The Steve Dangle Podcast - Spec | December 18, 2019

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, follow us on Tik Tok: SteveDangle, AdamWyldeVids, Jesse.Blake, (00:00), who wore the crown?!? And Adam is living in his basement (07:15), Leafs beat the Sabres and Auston Matthews is still incredible (19:15), Mark Spector (@SportsnetSpec) joins the show to talk about his book, Road to Gold: The Untold Story of Canada at the World Juniors, the Edmonton Oilers, and the Phoenix Coyotes (36:44), let's deep dive the Taylor Hall trade and should the Devils burn it to the ground (1:11:00), Jim Benning and the Vancouver Canucks (1:24:15), Jon Cooper benches Nikita Kucherov (1:49:30), Thomas Chabot plays 37 minutes (1;55:45), Geno scores 400 and we look at the 2004 draft (1:59:30), and the press conference! Updates on the Christmas show schedule (2:04:50). Originally aired: December 18, 2019 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/WdNZ4CMUhhA Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Panago Pizza presents SSDPP, the Steve Dangle Podcast, with your hosts, Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake. Let's go! Oh, we're gonna go, we can talk now? Oh, hey, welcome to the show! Yeah! Jesse was up adjusting cameras, we weren't sure if we could start yet, but now we can start!

You can start any time you want. Steve's drinking coffee and water. Yeah! Really water's just being what coffee's just being water. Yeah, just drinking your being what damn We've been watching that tic-tac all that Yo, if you're not on tick-tock yet, I don't know what to tell you Yo, okay So I here's the worst part is I had tick-tock a year ago and I didn't even pay attention to it

And I registered my name But now I can't remember my login So I had to start another login They don't have a forgot my password? No Because I don't even know what email I have several emails I use Anyway I'm an idiot

So Adam Wilde Vids is my name now Because I'm an idiot I'll unfollow your poo account Well no I don't think the poo account exists I think they took it down I'm upset I was your first follower ever Wow

So I think I deserve credit for that I deserve the crown You know what? All good tricks come to an end You had a good run, Willie But you lost to a worthy opponent Jesse M. Blake What's your middle name?

Jude Isn't he the coolest name? Jesse Jude Blake? That's unfair I got Paul Good Christian boy Yeah, it's one of the saints It's awful

You got your Catholic showing The fact that he only has one Also, I feel guilty at all times Being half Italian, the fact that you only have one middle name is a shock. That is true. I mean, when you think about the backpack full of weights of middle names that Italians have to carry. Not enough Bibbidi-Bobbidi in my name. No, there isn't.

And Paolo, it's Paul. It's not Paolo. Something like that. Paolo. Yeah. Yeah, I should have been named after one of my uncles. You have an uncle Paolo? No, I have a Leonardo, a Rocco, a Domenico.

Domenico is a great name. Raphael. Isn't every Italian boy named after an uncle? A Ninja Turtle. We're all named after Ninja Turtles, and then that generation was named after them. After somebody's uncle. And now everyone from Woodbridge is named Massimo or Gianluca. And that's how it works.

What kind of car do they drive? Oh, something that they fucked with. Is there a flag on the front? Oh, my God. There's one on either side, Jesse. And the mirror. What happens during the World Cup, though? Oh, man.

It's like Leafs on the driver's side, Juventus on the right, and that's it. And the Italian flag over the front of the hood, right? And a couple of pricks with a Lazio flag. Yeah, what's that about? No one cares. Shut up. What is that? What's the Lazio flag about anyway?

I don't know. I don't get it. I don't get it. I owned FIFA 2001. That was my last one. Felipe Wanzagi, flying down the pitch. I was great. I had a Juventus jersey growing up, so they're my Italian link team.

I had an Alessandro Del Piero. Ah, there's another Italian name. I like PSG. I'm a PSG guy. Yeah. That's Paris Saint- Paul Saint-Georges. That's the French League.

Yeah, I'm a big fan. They own- Pierre Saint-Germain? Is that it? I think they're owned by some oil- They're owned by some oil barons, and they just can buy anything they want. So it's just them and everybody else. Like Eskay of St. Petersburg.

Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Well, welcome. Welcome to the show. Well, that's it for the show. Mark Spector will be on in about half an hour. To talk about how the Oilers suck! And that's it, we're going to introduce him as

Reporter on the worst team No Hey, reporter on the worst team Hey, garbage He'd be like, hey, can we not be weird about this? Sorry And also never coming back on I sabotage every show, it's my curse

No, we are going to talk to him about his new book Yes It's about the Canadians at the World Juniors And how they're good at it And Thick Boys. And damn, boy! It's about Thick Boys, yes. It is.

