The Steve Dangle Podcast - Out of Date | July 23, 2021

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

On this episode of the Steve Dangle Podcast, the Flyers acquire Rasmus Ristolainen from the Sabres (00:00), did the Kraken make the right picks? (08:00), the Hurricanes trade Alex Nedeljkovic to the Detroit Red Wings (18:30), Kyle Dubas holds a post-expansion draft press conference (30:00), nobody wants to play in Canada (48:00), TW: SEXUAL ASSAULT / GRAPHIC DETAILS: an update on the Blackhawks lawsuit (55:00), and the press conference: Steve's hockey journey and more NHL franchises (1:08:00). Originally aired: July 23, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/VAE_ou7x0XI Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://magicspoon.com/sdp https://helixsleep.com/sdp https://ca.manscaped.com/ https://www.creditkarma.ca/ https://betmgm.com/dangle https://www.betterhelp.com/sdp Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake if rasmus ristolina is worth peg a first and a second round pick which is what's being reported as of the starting of this reporting what's morgan riley worth uh or if you want to get even deeper marissa and gimme tweeting 11 seconds ago if ristalina is worth a first rounder you are worth the text back oh that's nice yeah that's nice you gotta get deeper it's true it doesn't make you start with trading morgan riley adam it does make you think about what they would have paid for seth jones because i know that they were sort of in on him it looks like chicago really wants him edmonton did them a solid by clearing out dead cap space and i think you know it's it's uh i'm curious about

what that Seth Jones deal now looks like. If Rasmus Ristelainen, like, you're bad at defense, so you call the Sabres. Like, what? What an amazing way of looking at it, Adam. I mean, it's just weird. Well, because the Sabres are bad at defense.

They're bad at everything. Yeah, but Ristelainen's been on only terrible teams throughout his entire career. Like, he's a lot better than anything he's ever done because he hasn't played on a good team. I'm not willing to believe Ristolainen is as bad a defenseman as he's been portrayed to be because I just don't know if Buffalo Sabres stats over the last five years are reliable. Yeah. I don't think.

Like what Jesse said there, right? Like they're so bad. They're so bad. i just did a trade tree that involves the sabers and i don't want to blow it but holy shit there it's it's blazingly scorchingly bad and dumb and just the rate at which nothing works nothing it's oh it's it's unbelievable the guys show up in town and they leave immediately and then they like it's it's uh i don't want to i don't want to spoil it i work too hard but um uh yes do you want to go through it i mean well it's not a it's not official yet so i guess

yeah so it could change but i mean yeah i mean i think we talk about it well so um here's here's what i want to say because everyone has been saying or reporting that kevin adams uh demands for jack eichel are fantastical and i am here to tell you kevin hold your guns stick to your guns you're you're doing it you're cracking them obviously this you know we were criticizing the sabers and i'm like jesus kevin adams really needs to hit it out of the park this offseason first move home run not even knowing the full details home run they could retain half i would still say it was a home run if we were to turn the nhl 2021 offseason into like a movie i think stick to your guns would be the theme of it for every general manager because that's what it seems

like we're getting so far it's ron francis sticking to his guns with the high price for uh picking guys in the expansion draft we got the arguments about dubis sticking to his guns over the hyman situation and now we got kevin adams sticking to his guns over and holland and sticking to his guns letting adam larson walk and sticking to his guns and going no i will pay for duncan keith those guns the last one we'll get to this as well is the nedeljkovic uh contract back in Carolina sticking to his guns again boy and there's been updates on that it's the war the more I hear on that the more I'm like man that's bad it's a bad deal um another annoying thing that is going to be a factor throughout the draft throughout the entire draft the Coyotes really

do ruin everything so John Shannon tweets uh sounds like Rasmus Ristolainen is going to Philadelphia in a package that includes the Sabres getting the 13th pick in the draft tonight and i went okay the 13th pick in the draft there were rumors that it could be like a three-way deal so i go okay who has the 13th pick oh it's calgary philadelphia has the 14th wait a sec is is this a three-way trade with calgary or did john shannon have a typo no the 11th pick in the draft belongs to the arizona coyotes and they are forfeiting it but yeah they don't have a pick this year dude they're forfeiting the 11th overall pick oh my god so bad so unbelievably bad every team moves up a slot unless you don't have a first round pick

hooray at least um but uh not that i i supported it at the time i'm not gonna go back but um so it's the 13th it's the technically the 14th pick but really it's 13th the 13th player selected and the sabers are already picking first really really good work for kevin adams hopefully they've scouted well um that's been the issue looking at the uh the evolving hockey charts it's not a pretty picture like haig looks like the better defenseman even though he's well he's played half the time But Haig looks like a, at least like a replacement for Ristolano. If you look at that, I had Haig in my expansion draft, I had notes on him and he's,

he's going to cap out at a sixth or seventh defenseman on most NHL teams. They, they did this thing last year where they started him in the offensive zone 60% of times. And only at that point did his numbers start looking positive. So you have, this is a guy who's who's going to be middling on your penalty kill and he's not going to be that much of an offensive threat unless you're giving him all of this advantage

uh they as they did on the flyers so he's not he's not that much of a player you're getting in return so here's the thing though you just paid him and a first and a second for a guy that well we're not really sure if he's good because the sabers are bad and this is this is my thing with rasmus ristelainen is is there's a um there is an argument to be made that well maybe it's not fair he's played on the sabers but but my argument would be then why are you paying so much also why did you pay to get rid of shane gostas bear and so that you could pay more to acquire bigger finished shane gostas bear what are you what what i i don't know there had to be a personality conflict there too like

obviously obviously with gostas bear there had to be something where it's like we got to move this guy his time was over it was over i think you're right and it's i mean rastaline and or Ristolainen's been asking to get at a Buffalo for a while. So truculent tweeted Jesus Christ, followed by the Sabres July 5th announcement that they were bringing on Sam Ventura as a vice president of hockey strategy and research. So this guy's, you know, kind of a numbers nut and they bring them in from Pittsburgh and the Sabres

first moves to get rid of Rasmus Ristolainen. Can I read you guys the total assets lost by the Flyers in the last two days and the total assets gained by the Flyers? Is the trade official? well according to what the trade should be sure so it'll be gostas bear lost hag lost 13th overall gone second in 2022 gone second in 2023 gone seventh in 2022 gone and they've acquired rasmus ristalina for all of those things oh and torinsky who they lost in the expansion draft but yeah everyone no but guys they didn't lose him they acquired him to lose him they didn't

lose him so they did not the shut up that's not that analogy doesn't work anything we traded a second and hollander for him so so shut your big ass um now okay so the rasmus ristolina thing is unfolding well as soon as we get uh confirmation obviously as the show goes on by the time you listen to this you'll already have confirmation but we'll we'll keep an eye on it i did want to ask you guys this and i think it might be too early but i the the seattle picks are starting to raise eyebrows especially because we were reserving judgment on this for yesterday one o'clock all the trades that were going to be announced and so far i think we've seen tyler pitlick one was it tyler pitlick one trade and one trade so far now and sorry i should say

just released a minute ago uh that's the friggin deal it's hag a first and a second uh for wrist align and that's official from the horse's mouth from the buffalo sabers and the philadelphia flowers yeah but see yeah seattle you look at their lineup and you're like there's so many other things you could have done here with this draft like i get having cap space cap space is cool but what about players the players are also the guys you got to go on the ice and play cap space isn't scoring goals this year cap space is only good if you're winning uh or you're trying to rebuild you know what i mean like cap space you need if you need options right the thing with with Seattle is that, you know,

they've got 30 million bucks or whatever it is in cap space. And that's important. Sure. They can go spend free agency. It's great. But I, I, I, you know, and I always say cap space is the most important thing, but if you suck and you've got a ton of cap space, unless you are rebuilding and using that cap space to weaponize, bringing on like what Arizona did with that suit with the Leafs did with Horton and Clarkson and several other players, you know,

like to put them in the LTIR or just get yourself to the cap floor. Then I sort of get it, but Seattle doesn't seem to be in that position. And I find I there's one thing that really sticks out to me. And I don't think enough has been made of this for any team to get an extra protection slot from Seattle. It was a first and a third, not a single team paid it.

