could have away. Well, actually no Vancouver. Why isn't Joseph Wool a oiler right now? I know. I know. I know for what they gave up for him. Holy shit.

They could have had nothing for a couple of crayons and popsicles to do. and you're going with this bullshit? You're absolutely right. Probably money is the reason. Probably couldn't fit him under the cap that Stan put them in. Elvis Burr's Likens is a leaf. He might be better. Well, he's not playing.

No, no, but in terms of moving money around. Yeah, you can do it. It's disgraceful you took to the ice with that bullshit. That's crazy. Babcock revealed before the game that Savoy's out for eight weeks. Goaltender Freddie Anderson won't be back till maybe December. Yeah, like. And then, and then,

is quote a long time away. Nuge is going to miss two weeks. Yeah. They missed him last night. Well, they scored a whole lot. I shouldn't say, but like defensive responsibilities. He probably would have helped out there. But your goalie, like, that's the whole reason you lost.

And now, Bouchard had an insane game and we should highlight the fact that that fucking guy is so awesome. Like that was incredible. And they squandered it. That's the first hat trick for a defenseman in the opening game since Mark Howe in 1980. Wasn't it the first ever five point game by a defense? defenseman in an opener?

It might have been. I don't know. I didn't see that. That's insane. They had five goals. He had points on all of them. Crazy. What?

I'm excited for all of the writers to be like, no. I don't want to give him the Norris. They better get him to finish like fourth in voting, even though he has a hundred points. He's going to have like an Eric Carlson point season. It's disrespectful. Yeah.

We set the precedent. If you just do fucking awesome offensive shit, you should get the Norris. And Bouchard has been that. He was that all last year and they wouldn't give it to him. He is now only 90 points shy of his total. from last year. He got five points.

Like, dude, dude, absolutely unbelievable. I can't believe they squandered that. Yes, I can. They're the same team. Yeah. They've been a near identical team for like four years. When does it become like we have to think like they can't do anything in the playoffs if

this is their goaltending situation? What do they make a move? Like is anything going to happen here or is it head in the sand bowman and we're just going to have to ride this this roller coaster all season long. Is he heading the sand or bad? Like the problem is the road out of this is obvious. Like get a goalie. Holy shit.

Get a goalie. A good one. Stan. Like we got a mid goalie. Get a mid goalie. Mid. Mid. And this was his.

Carolina won with Brandon Bussey. This was his attempt at a good goalie. Sorry? This was his attempt. He traded Stuart Skinner for Tristan. charge. This was his attempt at getting a good goalie. Where's your Mikey DiPietro? Like, where's goalie?

Dennis Hildeby. You could have had two different leaf goalies for the for God's sake. Right. Like, there's so many good goalies. There are so many adequate goalies. And you somehow made a thrandum of none of them. I think, I think you had it where he's just bad at it. Yes.

Because he doesn't know how to acquire a good goalie. The way, yes, the way, this is. This is the conundrum I'm feeling this morning if I'm an Oilers fan. The road forward is obvious and the guy in charge is not capable of keeping the car on that road. It shouldn't be hard to win. It shouldn't be this hard to win hockey games with what the Edmonton Oilers have. No. He should be fired.

Yes. Yes, he should. And you know what this game reminded me of? their season opener a few years ago with Jack Campbell in that. How do you keep finding the wrong guy? It's an art.

It's almost impressive. How do you keep finding not just the wrong guy but the near worst possible human being you could find for this particular assignment? It's almost impressive. Connor McDeve we should have a cop. The best case scenario is Stuart Skinner?

You stink! Can we get Mike Babcock's clip up, Jesse? I got it here highlighted in the thing because I want, now that we got Mike back, might as well run his press conferences, which are entertaining, especially after something like that. And I actually, I tweeted him like, that might be Tristan Jari's last game in the NHL. Mike Babcock does not mess. What happened to Jonas Enroth when his time with the Leafs?

Yo, that guy was a Leaf for like three nights. Maybe. Didn't, I don't even know if he played. And Bowes like, get him the fuck out of it. He started, I think, two games blew a three-nothing. lead in one of them and he made an appearance in a game that Freddie Anderson got kicked out of because he got into a fight with Ryan Miller. Oh, okay. That was when Matt Martin jumped Troy Stetcher for no good reason. Here's Babs. Owned his part in the loss tonight, but can you just give us a

thought on his play? Did you need some more from him? Well, I mean, obviously, you know, that was pretty clear. Everyone knows that, so we just might as well move on. But our part is to play way better. ridiculous. We've seen this show here in Eminton for a while now. I have. Yeah, that's what I'm going to say. Does this kind of open their eyes and say this this, this changing the way this team plays and the way the structure this team has to play is going to be a little more difficult than maybe at first thought? Well, I don't think so. I don't think I thought for one second it was going to be easy. But tonight was an indication that we have serious work to do. And so we're going to just

have to have to have a look at it tomorrow and show the players and clear it up. But playing like that, you know, we started fine. But playing like that and getting away from what we're supposed to do is unacceptable. Shout out to the Kudux for listening to the loudest song of all time in the background. I hear that. All I mean listening is the like trumpet music? All I could think of was cheerleader. You know,

when I need motivation, you know, that song. It sounds like they hired like a New Orleans marching band. We're all just blocking the street We're all just blocking the street I don't think I heard a word that Babcock said I gotta tell you man Five Trump is do the job of one We're all just

