The Steve Dangle Podcast - Reports Line | January 25, 2021

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Celebrate with Frosted Flakes (00:00), Laine for PLD (04:45), Aaron Portzline of The Athletic joins the show to talk more about the Blue Jackets (47:00), Leafs beat the Flames and everyone is upset with Matthew Tkachuk (1:14:00), should the Leafs claim Tyler Ennis? (1:30:00), Steve Simmons comments on Mike Babcock (1:40:00), Leafs legend George Armstrong passed away this weekend (1:45:00), John Chayka has been suspended for the rest of the calendar year (1:50:00), and the press conference: NWHL, Adam hates the Habs, and Jack Campbell (1:54:00). Originally aired: January 25, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/Rqqvhuu7RS8 We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: theathletic.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 we have shenaniganery to get to today on the podcast not that we don't always but leafs twitter is just fluttering with rumors of a gargantuan move tyler ennis potentially being claimed by the leafs are they interested no could they possibly get him probably not should we talk about it all day abso-fucking-lutely you know what adam i don't know if i'm appreciating this tyler ennis slander i don't know if i'm appreciating any of that oh i bet it i bet you're gonna send me a video of how he scored a hat trick with the leafs oh wow oh wow jesse you know what steve does in the summer he looks up all the tyler ennis goals that he scored with the leafs and

rewatches them just to go like i love tyler and it's so much takes him about 30 seconds to get through the whole highlight reel hey hey 90 it takes 90 10 seconds for each goal you know how dare you spend the cup this year i'll always remember the time and on january the 25th 2021 that they claimed tyler hennis and it made all the difference wow wow i'm just excited for everyone tuning in to hear our take on the patrick line apr luke dubois trade only to hear us talk about the Leafs and a waiver wire decision they haven't even made yet. That is that, by the way, if Tyler Ennis is actually worth it, do you honestly think, well, we're going to do it later?

Yeah. I was like, are we doing this? We're going to go, we're going to go Patrick Lani and Pierre-Luc Dubois. Now we're going to, we're going to talk about this situation because there's a lot of angles with this, but then at three o'clock, Aaron Portsline from the athletic is going to come on. He is obviously the Columbus beat reporter knows everything that there is to know about the Columbus blue jackets.

and he's going to give us his takes on some things. So we'll probably throw some stuff around that Aaron will, in about an hour, tell us is completely wrong, which is totally fine. That's why we're having him on. So starting with the actual move itself, Patrick Laine for Jack Roslovich and Pierre-Luc Dubois, and obviously a third rounder.

So Laine and Roslovich to Columbus, Pierre-Luc Dubois and the third rounder to the Jets. The Jets also retained some salary, according to uh frank cerevalli of tsn roughly uh and cap finally retweeted and said retaining to 26 would make dubois for line a a wash in terms of cap space space it also leaves columbus with 1.72 million uh in cap space the club could use that to create more space and sign roslovich who remains unsigned and line a is on the ir so that opens up a roster spot for anybody paying attention to the taxi squads this year yeah actually adam uh ross levick uh 1.838 for two

years oh so he did end up getting extended so there you go uh blue jackets obviously taking on more cap it there but uh they also get two players instead of one so also should we let the uh the giant animal that joins the show uh join the show before this oh i guess so right yeah yeah yeah we should yeah we should let's do it toe to the tiger okay now steve i'm gonna we're gonna go off uh we're gonna go off script a little bit here i'm not gonna ask you for the best leaps goal recently i'm gonna ask you for the best patrick line a goal with the winnipeg jets 140 to choose from what one was your favorite well he scored many and many recently there was obviously uh the five goal game that he had

in finland i believe that was against the florida panthers but as a leafs fan i will say no non-playoff goal because playoff goals hurt playoff losses physical physical oh physically for weeks and months and years according to my therapist but no regular season goal stung me in the heart the way that patrick linea with his overtime hat trick goal against the leafs in matthew's first nhl game against linea oh nothing stung me more than that ot winner leafs were up for nothing in that game i believe in winnipeg winnipeg comes back lining getting two of the four goals and then it goes to overtime line a ot winner oh nothing stung more than that thing man i don't even remember how he scored it i just remember being

traumatized by it well there you go patrick lining era 140 goals in four seasons not bad not bad now that's a reason for a cereal celly unless you're a jets fan now well now we do need to Okay, can I just come out and say it? Jarmo Kekulainen is a boss when it comes to trades. He might not be great at resigning people. He might alienate people who he's trying to resign. But holy smokes, does the guy make some good trades. Now, you're going to be like, oh, let's see what he's talking about here.

Steve's going to cross his arms and he's going to go, I don't know. The fact that Columbus made a run a couple seasons ago, the Matt Duchesne trade being the chief among them, but I believe Ryan Dezingle came in a separate move as well to go along with Panarin and Borowski, and we all knew they were sort of going to leave town. And the fact that this team has remained competitive without any draft picks last year and then has come in this year

and made a pretty solid move for the kind of goal scorer that you get maybe once or twice in a generation, I think a pretty solid move by Jarmo Kekulainen, especially for a team that doesn't score goals. Now everybody's saying, and I think rightfully so, uh John Tortorella and Patrick Laine guy doesn't play defense I think John Tortorella knows how to coach a team with players with high firepower LeCavalier St. Louis and uh Brad Richards come to mind uh you know just some some people that he's coached before and coached with some wins

um and I think if you're uh if you're John Tortorella and you want to hang on to your job Patrick Laine is going to be put in a position to score yes 100% and they've already sent him supposedly while he's uh i guess waiting to do all the paperwork that he needs to do they send him footage of the blue jackets power play and basically their goals and what they want to be able to do with them so uh patrick line is going to winnipeg for one reason and one reason only columbus columbus going to columbus what did i say winnipeg is going to winnipeg oh dear i'm sorry well he's going to columbus he's not going to winnipeg anymore uh he's no he's going to columbus uh to do uh one thing i gotta say it's weird that he is not a jet anymore super weird same

with dubois like i just got there they both just got there it doesn't feel right it doesn't feel right at all was that your initial reaction when the trade was announced was it still like even though we knew after that uh pierre luke dubois shift the infinite shift you know 355 of the first period and then he's he's gone for the rest of the game kind of knew that something was going to happen this weekend we do know that i believe i believe vegas was somehow in on patrick linea and anaheim anaheim montreal um were you surprised by the move or were you kind of like hey we got something right because we did kind of suggest that this made the most sense at the beginning of the season a couple weeks ago well so people obviously love linea um for all his defensive

wards he's been getting better at that he's become a far better playmaker than he was his uh you know first couple years in the league um he's not a one-dimensional player anymore he's a dominant player he's played one game this season two goals one assist three points come on now he's real good um the initial reaction i saw was the blue jackets fleeced the jets in this deal and then i looked at the jets up the middle and craig button took some heat for this because he said it's it's the best center ice in Canada I don't know if it's the best center ice in Canada it's but I think he was half joking I don't know I don't know I don't know it's hard with Twitter right but right they now have Pierre-Luc Dubois who if he's not a number one center he's going to be one uh Mark

Shifley who I think is in the category of remember a few years ago we looked at Ryan Johansson and we're like he's a good player like is that a number one though you know what i mean like i think he's a number one i don't think he's a very good one whoa as a number two or a number or a number one with a guy like dubois behind him scheifele's an assassin we know what he can do we know what he can do and i bet his gold production is going to go way up now that he's basically got sole possession of the line a bomb spot right they got stassny there Lowry they're center ice so it's it's funny did they win the trade I don't know uh I don't really think Winnipeg did but I kind of look at them and I go yeah they're better though they're better

though they have the talent up the middle and it's going to make their wings better and their wings are already good they got Kyle Connor they got Nikolai Ehlers um you know who knows uh who else is going to emerge out of this and young guys they can add to the situation I like what the jets i like what the jets look like and let's not forget a key thing here so key is patrick line eight needs a deal i think that decides the who wins the trade a hundred percent it does and this this was the the second thing i thought of adam and this is why i crossed my arms because i was thinking about it if columbus cannot get line a to stay what do they do what do you do was a franchise because that would mean line a left and Bobrovsky left and Panarin left and

Duchesne left. And you got Jeff Carter to keep Rick Nash happy. And then Jeff Carter, uh, needed to leave. So he did, which meant then Rick Nash left. And when does it stop? How do you stop the bleeding? How do you possibly keep up with that? So I agree with you that they make good trades and Kekalainen has done a good job. How do you handle the fact that no one wants to stay? Well, and add this to the mix, okay? What was Columbus willing to pay Mitch Marner to pull him over as a restricted free agent?

Oh, wasn't it like 13 mil? Yeah. Like 12 and a half. You're Patrick Laine. You're like, I'm at least that good. I can for sure score. They're going to have to pay him a lot of money. They are.

And they will. They will. Patrick Laine will get all the money that he wants, I think, in Columbus because I think they've put themselves in a position where they kind of have to pay him, right? Sort of, what choice do you have? But from a pure talent perspective, I don't think you can argue that Columbus won this deal.

Like, you know, implications aside, like, let's just have a look here. Just humor me for a second. And it was interesting because Pierre Lebrun put an article into The Athletic today. You know, he always does the canvassing the GMs and how do you think this deal went off? And I always find those interesting because it's interesting to hear what people in the game have to say about it. And most of the comments from the, you know, quoted but not sourced GMs or sorry, not direct quoted.

I guess they're anonymous quotes. Most of the quotes said pretty even deal for both sides works for both sides, which I think is fair. But at the end, Pierre goes in to say that he thinks that, you know, the tie goes to Winnipeg on this one. And he gives a bunch of reasons for that. Now, I want to win. Well, that's what he says. Pierre-Luc Dubois has played 239 NHL games. He has 66 goals, 93 assists, 159 points. Pretty good. Patrick Laine has played 306 games, has 140 goals, 110 assists, 250 points. Now, if you're keeping track, I did a little math.

That's 91 more points with 67 more games. Pierre-Luc Dubois is not going to be able to make that up. 140 goals to 66 goals. Let's be honest. in hockey i think we put a little too much of the importance thing on the assist because it's like well he gave he gave the puck up he's a good person we use it as a value judgment on the wow gretzky had the most goals but did you know his assist is what's really important well no actually the goals are more important the goals are always more important the goal the assists

don't exist without the goals you have a guy who's scoring almost three times as much as the other guy who is the same age who's played more games how about this how about this linea's worst goal scoring season was last year and it certainly would not have been his worst goal scoring season it's only because of the pandemic um he had 30 once and i think that was that weird season where he was either dominant or a bum so last year last year last year in 68 games he has 28 goals and 35 assists um so he's scoring at like i don't know i think that's just off the top of my head roughly a 35 goal pace pierre luke dubois top goal scoring uh was 27 yeah like they're not lining is a different beast offensively now dubois is a feisty jerk we saw that in the playoffs

uh you know walks that line uh he's a two-way player and he's a center all those things work in favor of him and against line a um but it's it's like i said uh before the season even began i'm not sure how you win a patrick line a trade guys all right i think the jets did as good as they possibly could but i don't know how you adam i think i had the same initial reaction as you to this trade because whenever i look at like a blockbuster trade i say okay which team got the better player because that team usually won the deal and in this case it looks like patrick linea has the higher ceiling he's already the better goal scorer so columbus should be happy that they've walked away with the better player in the deal and initially if you're getting the better

guy you win the trade because your team is going to be improved exponentially because you're taking away a weaker player and you're adding the better skilled player it is and and the thing is you know So Roslevic might be, maybe he's a third line center, but I mean, so is Paul Stastny, right? I mean, the thing is, what I look at with Roslevic is if he turns into a good third line player, even that is more valuable, probably more likely than a third round pick. And I think in this particular case, you know, we talked about it with Tim and Sid. We talked about it, you know, at other points as well. The reality is the Columbus Blue Jackets, in a vacuum, win this trade.