Now I can understand why the teams didn't pay it, but I can't understand why Seattle didn't adjust their price because we when you get something like that, when you want to offer an incentive like that, you want someone to take it, don't you? One or two teams to take it? I'm especially surprised no one paid it or like said, listen, don't get cheeky.

We're not giving you the third, but we'll do the first. I'm surprised no one really did that or Seattle didn't. Here's the problem. These draft picks are not worth as much as they used to be. They're not because a lot of the guys like i'm not the least bit excited for this draft not just because the leaves barely have any picks

i don't know who any of these people are i don't i don't know who most of these players are and that's why uh i went white in the face and was terrified when jesse was like are you ready to do the live stream for the draft thinking that it was tonight because i was like yo i don't know any of these people right um because a lot of them like any ohl guys you have not played hockey unless you're like the top, you know, two percents, you know, like the by fields who actually got to play professional in the AHL and some games in the NHL. So a first and a third, if I'm Seattle,

I am charging through the nose because the value of those picks is actually down, but it means the value of a second is down. But if you don't get them, then to me, try to get two or three. To me, I would be like, why don't I look at it from a, business perspective. You got to look at like how they, how they price things out. They know if, you know, a sports team knows if they charge them above a certain amount of money for a ticket that they're going to cut out X amount of people buying it, but they know they'll get some people through the door buying it. What I was curious about with Seattle was why they set a price that

nobody was willing to pay. If you got two or three people through the door, forget, forget the fact that, that, that, you know, um, that it might, might've been a high price or these picks are not worth as much or whatever. You get two or three first round picks or two or three second and third round picks, whatever it is. Like you could say a first or a second and a third or whatever it is, however you value it, right. Internally. And I don't know the right answer to that. There were enough good players available that if a good team approached them with a player, they want to protect that player. Seattle wants that player. You go, okay, well, but we can take from someone else there was enough good players available you should see there's a few people that

have done uh alternate drafts leftover drafts yeah taking players that that seattle didn't touch and the team looks pretty good now i didn't see anyone put a cap hit next to those teams by the way oh i i did actually a lot of them had that oh yeah the one i saw why didn't they do this and i'm like because the starting goalie and first two lines are 45 million dollars right and that's Not what they were going for at all. You could have still accomplished that goal and got some more draft picks for it. I think Vegas, you know, maybe people had less time to prepare for Vegas, but I think that Seattle did themselves a small disservice by charging that kind of price that

nobody would pay. Like if you have something to sell and it's a premium item, you should at least get one or 2% of people to pay it. Not 0%. That's like if they charge too much for a Ferrari that even rich people wouldn't pay it you're not looking at this the way ron francis is looking at it what does he value most cap space right what is one million dollars of cap space worth i don't a million dollars what's no no but like in terms of assets i don't know what's it worth it's a great question what's two million worth let's say let's say two million dollars is worth a third round pick two million dollars worth of cap space is a third round pick what was Shane Goss, the Spares deal, $4.5 million?

Yeah, $4.5 million, and it was worth a second and a seventh. Okay. With a team that doesn't have as much leverage as the Kraken. So if I'm the Kraken, I'm still charging my price, right? So let's say $2 million worth of cap space is worth a third-round pick. The Kraken have that times 15 with $700,000 to spare. They're going to get you. Vegas got you right at the beginning I think Seattle has the ability to get you a different

way so the long game the long but does that change Steve even if you get two or three of those teams through the door like if you get two or three teams paying you a second and a third round pick that's better than what they got and they could still have the cap space so they're a concrete example of that is uh I guess Callie Yarncrow because Nashville had two guys they exposed that they were like okay seattle please take these two guys there's dushane and joe hansen they both made eight million dollars cali made two million dollars so there's a six million dollars worth of cap space so if you're ron francis you say hey nashville this six million dollars that i'm going to spend is going to cost you or it's going to cost me so what's that value is that a first

round pick like is that is that what we're valuing uh first and a third at six million dollars on the cap i don't know so i don't know but i just feel like believe that it was a first and a third for everybody we already know that's not true it should have been dynamic pricing per team it should have been different yes well we already know the price for jake allen was a second right so we already know you know maybe we're hammering the kraken too hard here because we don't know the cost per team and we're i'm sorry they're a team now they can be hammered and i'm going to know i know they can be hammered but you have to hammer them for the right reasons and we're not i think i think it's if i think it's a failure i think you need to have a couple of

those teams agree to that how could be a failure if they got exactly what they wanted they got exactly what they wanted they have 30 million you think they're going into the season with 30 million dollars worth of cap space you think by christmas they're gonna have 30 million dollars no i don't but they could have gone well then what are we talking about we're talking about maximizing asset value steve this is something we're talking about with hall they still hold all the cards they hold all the cards they did last week they have 30 million dollars worth of no one else has this and one thing they do have is uh like they have a solid defense that you could ice a season opening with this roster and be like hey that's probably the second best defense

core in your division right now it's just the forward group where you look at and you're like okay how do you weaponize 30 million dollars plus the assets you have to bolster that which is the direction i guess ron francis wants to go instead of getting the forward group uh to where it should be from the draft you want to do it through the money and free agency and trades and he wasn't afraid to take on salary obviously carry price was a big consideration i just my thinking is i think you set that price at where at least you get a couple teams to pay it and i think that's a missed opportunity like in in calgary i guess it was dynamic because we saw the pitlick deal with calgary the allen situation montreal but it wasn't it doesn't sound like it was dynamic enough

for all of these things to flood through that we thought were going to happen. Because like we said on, what was it, Wednesday in the middle of the night, hey, tomorrow at one, there's going to be like eight deals that we're going to, all these trades are going to make sense, and there was zero of them. Okay.

Okay, what would you rather have? Austin Matthews or, because people love shitting on the Leafs, what would you rather have, this or what the Leafs have? Because the Leafs are overpaying, guys. So what would you rather have? Probably someone else's thing. Would you rather have Austin Matthews or Artemi Panarin?

Or would you rather have a package of Rasmus Ristolainen and Ryan Ellis? Because I'm here to tell you, they all cost the same. Matthews or Panarin cost the same against the cap as Ellis and Ristolainen combined. Holy shit. I don't know what the Flyers are doing. we're talking about the krakens yeah i don't care what were you doing in your world over there hey can you get off twitter for a second because when you do when you're on you see steve going

well okay i'm not paying attention you're tired of the conversation the conversation's relevant though they i am conversation is going in circles the cook does the kraken did they charge teams too much yeah i think they did oh man you should have mentioned that well i'm trying to have a debate with you this is what i gave you my side i gave you my side they still have 30 million dollars worth of cap space which i think i mentioned and they're gonna be fine they're gonna be fine seattle's gonna be better than most teams in the right and i understand that this is a fluid situation it's not all the way through i'm just talking about optically from right now right i still feel like they could have been further ahead now we got a perplexing trade with detroit

and Carolina. Steve, do you feel comfortable talking about this, or is this going to go in circles as well? No, I think this one's pretty straightforward, Adam. Okay, so here's the thing. Yesterday, we see this trade come through, and everybody says, okay, that's weird. There must be something else. So the something else that we've heard today, again, could get lit up in my mentions, again, for saying this seems a little bit odd. But Don Waddell's guy, who usually has a plan trading away a calder trophy goalie i'm sorry yeah nominee nominee nominee yeah uh seems seems odd uh alex uh nadelevich traded to detroit and the interesting thing about this is it was for almost nothing like rasmus ristelainen cost a lot more than this did

and what's weird is the um just the optics of it because he apparently was asking about three and half million dollars a year over two years now you think okay um maybe that's the way it was was bernier and a third going back to caroline rights for bernier he's not even signed he's a ufa yeah so they they booted him in a hurry and it's three and a half million dollars so then he goes to detroit and stevie y gets him under contract at three million which means detroit probably came into two and a half yeah sorry for yeah three three million uh each year for two years um so i'm assuming detroit said we'll pay you two and a half and he said i want three and a half and they met in the middle it was done and then so you know a lot of people are like hey you

know don't take this opportunity to shit on the canes they've got they've got something else and you think well it better be a good plan lebron pierre lebron is reporting today that the plan is get bernier under contract get marazic under contract it's horrendous it's it's it's not good And what Waddell has said is we are in win now mode, not win later mode. So we need to get veteran goalies. So you got Bernier, who's looked good on a garbage, hunk of shit, not even trying team, literally not even trying. Borderline point shaving, the Detroit Red Wings,