Yeah he's saying Well it's just ridiculous I don't think I ever heard him say that in Toronto It was a ridiculous game Here's what I want to say The Oilers have never left the 80s They've never left the 80s And I hope they never do

But what they do need to do Is just allow two less goals And they win the game They can do that Just find a fucking goalie You know what? Devin Levi is going to look real good, real good. It'd be hard for him to look worse.

That's what I'm saying. Does Jeff Jackson do anything? Like, is he, he's the one who's in charge of getting rid of Stan Bowman, right? Like, is he going to do something? These guys collect useless executives like Pokemon cards. The weird thing was they didn't have to hire Stan Bowman, regardless of what happened in Chicago off the ice, which lost him his job there. His record in Chicago was shit.

And anybody who shows me his... Stanley Cups, I will tell you again and tell you again and tell you again, he did not build that team. He dismantled it. And so you can't tell me, he was not able to keep that going after, you know, Tays and Cain signed the $10.5 million deals that they signed. Obviously, injuries caught up with them. But he was never able to, to take that. Like, we were talking on Saturday in St. Catherine. Somebody asked us about the Bruins. And they're, and they said, you know, I forget what the question was, but I said, if you look at the Boston Bruins, with the exception to miss in the playoffs a couple of years in the last 15.

They are perpetually finding players and continuing to be successful. You can do that. You don't need to crash and burn. You don't need to rebuild. You actually can just keep it going if you're well run. I don't understand. Stan Bowman was the guy you had to have. No other general manager with any sort of pedigree would have taken the oiler's job with

Connor and Leon and Evan. Really? Hockey Canada's got that team in a chokehold. Yeah. It was Nicholson. Nicholson before. They haven't been in an absolute chokehold. And it is the oldest of old boys clubs.

Yeah. Yeah. And I know Stan Bowman's not that old, but his dad is his dad, right? I think Babs will get Bowman fired, honestly. I think Babs will go to Jeff Jackson go, uh, yeah. And then you replace him with, you know, that guy who is real great, Keith Gretzky. Oh. How do he get there?

Adam makes a great point. Mike Babcock does not excel at having a boss. No. No, you're merely there to facilitate. Anyway, have fun. Is Radco Gudis on their staff? Who is that? What are you talking? That's how bad my eyesight is. Which one?

Collie Larson, I thought, was Radco Gudis. Oh, yeah. With my glasses off. Man, you're, wow. We got to get you some LASIC, my friend. Yeah, I really do. No, that's Jeff Jackson, CEO and president, Stan Bowman, GM, Executive Vice President Hockey Operations, then is AGM's Bill Scott, Keith Gretzky, Callie Larson,

and Kurt Hill. Oh, and Toby. Are you guys written in Toby? Toby Salmalanen. Toby's also there. I remember there was a Salmolinen who played on the ice. It wasn't there? Might even be him.

Might even be him. Ancy Salmala. Tobias. My name is Siaiaa and I live in the most beautiful place on earth. Seven months ago I blew up my life and a lot has shifted since then. Everyone is moving forward. I'm still working on that. And that's me.

Welcome to Ice Cove. Where are the penguins? That's Antarctica. We're the other one. North of North. Stream all episodes. Available on CBC Jam. Okay, now let's get to the Detroit Red Wings.

I don't know if you guys have been keeping track, but Simon Edmondson is not Simon. And Elliot Friedman was on the Ozzie and Pete's podcast, and he said, this fucking blew my mind. blew my mind. I really do think the bigger thing is that when Rorinski, for a time, looked like he was available, Rorinski indicated he might go to Toronto.

But Detroit wasn't on his list. I believe the Red Wings, once that got out, I think they inquired. And I think they were kind of told, no, that wouldn't be happening. And I think that played a bigger role into Isman being fired. When the Red Wings realized they were not a destination of choice of that time, I think that was a real eye-opener for the organization.

Let me just say this. Why did it take that? Could it be 10 years of missing the playoffs? Can I ask an additional question? What's that got to do with a player who you already have the rights to not being under contract right now? Well, I'm going to get into that.

That had nothing to do with Evanston. No, I know. That's a microcosm of Chris Illich. Yes. But what I'm saying is the immediate, the most solvable problem you have right now is just sign-eye. Simon Evanson.