They'll get Patrick Laine signed. They'll get him signed. Because as Steve pointed out, kind of the franchise is kind of at stake here. A little bit. Yeah, right? What's his number? You have to have permission from ownership to break the bank on this one. You just have to.

You're having such a hard time getting guys to stay. It's like the Buffalo Sabres years and years ago. Remember they lost Danny Breer. then they lose chris drury the oilers try to offer sheet thomas vanik and the buffalo sabers made the choice we're gonna give thomas vanik far too much money yep because i remember we had just recorded a podcast there you go and when we got i think it was no when he got traded that's right after that because that contract became so big they had to trade him now that kicked off the record a podcast big news breaks afterwards it was thomas vanik that's right i remember a teddy

bearer being involved somehow that's right yeah you gotta have permission now i was looking and going why didn't the jets you know like why a third like surely they should be getting more futures out of this and i think this might be covet having an impact here because dubois in the first year of his deal a deal that he signed post-covid he gets 3.35 million this year in actual cash actual dollars line he's making 7.5 so he's making more than double and then you add roslevic to that uh you know you're adding close to three times the salary there so i i wonder if it's well we're not going to give you more because well you mean money you mean yeah or wait am i getting this confused am i getting this because i don't think that the owners for winnipeg care

like i don't think it's i don't think there are internal budget issues there yeah and columbus is the one taking on money i'm not gonna lie now i just okay i like i like the way winnipeg looks after this deal they might even be a better team but from a value standpoint i don't like it i think it's for them probably really well done and it's good that they got a center good that they got a center because you need you need shut you need one and two you know you need your Dreisaitl, McDavid, Tavares, Matthews. You're going to need that in, in especially if the Canadian division continues beyond this year,

but even this year, you're going to need it. Give Stasny a chance to go down to the third line, do something else there. But the reality is Columbus wins the trade on talent. And that's really what you want to come away with. And one other thing I'd like to give Jarmo Kekalainen credit for. What is there, 45 games left? most teams have played seven okay so unless you're like 48 49 games left something like that

uh patrick lining better have a blistering last 50 games here because if he wants to make the money he wants to make remember yarmulke line is no joke when it comes to dealing with restricted free agents this guy has been hardcore in the past to be hardcore again now we said earlier not five minutes ago pay him what you need to pay him yes what you need to pay him not necessarily what he wants to be paid. And Jarmo Kekalainen is going to, for Patrick Laine to make the crazy money that Patrick Laine wants to make, Patrick Laine is going to have to put up huge numbers for Columbus, which is a team that has struggled to score goals. This is a great move in the interim for Columbus for that reason. And I definitely, I want there to be more of a shift to focus on

how important goal scoring is in the NHL. We focus way too much on assists. And again, like I said, it's like a value judgment of character it's like this person's a good man because he assists on some things well there's a lot of ghost assist there's a lot of it's it's the goals that really should count in every other sport goals count assists runs goals baskets no one's worried about assists anywhere else or an eye thing to me are they are um so let me ask you this and it's been floated a few times and i want to i want to get your guys take on this so the disinterested shift from pierre luke dubois and adam herman i think uh put this out and suggested this is that the only negotiation tactic that a player has once you get to the point where you've signed

your contract you've asked for a trade and you're still not getting what you want he could sit out he had every opportunity to sit out and if he was going to go on the ice and not try he should just should just not put on his equipment and this this is the difficult thing because i've gone i went hard at torts and then a lot of blue jackets fans were like whoa no and then it was hard at dubois and now stuff is coming out today well it was probably torts again so we're gonna have to get aaron port's line on here so i so people know who is the blame okay but what is probably in the middle okay what's your initial my initial thought is you have two guys here well and ross levick but you have two guys here in line and dubois who asked for trades

publicly wasn't a secret from either of them and one guy was an assassin the whole time he was a star the whole time and the other guy pouted about it and i'm sorry that's what he did that's 100% what dubois did now did the blue jackets or tortorella or however you want to put did they rub his nose in it yeah sure looked like it but it doesn't look like he did anything wasn't risking he wasn't even getting into a puck battle and i guess he figured i'm out of town anyway so why am i gonna why am i gonna risk this but like to and and i like adam this isn't an attack on adam herman um i actually mentioned him in my book but uh the the idea that the only way to get what you want is to be a brat like i i just i don't understand that

And he was saying it's a CBA issue, right? That you put young players into a box. What are they supposed to do? He's right that young players and RFAs get the short end of the stick, but we've seen so many other players deal with it so differently. Right. I mean, and that's just a problem across pro sports. Like you have young players who kind of their ideas to think outside the

box and they're like, okay, I come into this league and I get drafted by a team that I don't get to pick and then i'm locked into this team for x amount of years and then i don't get movement and the complaint is about that system well the system is the way it is and like you should definitely try and change it if you want and there are ways to get around it if you want to sit out if you're the number one overall pick like um lindros did and not go to your team but also if you're if you're gonna go out on on the ice like make the decision beforehand to just not get out there if you're not gonna play like i feel like it's more dangerous for your teammates

and for you to go out there and then not chase after the puck in a corner. Lindros didn't get picked by Quebec and then not try. Right. He just didn't go. And people get mad at Lindros about that. But if you know anything about the Nordiques owner at that time, you wouldn't want to play for him either. The guy was not great.

We'll put it that way. And people have made veiled mentions about that. And we see guys in leagues like across pro sports request trades and eventually they get traded like it happened no guys usually don't just sit around and not get traded either they are traded or they work it out there's always a resolution to these problems and i also uh the interesting thing about lynn ross and and some other guys like him uh is back in the day those guys those guys would sign massive money contracts like i think what did alexander dag get i think he got a five-year deal right out of the gate at like a million plus per

year he hadn't played a game and it was ottawa like a team that's always struggled financially uh even before eugene melnick uh that was you know that's the thing is lindros was saying no to millions of dollars in 1990 or 91 whenever he was drafted first overall so yeah absolutely i think you know the best way probably is to sit out i did find it interesting that pierre luke dubois signed that a contract extension and i wonder if yarmulke kakalainen said to him listen you sign a good deal here uh it'll make us a lot make it a lot easier for us to trade you if you sit out then we won't trade you the entire year you'll lose the entire year and if i was your mokeka line and i mean that's kind of hard ball you have to play right

we're not going to trade you almost like what the oilers did with pool yarvey who will by the way we'll get to a little bit later he's having a good season you know if you're your mokeka line what choice do you have you got to send a message right we're not messing around here and he seems like he's always seemed kind of like a law and order kind of guy bit uh bit hardcore and i i feel like that's probably what he said listen pierre luke we will not trade you if you don't sign so you'll lose the season just bet bet on that and so pierre luke dubois signs plays and then has a couple shitty games and a bad shift and it becomes you know national hockey news like around the hockey twitterverse and manages to leverage his way out is it the best no but they

kind of what choice does he have he well this is the thing right he got what he wanted he did yeah he got what he was but didn't line a as well well and and let me so let's let's talk about this let's talk about lining because i think what's what's interesting in both cases is we don't know why we don't really know like we know we know ish we know a little we can guess we can guess probably would be pretty close yeah we don't know why and Pierre-Luc Dubois obviously it could have been torts it could have been some other things I've got a couple questions there's also some weird rumors going around on reddit about it but uh I'll I'll we'll ask the we'll ask Aaron that one thing we can verify is the Winnipeg dressing room has been split for several years we know that

ever since that cup run and even before there have been stories floating around but not widely reported and not widely enough circulated about the way leadership works in winnipeg so we're going to start with some of the stuff that's actually verifiable and then we'll get into the finished publications because the europeans always have better quotes than we do but it started off with a tweet by bruce garrick and bruce garrick obviously or garrick has been you know a huge reporter in Ottawa for a long, long time. Oh, Gary, Gary, sorry. Sorry. I was like, yeah, my bad. Um, you know, again, one of those guys you've never heard, you've never heard their name spoken out loud, but you've known them forever. Um, I think I might be wrong. I don't

know. So anyway, Bruce tweeted this, he said, um, that, that, um, uh, Blake Wheeler had regrets about how he could have handled Patrick line. And now the full quote is maybe if I had communicated better, you know, maybe it would have made things better, but ultimately I don't think that would have happened. Now here's what Wheeler had to say after the Jets 17, 18 cup run in an interview with Sarah Orleski of TSN quote, I was disappointed for the first time in myself last year, not because we didn't win the cup. I lost touch with myself as a dad, as a husband, first and foremost, because I was invested too much in trying to win. Everybody was talking about, this is our year to win. And it really, I mean, it really turned out to be, and we had a real opportunity to win.

And when I was home, uh, that's where I was. I was trying to win the Stanley cup. Um, and then he said, and when I was in the building, sometimes I was spitting nails just because I wanted to win the cup. I was so focused on that when it was all done. And I got home. It's like, man, this is almost too, you know, my daughter's growing up. My sons are in kindergarten. None of that is important am i too hard sorry am i hard on people compared to how i was treated as a rookie this is important absolutely not that's changed a lot there's a lot more hand holding and i have to put myself in people's shoes a lot more than the leaders or the older guys did for me when i was a young player i think there's a recognition that that uh that the players are coming that are

coming into this league now are starting to filter uh and are starting to filter into locker rooms it's different. You have to approach them differently. You have to sort of coddle them a little bit. And if you don't, then you've been too hard on them. Now, interesting. I'm going to read this last quote because he, he mentions this a few times. Okay. This, this, this line keeps coming up in all the stories I keep hearing. I've been wondering about this since this story, this interview first took place. He said, it has to do with a certain way in my career to get where I'm at. Sorry. I had to do it a certain way in my career to get where I'm at. That's not necessarily the same for somebody else, but there's a pretty common theme in this league that you've got to do

a certain thing. You have to prepare a certain way if you want to be successful. So I try to show the guys what that looks like. And from there, you're not holding people's hands. This is the big leagues. Now I hear a guy who wants to win. Do you guys not hear that? Of course, maniacally. Now remember that next year after the Stanley cup, the Jets room was completely split and they kind of fell to pieces. And then you've got, you know, Bufflin not wanting to come back. And Ehler's talking about, you know,

recently hating that his best friend, Laine, is traded. And then before all that, we had the tracksuit incident, as you guys remember, with 23-year-old Evander Kane. And Bufflin and Ehler had comments, and this is an article from CJ back in 2015.