by holding back their young guys, like literally borderline point shaving. and peter marazic who was good in the 12 games he played last year because of injury what's the plan here first one of them's gonna have to be the starter in the playoffs you're going bernier who has he ever played in the playoffs maybe with the kings the kings like the purple kings like way back right wasn't with the leafs we already know that and marazic like the rumor has been freddie which might be an even worse idea to go after freddie anderson yeah he's what you're looking for if what you're looking for is a veteran goalie what you should be looking for is a goalie who will stop box consistently

what is the a third and the rumor like i think carolina's genuinely happy to get a third because the rumor was they weren't even going to qualify the guy i just joked ej from the nhl network reported that the offer that the carolinas gave uh nadal nadalkovich was uh 1.5 million dollars and they told you that was gonna work waddell wasn't willing to budge there and it's a situation where the carolina hurricanes they have this weird budget where they're unwilling to pay guys over exactly what they want and if 1.5 million dollars isn't what you're going to accept we're going to take a third round pick and have no goalies under contract like that that they'd rather be in that than just pony up a million more dollars the anti-leafs the anti-leafs

and they're not much farther ahead the leafs overpay everybody the hurricanes refuse to pay anybody that's a good way to put it and they're trapped at the second round right so at least they're winning rounds consistently but they're trapped to the second round but who got him to the second round who got him to the second the team in front of the goalie yeah not nadelkovich you mean he started didn't he yeah he did but he's 25 he's gonna get better and he's at 38 career games i think okay a guy a 25 year old who threw up like a 923 or whatever it was the bet that that guy will be better than Jonathan Bernier you can't have paid you can't afford to pay your starting goalie three million dollars what are you attempting that's no that's terrible

that's really terrible well beyond that I I would say to everybody's like well Bernier proved last season he can do it he's been doing for a long time that's fair but um remember that he's playing for a team where literally zero is expected he has to be the hero every night thing yes but things change when you're playing with a team that has expectations they do um it's great when you got nothing to lose show me a situation where jonathan bernier has won where there's been something to lose there hasn't been one and that's this is the thing right it's it's this is the risk that the Carolina Hurricanes incur with this now again you know you guys told me to back off on on Dubas because their offseason isn't over yet should we back off on Waddell because the offseason isn't

over yet no goalies under contract you it's unfair to evaluate your goalie situation when you have no goalies but you had a goalie who had a 920 in nine games in the playoffs and you had him at two or three million dollars if you're willing to just pay that and you gave him away for a third round pick that's adam it's we can criticize that adam you're the business guy what what okay what if you're negotiating with someone that's a regular day what if you're negotiating with someone who has no leverage nedeljkovic no the hurricanes if i'm jonathan bernier oh yeah or peter marazic or any free agent goalie i go here's my number and the hurricanes go no i go yeah who else you have no goalies.

Who else are you going to get? Ito Makaniemi is their highest paid goalie under contract right now. And if you've never heard of them, me neither. $867,000 against the cap. Absolute stud. Don't even talk about Ito Makaniemi.

About like that. Listen. I don't know you guys. Who knows? Maybe he's great. I don't know. Beck Warm? Beck Warm.

That's a made up name. It's one of those NHL guys that it's just the outline of the head. You don't actually see a face. you know undrafted beck warm from uh whistler bc he he's gonna start a whole bunch of games this and and aiden foot who's actually the the he's the first cousin i believe of adam foot okay i also made him up that's that's made up i made that person i don't know he's not on the roster i know cal foots in the league so i just figured you know there's so many

It was believable. There are many might even be feet. We're not even sure about the family. Am I right? Oh, all right. I yeah, if I'm Bernier or Morazic who they're

negotiating with. Yeah, my number went up. You don't have anybody stupid. My number went up. What are you dumb? My number went up by at least a couple hundred grand. It went up. Yeah, you don't have anybody. What are you going to get? Shut up.

Is Carolina going to screw themselves out of a good team? Yeah. Like with this weird budget they got? Hold on. We don't know. Because they could say, Bernier could be like, that's my number. And they'll be like, no. Right.

You go out and sign Linus Olmark and they'll probably be fine. But it would be expensive. A lot more expensive. Any goaltender speaking of the Carolina Hurricanes should give them a higher number than they give everybody else. Dynamic pricing. Yep. They should. They should.

remember uh shvestnikov still not even signed he still has his rfa offer sheet yeah offer sheet him well i wondered that about seattle like do you not uh and i i people in vancouver got really mad at me but like your rival an hour away can't sign pedersen and hughes with the 15 million they've got unless they put them on short-term deals and even then seven and a half it's gonna hard so i wonder if you couldn't i mean they don't have their own second round so you'd have to go super high on peterson but the crack had seemed like a team like man you know what maybe because we you and i were talking about this we all were talking about this i got it wrong because because seattle's got the second overall pick this year and i was like yeah but if they

offer sheet they're going to be giving up the second overall pick no they're not because you can't offer sheet for another week oh so they're gonna pick second overall and then then they'd have the picks will begin in 2022 if they were to offer sheet petterson you got all the space in the world why wouldn't you i'm gonna tell you right now it's not no it won't happen but why wouldn't you i mean i think somebody made a good point ever happens they're like seattle somebody tweeted me they're like listen seattle is far more than petterson away from being a good team and they might be right about that um but it's still it's peterson you know you might get these magic beans or you could get peterson who's already a pretty good bean stock peterson 10

million bucks and then figure out what you do with the other 20.7 adam i have a question for you yep what is a more useless conversation talking about an nhl general manager offer shooting somebody or talking about the krakens roster i think they might be on par they might be on par because both are well one's not gonna happen and the other is so fluid that who knows but listen we gotta do a hockey show okay so i gotta ask some questions jesus people like what the fuck are you asking that for wait for two weeks i'm like i got a show tomorrow i gotta ask questions man fuck you also we talked about the fact that we won't know for two weeks yes once again i am left pondering my knowledge of english it's it's speculation season kids

that's what we're doing now uh welcome the one for the first time to the show i do like uh the eisman uh quote by the way on the thing basically they said uh how did that happen and he said you're going to have to ask carolina why they were comfortable doing that oh we oh we got that version of steve eiserman back oh yeah oh the borderline like we know he's steve eiserman and he's a general manager and that's the way he speaks anyone else speaks that we're checking their backyard for bones that is like that that is a cold man that's a very cold man steve that ass i like that ass that ass now um uh i want to move on because we do have a shorter show today to the kyle dubas press conference which happened right while this nadovich thing

was happening and you have to wonder if the leafs had known they'd have paid that price right oh god kovic campbell that would have been a pretty sweet thing right he got off the phone and saw a missed call uh don w and was very upset so aiden hill costs more than yeah I don't get it either. This is decidedly not Don Waddell, which tells me there's got to be something. I think it's exactly the, the hurricanes MO.

Like I'm going to fire that bullet every time there, they are a weirdly budgeted team with their players in negotiations. I mean, do you think they weirdly budget by position? Is that what it is? I think by like guy by like, Hey, we're evaluating you at this,

at this point. And we're not moving. Well, the Leafs maybe could have benefited from some of that. All right. We're going to pay our coaching staff, but now we have nothing left for goalies. Right. They squeeze everyone.