Yep. And they want, they are bound to determine, by the way, that Simon Evans is going to be on a bridge deal. They want to bridge him. He came to camp,

which was a gift to you. That was an olive branch. Players with contracts don't often report to camp. And now, by the way, you shouldn't. Now he's in Europe.

Catastrophic. He's skating with Feralanda. It's ridiculous. By the way, Ferlunda. Cool. cool helmets. I like the green and the red. You do? I love that.

What are you about to say, Steve? Steve. Oh, no wonder Hayden likes it in Minnesota Wildfan. I was going to say green clashes with red, but... No, it doesn't. Not at all. Are you kidding? Green does not clash with red. They have killer jerseys in December, but... In September, it looks a little odd. It's Christmas.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand what you're saying. No, I... There's some pretty cool jerseys. I think there's one person to blame for the downfall of the Detroit Red Wings, and that's Chris Illich. He's ruined this team from the top to the bottom. Are you more of a destination today than when you fired Steve Eisenman? No. I know what the answer is.

No. As someone who was advocating for you to maybe consider getting rid of Isamon for like three years, objectively having him in place would be way better. You might still have Patrick Kane. You would have Simon Evanston in your lineup. This sucks, man. It feels like when the Pope dies and then you get to, a new pope.

Like, Tara Pagula went away as the worst owner in the NHL and all of a sudden Chris Illich emerged. He's like, right, let me take that crown. Here's everything I've been doing that's been ruining this franchise. And now that the Larkin-Eisman thing came to light, all of the Chris Illich stuff is coming to light. And you're like, oh, this guy is the true ruiner of the Red Wings and the legacy that they are. If it's any consolation, it's remarkable that Steve Eisenman was able to accomplish

whatever he did. Because it's now, it's like sometimes when that happens, like I remember, um, there's been a couple of teams where it's like, man, this GM stinks, this GM stinks. And then the GM leaves and you're like, oh, the GM was really just holding this together. I might owe Steve you an apology. No, you don't. No, no. He still didn't perform.

You don't owe an apology. I agree. He could have resigned. He could have resigned and said, uh, I can't do what I need to do here. No, but it's like, Shanahan in Toronto. And, oh, man, this is brutal. And then he leaves and you're like, oh, okay. Okay, it's perhaps not entirely your fault.

Yeah, but it was. It was. He was paralyzed. Yeah. Chanahan was adverse to making any moves. Yeah. And then brought in a guy who's also adverse to making moves. Who's way worse.

Very, very first. The king of not doing that. No, we must see it through. Yes, we're seeing it. It sucks. They just threw Bradshaw living into battle with a shield and no spear. And what if we held it? What if we just held the line?

Eventually you're going to, yeah, The Pokemon. Yeah, it's Kakuna versus Metapod. Yeah. Like just. Play Hardin. Hardin. Except no one else around the league was Metapod.

Yeah. You were just being Kakuna. I think I think Chris Illich has his grubby hands on everything that the Red Wings do. And he's been interfering with this thing way too much. And the Edvinson situation is just, I think, hey, here's a perfect showcase of how they are running the operation. It is such an easy deal to get done with a young, talented, player and the fact that they've bungled it even after they have an AGM in place is just more indication of, oh, you really don't know what you are doing. And you're actually fumbling

a situation that could be so much worse. Dylan Larkin requested a trade. He's there. He is hurt, but he's there. And he's going to play for you. And he's, and he looks like he pledged to play unless it's all bullshit, but I think he pledged to play. There's a lot. There's a lot of other situations in the NHO where that is not the case. Alexander DeKeecheon is not playing for anyone. Didn't play last night. Connor Hallibuck is not playing for anyone. Dillon Larkin's there. Okay, great. Simon Evanson shows up to camp. Does not need to.

No. Does not need to. And you have somehow screwed it. Like the universe keeps handing the Red Wings little get out of jail free cards. Like little lifelines. And they can't Keep just chucking them over their shoulder. Yeah. It's brutal. The two things that stand out to me from the Chris Illish things that, the Red Wings things

that have come out over the last little bit is one, this fumbling of the Edwinson situation where he's like, I'm a great soldier, I'll show up to camp, and then you still don't figure out a contract with them, and you're going to do it eventually, just do it now. And then the other one was in that interview where he talked about how when the Red Wings missed the playoffs after their terrible collapse after they were in first place. and then they evaluated from end of the season through July to figure out if they should fire Eisenman. That just shows me like you don't understand how pro sports work.

That collapse was your get out of jail free card for firing Eisenman at that moment. Season's over, terrible on ice product here because we didn't make the playoffs again, fire him. But you sat on your hands and Larkin eventually forced your hands into firing him. And you're just incompetent in your decision making here. And you're not the right guy to be the owner of this franchise. Can I tell you the rumor I've heard? Do you know why Edvison, this is a rumor. Do you know why Edvison needs to be bridged?