Is it going to talk about the collapse, though? Of the Edmonton Oilers? Well, they won their last game. No, the collapse of Team Canada when they went and won the Goals. It's more than 4-1. They only lose the gold medal game in traumatic fashion. It has to be spectacular. They can't just lose.

No. The Fleury won. The John Carlson won. Then they almost choked on a 6-1 lead Or something like that against Russia They can't just park the car The car must explode in the background too No, I was at the game where they blew the 3-0 lead in the third

I was sitting right behind Zach Kassian's family They were happy, and then they were sad What happened last year Where they finished in like 6 or something crazy? I can't remember I don't remember them being a particularly skilled team I don't think it was I don't think they had a left frontier

That they're going to have this year My super unpopular opinion is, like, that's fine. Like, Canada wins and is in competition so often that it's okay if, like, a Denmark squeaks in or a Belarus or, like, isn't, like, Britain in, not this year, but the next or something like that? Yeah, I don't care. I think, um...

Finland is, like, in the five. I want there to be, I mean, obviously I want Canada to win all the time, but also, as we've seen, it creates issues when only Canada and the United States win. In women's hockey, they almost considered taking it out of the Olympics because it was just those two. Wasn't there talk of that or something?

I want to say basketball, too, for a while. Yeah. It's nice to have some variety. Always want Canada to win. But it'd be nice if they had to play someone different every time in the game. Last year, they lost in the quarterfinals to Finland. Right. And Finland was a good team.

Who ended up going on to win the championship. Yeah. Losing in the quarterfinals? Crap. Losing to the eventual winners? Eh, pretty good. It's Finland Sure

They're legit You don't want to lose In the quarterfinals When you're Canada That's 100% true It's like the The USA This past summer

In the World championships They Lost They think they had A 6th place finish 6th or 5th In hockey?

In basketball In basketball Yeah so it's equivalency Unacceptable Yeah Yeah but didn't like Who was their best player Like half the Celtics went

Which was fun But Yeah And no one else They're rostered with NBA players. You shouldn't be losing. Canada couldn't get people out. That was a problem.

Canada had a struggle. No, they had like two people I went to high school with. Just a couple of guys from the court down the street. They do have some real NBA players coming to this year's, what is it, not the Olympics. Well, the Olympics. Well, they have to qualify again because they didn't qualify last year. It won't be just Kelly Olenek and a bunch of guys. It'll be like R.J. Barrett.

And I think they're saying that Andrew Wiggins might come in, which would be good. Hair Canada, and Hair Canada, and Hair Canada, and that's it. That's it. Hey, let's get into Who Wore the Crown. If you live generously, life will treat you royally, kind of like what Jesse did with his follow on TikTok, which became my first. Why not pour yourself in a friend of Crown Royal? Why not?

Because we're going to get into Who Wore the Crown, because it's our town, it's our crown, and let's crown a leaf that lives generously by giving it all for the team. Brought to you by our friends at Crown Royal. Live generously. Life treats you royally. Let's get into it. Steve Daigle. Awesome, Matthews.

Pretty easy. Guy scored two goals. One of them was effing disgusting, and the other one was also very, very good because it's Auston Matthews. Not enough praise is given when the guy just rips it and it goes in. You always got to wow him with a couple moves. He did wow him with a couple moves, though. It's hard to beat an NHL goalie with a wrist shot.

Yeah. I mean, what Jack Eichel did to Freddie Anderson. Jack Eichel's shot was dirty. Outrageous. Oh, gosh. You know how we've talked about, like, it's nice to get an occasional save? Mm-hmm. No, no, it was pretty good.

No, no, that was very, very good. I think people still say, you know, Freddie could have had better body positioning on that, but I don't know if there's a more perfect shot taken. Like, I don't know if you could take a more perfect shot than what Jack Eichel did. No, you really couldn't. It was right into top ched, but as the Russians say,

right in the spider's web. Is that what they call it? What is it? Like, right in the spider's web. I don't know what the translation is. It's much cooler. Because of the netting? And then their spiders are always up, right?

They're never down. I didn't even put that together. That was just a net. They get eaten if they were down, so they go up. Adam read that on a podcast. That's how that works. And he did that little thing where he shot off foot. He was on his right foot instead of his left foot.

A little trick there. Eichel's just nasty. Red foot. But enough about less good Austin Matthews. Let's talk about Austin Matthews. We scored two goals instead of one. Did you know that two is better than one? It is.