Like, I understand we're a bunch of Leaf fans here, and our team pays everybody. But the conversation is always, ah, they don't want to pay this guy. They don't want to pay this guy. The head coach had to beg the organization to pay his assistants. Yes, and, like, the other staff. you're so close to pay anybody and you win a cup pay like two guys you win a cup um as as a fan of

a team that cannot get over the hump i look at the hurricanes and get immense anxiety well you're so close guys they're so close they're gonna you just feel like they're gonna win eventually right right when what i get their head out of their ass win a second round like i don't know they got it they the goaltending thing they do have to sort but i sure hope they do because i'm a big fan of the way the team is built they're fun to watch and they love each other and yeah fans are great and it's like everything's great why can't you guys just cop up a couple mil bring on a corporate sponsor i'll come down and sell it for you but come on you're together for long enough and the magic starts to wear off yeah and also every one of you has been squeezed by the organization like

when does the shine wear off well speaking of shine wearing off steve and this is where a beautiful transition. Let's talk about the Toronto Maple Leafs. Now, Kyle Dubas was ready for his press conference. And I actually think it's apt that you mentioned that because this team felt like magic against Washington and they felt like a team on the up. Everybody was excited. And as Toronto fans, we got a little annoying and then a lot annoying and then literally hated by everybody again, which is, you know, our rightful place in the league. And that's fair. But Kyle Dubas had a press conference yesterday where he talked about the team and it's very funny to see the reactions to Kyle Dubas when he says things like this because the reactions are almost the same and he

says almost the same thing after every single season so here's the quote and this is from Chris Johnston our boy um basically the Leafs are doubling down for better or worse I believe in this group and I believe they're going to get it done and I believe they're going to win I understand that comes with a certain amount of doubt because of the fact that we may not have broken through in the playoffs but it's my belief that they will i believe in them as players i believe in them as people and i know that that decision lies on me and what risk that is for me we're going ahead that way so i'm comfortable with it i believe we're going to see the best version of this group next season uh that we've seen yet and i'm willing to bet everything on

them and and he is and I gotta say I respect it at very least I respect it I find that laughable he said the exact same thing against Columbus last year if they don't succeed the fault lies with me I believe in this group and then the season before when they lost game seven in an atrocious coaching job by Mike Babcock I believe in this group and their failure rests with me remember and at that time both times we said you know what really respect that really respect him taking responsibility um and the more i look at it and i do respect it i respect the fact that he's doing his job because that is literally his job yeah you have acquired a bunch of players and signed a bunch of players and you don't believe in them then you haven't done your job so literally

we're giving kyle dubas praise for for literally what's in his job description right now there's nuance there's nuance okay so what said it last year i thought the nuance was i didn't make a good enough team this year the it it sounds it feels like i think i've made a good enough team and i'm willing to bet they are which okay fair give him that and you know to be fair to him the talent's there unquestionably we all thought they were going to beat montreal every one of us every one of us every person on sports nets including eric engels who covers the habs he gave the habs seven games good for him he was right well in part he said the leafs would win in seven games and part of me saw that and i went yeah that's fair it can't be easy so it's got to

go to seven and like i don't want to have the same damn conversation oh if tavaris isn't well he wasn't every year it's going to be someone uh felino what if felino it wasn't there every year it's someone they all got a punctured lung or a broken foot or a hurt i don't know everything okay they didn't do it well and that's my point here is what exactly what exactly like when he says i believe in this group my first question is why i know the talent's there but why beyond the talent why why and i think that's a relevant question why why and i want to know like the next time someone someone gets him in front of a podium which is like four times a year please follow it up and say why do you believe we know that you believe you acquired

them you signed them you protected kerfoot why do you believe the most annoying thing with kerfoot So I was looking at my video I made a few weeks ago where I made next year's Leafs out of guys under contract because there are some edits I have to make to that team. Spezza was a UFA, so I had to add him. Simmons was a UFA, so I had to add him. And Kerfoot, I have to add to that team because at the time, I was like, well, they're losing him.

They're losing Kerfoot. What's amazing is the defense stays the exact same, and Campbell's still there. That's a victory. but then i add kerfoot back to that lineup i don't think they should put him at center i don't because their hole on left wing is so gaping it's unbelievable it's really bad uh i think they're gonna go out and sign a third line center this summer but at the it all comes back to the damn stars have to compete and the damn

stars have to score and and win for god's sake and we're nothing kyle dubas does can give us an answer to that before the playoffs and that's going to be the most frustrating thing about the next uh what do we got nine months yeah season starts in mid-october 10 weeks from now now and i wondered about that because steve the same thing i feel the same way talent's there i get why you believe in the talent. Tell me why you believe in the team. Tell me why you believe in this group together. It's easy to see why Matthews is great. It's easy to see why Marner is great. Why Tavares is a great leader. Why Morgan Riley bleeds blue and white. Why Jack Campbell was a good surprise. And Jake Muzzin's tough and sturdy. I get all that. I totally get it. Totally. Tell me why you

believe in this group together. Because with the exception of Jake Muzzin and Jack Campbell, they've been together for the past five seasons can i join and i guess one year without tavaris i want to join you on something because because you're you're talking about can the leafs win with morgan riley and perhaps they should trade just as fucking core i'm just not sure no but you've repeated you've brought up morgan riley many times i'm here to say i have no interest in doing this all year none so either trade him now or extend it i'd be okay with that i would i i'm doing this all year again oh please no please god no well they're going to because they're going to keep them oh i know we now know we have the answer and they're going to let them

walk next year because what'll happen so you're keeping him you're keeping him and you're letting him walk at the end actually keep no that's what they're no extend the guy look at the look at the names that have walked out the door here look at the name it's miserable it's miserable man for nothing for nothing and this is people think i'm crazy and it's like no no trade these guys a season before their contracts up if you're not going to keep them trade them you see do you all see how i've like really the past two shows been really trying like i'm i'm you're you're asking me i don't know all right well listen i i think you've made a good point in the past steve which is i know which is this you're ready for this there was there i think it was against the

columbus blue jackets you were like how can you guys disrespect kyle dubas like this after he went to bat for you oh you said that and it's because he went to bat and got them the money they they all wanted and then they didn't show up and now they've done it again and so people are like where's your skepticism coming from it's that the most of these guys have been here the whole time and jake beliefs had a tweet and i i i couldn't believe it when i read it and i like i couldn't believe that it was true the leafs have either been leading a series or an elimination game in every year of the matthews era except for 2020 against columbus oh 2017 they were up to one yep on uh on the caps 2018 they were leading game seven against the bruins heading into the third

2019 they were up three games to two over boston and had a chance to close them at home columbus fart and then 2021 i don't even want to get into it right it's um i'm listen you've asked me to reserve judgment steve you're right on that it's terrifying and it's making me sick i want to be wrong but i think i'm allowed to be skeptical now i think i'm well within my rights to be skeptical i know there's a ton of leaf fans who believe the same thing and and i want to be wrong i want i want to be fucking dunked on next april like rush my mentions if they go through and they win i'm ready bring it because i'm gonna be thrilled but i don't believe it yet here's what i think might be giving you subconscious anxiety and a lot of people in

this fan base subconscious anxiety the idea of running it back they literally cannot do that they can't there we began last season with frederick anderson as a starting goalie we already know that's not happening right uh jack campbell is still there who's the other goalie going to be that's an enormous question big question right and we i can't evaluate next team without knowing that we don't know who the third line center is going to be we don't know what position kerfoot is going to play like that that is a fairly large thing and the goal on left or sorry the hole on left wing is so big even if you slot kerfoot in there that i think they can't possibly not address it like unless it's trade or free agency right so we look at this team

as a they're running it back with a shittier team and i just don't think that's what's going to happen that's we're going to find out there's going to be movement tonight there's going to movement the next night uh well the next day i should say and free agency i think is going to be big for them um who do they keep who's the name keeps coming up holla is there holla for the leafs yeah wouldn't hate that yeah they almost got it done last year like wouldn't hate that it's impossible for me i'm looking at last year's group and and in anger and applying it to next years, and that's not what I should be doing because next year's team is too

incomplete. Okay, and that's fair. Maybe that's what I'm doing too. I've just, it was the problem with this year's team is the parts that were the problem in the playoffs are going to be the parts that are here in October. If they re-sign Thornton, I'm going to be like, okay, holy shit. What's up Jesse? I'm

really excited for this coming season for the reasons that Kyle Dubas explained in that press conference because when he said he believes in this team and he's going to go out next year and show everyone that he believes in it and double down on everything he's built here,

we got a handshake agreement from Kyle Dubas that if this doesn't work out at the end of this season, that's it. That's it for him. That's it for him. So there's this agreement with the fans and us who criticize management and within the organization

that if it doesn't work out this time, this is your last shot. you're done where something else is going to happen and that's exciting because then there's there's a go for it factor with Kyle Dubas in 2015 Alex Anthopoulos was GM of the Toronto Blue Jays at the beginning of the season he was offered a five-year extension by Blue Jays management and he rejected it so he was going into his last year as general manager that was on paper but Kyle Dubas is doing this hypothetically in that we all know at the end of this if it doesn't work out he's probably fired and in that uh mid-season the jays were 500 and at that point alexanthopolis said i