No. Money? Chris Illidge will not give Sean Horcoff the latitude to sign a long-term deal. Does not believe any long-term deals should be signed until the new general manager is in place. So that is why Simon Edvinson will be bridged. That is the rumor I heard. Get a general manager. Something they spent August not doing.

And they hired an outside firm, we think. I still haven't heard any follow up from that. No. They wanted the Tigers GM to run it. And then he's like, I'm kind of good. Chris Hillets is Mike Ellets' son? Yes. How don't you know how this works?

It's inexcusable. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? You don't know how this works. We're going to fire this guy in the middle of the son. summer. What are you doing? What are you doing? I was too critical of Donne Wadall, man. This is the number one button masher in the NHL is Chris Hill. It's just harder to pinpoint because

he's not a GM. Chris needs to decide what he wants to do. I'm, I'm. No, he does not. Well, no, you're right. He doesn't because he owns the team so he can decide whatever day he wakes up. I'm the GM today. I'm the president today. I'm a player to. day. Do you have a GM? He'd be like Vladimir Putin and play with the team if he wants to. He dives himself? Yeah.

Like I have a GM? Yeah, no, for sure. Do you have Simon Evanston? No, yeah, no. How about? Yeah. Do you think because.

Oh, I just want to say something. So, so one of the things that's happening right now in entertainment that I'm endlessly fascinated with is this merger between Warner Brothers and Paramount. Biggest merger media merger in history. Is it still going? Still, oh yeah, it's going to go on for a while. Now, it's just been approved, but there's judges standing in the way or whatever.

And I was listening to a podcast the other day, and they're like, listen, somebody needs to sit Mr. Ellison, not Larry, but his son, down, and say, you, I know you love going to dinner with Tom Cruise. I know you love flying around to movie sets and being a part of the Hollywood scene. Who wouldn't like that? But you can't be the CEO of a corporation that is taking on $80 billion. in debt to get this deal done. 80 billion with a B. And also, you can't be the CEO of that and run a movie studio.

You need to let a movie studio person run the movie studio. You worry about the stock price. That is what Chris Illidge needs to do. Counterpoint. I'm a billionaire. Fuck you die. Yeah. Which is how it's going.

And you know what? That's how all of them look at the world. But Steve, he's costing himself money. Like the Detroit Red Wing should be top five in the NHL evaluation right now. I'm losing money. That should be the motivator. Am I still a billionaire?

Yeah. Fuck you die. That's how billionaires look at the world. Is fuck you die? Yeah. You tell me not to do something. Fuck you die. That's how billionaires operate.

What? I agree it's aggressive. And they keep saying it near verbatim into a microphone and we all just go to our jobs. It's crazy. Here. Here, let's roll play. I'll be the billionaire. Where's this going?

I think you like this too. I know. He might adopt this in real life, Jesse. Is this a good idea? Adam's just jealous. If Saudi Arabia actually gives Steve money one day, I'm worried. They gave the Ellison's money. Well, they might give Steve Dangle money to.

Adam's jealous because we were in the same play in grade 10 and I'm the one who got the award. I'm a great actor. Ted, you were fantastic. You were fantastic in that role. I was a great as a boon in my red sweater. Yeah. Here, here. Okay.

I'm the billionaire that you were talking about. Okay, so what's my conversation? Just tell me to do something. Hey, so I was just thinking about, can we sign Evison to a five-year deal? Because I feel like that might be better for us. Cost certainty. Cap is exploding because, you know, the cap could be over $130 million by the time. Evison's three-year deal.

Well, I'm not sure what to do because I'm unqualified. Okay, but you need to do this. It's what's best for your business. Oh, fuck you die. Oh, gosh. We can't make that a t-shirt, can we, Jesse? I don't think so. All right, all right.

Okay, I just, I just wanted to check. Hey, man, so, like, I gather your origin that's great and everything, but you're, like, grossly unqualified for this. Can you not do this anymore? And you're just met with fuck you die at every turn. Yeah, yeah. Now, I want to move on to a couple of other things before we wrap the show, because I'm actually going to bring us in under time here.

I thought the show was going to be a little bit longer. There are things that we need to talk about. And very quickly, Carolina, uh, look. like to be the best landing place for Hellebuck right now in a three-team trade. And this is Elliot Freeman. When was this? This is this is third two thoughts he speculated on the three-team deal. This doesn't make sense to me though.

St. Louis wants Nickishin, right? Nikesian. Nikesh. Whatever the fucking whatever. Guy who's not playing. Sessal. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry.