Bufflin spoke with reporters on Thursday before Sportsnet's report surfaced and was asked how Kane's absence from the game would affect his status in the dressing room. Now, Steve, can you remind us what happened with the tracksuit incident? What was the tracksuit incident with Winnipeg? I believe it was Kane showed up late to,

I want to say a video session. And so Dustin Bufflin was just like, ah, screw this guy. And he took his tracksuit and threw it in the shower. Now, the rumor was too, that if you show up to a video session, you show up in a suit and tie, you don't show up in a tracksuit too.

So that was also part of it, right? is that he did there's a dress code there's a way we do things we do things right got it which okay if you have a way of doing things fine i'm not sure that's how you handle it but here's here's what buff said we're just a tight group it is what it is that's just among us things we've just got to handle ourselves there's a standard that everyone needs to live up to added teammate blake wheeler this is before he was captain andrew ladd was still captain at this point we're professionals we make a lot of money and we're expected to uphold a certain standard that's the code we live by that's just the way it is if you don't like it there's other

places to go this is the way we do things and then we have this if i might this is according this is an article from mike mcintyre from winnipeg and this has to do with the jets okay and i'm just building a case here so go with me on this one lawyer actually sent this to me source a made it clear to me the problem was entirely on winnipeg's power brokers from ownership to general manager kevin kevin shovel day off to coach paul maurice to wheeler who runs the dressing room along with alternate captain mark shifley and have repeatedly butted heads with the more laid-back linea in his mind they've cultivated a toxic environment that had linea looking for the quickest exit the issues in winnipeg right now and this is a quote have to

deal with more issue with sorry the issues in winnipeg right now have to deal more with issues in the dressing room between competing personalities. And when there is a divided room, that gets around the league. And players generally, if they have other options, are going to exercise them until that whole situation gets cleaned up. I'm surprised it's been allowed to go on this long without people in charge getting in there and cleaning it up. It's going to have a great impact around the league with people choosing to play in Winnipeg or not, which is important for a small market franchise now same same writer source b different different opinion suggested in no uncertain terms that line a and line a only was the problem that a perceived

lackadaisical approach towards his career quickly wore thin all of the issues in the room could be solved by trading one guy patrick line a said the source i suspect like so much in life the truth is somewhere between source a and source b neither parties uh neither none of the key parties the ones who really know what went down is willing to share it publicly right and line i spoke saturday and refused to point fingers on the way out the door i still think based on all of this and then a finished publication posting this well yeah this one's are you ready this is aliati this is fun ati ali i don't even know how to say it i'm not sure man yeah it's finished man like if you're finished correct me but like i'm not even going to try the finished publication cited quote inside

sources, gee, I wonder who, claim that Patrick Laine was mistreated by forwards Mark Shifley, Blake Wheeler, and that Paul Maurice was too weak to defy them. Quote, Wheeler felt his position on the right side of the number one chain was threatened because Laine was originally a right winger. Wheeler was also not enthusiastic that a young man from Finland would become almost as popular in Winnipeg as Taimou Solani. Outside the rank, Wheeler and Shifley threw sand at Laine's skates in every possible way. Wheeler in particular was a master at speaking behind the backs, of a Finnish young man for things he certainly did not want in public, meaning basically, and the English translation is a little rough,

but basically that Shifley and Wheeler worked to undermine Patrick Kleine. So I was talking to some people about this today, and I was like, they threw sand at his skates? And then we were like, what might be getting lost in translation here? Was he sandbagged? Is that what they're trying to say? So we were figuring it out and trying to put it together. Here's, I'm not calling anyone here a liar.

I don't know who any of these people are. But there is a quote in there that I'm just, I just, I cannot believe. Like Mark Shifley's like, you know, I'm really talented in everything. And I do a really good job. But I'm just worried that they're going to like the other guy more because he's Finnish. Well, I think it's Blake Wheeler that was supposed to be the guy that has the problem. Same thing. like what what blake wheeler should be threatened by patrick linea in so many more for so many more

reasons then he's finished then he's finished it might be popular like yeah yeah yeah well i think that like austin matthews joins the jets and he's like at least it's an american right we got a finnish guy yeah oh my goodness like no i don't know that sounds ridiculous i don't dispute that it was said but i don't know that's very bizarre to me i don't and maybe a little bit lost in translation as well maybe it wasn't well translated we can we can bet probably that it had less to do with the nationality and more to do with the attitude now you can you can blake wheeler and mark shifley are uh like die hard winnipeg jets these guys are going down as two of the greatest jets of all time no question right but the thing is at a certain point if you have a system

and you've got 22 other people or as many as 26 in the taxi squad situation you can't expect that 26 different individuals are going to conform exactly to the way you conform or the what or what you how what makes you perform well and let's be honest here you know blake wheeler mentioned that uh you know he uh maybe could have you know done things a little bit differently with patrick liney or whatever or you know um uh with evander kane this is the way we do things well maybe the way you do things works for you but blake wheeler exactly blake wheeler doesn't have the talent that patrick liney has he's therefore yeah 100 but i i'm gonna be i'm just gonna throw it out there let's say patrick liney is more gifted i don't think anybody's gonna dispute

that oh he's more i think blake i think blake wheeler worked harder for what he has than probably patrick line i did for him for himself i think patrick line has got a gift yeah and it bothers people had that have to work extremely hard when people who come in and extremely gifted and don't on the surface have to work as hard and i'm not saying patrick line i didn't it bothers them and you shouldn't it shouldn't god you cannot build a team on the same guy 26 different times there are gonna be guys that you don't like imagine if i was like jealous of how adam like i was jealous of adam's ability to like steer the bus like drive a show and or i was jealous of your sense of humor well i was jealous of steve's sense of humor i tried to be funny like steve i'm not

gonna fucking do it i'm not that guy yeah you're right i'm hilarious if the expectation of wheeler or shifley or any guys on a hockey team is that they're gonna get along with the other members of the hockey team i think that's a ridiculous expectation it's like we've all everybody's had a job everybody's been in a workplace you're not going to get along with every single person you work with or they're not always gonna work as hard as you and if if just because somebody doesn't mesh with the way you do things you want to get rid of them i think that's ridiculous you know you're going into whatever wherever you work it should just be like okay maybe three people here i'm not just going to be friends with but we can still coexist and work together

and so he can still pass me the puck and score he has a great shot like here's what he does off the ice here's here's the tiebreaker to me right so it was very interesting that you had that one story that was source a blames one side source b blames the other the tiebreaker is because there are uh you know there's a source that feels one way and a source that feels the other to me that is a clear indicator that the room is split and if the room is split to me that's on leadership a great leadership's not lining line is the other or it's the other guys leadership's the other well and you want to wear a captain or you want to wear an A or a C, you got to be the one that brings those people in and motivates those people and reaches out to those people. It doesn't sound

like from the quotes that I've read that there's a lot of that going on. And we could talk about how great they could be great human beings. That doesn't mean they're great leaders. And Blake Wheeler's leadership specifically has been questioned before. He's talked about openly how he needs to back it off a little bit, that he's a little too harsh. And at a certain point for a small market team like Winnipeg and let's not, you know, let's not, I know that their ownership has a ton of money, but they are a small market team and it's harder to sign free agents there. It is, especially when a room's fractured. He even said that in the article. It's something where if I'm Kevin Shevelday off, I'm happy with the team as it stands. That's great. But I need

to sort this problem out soon because you cannot have a leadership group that alienates young players Pierre-Luc Dubois after what he did in Columbus is going to come into this with this like military drill unit style thing you guys are worried about Patrick Liney with John Tortorella I'm worried about Pierre-Luc Dubois with Shifley and Wheeler it's also different if they had a history of winning like if if these rumors came out about Sidney Crosby it's okay because Sidney Crosby's got three Stanley Cups you put up with whatever he wants because that's the way he's proven uh it's going to be successful because he's going to lead that way and Winnipeg just doesn't have that track record where it's like hey this type of leadership is going to work so

if they could win then who cares what how however blake wheeler is treating that locker room but you made it to the conference finals one time let me translate what jesse just said who the hell are you yeah did now question i agree he's right blake wheeler win the cup with uh with boston in 2011 no uh he was dealt uh he was dealt at the trade deadline before they won the cup oh boy um yeah let me let me go lana right he was dealt a hot lana yeah nhl trade tracker um he was drafted fifth overall by the coyotes didn't go i don't remember how the bruins got him i can't remember if they just signed him he didn't go to arizona he didn't go he's drafted fifth overall in 2005 Okay, so he knows something about not wanting to be with the team.

For 2004. Like, this is... God, like, what a fleecing. Like, this is... The Bruins made this trade and then won a cup. Like, they made two relatively bad trades the year that they won a cup, but they won a cup. The Bruins got Rich Peverley and Boris Valabic.

Do you remember Boris Valabic? He was 6'7", 231 pounds. Supposed to be the next Zidane O'Chara. Was not. uh then the atlanta thrashers get uh defenseman mark stewart uh and blake freaking wheeler who had back-to-back 91 point seasons before covid god that's uh that is something else but did not get a cup so jesse i think makes the best point of all what is this leadership group accomplished i mean really and i'm a i'm a fan of the jets i think they're i think they're gonna make the

playoffs on the back of conor hellebuck vesna goalie should have been a heart candidate last year you watch he might be this year this is this is something that winnipeg needs to deal with now we're worried about you know patrick line a resigning in columbus what's what's going to happen to the franchise what if like blake wheeler's old man he was drafted in 2004 what happens when blake wheeler moves on and all the young players are like i don't want to be here anymore and how is Pierre-Luc Dubois going to perform under this he's played nine games he scored a goal and has the weakest shift in the NHL this year what's he gonna do and if you don't fit us get out of town Evander Kane Patrick Laine Jack Roslevic who else who else is on the list

this is often won't come back Myers won't resign Trouba wants out like the Bufflin situation people just kind of forgot about that but he didn't want to come back and play for the team he might have i thought was trainers i think yeah more medical but yeah truba is definitely worth i forgot about that yeah and we're talking about teams that can't hold on to players for very different reasons by the sounds of it we were always like oh winnipeg it's cold people don't want no it sounds like uh the coldest place there is the locker room uh whereas columbus i don't know maybe they just don't like ohio i don't know but um it's uh and obviously the the jets fans i mean are they top three in the league they're awesome they're incredible like who wouldn't want to play in that

building it's amazing you're a rock star yeah it's it's absolutely fantastic uh i feel bad i feel bad for the fans of both teams yeah um especially like i don't i don't feel bad for columbus fans i think they're gonna be ripping it like they're gonna buy pld patrick liney thank you I'll never think about Pierre-Luc Dubois again right but there is the the you got to remember like fans aren't always about like the the in and the out and the is my team better and everything like there are a lot of Jets fans who thought that they did pretty well in this deal but they're like shit Patrick Laine is not a Jet anymore easily they got on yeah and they got really invested in his success and with the blue jackets it's a lot of pierre luke dubois it's it's a lot of the

same because like that pick in 2016 i want to say third overall instead of jesse pulley rv it was a controversial pick at the time it was criticized he had half a season at full-time playing center in the qmjhl when he was selected that high and people criticized the pick so it's sort of a we'll show you you know hey hey you know everyone told us not to get this guy and all we should have got Matthew Kachuk and we should have got Pooley Harvey look at this guy he's an assassin you know so it's again that little team that could and here we are again my brilliant team with its brilliant players and now neither fan base has those guys who they got attached to for years but one of those guys quit on their franchise the other guy didn't and that's

the difference and you know we can talk about the reasons so liney had his reasons dubois had his which i guess we'll get into more uh once uh portsy joins us in a few minutes but liney gave an honest effort the entire time uh pierre-luc dubois just didn't he just didn't different situations obviously but he just didn't quit i'm curious uh it's funny that we still don't know how long pierre-luc dubois is actually gonna have to stay at the border as well the canadian government is actually the one who gets to decide this so they don't have they i guess the the deal with the nhl was they're gonna they were gonna decide based on each situation yeah it's local rules it's not even like an overarching nhl rules it's just hey whatever the government wants

so and but it's also they're trying to invoke a come on clause where it's 14 days for everyone else but you get to go to the manitoba government and be like ah and they go jets hockey you know yeah go get you right yeah let him go play you better not cough as soon as i sign these papers ah just go score a goal by the way i i don't think if i if i was a betting man i don't think uh manitoba's gonna let up their premiere a couple months ago put out a speech that went viral around Canada about COVID, and it was tears and family members. In fact, it was very moving.