have six months left at this job i better damn win or i can't be the gm of the toronto blue jays anymore and he went out and he required uh troy to to lewiski at the deadline he got david price he got um ben revere ben revere and he sold the farm for guys who are gonna win that season and what did the jays do they went on to have one of the best second halves ever and charge into the playoffs and almost make the world series so the at the we're gonna get to a point in this season where kyle dubas is gonna say okay i better get to the second round here and the bar is so low for the leafs it's embarrassing but oh they've taken a step he's gonna sit there at the end at whatever it is the trade deadline evaluate the team at the going into the playoffs and say okay i better win

here or i'm done as gm of the leafs and that's exciting to me that's fun that is fun this is this is going to be an exciting scene because we know the leafs have to do it that's awesome do the leafs know the leafs have to do it jesse i i think they do do the players know a hundred percent what's at stake for them they got their money exactly right that's the part where i'm like yeah in terms of the everything will be in place for them to know that they have to do it like Kyle Dubas is going to put everything around them so that they know they have to do. I think they know to an extent

because there's so much chatter in the media in this market that you have to perform here. I'm just imagining Kyle Dubas in the GM box just crossing his fingers so fucking hard. I hope you guys hear. I don't think that's how he lives his life. I don't think that's how Dubas lives his life.

I think he's a far more Zen person. The Chinese farmer thing that he tweeted when Muzzin got hurt right before the shutdown thing. It really sticks with me. I'm like, oh, so that's just who this guy is. Like, legit. Like, oh, that's wonderful.

Maybe. It's great. Look it up on YouTube. We got to win something, though. Also, I will say this. So the standard here is just win a series. I think a chunk of the fan base would be, ah, finally. But I'm so grateful in my gig that I get to cover the playoffs every year.

because and this is why i'm like so stuck on carolina if you heard that earlier segment you're like what's what's going on with steve it's because every year carolina's in the second round and that's it like covering the entirety of the playoffs and continuing to watch the rest of the playoffs really drives home the point that the second round is nothing it's nothing which means the first is less than nothing but the second round is still nothing win a chip man Guys, breaking news. We've got a rumblings-level rumor. You guys ready for rumblings-level rumor here?

So what is that on the rumor totem pole, Steve? How high up? It's there. It's there, okay. It registers. Darren Dreger is saying that Rangers, Minnesota, Anaheim, and LA's potential fits for Jack Eichel. Rumblings?

Whoa, rumblings! That Montreal could be in the mix for the star center. That's the exact tweet. Now, Shea Weber's not going to play this year. probably will they will have the room and and especially what you know carrie price could miss what are they saying could not play till january who the hell knows so or he'll be fine or he'll be fine and they'll be fine um now i do want to quickly move on you know we were going to have this big debate on hyman too but monday yeah well so yeah i guess we can wait but the thing was

edmonton offered the leafs to sixth for hyman and he supposedly won a second yeah for his rights so that they can go eight years rather than seven we we can have that debate monday we can move on um just a quick thing there's a nhl general managers and this was mentioned in elliot elliot friedman stopped doing 31 thoughts uh but now he's just doing thoughts and there's like six or seven of them every day um and it's actually kind of great because it's a more updated 31 thoughts and one of the things he said was most nhl general managers or a couple NHL general managers have told him that players are literally dying not

to come here and that as we said before no no Canada and it was because of the COVID restrictions that we've that we faced he gave three reasons it wasn't just COVID okay it was COVID and it was it was COVID and let me

read it let me read it out yeah read the sentence for not to play in Canada because of taxes which has already been debunked by the way you have the right planner it doesn't make a difference but if the players believe that then we can't change their minds fair social media which is us we're the reason i can't wait to get blamed for another player leaving you're so you're so lucky you guys play hockey tighter pandemic restrictions man i was just gonna say has anybody checked on nba twitter lately it's fucking crazy football twitter

it's weird to have the lakers keep winning and lebron has a bunch of championships like what a what a what a strong guy doesn't buckle hockey players are weird in that they want to go to a place they're like okay i can play in this city where i play on the number one team in the number one sport that they care about like you go to calgary you go to edmonton they don't have anything else you know but they'd rather go to a place like tampa where they're the sixth most important team in the market that oh they're higher up than the race come on now that's yeah it's probably Now that they've won a couple. I think Lightning fans are actually in the market the best ones.

Okay, let's start another city, Texas. Yeah, but what percentage of the population are Lightning fans? Your point stands, Jesse. If you want to play for the stars, how do you rank amongst college football teams in the NFL and the Rangers? But they would rather play for the stars than the Oilers. Yeah, 100%.

It's also nicer weather. Even people in Edmonton can admit that. That's fair. That's fair. You know, the weather is a factor, and I get it. And you've got to play in the winter. The Rangers bought out D'Angelo today. No word yet on if any team has made an offer on him,

and he's a very, very, very good player. But, you know, top four defensemen, and it'll be curious to see who picks him up. And here's the thing. You know that any team that picks him up probably is going to do some major background on what changed. What have you done? You know, it didn't work for anybody else.

but it could work for us um i thought jay fresh nailed it so he he tweeted out you know that war that wins against uh wins above replacement sorry model and d'angelo's numbers are i mean his offensive numbers are elite his defensive numbers are trash but he sums it up very nicely in one tweet tony d'angelo bought out by the new york rangers is and was a very effective uh and productive one-way top four right-handed offensive defenseman it says something about how much of a prick he is that he got bought out despite that jeez is that what do you the rangers aren't buying him out because he's bad they're not yeah so he's where's the lie where's the lie what would george Jeff punch him in the face because you all you blew an assignment.

I don't think so. I'm just, who knows? Maybe it'll be you team. That's thinking about it. Maybe it'll be you. You'll change them. Want my money?

Habs. Really? Oh yeah. Well, we've got a strong culture. We can indoctrinate them in that. That's what they always, that's what these teams always say.

The more, the more comes out about this Blackhawks thing, the more Bergevin can shut up forever. Okay. Okay, so with the Blackhawks, let's get to the hockey side of it, and then we're going to get to the rest of it, and then we're going to get to the press conference. So the Blackhawks obviously want Seth Jones.

It seems like the most likely place, and it looks like they won't have to give up Doc or Debrin Cat to get him. Which, it makes no sense to do that. When I saw that rumor, I cringed. Well, that's the rumor right now. And if that's the case, man, fuck. Why do people keep helping the Blackhawks? You know what I mean?

Well, it depends who you ask. if you ask the right people they'd say them getting seth jones does not help them at all right well i think a lot of people said he had a down year last year you got to remember though the guy had covid like you know people like ah he's falling off i'm like this guy he had covid like let's like back back it down back it down there's no asterisk on last season in terms of who won but individually i think it's more than fair to give some guys a mulligan on on the way it went the entire canucks roster for example a lot of the stars like you know that was a team cup final then they didn't even make it oh right because they started after everybody else and

maybe seth jones is on that list are the blackhawks gonna regret the extension that he immediately signs because it's going to be like for like seven years and 70 million or something crazy you know or 60 million well look what ristalainen just cost in assets and he's signed for one more year you know look look at the cost of ryan ellis uh it's all it was all yeah yeah it's uh it's gonna cost a pretty penny for jones and then the salary yeah on top of that oh yeah it's gonna be high man speaking of which just quickly on hyman would benson be enough do you think to get that done tyler benson oh his name keeps coming up and i don't know why is that too much uh i would well i mean if the oilers aren't going to use them they might prefer to lose a guy who they know

they're not going to use instead of a pick fair okay all right where'd you read that i'd take them it's got a lot of people are talking about it and it came up in my mentions a lot i meant to bring it up and i was like why do they i guess that maybe because we talked about him well and maybe it seems like maybe they view him the same way they view caleb jones which is he's not going to play here he's just not going to play so i'd take tyler benson okay oh you'd let them just fucking giving him to you yeah which by the way happened with the shane goss's fair trade i do want to say uh they just fucking gave him away that clip was very funny yeah all right thank you Tyler Benson as well

it would be the deal would be rights for rights because Tyler Benson doesn't have a deal right now he's an RFA so you'd be giving Hyman's rights for Benson's rights yeah except Benson is an RFA yes I said that oh you did sorry