St. Louis gets Neketian. If Neketian wanted to sign in Winnipeg, Halebuck would already be done. but apparently St. Louis wants in on this deal. So Hellebuck would go to Carolina. Nekitian would go to St. Louis, and I don't know what would go back. Stuff. Yeah.

But where this falls apart for me is why is Winnipeg helping St. Louis? Well, Winnipeg would get the assets that they want to like stay relevant and not like tear it down. Right. from St. Louis and the piece from the hurricanes. Right now. The hurricanes don't have all of that to give to Winnipeg, so that's where that comes in.

So out of this trade, St. Louis gets Neketian, but Winnipeg gets more than nothing. Exactly. Because the Qishian won't sign in Winnipeg, so that's a non-starter, but Hellebuck would go to Carolina, so you have that.

So it all makes sense. I would look, hmm, That's interesting. Carolina has picks, but I don't think they want to trade off the roster. St. Louis. That's why we have the three team. We're going to St. Louis for the asset that'll go to Winnipeg.

So yeah, Carolina will give futures. Carolina gives the futures. St. Louis gives the nows? Exactly. Yeah. And Neketian wants a five-year deal at a roughly $9 million. Could be lower if it's the right situation. Yeah, and I think St. Louis would pay that for sure.

Yeah. I think they need a player like him. That makes sense for St. Louis. Yeah, because that adds to Broberg, right? But my question is if Carolina's giving the futures whatever they may be, let's say it's a first round pick, whatever. Yeah, they have it. They've got, I'm looking at St. Louis. They got Adam Eurecheck, who was a first round pick.

They got, I don't imagine they're giving up Philip Broberg or Colton Pereko. Cam Fowler, I don't think so. Brandon Carlo just got there. Are you going forwards there? Like, is this a Jake Neighbors thing? this a who's got you know team control is it turupchenko uh is it snuggerrood like who you know who would have chanko for sure yeah yeah because that could i could see that working in winnipeg and people were making fun of me because we threw a clip the other day and going like i'm like the jet

the jets could be fine with stewart skinner and net and they're like it's stewart skinner i'm like yeah but that guy went to the finals i know he stinks sometimes but he's still better than what the oilers currently i think binner is expiring this season do you maybe put biner So maybe if Winnipeg just wants a stop gap for this year, maybe he's in that deal just for them to have a goaltender. Because I think Joel Holfer is going to be the starter. Is he not? I think so.

I don't have their game one lineup, but I think he's starting. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Are we cooking? I don't think we came up with this. I think it was the report. Well, in terms of like,

are we better than Elliot? St. Louis. Are we? St. Louis is more to give. Are we killing it? right now? Are we nailing it? Damn.

Elliot Freeman, he should just quit. I think I've said this for a long. I've always said that here's a thought quit. Yeah. Yeah. This is, yeah,

it's, it's very interesting. So I wanted to get that out there. Also in those notes is that, Freed said that Halebuck desperately wants this to end. Well, you started it. So,

you could show up tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. The other, I want to talk about a couple other quick. Yeah, It looks like Binners, their backup here. So, yeah.

Well, the blues need to pay the Jets to take that, though. They do. Because if I'm Winnipeg, I'm like, why do I want Bittington? I don't even know if he's going to sign here. I know he wasn't bad. That was Team Canada's storm. I know, I know. And I'm begging Jet Grieves to be the next guy.

He's not even the best Canadian goalie on his team. Logan Thompson should have started. Brock Faber. Post Winter Olympic. Joel Hofer, 12, 2 and 2. Third and safe percentage, 933. Third in GAA, 2.04. Hofer set NHL best in wins 24, 13, and 5.

Damn! Last season. And six stud out second in the NFL. Shout out Chris Meaty for those Joel Hofer stats. That's actually crazy. I think they know who their starter is. It would appear they do. Okay, now, a couple of things.

Brock Faber suffered a skull fracture. Puck hit him in the side of the head, which is awful. He played three shifts with it too. Yeah. And people instantly jumped to, hey, remember, it's the Minnesota Wild Training Staff

and they were the Team USA Training Staff that bungled McAvoy. And I do think it's worth noting that had some major injuries they were not able to get over last year. I don't know if that's fair to them, but to say that there are not questions about the Minnesota Wild medical staff,

you would be disinue. I mean, those two are. The Bruins were fucking furious with them. Those two are enough. Like McAvoy and, favor that's more than enough. Yeah. Evidence. Yeah. Now, fractures, as I understand them, are odd.

Like, it doesn't necessarily mean like a crack. It could just be like a hairline or something like that. You don't know. But, you know, bone has to heal. That takes a while. It's his frigging skull. Yeah. So he'll be out for a while.

What the hell is the timeline on a fractured skull? I don't know. That's scary. Yeah. And Bill Garon wouldn't give one. Bill Garon wouldn't give one. Bill Garon probably doesn't know. No.