I don't think for a second I would be shocked if the Manitoba government moves on the 14-day quarantine or even a 10-day quarantine. I'd be shocked, but we'll see. I get it. I'm the man who stole a week of Pierre-Luc Dubois from you. That's what he said. I'm stealing Christmas from between you and your family.

That's what he said, right? yeah that was that was i was watching like uh i don't know anything else about him but i kind of feel bad canada's having a time oh it is it sure is and you know what's going to be interesting has come trade deadline in a couple of months here by the way april is two months away at the end of this week throw that at you i believe um yes we uh uh april 12th is trade deadline day right before my birthday right after jesse's uh that is going to be very interesting because okay you're a canadian team you want to add you're one of the top four teams in your division which by the way a reminder the top four canadian teams will be montreal toronto

winnipeg calgary and no one else just throwing that out there if you're one of those teams and you're looking to add or you're you're um uh edmonton and you're desperate and you want to throw two second round picks at detroit for a player you can't resign uh you will have to wait the probably the two weeks for them to come north so how does that affect trade value because you got to think that's got to be a part of it how much if we're just on the outside how much how much of a chance do we really think that we have even if we do get into the playoffs this year is it worth it for a guy that's not going to be here for a couple of weeks do we make the deal two weeks in advance of the trade deadline and pay more at that time like that will be very

interesting as well i'm sure there's going to be a lot of seller teams who are like oh you want to make a deal early so you can do the quarantine thing yeah that's going to cost you because i Comedians are going to have to overpay. Yeah, comedians are definitely going to have to overpay. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's why you're going to start to see if there are moves to be made.

I don't know. Claiming Tyler Ennis, which is huge, if true. That would be something you want to get done earlier. Are we bringing on Ports on or are we doing Ennis right now? Well, Ports, he's coming on. We're just waiting for him to be in the waiting room. So we're kind of hanging until. Do you want to talk, Tyler Ennis?

Yeah. Oh, well, look at that. Speak of the devil. So joining us, Aaron Portsline from The Athletic. Aaron, we're going to jump right in here with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Big move this weekend, obviously. That's sort of understating it. This is probably one of the biggest trades in Blue Jackets history.

I want to start with what's coming in. So Patrick Laine, Jack Roslevic, who was actually extended today. What are your thoughts on the return for Pierre-Luc Dubois? And then we'll get into the Pierre-Luc Dubois situation. Yeah. Well, I think first off, it's an impressive trade by Jarmo Kekalainen. It's an impressive trade really by any GM who has to make a trade, if you know what I mean. He was in a really unenviable position.

I mean, that's when vultures start to circle when you've got a guy that wants out of town. and not only it not only wants out of town but it's pretty clear that this can't continue that that the situation just cannot be rectified it has to be dealt with so the fact that he was able to bring back line a roslovich i think just in that respect today is a heck of a return i think the trade works for columbus two ifs obviously line a signs long term that's a huge boost to the Blue Jackets. And I find it impossible, really, that Jarmo Kekalainen pulls this trade off without some indication from line A of what he's looking at, what it would take if he would even consider Columbus before he makes this trade. In fact, he may have been

granted permission to speak with line A before the trade. They had two or three teams still in the works Friday night before they actually settled on this one. The second part that I think holds promise in this trade for the Blue Jackets is Roslevic. He's a Columbus kid. So that's great. That's a really good story today. But he pushed that, the emotional part, off to the side. If he's able to be a middle six forward, which I think he can, if he's able to be a top six forward, which the jury's still out on that, if either of those come true, this is a really good trade for Columbus um those are two ifs those are the first one's not a small if um but I think considering the circumstances it's an incredible return for Jarmo Kekalani and the

Blue Jackets Aaron do you get a sense of who else was in on this we heard Montreal yeah because of the obviously the the Quebec connection and they're going to be in on there's always going to be rumors about when the Quebec player goes up um who who else was in and what else was on the table what was montreal offering i had heard maybe vegas what did you hear well the two teams that i heard last in the running with along with winnipeg ranheim and montreal and you know neither one of them have a line a for sale um and i i think what pushed it over the the line would have been the conversations they had with lining um the willingness to to perhaps sign yeah the combination from anaheim and montreal probably will probably would have had a larger futures

component in it and less of a today component to this trade i know yarmulke klein and he likes the makeup of this team and thinks this team this group of leaders has a run in them he thinks that they've got a run in them they haven't done it yet um the last thing he wants to do is take away anything from this year's team with the for future promise because this team needs everything they can get right now so one of the things i saw or at least coming out of winnipeg uh you know line a wants to play with this center or that center and then it gets traded to the blue jackets who are now trading probably their best center that's right who would you expect patrick line a to play with uh once he starts actually playing well i think the clear choice i don't think it's

a perfect fit i mean we'll see i think max domey's the the clear choice i mean i don't think i don't think anyone believes Roslevic's ready for that to roll with line a or that probably would have happened in Winnipeg um I don't I mean Texier is a young player that they're very high on he's a playmaker and they moved him to the middle they took a look at him the first couple weeks of this season I'm convinced it was to prepare themselves for the departure of Dubois so I think he still stays there but I think I think it's Domi to start I think Texier and are going to get a chance to to both play and maybe fight for ice time in the number two spot but for now i think the clear choice is domi who was pretty fired up today

after practice i have to tell you i can imagine he's an excitable guy yes so so aaron i mean the one thing that we can't seem to figure out we just discussed it before this before you join us about half an hour on the leadership situation in winnipeg and the fractured room that they've had uh for years now you know it's been rumored for two three years um what about Pierre-Luc Dubois this seems to be the biggest question mark why all of a sudden what happened between October and now was it something that happened in the bubble do you get a sense of exactly why he wanted out of town because it did seem to come out of nowhere yeah of course the easy fallback is torts always right and we have visible proof we've all seen it

of the two of them not exactly jiving. I've been told, and we've said from the minute this started to fall apart or at least become public that he wanted out, that both the player and people close to the player have insisted that this is not a Tortorella issue. Sure, there are times where the kid would like to be away from him, but this is not a situation where the player said, I can't play for that coach anymore, get me out of here.

That is not what happened here. Yarmulke Kalani, the GM, who's had some interesting go-rounds with contracts and kids, especially guys coming out of their entry-level deal, he insists that this was not a situation where the player became so frustrated with the negotiation process that he asked out. They had a long-term deal, eight years on the table. I'm told $64 million over eight years. I don't know how you say no to that. Oh, wow. Right. What?

points especially for a guy with 159 career points like wow right and at some point of all i get from the from the dubois camp is that at some point during the prolonged negotiation the player had time a different perspective to look at things and determine that he didn't want to be in columbus or he didn't want to be a blue jacket um long term now i think in one sense it's easier to say you want out of a city than it is to put a name on who you don't want to be around anymore or who you're mad at right because that person has a say in it too pierre le dubois uh has said that he's never going to explain that's a private conversation that will always remain quite private so we may never know why he wanted to leave columbus but the assumption that

most people have is that he didn't like the city or that he didn't like the market i don't know he bought a downtown condo over a million bucks in august you don't make that commitment if that's not a place you want to be so this is all a long-winded answer say i don't freaking know that's the hardest thing for a reporter to say sometimes but it's honest and i don't know i don't know and he is the same can i follow up with that steve before you get to your question i'm sorry just here because we love reddit uh here's the salacious rumor on reddit are you ready Oh, God. You can dispel this one. The rumor is from some guy that that there was maybe a division of political. How can I say this delicately? There are some guys who were Trump guys and guys who were not.

Pierre-Luc Dubois was clearly not. And there were some guys in the dressing room who took covid seriously and some guys who did not. and the rumor was that pld got covet and he believed it was from people maybe potentially who didn't take it seriously and we're you know we're in the dressing room with him that's the rumor on reddit can you dispel that and maybe he said okay i'm i've had enough with this team is i know that sounds ridiculous i mean i can't dispel that okay um and then but just to be clear i'm not saying that maybe it's true i'm just saying wow um same man same we said the same but i figured i'd run it by you i've not heard the covet aspects of this not the i got covet and i'm mad at you for giving it to me aspect i've not heard that one i've had twitter people

suggest because there are some guys on the team that have they're clearly of different political um um there's some Asians there are some conservatives in the room um Seth Jones Zach Berensky Nathan Gerby and but I I you know that to me is is absurd that Pierre-Luc Dubois wants out because of political affiliation but I've not heard the COVID wrinkle to this now well Reddit continues to be the bastion of truth well Reddit is last time I was on Reddit I got absolutely flamed because we brought when I worked at the Columbus Dispatch we broke the story that Nick Foligno was going to

be the next captain of the Blue Jackets and we just got killed because we weren't supposed to report that because the team wanted to announce it and I'm like like what like what do you think we do for a living it was like

on and on like really like I'll never forgive him how awful this is to ruin the surprise do you think i wear a lanyard as a tie like i'm not wearing this because i think it looks good exactly anyways well so then then the question becomes line a and tortorella yeah what's that going to be like well you know what here's my prediction so if this were just the two of them in a vacuum i'm i would agree with a lot of people who think oh yeah there'd be some there'd be some stuff there if i know anything about john tortorella and i know a little bit about him he is going to shower this kid with

praise publicly shower him with pray he's gonna love patrick liney even if he doesn't love patrick liney he's gonna love him because this is what it has to be because dubois left this new guy comes in i go back to the thomas vanek acquisition at the trade deadline where everyone's like oh god vanek and tortorella oh god this is gonna be bad and tortorella just loved vanek publicly because he's a bit of a contrarian john tortorella and what everyone thought was going to happen he was going to do he's going to be the opposite of that so i i think you know if he if he has a situation with line a then you've got alarms going off all over the place i think even if they've got some defensive zone issues which people seem to think they're going to um i don't

think we're going to hear about it because i think john turtle is going to do everything he can to to prop him up this was many years ago but steve simmons famously said on our podcast of darcy tucker when he was with the leafs um darcy said he didn't read anything from the media and steve simmons responded darcy tucker knew where the commas were I get the impression John Tortorella might be the same guy I think they're all that way like I don't think he

reads it daily I don't I don't think he reads game stories and stuff like that but they all I've really never met anybody who truly doesn't know what's out there or care and I think I think he it gets back to him and I think he reads

the stuff that he knows is coming like I think he's been reading the last couple of days maybe so there was sorry and to get back to pld for a sec uh because i wanted to ask this so he will not say why he wanted him that's private and okay i guess i can respect that what was extraordinarily public though is him playing three minutes and 55 seconds in a game and the final shift is him uh going for a public skate yeah um what was that all about and why wasn't he simply kept out of the lineup so he never played for the blue jackets after that shift that was his last shift as a blue jacket and it's not my job or my desire of course to protect or defend

john tortorella but there's not a coach in this league that that doesn't have repercussions for a shift like that right i mean you watch that shift that's not a guy whose headspace is too busy with where he's going next and what this is like that's just a that's a shell of a hockey player right there now was he right to bench him for the remainder of the game um should dubois have been out we're talking a close game against the tampa bay lightning home opener should he have been back out for the second period the third period something you know I'll listen to that but you know as a coach you cannot abide that shift and not have some sort of disciplinary action or you lose the other guys on the bench he would not have played so even if they didn't

trade make the trade with Winnipeg he was not going to be in the lineup Saturday and I my sense is he was not going to play again for the Columbus Blue Jackets. And you're totally right that there needs to be consequences for that play or whatever you call it, maybe the lack of play. But to me, it's one of those fool me ones, shame on you. I'm going to screw it up like George Bush. But this was not the first game this season that Dubois was scratched. So is this sort of, what was it, his final chance to show him and he didn't?