I was looking at you too I was focused I just it went right through me the Steve face I'm paying attention listen I researched three trade trees today it is three o'clock and my brain is already just a bowl of tapioca pudding now i'm gonna put a trigger warning on this one for sexual assault survivors uh i have to i have to do that but we have to talk about this this story cannot go away

you cannot let it go away um and i'm gonna try to get through it as quickly as i can while doing it justice i'm not trying to do it for for you know not wanting to get the details out there uh but frankly there are people who are writing this who are doing a better job than we will ever do explaining it so we're going to give you the top line um so ben pope uh talked about how there was uh ben pope by the way ben pope cst works for the chicago sun times and is part of the pwhpa just so you know um there is a new amended version of the john doe one versus blackhawks lawsuit that provides significant details about brad aldridge's 2010 assault um so i'm gonna i'm just gonna go ahead and say it um uh john doe was at aldridge's sorry i almost started uh on the wrong section

here i just want to make sure i got it right yeah number six uh john doe who is the obviously the plaintiff uh was at aldridge's apartment for coaching advice aldridge turned on pornography and began to pleasure himself in front of the plaintiff john doe attempted to leave aldridge's apartment but aldridge blocked the exit from the apartment grabbed a souvenir cubs baseball bat from his wall and physically threatened the plaintiff with a small bat. While brandishing the bat, John Doe Aldridge verbally threatened plaintiff by stating that plaintiff would never play in the NHL if plaintiff did not engage in non-consensual sexual activity with Aldridge at that time. Aldridge verbally threatened plaintiff by stating that Aldridge would ruin plaintiff

financially and destroy his career if plaintiff did not engage in non-consensual activity, which with Aldridge at that time. After physically and verbally threatening the plaintiff, Aldridge exposed himself. Aldridge engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with John Doe, including masturbation, forcible touching, and other lewd and lascivious acts until Aldridge ejaculated on plaintiff while plaintiff was paralyzed with fear now that is i mean there's no words to describe that um the amended lawsuit also alleges that aldridge repeatedly invited young interns working for the black hawks to his private apartment before the alleged assault and hawks employees were aware of this behavior and found it to be quite unusual which by the way was

backed up by that marketing source i believe that rick westhead had remember he talked to somebody in marketing. I remember this. And then the amended lawsuit also alleges that the Blackhawks player experienced homophobic trash talking for years afterwards in practices and scrimmages supervised by the Hawks coaches. Now, this one's big, guys. I'm going to read the amendment. This is Amendment 25. John Doe, sorry, plaintiff was subjected to humiliating trash talking by his teammates during scrimmages where coaches were present. Defendant, the Blackhawks, uh, by through its agents permitted its players to repeatedly harass plaintiff by calling him the F word, uh, not the, not the F U C K word, the other one, uh, asking if he, uh, asking if

he couldn't focus because he wanted to suck someone off and commenting that he should go suck a D, uh, among other similar harassing statements now. Um, and then also a part of this was that the primary challenge is alleging the Blackhawks provided a positive review and or employment verification of Aldridge specifically to Houghton High School, where he went on to work. And I believe at that point, he went on to work at University of Miami in Michigan. And there was a whole bunch of other things, but he is a registered sex offender now. And the whole question is, did the Blackhawks issue this man a positive, you know, a positive recommendation? Now, Now, if you don't mind, I talked to a lawyer about this and they basically told me that

anytime, and this is somebody that's not really familiar with the case, but anytime that there is a major power imbalance, you open your organization, or in this case, the NHL, a group of organizations up to misconduct and abuse, be that sexual, physical, mental, whatever it is, just whenever there's a power imbalance, that's what happens. and that's why in a lot of organizations you have hr departments um and basically you know i mentioned to this person that aldridge's dad worked for san jose and still still does i believe still does and they said you know if aldridge i believe worked for san jose as well under ron wilson and what would have that would have exposed him to is the inner workings of how

much power coaches have over players i'm not talking about superstar players here chances of a coach having much pull over a superstar player is pretty slim but we're talking about guys who are just trying to make their dream happen just trying to get in the league just trying to get that 900 grand or the you know or your 786 or whatever it is just trying to get in that that nhl paycheck um and people in power usually use pre-existing systems to exploit their position to get what they want so he would have had a front row seat to how that all worked and you know you can see that in the allegations of i'll ruin you you know how many times did we see that with the catholic church don't tell anyone or you'll be in big trouble that's prime abuser

language right there mike aldrich by the way um has been the head equipment um head equipment manager of the san jose sharks since 1995 according to elite prospects.com um so i would like to know what the sharks knew as well like i think maybe maybe it's worth peeling it back all the way. It's surprising that the NHL and the Hawks, according to this lawyer, didn't put a lid on this thing. Because what you normally do in these situations is you pay the person off, you put everyone under your NDA, you put all their family members under NDA, and you never hear about it again. Now, they might have tried that and it didn't work or the player wouldn't do it. But the issue is Rick West had reported that now the NHL has not and will not commit,

and neither will the Blackhawks, to making these findings public. So they have their third party investigation going, but they're not committing to saying we're going to make this public. If this was a, you know, a school, you'd have to make the findings public, but the NHL is reserving its right not to do that. The problem is that that will shake the, that will shake anybody's, um, that will shake the brand, you know, and that's where you get Rogers and ESPN and TNT. And they're all looking at this, like, like this makes us look bad too. Cause we're partners with you, right? And all the corporate partners, Rick West had called every single one of them. Nobody would return his call. And he asked them about why you work with the Blackhawks.

Are you aware of these allegations? Do you have anything to say? Rick West had is the opposite of messing around, by the way. Yeah. Because it wasn't just the sponsors. And I finally asked this lawyer, what were the chances that this has never happened before? And they said close to zero. it's very likely that they've had similar situations in the past and either settled and NDA or bullied the victims into silence or and this is maybe more likely the case a lot of times victims won't come forward now the me too movements change some of that and that was mostly for women but for men as well they said that men have trouble coming forward in sexual assault cases because it's so emasculating and you let's rewind back to the Hawks players the allegation

about the Hawks players you know you can't focus because you're you know you're thinking of some guy's dick or whatever it is you know it's it's it's a little bit scary a lot scary um and it's big of this person to come forward but it also makes me question who was the Hawks leadership at that time who were the Hawks coaches at that time and you have Joel Quinville's name but I mean like if we're if we're talking about you know Shepard Dayoff said in a in a statement I think yesterday didn't know about it player of personnel mark bergevin head of player personnel did not know about it stan bowman knew about it because the meeting evidently took place that's the allegation all those people should be fired like and not even just like fired from their current

position from their current position then suspended from being in the national hockey league forever like that's that's just you and like you should go as far as like the wurtz family should be in trouble for like they might have to sell this team like to the point of how how is this thing going on within your organization you shouldn't have the your your play toy anymore this this should be over like this is absolutely horrific everybody involved should be fired from their current position not allowed to play in the national hockey league anymore it's ridiculous and i agree with that jesse and so then so here's the last question the last piece if that is the case for or Sheveldayoff, Bergevin, and Stan Bowman.

What do you then say about the guy who was on the ice as the head of this team? That would be Joel Quinville. That would be Stanley Cup winning, Hall of Fame. Well, this is the thing, right? No, take him out of the Hall of Fame. And that's what I'm saying. It's like, okay, because, you know, Bowman is a big name in hockey.