And in a game that the Leafs had to win because of playoff implications, in a game where, if you're making a poster for that game, you're putting Eichel on one side and Matthews on the other. Yeah. You're expecting them to go head-to-head. Because they're Americans, they're centers, they were drafted a year after each other. There's a million reasons.

And they're always going to be linked for their entire careers. Yep. Matthews is going to be linked to Eichel. He's going to be loosely linked to McDavid for God knows what reason. And he's getting me linked to Eichel So I give him the ground For being friggin' who he is Alright

An amazing hockey player Nope, we don't do Plur anymore We do not do Plur Plur is gone Goodbye Plur I'm going to give it to Ilya Mikheyev And I want to tell you why I want to tell you why

Not just because he had a great game last night But as you know I have to go to bed pretty early As does Jesse And what you end up doing Is like with ice surfing Like I did this morning I had both feeds going

as I was getting ready to go to work. Which one was on the big screen? Oh, Ice Surfing, obviously. Yeah, I Chromecasted that. Did you see the RA interview? Yes, I did, actually. I did see the Rear Admiral interview. He seemed like, man, what a positive guy.

Positive and legitimately drunk. You think he was drunk? What? He said he was drunk. Right off the top. He's like, I'm not on heroin, I promise. And then he shows his teeth. He's like, it's red wine.

I've been drinking with, it was like Joffrey Lupo and Sean Avery all day. And he was trying to tell, apparently there's like a Paul Bissonnette story about someone named Shitty Cindy. And so he starts the story with, oh, the shitty, I mean, sorry, Shitty Cindy story. He corrected shitty by saying shitty again. And he also dropped a couple fuckens, which was a first for ice surfing. Whatever. It's not on broadcast. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, you guys are on the internet, so you can just swear. Ha ha! So Jeff and Eric are going to be like, what the fuck is up, people? Welcome to ice surfing. Can you imagine? Listen to 31 fucking thoughts. Sports fucking net. This is mere days after I met someone at book signing and they said I was a good role model for their kids.

Hey, that's okay. Listen, it doesn't make you a bad role model because you swear. Well, actually, I said sorry for all the swearing and she goes, ah, I'm Irish. That's what I'm saying. I liked it. Right? And the Irish create beauties. So, no, I think I give mine to Ilya Mikheyev.

And the reason is that I fell asleep after the first period because I have to. I have to put myself to sleep And I woke up And I'm currently sleeping In my basement right now But that's a completely Different story

I woke up with the TV still on We haven't talked about that On this podcast No we have not talked about that But Adam's sleeping in his basement Because he's doing renovations Upstairs Yeah

Sounds fun And It's actually not bad It's pretty cool I have like a little Cool like loft apartment Going on And I've got a microwave

And a coffee machine set up It's great And no wife or baby Yeah that's also awesome So when they come back That shit's gonna suck Oh no no It'll be done

Oh what It'll be done Yeah they're done They're not back until mid-Jan, so it'll be a while. Oh, the renovators. No, no, the renovators are going to finish by the time my wife and baby are back. Your wife and baby are staying in Florida. My wife is freelance, so she's going to stay for a month with my parents, who have a place down there.

What? I didn't know she was gone that long. Yeah, I know. She's gone for a month. Oh, dude, that's wicked. Well, it's perfect. And I said, please stay down there, because we're getting renos done, and this would be bad to have around a baby. And also, I want to be Red Dead Redemption, too.

Yeah, that, too. But also, I can't stand up in his basement. But I can. My God, that's true. I can barely stand up on this page. Listen, I'm not inviting people over. I don't know how you're doing it. Oh, I'm loving it.

It's great. But anyway, I wake up with two minutes left to go. Do you cook on a hot plate? No, a microwave, man. Get the microwave. It's all I need. Cook. You're living in a dorm.

Well, okay. If you must know. This is more interesting. If you must know. Are you stressed about exams, bro? Is there a tie on the door? No, no. If you must know, I food prep the entire week before the kitchen was ripped out.

So, full disclosure, my kitchen had some pretty serious water issues, and at one point did have rats. Oh, cool. We found that out after, as we opened up the fridge and found, or not fridge, opened up the, you know, pulled it all up and found turds all over the floor, and it hadn't been done, I want to say, like, we found a calendar behind our cabinets, was from 1986, so that means it fell back there in 1986, that means that the kitchen was already done. So that kitchen is at least 35, 40 years old.