Well, he hadn't been scratched previously. Not scratched, benched, sorry. Yeah, he'd been benched previously. And, you know, for any player that's typically a wake-up call, I don't think they liked any of his games. The quote from Tortorella is that, you know, it started at this level and it just eroded in the five games. You know, the people close to Dubois insist that he was not playing

to to get traded that he was not um tanking to force the trade it sure looked like it um i guess i'll take their word for it but that's what it looked like because we all know what he's capable of right and and that that's again that's not a 70 shift from dubois or 70 whatever percent of who he is that's a huge departure for him and that's a you know incredibly unacceptable level of competitive spirit for any NHL guy that that trade had to happen he left John Tortorella no choice and John Tortorella left Yermo Kekalainen no choice but to act and act quickly um what's been the fan reaction obviously you get a lot of mentions uh you saw some crazy things this weekend obviously what Columbus fans like do they feel like this is a guy they really invested

in and saw as a big part of the future how what's the reaction to all of this bit well i think they're even more pissed off that they can't be in the building now because they want to they want to boo him right uh-huh i mean really if you're a guy who's trying to play your way out of town this is the perfect place perfect time to do it because there's nobody in the building um so that date whenever that happens will be circled by the locals you know that um yeah i you know i think they were really frustrated at first they were heartbroken at first they they thought it was bs that he wanted to be traded because he wouldn't really come out and emphatically say it once that became apparent i think people were heartbroken i think people here um are sort of hardwired

to be defensive of columbus um it's sort of an under appreciated underrated town in a lot of people's eyes they're defensive about that they want it to be considered with some of the great cities in this country so that hurts a little bit the reputation's forming a little bit let's not kid ourselves um but you know and i honestly i think when news broke friday that they're close to a trade with line a for lining and rostovic people at first were like there's no effing way they're getting both of those guys for him and then by the time the sun came up saturday and a trade was done i think people were pretty freaking delighted about their return to get an elite level player back i think the assumption was that dubois would go out the door and come

back for a prospect a player and some picks but not a not a guy with 40 50 goal potential and you know on a broader sense and you sort of made mention of it there we talked about in the last few years some of the players that Columbus has had acquired not been able to hang on to for whatever reason we Panarin, Bobrovsky, Duchesne, Dezingle maybe some of those guys are not guys that they wanted to hang on to but I you know there have been some big names and now Pierre-Luc Dubois who's left town what are some of the challenges that Jarmo Kekulainen faces with a town like Columbus in terms of you know selling players on it being a great place to play because everything we've heard and I've I've been to Cleveland I've been to Cincinnati I've been to

Dayton I've been everywhere in Ohio except Columbus so I don't know but where what is it about Columbus that is a stumbling block or a seeming stumbling block for certain NHL players yes I think two things Columbus Columbus surprises a lot of people because it's its national reputation does not match what many people think is its local reality if you live in it it is so you mentioned Columbus and Cleveland Cincinnati those are considered the two major spots in Ohio Columbus's population for what that's worth the population of Columbus is bigger than both of those cities combined by 250,000 people wow like that's how it's bigger than Boston in terms of city population wow that staggers people I think it's 13th or 14th in the U.S. for what that's

worth the point is it is it it's a large city with a huge university in it so you've got typically there's usually stuff going on in Columbus Ohio there's a there's a a lot of places to hang out restaurants bars if you're a 20 23 year old player this is a pretty good spot to be largest university in the country um so it doesn't have but it doesn't have a great reputation and for people outside who for years have just seen it as a as a college town most college towns are much smaller ann arbor uh lincoln right not these sprawling large cities the problem that that i think they're having it would be easier to fix whatever it is they have a player retention problem as you mentioned I think that's probably the safest way to put it because there's there's

so many ways that guys have left town or reasons that they've wanted to leave town it would be easier to fix if there was one thing that was the problem one recurring theme that kept catching them up with players but if you go through them do nobody knows what's up with Dubois or why he wants to leave maybe time will will reveal that Panarin loved Columbus Ohio he just wanted to live in new york and dreamed all of his life of being a ranger nothing there's not much you can do with that sergey bobrovsky would have lived here the rest of his life he loved columbus ohio but they weren't going to make him the highest paid goalie in the league because they had merce lincoln's and corpus allo coming um rick nash probably the most famous player in the

franchise's history he has to be traded back in 2011 12 because he didn't think that they could win here he was right by the way back then um you know you go through the list of them adam foot played his way out to go back to colorado because he just wanted to be an avalanche before he wrapped it up there are several players jack johnson wanted to be traded because he wasn't in their top six ended up the next year in buffalo should he have been in their top six that's another the podcast um so there's there's so many different reasons it's not no one has said it's so bleak there i can't stand it because it's pretty hopping city most days no one has said there's not you know nice neighborhoods or great neighborhoods it's all over the map it just it

doesn't have the ocean it's never gonna have the ocean it's not a huge new york city metro type seen like that it's not chicago like that either it doesn't have the history of toronto montreal certainly um but yeah it's they but it's a reputation that has formed and they may have to in the short term start overpaying to keep guys because if linea leaves if seth jones leaves i think i think that's the deal seth jones it's going to be really how you take the temperature of the organization and they they may need to overpay to keep both of those guys and just nip that in the bud before it starts to grow legs i i had a suspicion before the season began that kekalainen was too quiet um and he wasn't done by a long shot and this trade isn't even what i meant

um something along these lines what's he up to i i know it's difficult it's difficult now that the season has begun and everything and it's uh there's certainly more restrictions than in than in recent years but he's he's got he's got permission to spend ownership's money this year right he does yeah and they they want they want to win this is a crossroads type season this next stretch for columbus is really really important tortorella's in his last year where they go with that. I'm not sure he's back next year, frankly. Seth Jones can be extended July 1st. Nick Foligno, the captain, longest serving captain of franchise history, beloved member of the community, is up after this year. They have a goalie that they need to move soon, either

Corpus Salo or Merzlikens. They're both UFAs in two years. There's no way they can keep both of those and let one of them walk away and they've got as i said seth jones on the horizon two years out sakwarinski two years out i mean these are major foundational direction of the organization type pieces that he has to confront i.e i'm with you where this season has a feel about it to me this is another reason why he had to act so quickly where it's similar to how he behaved Kekalainen that is at the trade deadline a couple of years ago where this team is in it is in the hunt and looks like they are going to make the playoffs I think he does everything he could he can to help them and now at the top of the list of course is a rental center much like Duchesne

was you mentioned Duchesne earlier Duchesne's the guy that people talk about having left Columbus to he was a pure rental and they didn't even offer him a contract the following offseason because they deemed that he was going to be in a price point that wasn't relative to how they could use him in the lineup as a number one center and Dubois needed to be that guy so you're going to pay Duchene as a number one but you have to play him kind of as a two because he's got top center skill but he can't he can't check the other team's best players an odd fit in that spot so he walked they had no interest in keeping single but i i think they go i think he's going to be extremely active uh at this year straight line because it could be a send-off for tortorella

and perhaps felino wow holy smokes wow okay well aaron port's line uh i gotta say this is one of my favorite interviews ever. Can I throw in one question, Adam, before we go? Yeah, please. Sorry, Jesse. Yeah, of course. We thought the Buckeyes would give a better performance in the championship game versus Alabama. Do you think they're going to have enough roster turnover

and bring in enough recruits next year to get back to the national championship? Let me get my Ohio State colleagues on the phone here. Look, I mean, college football is, it's college women's what college women's basketball used to be isn't it where there's uconn which is alabama yeah and there's two other teams maybe that can play with them and then there's a the the outlier every year i mean it's the three of the four teams the same every year in college football um and one of them is ohio state so my assumption is they'll reload

and be magnificent again. Yeah. Why not? I also agree with football. Yeah, well. Aaron, Aaron Portsline, The Athletic, what a crazy weekend. Thank you for making time for us today.

Fascinating interview on just the state of things in Columbus. This was so illuminating and curious to see how it all works out, especially the Patrick Laine part. torts is gonna love him whether he loves him or not love that quote thank you for your time today this is not going to be the last time it's the first of many awesome thanks for having me guys had a good time appreciate it take care man this is a trade with a lot like sometimes trades happen you're like oh that was a big trade this is a trade with a lot there was a lot so much unpacked

the bomb was dubois was offered eight times eight yeah did we know that i didn't that maybe it's out there but i didn't know it um which uh well and what's funny is it gels with the thing he just said um you know the blue jackets potentially bring him back matt duchesne well they would never bring him back for that dollar amount uh for that role that dollar amount was eight million that's what he signed in nashville for and that's what they offered dubois and they've given johansson and duchesne that and neither are the pure number one they were hoping oh yeah because johansson he got extended and traded yeah yeah oh boy it is well anyway and what's funny i i go uh you know i i the exchange was basically are columbus going to be big sellers

are big buyers and he said yes right like there are so many it's columbus because of the realities i guess of the of the team it's not a small market but they operate that way yep yeah you gotta kind of make the best of their windows so even though you could look at this season as well you could trade Merzlikens, and you can trade Wierenski, and you can trade Jones. If they wanted, they could get a King's Ransom for a bunch of the bigger guys on their roster,

but you also got to go for it. You have a bit of a window, and you know the window's closing. If you trade these guys and you're bad, well, you knew that anyway. You might as well be all the way bad, I guess.