We know that, right? Yeah. Quinville, big name in hockey, player and coach. um bergevin also a player and coach or sorry a player and gm shovel day off doing well in winnipeg these are you know it seems like at least that there's protection going on like the nhl is closing in on protecting the wrong people you know if you manage and you oversee this i mean maybe i don't know i don't know what argument could be made to defend anybody on the hawks coaching staff that year because clearly they had to have heard that and then let's talk about the

players the only players who have spoken up and said anything are players that have retired sopel and boynton anybody with no skin in the game is speaking honestly and i think um did uh did dan carcillo speak up on it too i believe he did yeah okay so that's three but duncan keith jonathan tase brent seabrook uh patrick kane uh uh cory crawford you all no not crawford crawford was there no he was on 2013 okay sorry that would have been uh niemi yeah right their goalie was niemi that year okay but but okay tase just say tase and kane captain and assistant in chicago right now bowman gm in chicago right now there it's very likely very unlikely that anything goes back on the players but you do have to wonder like what is the what is the culture in the nhl

if that's the reaction if you're complicit in like a sexual assault case and you knew something happened and like you were you allowed some of that to occur then you don't get to be a part of an entertainment product anymore like you don't get to have your career in the fun factory you're out like that's crazy well and you know the i hate to say it but the oilers just spent big big assets on duncan keith what's duncan gotta say about that he obviously had to have known this is what did or didn't happen um is interesting and we're still learning details so when it comes to specifics you know there is perhaps plausible deniability but whenever someone says something like I

didn't know at all I don't believe them I don't believe anything I can believe Nick Letty because Nick Letty wasn't there until the next year I can believe that's believable enough but even then rumors get around right it's still hard for me to believe but it is more believable than

someone who was there on that team does that make sense it's the energy there's only like 800 guys it's not a lot spreads and let's also not forget a bunch of guys from that team that was the hawks team that they had to blow up right because there were some weird over the cap issues was that the there was um chris forstig and dave bolin trades to toronto in consecutive years or whatever it was no no yeah verstig was 2010 came to toronto boland i think was 2013 came to toronto but they they dealt verstig they also dealt lad they dealt um bufflin

um yeah they blew that team up proper they had to get rid of a lot of guys it's uh it's a tough look and we'll continue to follow it i hope you continue to watch it follow ed ben pope cst follows by scott powers uh follow uh rick westhead um i know there's names i'm missing here um uh katie strang strang yeah these are the these are the people that are going to give you the story on it thankfully media outlets are actually covering it now and um And Mark Lazarus, Mark Lazarus is great, too. Yeah, great, great Chicago reporters there. So, you know, boy, I don't know what else to say.

I don't even know how to wrap that up. But I guess we got to get into the press conference. Let's do it. The Steve Dangle Press Conference. All right. This is going to lead into a question for you, Stephen. So our our dear friend, Mike Schmidt. But he's raised a whole bunch of money for our Easter Seals team.

He just recently also actually raised $9,000 through an Overwatch, you know, the game, the video game Overwatch. He played in an Overwatch charity tournament. Unbelievable. At OW4charity.com on Twitter. Sorry. And they raised $9,000 for Sick Kids and Fetch and Relish. Relish.

Adam, you did work with them. I did. That's where I got my dogs. Oh, there you go. Both dogs. fetch and release yep they're awesome so yeah they're a great service because bindi and uh are terrific dogs so yeah and he raised over nine thousand dollars for them amazing and yeah he did a whole bunch of work with uh us for easter seal i missed that and that leads into a question steve

easter seals we don't have many details on that but rinks around ontario are reopening in the next like two weeks are you gonna restart your journey learning to play hockey and getting better at the game yes yes um uh it's such a boring crappy answer i'm yeah like so i'm gonna resume skating pretty much as soon as my uh vacation begins um the real answer is uh dude my back is very fucked oh no it's really fucked um and i've done i've done such a good job of rebuilding it yeah because it's been fucked for like the history of this podcast it's well yeah but right around when leo was like a month old or something like that i really screwed it up really screwed it up and it made being a new dad extraordinarily stressful and it made it very difficult um

and i've done such a good job so i just got to be i'm gonna i'm gonna i i've stopped working out like a hero and i've started working out like someone who just wants to pick their kid up and so i'm gonna stop skating like a guy trying to make the nhl and and resume skating like a guy who's trying to learn how to skate i think you'll learn a lot faster that way i think i will too it's cool man good for you yeah i've done a really good job i've done a really good job i'm doing much better i can sit do you notice i fidget less when i sit and now it's my neck because my neck's but my back is so much better yeah that's why i stand the whole show because my neck and shoulders have been so bad for so long i finally got my jaw fixed but if i stand up for the whole show as much

as i get a little lazy and i move around and stuff it's better for my posture to stand than it is to sit i just got one of those neck pillows oh how's that working it's working well but this is the most pettiest and nerdiest thing i've ever done i saw an ad for it on facebook um and i wanted to buy it but because i didn't want to give facebook any money i went directly to the site and bought it from there fuck you mark was it right above or under one of those t-shirts that says i'm a sports blogger and my day is always sunny and it's a picture of a sun or something does my managing editor offends you like yeah it's they're all they just go through and pick born march 12th and proud of it.

Really way too niche. Way too niche, Mark. That's enough. Next question comes from at Jake underscore Peralta on Twitter. Not the Jake Peralta. I was just going to say. Thoughts on the Indians changing their name to the Guardians. You guys like the

name Cleveland Guardians. That's the baseball team starting next year. Adam, you go first. I do because I've been to Cleveland and there's like a whole, they have like a there's like a guardian statue there. There's like a big art deco statue from when Cleveland was like in its heyday. And there's like a connection to the city.

Like anybody that, that thinks the guardian thing doesn't fit Cleveland doesn't know Cleveland. So, and I don't know Cleveland that well, but I do know at least that. So I think it looks great. I think it's progress.

It's a step forward. Um, I mean, God, even the, even, even Washington's football team is backed off there, you know,

ridiculous, uh, stance on that. I, it's a sign that things are changing in a good way and it just shows i honestly you got any problem with respect for other cultures like is it that hard not that hard people don't understand like where this is all coming from like i saw some criticism of the logo it's it's you know it's a bit of a bit of i like that it's 3d i think that's cool it's an okay logo but here's what this

logo has that the last one didn't you can use it you can use this logo the previous one you could not on account of kind of racist so this one you can use

and I think that's a plus it's so wild to me that up until two years ago we actually had a team named after an ethnicity skin color like yes isn't that the chief wahoo logo is just oh it's so wrong if you want to see something crazy um you should see you should go back i don't know if you guys ever had these but i had

these vhs tapes of the 92 93 world series blue jays and it would like break down the season and be like this hype video like you know it told the whole story i even had one for the detroit red wings 97 uh run as well which was really cool and that's when they had that hey hey hockey town sound detroit detroit fans know what i'm talking about they had a song anyway long story short in it brave fans are like wielding uh uh and they're wearing the hat they're wearing the headdress and they're all doing another and i'm like but it's been and back then we didn't bat an eye no one did i mean i was five i what the hell did i know but like it's still like you think about that i was like go baseball team like i still i think we batted an eye i think we bet

because i remember um i mean i didn't because i didn't know any better i'll be honest with you i really had no idea i remember that's one you know i i have vague memories of certain things from my childhood and i remember asking my parents about that because we watched video because i was like i know the blue jays have won two championships but i don't really remember them they were i was too young i was like four when they won that championship and i saw that and i was like what are they doing and my dad's like you're not allowed to do that don't do that i thought it was like because oh that's the other team because i was a kid uh no we don't do that because it's the other team i didn't understand that you don't do that because it's really bad and you shouldn't

do it uh final question this is from uh g burge 12 on twitter they asked should the nhl create another canadian team and i'm gonna flip that question and i'm gonna say the nhl currently has 32 teams just add two teams so we get an even 34 add one to the east add one to the west steve who you got then adam then i'll go because i got two as well saskatoon which i know isn't gonna happen what about hey add two teams that there's a possibility it could happen yeah like are we talking about okay here's my here's my east one and i think this is realistic halifax halifax is growing halifax has a surrounding area um there aren't too many other shows in town really they got a cfl team coming don't they

no i don't think that's gonna happen oh i think the pandemic kind of halted that and then i don't know where the conversations are right now yeah so they got the moose heads uh so they got a they do have a q team they have a canadian premier league team in soccer i'm trying to think of What else Halifax has? I think it's a team that in the future could support an NHL team. Could they support NHL and the Q? That's a legitimate question because the new sets do well. You can move that team to like Kentville or something like that outside of town.

I mean, it's – but yeah, I don't think that – yeah, go ahead. Pick your other team. Pick your other team. See, I think that's a misread of a CHL town because CHL towns are very passionate about their CHL teams. And I think Halifax is passionate about the Mooseheads. But if they have an opportunity to see Sidney Crosby play in their hometown, I think that'd be pretty cool.

I mean, he's around, he's running up and down hills and everything. Screw you guys, I'm sticking with Saskatoon. There's nothing to do and everyone's at the nothing. I think people would actually go. Would enough go to support a team? I don't know. But I think it would surprise you. Jesse, do you just mean Canadian East and West?