How could you know? So yeah, anyway, just we should mention that. Now, this is very weird and a couple of teams are doing it. Just small note, that changes the outlook for the wild, the entire season. No question. Yes. Like Faber Hughes was going to be dynamic as it was in the playoffs and when he got there. And the Olympics.

And now that changes a lot. I'm very happy I have them fourth in the division. Jesse. Just saying, maybe I foresaw that. Yeah, oh yeah, you saw the skull fracture, Jesse? Yeah, did you? Yeah, okay. I scooped up McAvoy in fantasy because I'm like, well, you know, he's suspended the first six games of the season,

but I look at my other guys and I'm going to be fine. And one of my other guys is Brock Faber. I am not fine. Okay. Now, I want to talk about the epidemic of assistant captains in the NHL with two franchises that I'm sometimes a little hard on. Vancouver, who I think are finally turning the corner of this is what we are and we need to rebuild, which I respect. Sure.

And Columbus, who, even though I think they made a really good trade for Marchenko, got Nyes back, I think Emil Andre is actually underrated for them too. He might wear a letter for them. Emil Andre? No, friggin, well, yeah, maybe. But I was thinking nice. Well, in fact, he won't because that's what I want to talk about. Got it.

Everybody looked at the Toronto model from a few years ago where they had 80 billion assistant captains and said, we should copy that unsuccessful franchise. And they're doing it. Vancouver and Columbus, I have home and away assistant captains this year, all of them too wimpy to actually name a captain. And I am of the belief that, yes, while the captain sees in some cases can be overrated, you should have to name one. I think you should have to name one.

This is bullshit. Even if you have a captain for one year, you should have to name a captain. There needs to be a guy. There needs to be a decision maker. And the organizations that don't name them are usually the. the ones that are kind of bad. And the Leafs, when they had four assistant captains after Funnuff, were fucking bad, dude. They were bad.

Now, no team that's won the Stanley Cup has been like, we did it with four A. Yeah. I mean, Vancouver got close with Luongo as the captain. Yeah, it was captain. But he didn't, he wasn't allowed to wear it. Yeah, and the 17th. Yeah. And the 17.

It's so true that only the bad teams do this. Because, so this is the thing, people like, oh, you, we overrate captain. We overrate captaincy. Name a good team that didn't have a captain. Right. Name a winning team. Who is the last team to win a Stanley Cup without a captain? Follow-up question. Has it ever happened? I can name you a team that won a captain that had a home and away captain.

And that would be the 89 flames. It was Lanny McDonald. Lany MacDonald had the home captaincy and somebody else had the away captaincy. As in they wore the sea away. Because Lanny was not playing every game back then. Like he was at the end end of his career. But still a leader. The Vegas Golden Knights in 2018

made the Cup final without a captain. Okay. They did not win though. No, they didn't. But I can't. But that's a bit of a special circumstance too, right? Like, it is. Yeah, they didn't have one.

I know, but it's a little different. They could have named one. So let me name you the captains for home and away for both of these squads of geniuses. Okay. So the Vancouver Canucks have Besser, Pedersen, and Bouyam as the away captains. Oh.

And they've got Horonix. Carlson and O'Connor as the home captains. Like, Carlson? Lina's Carlson. And Steve Boi. Where's a letter for them? Yes. All right. No captain, according to Aaron Portsline, friend of the show, this season for the Columbus

Blue Jackets. Zach Rowinsky. Wait, wait, wait. Like, no captain. All right. Zach Wrenski, who is the fucking captain, is the only player who wears the A on both home and road games this season. So that's your captain?

Is that not scream that he's getting traded? In October, Steve. Yeah. This is month by month in Columbus. Oh, stop. Charlie Coil, Matthew Olivier will wear A's at home, while Cole Cillinger and Adam Petilly will wear them on the road, and it will change in November.

Oh, dear. That's not necessary. That's so silly. Come on, guys. Shit or get off the pot. Rolinsky's your fucking captain. What are we doing? Unless there's some sort of thing.

in November where they name Wurinsky captain and then I'm like, okay, why didn't you just do it now? Maybe there's a reason they're waiting for November, I don't know, but like, what do we do it? Rewinsky is your captain. He's the best player in franchise history. It's going to be nice.

The 1972 Bruins are the last team to win the Stanley Cup without a captain. You see, it's a winning strategy. Did they not have Bobby? That's a team with Philipsisito and Bobby Orr. I don't know why they didn't have a captain. But they went, I was looking at the thing, they went like, I don't know,

half a decade or something without a captain. And they won a couple Stanley Cups in there. So there was two victories in three years. And their last one, the last one in 72, they didn't have a captain. But Bobby Orr should have been the fucking captain. If the strategy that you should follow,

it's one that's 55 fucking years ago. So it hasn't happened since like, Dicitty two. He didn't even wear a letter. It's Johnny Bucic, Phil Esposito, Ted Green, Ed Westfall.