Isn't this the best year to be bad also? It's not going to affect gate, and you also have the excuse that oh it's a pandemic you know yeah if you have a bad season this year but you just got patrick linea right but you can also just trade patrick linea it's boy i don't know what the right answer is but yeah it's true they do have a player retention problem and sometimes there's reasons sometimes not so much put it this way they sure seem to get unlucky a lot yes yeah like we said with cabbie sure seems to get unlucky a lot well you know you make uh leafs take the flames three to two uh strong game again for the leafs who now

sit second in the division with the canadians not lost a game in regulation what's interesting and i'm going to read this directly from chris johnson's article on sportsnet.ca it was our this is from keith sheldon keith it's our seventh game in 12 days and traveling out here and then having to play at a two o'clock time it's a tough ask and then you're playing against a rested team this one we we felt would not be pretty now it wasn't it was not a pretty game uh and eric francis i think summed it up perfectly he's like by games end the leafs had celebrated three fortuitous bounces that found the net uh to hand markstrom in the flames their first regulation loss of the season and that's sort of true that wayne simmons goal though did that not feel cathartic even

though it goes off his own skating and who cares how it goes in wayne simmons upset star bro scores toronto maple leafs amazing he that's a guy who scored a lot of goals because he was like ah it wasn't the goal i wanted though isn't that what it looked like it was his hundredth power play goal 500th nhl point that's that's unbelievable not the goal i wanted yeah you're right i guess at 500 points you can make that distinction if you go on nhl.com slash stats and you uh select seasons 2011 to 2012 through 2020 to 2021 and you select power play goals wayne simmons comes up as number three in the last decade in the last decade well nine years he's behind ovi and stamkos ovi's got 162 power play goals stamkos has 106 and wayne simmons at third is 97th i wouldn't have guessed

that in a million years pretty damn good on the power play so when stats nerd dom decision says that putting him on the first unit over kneelander is a quote choice although we did sort of talk about that last episode as well there's a stat for you dom third in nine years jesse and dom are fighting it out again jesse v dom part two coming soon uh it was take your game score and i'll show you a guy who played the game and scored am i right there dom that's sorry so that was great to see uh you know i think the best part about wayne simmons's goal other than wayne's reaction was mitch marner's that picture of him just grab him from behind that felt like vintage mitch marner did it not it did and like seven up mitch marner two guys who when they're in their best

mood seem like the best teammates on the entire planet mitch marner and travis dermot like just just completely just way to go buddy you can do it it's like almost too positive like i haven't i am halfway through my coffee you need to you need to calm down i am not 22 for all the negative stuff talking about mitch marner he leads the league in points he's number one and that's it but i'm mad i just want to know what like he's not immune from criticism but i want to know what people want what more could you ask from for the from this at 10.9 million that's what i want and he's doing it though but he is have you seen any criticism for me have you seen any criticism i'm the one who's doing that drum all season

i said it a few games ago mitch marner looks like a man possessed he does this is what we last year that um the tavara's goal to the game winner against the oilers but but it's a tip from a marner shot um i'm sorry i don't think there's many players in the league stare down leon dry sidle uh in that position and go i'm gonna wait him out like i can't i cannot believe he did that i can't i can't believe dry sidle played it the way he did but mitch marner like it's hockey iq are you saying mitch marner is good at hockey because he is and they're paying him to be good at it and he's been great but in like brave like like he saw the play unfold and he went i'm gonna beat dry saddle here and then he did the swagger is back the swagger is

back it feels like it doesn't right yeah we haven't seen this since his contract here that's how it feels we could be wrong he had a good year last year but it you know his hunt was at 100 points that he got with Tavares in the first year? It was 90-something. It was absolutely ridiculous. Well, I'm forgetting Tavares had 47 goals. Yeah, pretty crazy. And then the next year, he changes to play with Matthews

who had 47 goals. Now, Mitch Marner becomes the third fastest Leaf, by the way, to hit 300 points ever. Wild. Pretty amazing. Okay. Who were the other two guys from the 30s? I don't know. I would think it was Charlie Conacher, and I can't remember

the other ones. And boots buckle. Sprague Leghorn. Billy McPherson Williamson. Now, this tweet, I think, is a direct shot at the cross the bow at Steve Dangle. Are you ready? Oh. Now, just for a little bit of context here,

what happened between the love of my life, Jack Campbell, and Matthew Chuck? What happened? jack campbell was in the leafs net doing what he does best and that was stopping pucks and while the puck is in the offensive zone preparing meals for the less fortunate he is that is how perfect he is oh he's looking up from the sandwich he's making going mitch you're doing great and then he gets back to it and when the puck comes the other way he goes puts his gloves back on and then he makes the big save he is absolutely perfect matthew kachuk pulls out a knife

not actually sorry i can't even go to his feet two knives he strapped him on his feet because he's crazy let's say i hate he he carved i hate kids into the knives one of the benefit of having two is you can carve one with the other but it was anyway i can't even go along with a bit matthew could chuck pulled the pulled the keith primo falling on purpose uh to perfection i've fallen and i can't get up he was and he and he was on top of jack campbell shoved viciously by t.j brody he was not at all not even please watch with your eyes um he fell on jack campbell and it sure looked like he intentionally lifted his knee and drove it into Campbell I don't know if it was his head or his neck or his shoulder it didn't look comfortable is what I'm trying to say

and I guess in the words of the great Jesse Pinkman he can't keep getting away with it but he sure seems to now let's have a look at this tweet and I before I before I tell you who because it's a well-known person no read berkshire's tweet no it's not berkshire's tweet it's not berkshire's tweet no pull up berkshire's tweet jesse can you pull up berkshire i don't even know what he was and this one i saw i'm like oh this is about this is about steve for sure this is your regularly scheduled quote another canadian city is pissed off about his bullshit reminder that matthew kachuk rules all the drance tweets almost yeah i don't know i don't know it could have been i know it was it probably wasn't but

it still kind of made me laugh sorry here's here's the berkshire tweet happy okay leaf's twitter is very upset about kachuk falling on campbell which looked pretty bad uh but was also kind of funny because it was so cartoony the level of upset reminds me of when gianta smoked reimer and leaf's twitter thought gianta purposely clipped him uh with his back elbow now i'm on berkshire's team here i think people are overreacting and by people i mean stephen oh you're right this is why i don't do night of videos that it's not just sleep it's i i need to sleep on it um so maybe took it a little too far but i will say this it's a dirty play for sure yeah that's what he does yeah but i don't know

if that means he rules like like i think it rules to see toronto teams get their get their goalies head kicked in is what you're saying it does i mean you got to understand from out like how much do you love seeing the houston astros lose even though they made it all the way to the finals how much do you love seeing new york yankees be less successful i mean that's what we're talking about right everybody hates us oh pest does something bad to big bad team like yeah come on we knew this was coming big bad team who is also pathetic yeah but we're still we're still the big bad boys you know i guess man but past like the bear here okay so i've been i think there's three schools here and the leafs have only played four teams which one can i drop out of steve which wow all

of them adam you can drop out of all of them it's your favorite thing so no okay the leafs have not played every canadian team this season but we're slowly figuring out who's who and here is the theory that i came up with as soon as the season began and we're seeing how it's gonna switch habs fans hate the leafs oilers fans hate leafs fans canucks fans hate leafs coverage interesting now you'll notice the flames aren't in there because i for some reason like i don't know i've been doing this for quite some time and even when it's got like heated and cadre you know made that gesture to gianta and he got suspended for it uh like it was still just kind of like ah we don't like you ah we don't like you right back ah we'll see you in four months like it was it was

never heated really ever so last night i was like i don't even know what to do with my hands because i've never been mad at you before like it was like i was like half a flames fan for a while who wasn't cheering for them in 2004 everybody right yeah everybody when the Leafs had fighting fans and Oilers fans but when the Leafs had fun enough were Flames fans uh kind of cheering for the Leafs because that was their that was their boy or was it like we hate you because you used to play for us I don't remember I was in Calgary and FNUF was was traded like I got to Calgary after the FNUF trade yeah oh they hated FNUF they hated him okay I didn't know I hated him oh okay loser we loved you then you're a loser yeah we'll take you in white thank you very much

um staging who played for eight million years afterwards there's no question uh he played more games as a flame than a leaf i can't believe that's crazy felt like he was a leaf forever um uh so i actually remember one of my favorite tweets coming out of the lockout and this is terrible this is a long time ago it's like oh my god the teams are back nobody tell matt staging uh that was a flames fan tweeted that yeah it was mean he played on like he played six more years so like whatever but the um the thing is with the flames is there's never been a reason for toronto and calgary to hate each other because i mean really they never play like you know edmonton edmonton's the smaller of the two cities even in alberta so they already hate the flames they've

got a little bit of that we're gonna fight everybody sort of mentality right and calgary's like laissez-faire yeah yeah edmonton okay fine we don't like vancouver when i was in calgary the team everybody hated was it was there was like a grudging respect for the oilers they hate the canucks well capital h they had won back-to-back president's trophies true when you were there so this whole country hated vancouver like remember the tweet from the la king's twitter account that used to be the big thing no hey the rest of canada you're welcome and canucks fans were so upset and the rest of the country was like i get it thank you yeah who cheers for goliath nobody nobody you're supposed to cheer for david but but calgary and toronto are fighting over goliath

and montreal is out here doing it like they're number one i mean right now six seven games in So I mean, no, no disrespect to the Montreal Canadians here, but this is, this is a problem with early in this season in particular, just the way the schedule is gone. I'm, I'm watching what Montreal did to Vancouver and I'm like, are the Habs really good? Are the Canucks really bad? Or is it both? Could be both. Could be one. Could be neither. i don't know it's it's very interesting but it's it's funny that back to back to back games you go ah see habs dominating and i'm like you didn't see that they just played the same team you know what i mean yeah i don't think we're gonna have a clear answer on okay no this team's looking like the best until at least second week of february fair enough that's fair that's fair now also the leafs don't get to play the jets while they're waiting on dubois to arrive and And I think that sucks.

Oh, that is a bummer. Should be getting a shorthanded team and they don't have a single scheduled game against them. So let me ask you this, guys. Let me ask you this. Vaunted superstar, Toronto legend Tyler Ennis. The scuttlebutt, as we've mentioned a couple of times, is that, wow, he's on waivers, guys. On waivers from the Oilers. Leafs should claim him.

Because the Leafs are apparently the NHL's vacuum cleaner. we're able to just pick up everybody else's scraps no problem let's not worry about the cap let's not worry about roster spots we'll put bets on waivers who cares now let me ask you this i'm gonna run you down the toronto maple leafs lineup and even if you're not a leafs fan i think you're gonna be able to see where i'm getting tyler ennis plays what position steve he's a left-handed but i think he's right wing okay because what i've heard is that they were thinking everybody's thinking tyler ennis left wing because that's where they have an issue he can play on either wing but he actually is listed as a left winger on the oilers just there you go and i just remember i'm playing

right for the least yeah so so we got here's the top line vc matthews marner second line nylander tavaris hyman third line mckay f kerfoot simmons fourth line right now barabanov Engvall, and Spezza. Let me ask you this. Which line does Tyler Ennis actually replace an NHL player on? Now, I know that we say our left side is a little bit weaker, but VCs look good. Nylander's Nylander.