No, no, no. I just add an Eastern Conference team to the NFL and add a Western. Oh, okay. What? I figured Steve misunderstood that because I'm like, there's not a chance. If you can't get a team in Quebec City, you definitely can't get one in Nova Scotia. No way. Oh, for crying out loud? There's 250,000, what is it, 400,000 people in the Halifax Regional Municipality?

Not a chance. Not a chance. unless you got everybody driving eight hours from every direction to fill the arena every night and somehow you end up with corporate sponsors beyond like the local oil family the irvings like i don't i don't know who's going to set the 40 or 50 million dollars on fire each year to fund that team someone i mean the jets lose 25 million a year adam you take your turn and steve if you want to circle back with all right two other teams go no stick your guns that's okay all right stick to your guns is the theme you're right now this is sorry go ahead jesse what did you want to say no i say go ahead okay so this is a little unfair because both of

these teams are essentially in the same spot in the united states but one of them's got to go east and one of them's got to go west so um i'm gonna say houston is your western conference team um not there's like i there's very little debate in my mind that a team could work in houston there's a lot of money in Texas. There's a lot of corporate sponsorship in Texas. Houston's a great town for that. I know it's right near Mexico. I know it's hot as hell and I know the ice would suck come summertime, but you know, I feel like, I feel like money wins out. And if there was money to be made there and somebody wanted to pay the billion dollar franchise tag for it, and I'm sure there are people out there who do. Houston makes the most sense. That's the market for me that

makes the most sense. Another one that's come up a lot, and I would put this in the Eastern conference, even though, again, they're pretty much on par with each other, Kansas City. It's cold in Missouri. And it's, you know, it's a good spot. Like it's just, it seems like a pretty good size city. You know, your corporate sponsors may not be as, you know, you may not have the best corporate sponsors. And it's just down the street from St. Louis. I think you could make it work, especially with the way things are set up with regards to like revenue sharing. It would be a smaller market team but you're pretty close to chicago you're pretty close to st louis nashville and you know i would have said atlanta i really would have because i still think a team

could work in atlanta but you have got to be smarter about the owners you pick anybody that knows anything about the thrashers knows that the reason the thrashers really failed is because they had an owner they didn't give a fuck and you need you need that and i so i would take another swing in atlanta before i would even do kansas city because there's so much money there but you got to make sure you got the right ownership group and that is the big part hard part to find i don't think the thrashers were a proper evaluation of atlanta as a hockey market because they keep coming up in my trade trees what an utterly incompetent piece of shit team they failed so monumentally had absolutely everything it was impressive yeah they were just so bad and so dumb every decision

they made was the wrong one and how are you supposed to get into the sport if your team is garbage it's difficult buffalo's got a lot of hockey fans i'd be can i'd be interested to see how many new ones they got interesting losing sucks losing makes it hard and if all you pulling out your leaf jokes right now i've talked about it before there's lots of hockey fans here a lot of them are fans of other teams i'm going to give you my two teams i'll start in the west i think portland would be a great destination for a team they already got an nba team so they got a an arena ready to go you can do the the drive down for on the i-5 you can go vancouver seattle portland you got a nice little rivalry there the teams might be a little close but i think you can

work in that proximity like you have all those teams in california why not why not why not get a team in portland i think it'd be cool and the other in the east i i don't know when this is going to happen but i think it'll happen eventually the second team in toronto i think it's a hundred percent necessary because every the biggest the biggest team in the biggest market right now in the nhl is the toronto maple leafs the bigger markets probably it's it's definitely uh there's three other ones ahead of them in North America, like New York and I believe Houston's ahead of them on the list

at LA. But the biggest hockey market in the league is Toronto. Every other sport has two teams in their biggest market. Why not throw a second team in Toronto? It would create an instant rivalry and there is support here for two teams.

You could do it easily. They'd be the Mets. They'd be the Brooklyn Nets, but they'd be the LA Clippers. but it would be so much fun to have that second team in Toronto. Yes. The argument, though, is that you're cannibalizing your most profitable market.

But why does every other league do it? I know they do it, but I'm just saying that the Leafs bring so much money to the table for the NHL that going and buying and all these things, you're 20 years before you even know if you made the right call. You're going to bring Leafs tickets. that you like the leafs the the new team's not going to be profitable you know that they are why wouldn't they be profitable because they have to pay off all their debts for building a new

arena and all that shit they're not going to be profitable they're just not and then year to year i mean they will be profitable you're also forgetting in all those markets that have two teams one of them never wins and in toronto that's already built in so i think this could actually be quite successful this could be good i don't think i'd be able to pull myself away from the leafs though i really don't as much as i i can't stand it i'd have to be a leaf fan oh my god we found leo's team yeah there you go i'm so happy for better for the children happy for him it's everly too oh i'm so happy i'm shocked you don't think year to year there's enough advertising and ticket sales for a second nhl team to be profitable i think you i think what

it is, is that, um, you know, what would happen is you, the Leafs fund so much of the revenue share in the league that then you'd be bringing in another team. So the Leafs automatically have to lower their ticket prices, have to lower all the prices, everything else. And then the new, yeah, a hundred percent. And then the new team, the new team, which would be shining and new and hasn't broken anybody's hearts yet is going to draw some people. They're going to have cheap ticket prices. So it's going to be a race to the bottom there. So you don't make money there. Then you've got corporate sponsorship competition, right? Which drives the price down. Then you've got the fact that the new team is going to cost a billion dollars just to buy the tag. And then you've got to buy an arena, which is another billion dollars. You've got to make one. Where are you going to make it? How easily accessible is this arena going to be? Is there going to be the people to support it? And I think it's like, so it, for the NHL from a business case, and I think Richard

Petty actually made the same case on the, on the, uh, on the podcast far better than I could, the cost to the Leafs and the cost to the league could put them in some peril because you could be looking at a major adjustment that the NHL just can't handle right now. Maybe they could in the future. Like, I'm not saying it'll never happen, but it just seems like you've got, you're making a boatload of fucking money out of Toronto. Why fuck with it? but a team somewhere else.

I think they're at least a decade away from even thinking about it. Yeah, I think you're off on in terms of like the numbers and the sponsors, because I think like, hey, if it's not Molson, it's Budweiser, you know,

like the other side can take the dollars and pay the exact same amount. And one thing that I know is true in the league's collective bargaining agreement is that the Leafs have first right of refusal

for a team coming within a certain radius of the gta yeah that's definitely a reason that it just hasn't been done but i think it'd be an awesome thing i think we need the mets and clippers and it's better in hamilton you can sell me on hamilton you can't sell me on a second toronto team but hamilton makes sense yeah that's why uh ball silly that's why he was trying to put in hamilton because it was just outside of that little reason region where you didn't have to get approval from mlse to build the which and they'll never give it to you they're never going to give you which is for that weird because like isn't buffalo far closer yeah but it's across a border it's a little

different we're talking about land right there's water and land there's no water or sorry there's no arable land there between buffalo and toronto right yeah they're not building the arena in the middle of the lake i don't know it doesn't prevent doesn't prevent leaf fans from packing the joint i am simply saying what the ceo the former ceo of mlsc told us right i'm repeating what he said in his book and what he said on this show that's all i'm saying i haven't crunched the numbers i have no idea so that but yeah i mean would it be fun fuck yeah and um the rivalry between toronto and hamilton would be just fucking classic like how great would that be just awesome um anyway well i guess we'll leave it there i think so yeah we good do you want to revisit the

cracking conversation steve in the beginning of the show or yeah let's say the same thing a fourth time by the way um if the carolina hurricanes are really serious about um uh marazic and bernier as a tandem james reimer is available and there's said to be many teams interested in his services i need it for my soul it's not gonna happen would it would it get would it make you happier about mixture i i don't yeah sure why not what any leaf any leaf who played on those teams who's willing to come back deserves the world oh fair enough fair how many guys who were on the game seven team came back anybody not many i think they all left at first opportunity right fair enough okay well we'll

leave it at that so guys uh have a great weekend we'll be back monday more to talk about more to do and nhl entry draft tonight because the couple weeks of exhaustion continues and then next wednesday free agency let's enjoy enjoy your weekend let's see some trades tonight teams get creative. Thank you. The Steve Dangle podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle at Adam W Y L D E and at Jesse Blake connection complete.