Yeah. But their assist, like I was like, wait, did Bobby Or not play? that year, but no, he led the team an assist with 80 of them,

which is absolutely wild. No, I bet he wasn't a leader, though. But hey, that's weird. They won credit where it's due. It's just no one's done it since. Yeah. It doesn't work. Esco has 60s.

Like, listen, you can be a leader without a letter. One of the guys that is in Toronto is Jake McKay. They always say, that guy's one of the leaders, part of the leadership group doesn't wear a letter. That's fine. I remember when they had Marner and Matthews ultradating them

because they didn't want to offend one of them and I think at a certain point it's pro sports suck it up you big babies get and to the management groups of these teams what are we doing here at risk of sounding like Tucker Carson

what's the goal and I think I think where it's like you can't you actually can't name a leader even if you're bad, that's on you, bro? Why are you alternating? Do they not know what alternate captain means?

Like, do they think it's a different definition? The Blue Jacket's thing is just the why? I don't get it. Like, Brock Besser can be the captain of the Canucks, even if he's not there in a couple years. And I think he will be. He wanted to stay there. Brock Besser has been a Canuck long enough he can be the captain.

Come on. Can I spend all the goodwill that I might have earned at the beginning of this episode with Blue Jackets fans? Sure. If you didn't tell me the team, you would have automatically guessed the Columbus. Yeah, because they're not well run. Yeah, that's...

It's not about well run. It's just that's the most Mickey Mouse ridiculous, like benign bullshit. I'm waiting for Detroit to name theirs. I was hoping what happened during the show. I have not anything on that. But there's no captain right there. When the Ottawa senators to start training camp

and everything didn't have a captain, and we were thinking about like, oh, who are they going to name captain and everything after Brady Shuck? I was on the side of like, maybe they don't need a captain, just played out and see how it is. But now that I'm seeing all this stuff go on, I think you're so right. Well, that's why.

I think you should just have a captive. And Shabbat is. And now they've named Shabbat the captain. And he deserves it. Because this, this weird Columbus home on road thing is fucking awkward. You know what melts my brain too with this conversation? People will unironically sit on a show and say, well, you know, his contracts up in a couple years. And that's what they said with Shabbat.

Okay. Well, his contracts up in a couple years. Drew Douty. His contract is up like six months from now. His career might be up six months from now. And they gave him the captaincy. You know why? Well, he earned it, number one.

Number two, you need a captain. You need a fucking captain. Like, are you kidding me? It is better, right? It is better. Have a decision maker. And it doesn't have to be sexy. Like, I know Adam Lowry outside of Winnipeg or like, they're like, that's the captain.

And the guy I keep forgetting is Jared Spurgeon. I remember Dave Lowry being the captain of the. the flames. Somebody has to be the ultimate decision maker in an organization. This is not primary school. This is professional sports. You must have somebody who is the guy. Be the guy. And you're telling me Brock Besser and Zach Wrenzky couldn't be the guy. You're telling me Mo Sider's not the guy. Mo Sider who's going to win how many Norris is in his career despite the awful team they're putting around him? Maybe one because the Norris is hard to win. But yeah, he should win more more. I love Mo Sider.

Okay. He's in a league with Kelmikar. Remember when it was Mo Sider versus Michael Bunting for the Calder? That was fun. I sure do. Bunting was robbed. I know. I'm just saying, man, this is, this is, there are things that you can see that dumb organizations do. And then you can see there are things that smart organizations do.

Jordan, Jordan Stahl is not the best player on the Carolina Hurricanes. Doesn't matter. He's a good captain. The capitals used to have Chris Clark. Do you remember Chris? I couldn't tell you what position. I'm sure I had his hockey card. Tim Taylor.

Tim Taylor. There you go. It doesn't have to be the best player. No, no, no, no. Like the, the Felino Blackhawks captaincy will be something I look fondly on. But at least they did something.

Yeah. They needed a captain. I just, so many great memories from that era. Remember when he sat down next to Badardening? He was mic'd up. He's like, there's so much I have to teach you and I just don't have time.

Do you guys remember that? Yeah. That was like three or four years ago. I know. I know. And then they traded him at the deadline. Well, last year. They traded him last year. Yeah, yeah. Pass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that was, I mean, he was there captain for a while. While, no, while he was captain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They traded the active captain. So you go play with Dave Filino and Mark Folino and Jeff Falino and Andrew Falino. Phil Philoino. Phil Philinio. Yes. The Felina. They all be captains. Um, last thing I want to say, uh, speaking of

terribly run organizations that might be getting better this time. The Nashville Predators. I do have, I have faith in Chris McFarland. And I thought this, this is a nice way to cap off the show here about Ryan O'Reilly. What do we know about Ryan O'Reilly in his time with the Nashville Predators? Steve, you love this. Give it to me. He has an imaginary no trade clause. Look, Steve, I'm holding Ryan O'Reilly's no trade clause. Oh, is that it right there? That's so great. Wow. Did Steve just put it in his butthole? That's so, crazy. How did you, well, take it out of your butt. We'll put it back in Jesse's name. Oh, okay. Put it back.