Mikheyevs look good, although sometimes his shot is weird. Barabanov, maybe? I like him, but he shouldn't have a concrete spot in the lineup. So it's either Barabanov or you take out Engvall, throw Spezza back in the middle and then you get one of Barabanov or Ennis plays the off wing

here's why Adam so you want to throw your team into cap hell and roster spot hell so you can replace your fourth line left winger I got a question when you're done go ahead I think you do it I think the Leafs do it

and I would encourage them to I think they should claim Tyler Ennis and here's why trade the look at look at the border situation if you're a canadian team essentially you have six other teams to trade with this year who who are you just willing to acquire like you're going to pay assets to acquire and they're just not going to play for you for two weeks unless you try to evoke the come on clause with old doug you know it's it's awfully difficult and now you have an opportunity to get a player for free no quarantine no nothing you never know who is

going to get hurt and when and here's the problem someone gets hurt the very next game all of a sudden how many spares you got now and then you're one more injury away from disaster so i would encourage the leafs to go and get tyler ennis because this is an unusual situation this is a player you're familiar with he's coming from another canadian team you're in alberta currently you can literally claim him off waivers and just hand him a jersey physically because he's there i i think they should claim him this is a very rare opportunity and you know we want a guy james neal's being i think he's penciled in right now on the left wing of the fourth line for the oilers just because i think he's just coming back from injury so i think they're just probably

working him in that's according to daily face off but tyler ennis once james neal moves up because you got Nuge on the first line of the left wing you've probably got James Neal second line playing with Dreisaitl and Yamamoto and then you're going to have Dominic Cahoon and Tyler Ennis so you're going to take a guy who can't stay on the not in the playoffs Oilers in their top in their top four lines well and you know we talk about he might guys has anybody watched Tyler Ennis in the last few years do we know like this guy's no offense to tyler ennis this is a guy with serious back problems already which he rehabbed in toronto he was okay here he was okay he was pluggable now i understand that it was in the babcock era i get it i get it i get it but what role is tyler ennis

going to play on this team a little penalty kill you need pluggable guys though that's the problem they have pluggable guys though how many nick patans does this team need adam never enough I know you have a child, but what is your thing against protection? There's a taxi squad. There's a taxi squad on this roster. You can scratch guys. What is against just having a warm body just in case in this COVID season you need a warm body to plug in your lineup?

Tyler Ennis is a free warm body sitting there for the least to claim without giving up anything. You claim them. Do we have the room? Do we have the roster space? Do we have the cap space? If they do, they'll do it. I'm not the capologist here.

If they have the room, they should do it because you can throw them there and just have it sit. The players on your taxi squad don't count against the cap. They can just sit there. And then if anything happens, you have that protection and Tyler Ennis to put in your lineup. If the Leafs claim him, he has to be on the roster. If he goes to the taxi squad, he's got to go through waivers.

by the way the Leafs are among the top teams in the NHL what are the chances that the Leafs put in a claim for him and some other other team hasn't already so that's still I believe it's still based on last year's standings so there's their middle-ish of the package and then they don't get them then like nothing's gone nothing didn't gain anything didn't lose I think I think you have to have in my opinion you got to know what you have with the guys that you have Tyler Ennis is not going to be a difference maker on this team guys he's not you can't tell me that he's better than is he that much better than Travis Boyd Nick Patan Dennis Maligan what if two of those guys get injured what if if you have to protect yourself against what if you claim what

has happened I think you claim them literally just to claim him and if you have to throw him back on waivers who cares exactly who cares you you could you can literally use them for these three more games in Alberta and then be like, we can't do it, and then throw him back on waivers and you've got three free games. Steve, this man has a family. This man has a family.

And you're going to throw him off the roster for a week and then throw him back to waivers? He doesn't have to go anywhere. He's got to do three hours of driving, I'm pretty sure, and that's it. Tyler Smith could be a leaf for three games and then go back to Edmonton and be an oiler again.

Tyler, pack both jerseys. you can literally do that you could you could uh spezza uh he cleared waivers i can't remember what the situation with barabanov is or engvall um they have some flexibility here though um i think they do it i think they should do it it's a rare opportunity all right free guy guys free guy i can't wait till the 2021 stanley cup is awarded and there'll be nobody in the stadium stadium it'll be the leafs you know winning by the way be the leafs they'll play it in tampa it'll be 22 000 that's true and it'll be that miley cyrus tiktok tailgate tailgate thing for 22 000 frontline workers uh which is an actual thing by the way they're doing

a tiktok tailgate with miley cyrus at the super bowl this year for health care workers yeah and and for frontline workers don't forget that part that is important uh really long title sure is so so when they hoist that cup in tampa bay right after the tiktok tailgate with miley cyrus for frontline workers and they get on the mic and john devaris is the he's the guy's holding the cup he's the toronto guy who's the first guy he passes it to it's gonna be tyler you know this is the part on smith winner tyler ennis adam if it's gonna make all the difference in the world is tyler ennis okay the leafs win the cup of tyler ennis you're not allowed to celebrate there that's not the way it works not the way it works this is the part where i make

adam feel bad so myrtle jumped in the conversation today and he was like oh i wonder if the leafs do it because ennis was a popular teammate and he was and then i remembered a story uh that i've told this before austin matthews would frequently visit sick kids hospital unannounced and his tag along for many of those visits to sick kids hospital was tyler anis like nobody said he was a bad guy and adam said he's a bad guy i'm on your side steve but that's not adam said he hates children also he racks up a ton of assists he must be a good person that's that's what i remember you saying scores but assists on a bunch of shit yeah i never heard you say that i never heard you say that you hate uh hospitals in general you don't believe in them adam i wouldn't i wouldn't

do a tailgate for frontline workers that's for sure adam is a x adam is a next level conspiracy theorist you you like anti-maskers no he's anti-hospitalers he doesn't believe wow he thinks we're a conspiracy like the birds birds are fake was adam the joker pressing the buttons to blow up all the hospitals it's not q anon it's q adam okay so just get it right next time cnn okay you with that the horn thing on your head all right all right so a couple of last minute things before we get to the press conference because we do need to have time for that i was going to get into some standings around the league but we'll save that question for next time to follow up on the babcock conversation from last episode steve simmons and this is one of those moments where

you're like wow my arch enemy and i completely agree with each other steve simmons had a quote today jesse i told you i was going to throw this to you because you have the clip you have the thing in front of you read for us what steve simmons take on the babcock piece on the athletic what did he have to say about mike babcock yeah so this is in his sunday piece i am saying that because I was delaying in pulling up the quote. Here it is. Mike Babcock's next job should be university professor. He could teach revisionist history.

Babcock peddled a bunch of truths and half-truths to TSN's Pierre Lebrun in an exclusive interview the other day. If this was written as a book, it would have been termed fiction instead of nonfiction. And really, Babcock has to give up on the I am a mental health advocate platform when there would be a long list of former players

who would gladly disagree with that claim. The Marner family was so upset about Babcock's treatment of Mitch and aren't happy with Babcock peddling the all is well mantra that if you go back, Marner's father refused to go on the dad strip one season with the Leafs. The reason, he didn't want a thing to do with the coach

and that kind of behavior is pretty rare. Babcock begins with NBC on Sunday, who also added former Leaf Dominic Moore to their panel for this season. When Moore played for Babcock, or better yet, didn't play for Babcock, he had little use for the coach. Now they're teammates on NBC. Speaking of NBC, this is the last season for the NSB. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, NBC Sports is shutting down. That's the end of the quote on Babcock. So, hard to disagree. And I didn't know that about the – I did know that Mitch Marner's mom was the one that made the trip on the on the dad's trip. I remember that. But I and I do remember in the contract negotiations, there were rumors about the Marner family saying, well, you screwed us on the bonuses and you didn't treat him treatment particularly well. Now, what was publicly available to us at the time was he demoted him to the fourth line for a little bit. That's all we knew. But now that all the information that you have right now, that this is all comes out, you kind of go, well, that changes the picture.

just a little bit doesn't mean i agree with all of their tactics but i can understand the reasoning for sure i get it i'd be mad too so um and i i i have to agree with steve simmons i don't think you can be mental health advocate until you show some receipts here man it was a little harsh i think his wording was oh i well i don't know if there's any love loss between the two of them yeah he's not known for holding back but would you not agree like if i mean i it's hard to how do you take a guy seriously well here's here's the thing he's absolutely right to call him out and we did too last episode so then what do you do actually don't take care of yourself well no you should take care of yourself

no like well exactly like what do you it just might be that there are people better suited for that position fair totally but like should even if there is some hypocrisy there shouldn't he steer people in the right direction yeah mental health wise i don't listen i think the conclusion we're probably going to come away with uh after not too long is maybe it's not time to have him on that just yet um or potentially ever depends you ask um people aren't willing to forgive and forget with this guy uh tortorella you know i don't know if it's this guy or this action no i think it becomes this guy when it's a body of work well that's what i mean though it's these actions i guess is it better it's right it's not like it's a goal he's got a hateable face man mike

babcock had a parade when he came in here you know it's not like people have been unfair more than fair for many years and it's hard it is it's a good point i think it's hard to take someone seriously when there's a history of this isn't good it is i think what what to come away with uh you know okay oh he shouldn't have the job well he's got it now so like adam said uh now it's about receipts it's not about rehabbing his image it's about doing the right things right you know 100 so um he's got to go out and get some receipts now this weekend we heard about the unfortunate uh and really sad passing of the greatest captain the toronto maple leafs have ever had george armstrong um and christina rutherford did an incredible piece at sportsnet.ca

that you absolutely must read and actually the sportsnet tribute to him was amazing too um and just kind of discuss what a um you know what kind of a humble man from humble origins uh grew up wanting to be a leaf um you know you know a canadian that was you know his one side of his family aboriginal the other side irish um that's a very canadian story in and of itself especially in you know early early century or early last century ontario um and this guy kind of rose up through the ranks and worked his way onto this team and was captain for 12 years and four stanley cups unbelievable you know this is a team with 11 total he is four of them uh i think first and i want to say only leaf to ever play parts of four decades with the team because he

began in 49 and ended in 70 yeah so steve dangle with that you uh you wanted to talk about something obviously because there was something there's a change that you want to make in your life because of this yeah so my jersey number is 10 um and the the real answer for why it's always been 10 is i never had a jersey number growing up because i didn't play so you know my wife wanted me to get a or my wife wanted to get me a dangled jersey um you know in our first year of dating or whatever it was started dating 2007 march 2008 comes around my birthday so it was my our first first birthday together she wanted to get me a jersey and she got dangle on the back and then she was talking to our dear friend justin fisher noted wayne simmons fighter justin fisher that's right um i

was there and uh she's like i don't know what number to put um so she asked me um you know who whose jersey do you want and i tried to pick a leaf that i thought was going to be a leaf for a long time so i said alex steen i was wrong he was traded six months later but alexine's number was 10 so from oh you know what it was it was fisher convinced her don't get him a steen jersey put 10 and dangle so that's how i got dangled 10 it was a complete fluke after alex dean the only other leaf to wear it in my time making videos was brad may he wore number 10 uh and it hasn't been worn for quite some time george armstrong was honored many years ago his jersey was retired a few years ago once it was retired that's when it started to feel weird wearing 10