All right. Yeah. Jesse. Ryan, I'm holding it safe for you. Hold on to that for safekeeping if you could. Thank you. I appreciate that. Right here, man. Preds. So, Freach said this. I was talking to a couple of executives about storylines and what to watch. I asked if there was anything that I'm missing or wasn't discussing enough. They both answered Ryan O'Reilly. Told you. Over the past two years, team after team have tried to pry him out of Nashville and they were rebuffed. He didn't have a written trade protection, but there was a verbal promise

that the Predators honored. Okay, and now it's a new guy. If you're a Preds fan, you should be pissed about that. And now it's a new guy. And Ryan O'Reilly had a great year last year, too. He didn't have written trade protection. Now he's entering the final year of his contract. If Nashville indicates it won't extend,

what will he choose to do? That's a question. Interested parties will want to know. The interest or respect for O'Reilly remains high. I understand the respect for Ryan O'Reilly. I wish he'd stayed in Toronto. I think he would have been great here. Yeah.

I think he's a phenomenal player. crazy how productive he is this late in his career too. What are we doing? What are we doing? Yeah. What? What? What? Unless he's prepared to be like, if you trade me, I'm just going to stay home.

Unless he's prepared to do that, you trade him to 31 teams. Well, can I tell you who would be the perfect fit for him? I don't know if he'd want to be in Canada, but Montreal Canadians. Anyone who wants a good player who makes like five cents. Montreal needs that. He makes, what he brings. Wasn't it like four and a half mill? Yeah.

Didn't he like not like playing in Toronto? He didn't because he didn't like the media. But if you're the Montreal Canadiens, would you would sell a lot for this guy? I don't think he'd want to come here. But hey, guess what? It's not up to him. He didn't sign a contract with protection, Jesse.

And if I'm Chris McFarlane, I'd be like, that's nice, Ryan. I didn't sign that deal. My job is to win a cup for the Nashville Predators. And if Chris McFarland, we'll see if he's got balls. because if you're honoring something Barry Trots did, you're going to fail like Barry Trots did.

Is Trots not still his boss? Who cares? No, he's not. No, no, he's not. He's a, he's a, he's semi-advisor and advisor. He's like Jim Rutherford. It's not, it's not like, oh, he's running. It's paid ceremony.

I would imagine he would exercise that paid ceremony to be like, you can't trade this guy. Okay, Steve, you love your role playing. I'm going to be, I'll be Jeff Jackson. No, I'll be Stan Bowman. You be Barry Trots running the National Predators. Fuck you. Oh, wait.

Oh, sorry. Fuck you and die. Hey, Barry. It's Stan. I want to trade you. Connor, Leon. Ah, no, I got to keep Jari. Just Connor, Leon, and Evan Bouchard.

Those three for Ryan O'Reilly to come to Edmonton. What do you say? Stan, have you ever heard of this thing called? your imagination. Uh, yeah. I imagine good gold tending sometimes. So anyway, um, Ryan O'Reilly and I have an imaginary no trade clause that we negotiated,

uh, between our tree houses using two tin cans and a string. And so I can't do that. Oh, shucks. I, I get it. You got to honor that imagine. no trade. He wants to stay in Nashville. So he's staying. This is how adults behave.

I guess I'll keep Connor, Leon, and Evan. This is how a professional atmosphere operates. All right. All right. Good luck. All right. Take care. Like, what the fuck are you doing? What? I get like, so, okay, the way I understand this, he wanted to go to Nashville. And Nashville goes, okay, but we're not going to give you trade protection because we don't do that.

Okay. And then he signed there. Here's imaginary trade protection. The risk you run is a new guy's going to show up and now you don't have trade. And be like, no, that's imaginary. Yeah. I don't have to do that. Which is what a reasonable grown adult would say.

Yeah. I would love a kinder, gentler world where everyone kept their word. But in this situation, no one is actually breaking their word. because it's a new guy in charge that this was always... Who told you to do this? I don't get it. No.

I don't get it. But someone's going to get a great player because he has no trade protection. Adam's streaming again tonight if you're hearing this in time. Watch them on the YouTube channel. Please be here. Oh, sorry.

Did I hear your... No, I went to flick your nipple. Click it. Click it, Teddy. Click it, Daddy. See you tonight. Podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter.

At Steve. underscore dangle at Adam W Y-Y-L-D-E and at Jesse Blake. Connection complete.