i'm like okay this is his and like james van reams like changed his number before the game to give salming is 21 you know what i mean now with armstrong's passing it doesn't feel right at all um i don't need to wear 10 so i thought about it i was like what numbers mean something to me and i i want to go with 20 it is actually the number that george armstrong wore when he came into the league uh i didn't know that actually until i started doing some research it was the year my son was born i know a lot of people didn't have a very good 2020 but i'll always look back on it uh fondly for for that reason anyway and number 20 is not retired it's been worn many times frank corrado most notably um it's time time for a jersey change so i already

ordered it and i'll pick it up when it's ready dan gilet number 20 yeah looking forward to it and i mean really who cares uh the george armstrong story though if you're a leaf fan boy there's a guy that you need to know something about he is it's pretty incredible and it harkens back to a time when the leaves were actually pretty successful super cool yeah i don't know what that was like he's in all the pictures we are running out of time but let's do a quick press conference shall we uh one thing that broke just before we were recording is that john chayka was suspended through the rest of this year what so by who by the nhl so i'm gonna read this coyotes thing i'm gonna read this release from the uh nhl it's the article on sports then uh the nhl has

suspended former arizona coyotes general manager john chica through december 31st as part of its ruling on a dispute over his departure from the team last summer per elliott friedman the league sent a memo to its team about this decision saying chica engaged in conduct detrimental to the league breached his obligation to the club and was properly terminated by the club on july 26 the coyotes issued a statement saying that chica quit on the team and that the club was disappointed by his decision in his own statement chica said he left the team due to a situation created by ownership shortly after the split uh friedman reported that coyote's owner um had asked batman to adjudicate the divorce to clarify some contract issues between the two parties

that issue appeared to be that issue appeared to be whether the team allowed chica to pursue another opportunity freeman reported about uh one month before the divorce another nhl she reached out to the coyotes asking for permission to speak to chica about the job the request was initially denied but later permitted and an offer chica couldn't refuse was made uh the coyotes made it clear the title's general manager or president of hockey could not be involved to prove that chica was not making a lateral move and then his tenure came under to uh more scrutiny on august 6th when and the Coyotes acknowledged they had violated the league's terms with their conduct during the last combine testing.

Right, where they tested a bunch of players where they shouldn't have. So I thought that was very big news. So what I'm unclear on is, did they suspend him for how he left the Coyotes or suspend him for how he handled the Coyotes? No, it's for the termination of his contract with the Coyotes. So whatever happened in there, the NHL did their research on that, and they've determined that he needs to be suspended

for the rest of 2021. Now, is he not, like, that's not the calendar year, though, right? Just the season? No, the calendar year. Whoa. The year of 2021, he will be suspended until December 31st, and he cannot partake in any operations until January 1st, 2022. Is he not with the Devils currently?

Yeah, I think he is. Yes, so he is suspended. Boy, 11 months. That's serious. Yeah. There's going to be more that comes out on that. I want to know more about that. Friedman says he has not seen the full document yet,

but they have released that he has been suspended for his breaking of the relationship with the Coyotes through the rest of this year. They're sending a message. People break contracts in executive jobs all the time. It happens in the NHL all the time. This is the NHL dropping the hammer on somebody who thought, I can get out of line here.

They do this from time to time where they, it's almost like what happened with the Caps, right? The punishment, sometimes you feel like, Well, that doesn't fit the crime. It's it's a precedent setter. It's one of those where they're like, we're going after this before someone else tries it. That's what it feels like to me. But I got to read the article, too. Maybe. I mean, I don't know how underhanded or bad or whatever. I'd like to see that document. Wow. I want to I want to read when the people smarter than us get their hands on the actual release, like the full document of the suspension from the NHL. And when they read it, I want to read that article. Yes. Agreed. Agreed. Now, quick press conference, Steve. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Steve.

Sure. Well, I did just want to mention I had a lot of fun watching hockey this past weekend, not just the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I watched a little bit of NWHL on Twitch. I watched the Toronto Sixes' first game, a frustrating 3-0 loss in which they outshot their opponent 40-19. I thought that was very Toronto. And then the next game, they score the first goal in team history. They get a 5-1 lead and lose 5-6 in the shootout, which I thought was also very Toronto. So I'm hoping Digit and that Boston ownership group

knock a little bit of the Toronto out of them so that I can not cry about a Toronto hockey team just once. But it was so much fun. I highly recommend, not just for the entertainment value, but it is such a different experience watching hockey on Twitch with that chat going absolutely ballistic with people donating subscriptions and JT Brown was in there doing a ton.

I saw, who did I see? Steph Driver, a bunch of others. It was really, really fun. And it's free. It's just a click away. So NWHL on Twitch. And can't wait to watch the Toronto Six actually win a game.

The games are back at it tomorrow. This question is from Andrew Cook. Andrew wants Adam to take a plate and eat some crow. There's been a couple of questions like this that read, when will Adam admit that he was wrong about Montreal being overrated? We're six games in. What? I also picked them to make the playoffs.

But when everybody was hype on Montreal, you came on here and you said. I said, I'm not sold. That's all I said. So everybody's asking, is Adam sold? No. They've played six fucking games, guys. What am I going to try games? How many games?

40. 50. Are you kidding me? They finished 24th last year. Or sorry, 23rd. 23rd. No, it was 24th. Was it 24th?

Oh, even the Blackhawks were ahead of them last year. Pump the brakes. I still think they're going to make the playoffs. And they do look like a much improved team. I mean, really. Of course they do. They look great. they do so was i picked them to make the hype warranted the hype is we don't know

come on ecro six games you're a montreal canadians fan your your standards got to be better than six games man you gotta you have 26 cups or whatever it is 25 like you gotta have a higher standard than six games to get some guy from toronto to admit oh the hype was real come on funny i'm i'm looking at i'm looking at uh their season so far so they got a 5-4 overtime game a 5-1 win 3-1 win 6-5 shootout loss 7-3 win and a 5-2 win and i'm like boy that reminds me a lot of how the least win games and now the leafs are five and two they have an excellent record but they're not scoring as much and people are upset about it it's listen you need to see more teams no you're not but a lot of people ah they just don't seem right and i'm like this is the best they've looked

defensively in five years what are you talking about um i just feel like you need to see more and like again i said second week of um i said second week of february we're still not going to know uh what the habs are made of because they got a few days off then they got to play two games against calgary and then they're right back to play in vancouver again they're not going to see their fourth team of this vancouver's been bad they've been booty they're not gonna see their fifth team of the season until february 4th when they play shows this week vancouver would be uh a big big chunk of one of them i hope we can make time for vancouver and thursday show because there's a lot going on and maybe that maybe that changes this week with vancouver's games but i

don't know um let me just throw this at you too with montreal as it pertains to montreal um uh They, to me, look like the most improved team this year in the NHL, without question. But the thing is, what they haven't seen is any injuries. And I think you're going to see it. The Leafs have already seen it. There's other teams that have seen it. I'm not seeing big injuries out of Montreal.

Good. That's a good thing. But you really do get to kind of test the mettle of a team when some big players do go down. So I'd like to see what exactly they have depth-wise. I've got people on my Twitter mention saying, well, look at Montreal's depth. what are you talking about their their best players are playing what are you talking about

scorry perry he got in the lineup and then he scored yeah it's in his name yeah he crowed and he was on he crowed and he was on waivers the week before is there something i'm gonna when are you gonna apologize for calling him the worst player in the league well listen we all know cory perry wanted to come to toronto we do know that we don't know that we we kind of think he's in his favorite city sure uh next question comes from sean red why is jimmy vc in the top six i don't understand why people are hating on him yeah like things are going well scream top line player jimmy vc is what you want tyler ennis to be better and probably more consistent jimmy vc's it by the way outside of last year look at jimmy vc stats guys an 18 goal score and you laugh at

that 18 goals is not a joke it's okay it's listen can you be big and in front of the net and if i give you a wide open opportunity can you bury it he's had two wide open opportunities he's buried both so that's good he had a great screen a daryl voice assist um on the matthew's goal ended up being the or no that was the muzzin goal sorry uh so first goal of the game uh he kills penalties a little bit like no he's not a superstar for sure but like considering what's happened to the Leafs left side he's doing his job I'm not gonna hate on him until he's not doing his job anymore you needed somebody with some finish on the third line that could jump into the first or second due to an injury and look what you have yeah he can I mean he's not as fast as

but he's got a better shot like oh my god if Mikheyev could shoot if he could shoot yes I'd be right there with you offering to drive vc you know somewhere anywhere but the top two lines so i can put mckay of there but oh my god oh my god mckay i was driving me nuts man uh last question jess uh last question uh will adam say something nice about the montreal canadians oh wait we already covered that i was like uh oh wait here's another question when will adam admit the canadians are good oh here's another question uh tell adam the habs are great uh do you want more questions man i wasn't the i does down goes brown get this kind of shit because he wrote an entire article for a publication about this here's for the athletic here's the difference i don't think

he cares uh okay man what were we wrong to be to speculate that a team that finished 24th last year don't say we who's we i don't know who he is me and my people french my people's we who's i don't know wow why were you guys out here waving the canadians flag going they're gonna win we didn't come in here with an agenda jesse you didn't even make the predictions because i forgot to ask so i don't even know where you stand on this you can't play this game for the last question can you do uh steve can you do a breakdown on why the leafs don't have a goalie controversy because we did get a lot of questions about how uh great campbell looked yeah and you know who else has looked great uh is frederick anderson isn't it great and do we not

know how to handle having two good goalies do we forget like is curtis mcclainy a thing of the past like we we forgot all about that like it was two seasons of hutchinson being brutal and garrett sparks being all so brutal it was just before that McElhinney gave the Leafs all the saves we wanted or at very least a chance to win every single night Jack Campbell's doing that for the Leafs super worth it trade so far and Freddie Anderson in the games he's played listen rough first two games rough first two games outside of those first two games the Leafs haven't had game three game four game five game six game seven five straight games of good goaltending jack played two fred played three it's good stuff it's good stuff guys this is not a bad situation

please stop making it into one it's a goalie controversy if freddy consistently plays like ass and jack consistently plays good if they're both bad it's not a controversy it's a problem so if they're both good then it's just good it's not a controversy it's just good it's just good news celebrate what news guys what if it's too good why can't we just screw it up you know what you're right what are we doing here enjoying this bullshit five and two to start the season what is this shit terrible anyway that's what i have to say go canadians wow so it finally comes out hate hospitals loves the habs i mean really wow well okay there you go i see wow wow anyway hey listen we love you uh we'll be back thursday with our next show uh leaves next play calgary

tomorrow night in calgary um uh hopefully uh daniel uh daniel sorry matthew chuck that's another is there a daniel there was a daniel kachuk not related to the other one uh who was drafted by the calgary flames i believe like fifth overall in the late 90s i want to say what yeah wow look them up i don't believe you yeah look them up i have something to close the show the rico fata era of the calgary flames yes go ahead jesse uh with all this winnipeg jets talk let's not forget that elia kovalchuk is the all-time leader in goals for the winnipeg jets let us not let us not forget that because the NHL was awesome what happened here this guy had 11 points in 19 games and then never played in the NHL ever again yeah well he probably wasn't tough

enough didn't have enough McFist in him wouldn't stab some guy some guy with a knife two knives two knives that were inscribed with other knives wow god what a okay very interesting yeah okay well listen we're wrapping it up guys thank you so much for hanging in we love you we'll see you Thursday the Steve Dangle podcast follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle

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