So it was time. And anyway, so we were finding that it was falling apart, and my dishwasher was detaching from its spot on the thing. And we realized that when we pulled it out, there was a previous water leak issue that didn't currently exist that rotted away the thing that keeps your countertop up. And so what happened was it rotted away, and it sort of just sat there between the fridge and the microwave. and it was only held up by the fact that the two of them pushed together, not microwave, dishwasher, and it was falling out of its spot. Anyway, we

And Ilya Mikheyev is going to come over and fix it? Ilya Mikheyev came over and he did up soup in the microwave. No, what happened was I woke up, so I food prepped anyway and I've been leaving all my food at work so I eat my food and I bring it home. I like this part of the story because now you understand how this man is living.

Oh yeah, squalor. Other squalor. Exactly. His house is falling apart and covered in rat shit. And he's living under it in a basement that he can't stand up in with his TV and dogs. And his 1986 calendar. I brought the couch.

Anyway, the dogs are good. But I woke up with three minutes to go. About three minutes. It was like 3.45, something like that. In the game. In the game, yeah. And said, what? Yeah, it was 4-3 at this point.

And I went, oh my god. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to watch this. And, of course, Ilya Mikheyev does the thing that he did. And what blew me away about him was not just the intelligence of the play that he made. You know, they're down a man. Net's empty. They've got an opportunity. Like, Buffalo's got an opportunity to get in tight.

When you get in tight on the Leafs, the Leafs have a really hard time getting you away. Buffalo figured that out after the first period. Yeah, once you put the press on them down low, the Leafs are pretty easy to push around. but what he did was he kept his man high and he was aggressive enough to get in his face and make him screw up and that's what the Leafs I want to see them do that more because they have the speed to be able to force mistakes out of people sometimes you're going to get burned for it but he was able to get position wise in a spot where he could force a mistake and probably still be in position and then the the ability to chip the puck around a guy and beat him to it given

that that guy had to turn around and skate the fact is the defenseman and I forget who it was for Buffalo

didn't have he didn't have a chance Mikheyev's that fast and you don't Mikheyev knows Darlene I mean that's

even more impressive like Mikheyev is extremely fast for such a big person and you don't really get to see it all the time you don't get to

see people's you get to see their quickness but you never get to see their straight away speed and watching that

it was like wow he every stride he got you could see it get further and further

and further away. It's surprising. Yeah, yeah. Kapanen, Mikheyev, and Engvall all do things that at first glance you go, no, no, no, why are you doing that? And it's because they have the confidence. And the speed. And the speed.

They're fast, and they know how fast they are. Yes. They do things that aren't necessarily smart. Like with Kapanen, they'll ice the puck all the time because he's going to win. He's going to win the race. Yeah. And that's what Mikheyev did. Yeah, and by the way, total aside,

I thought Kapanen looked pretty good alongside Matthews and Nylander. He's the whipping boy right now. But on the fourth three goal, the goal in Buffalo that made it the three, which goal was that? The Ocpozo one. Yeah. Kapanen gives up on that play, and he's lazily skating to the net while the puck's going there, and then Matthews drifts behind.

Yeah. I can't picture it. I was too rage blackout about frigging Ocpozo, of course, after the Dermot hit. Right. I saw that, and I just didn't like that play. Oh, okay. I'll take your word for it.

That sticks in my memory because that leads to a goal. It's like, right, you can make a million mistakes, but if they don't lead to goals, then they're okay mistakes. Also, after Matthew's second goal, Kapanen looked, like, sad. On the ice, did you notice that? Yeah, he wasn't, like, jumping up and down. There he is with his cool celly, and here I am lying down. Bullshit. You rejoice, Kapanen, you're up.

He's kind of been Twitter with him. Yeah, he has, but you know what? I liked him. I liked him along that thing, but Mikheyev gets my crown. Jesse. This crown is about living generously Actually it's about Well yeah no

It's about life treating you royally too Let's not forget that Yeah life treating you royally Like when you score a goal Because someone had an amazing zone entry And was able to keep the puck on side And feed you the puck Because he is so generous

That all he gets is apples Such a Calgarian Swede Such a Calgarian Swede My crown goes to William Nylander Oh yeah For his little play there At the blue line to keep the puck onside and feed it to Matthews

because life's about living generously. And when you live generously, you feed other people the goals. It's good for him. I was surprised that he was able to get it across the line and onside. I was more surprised that he still had it. That he kept control of the puck. How did he pull that off? Yeah, I don't know.

And then feeding Matthews who just victimized Connor Sherry, poor guy. What are you going to do? I was talking about it in the video today. How do you defend that? Because Sherry is preparing for Matthews to do what Matthews does, which is rip it between the defender's legs, and that's who Sherry was. He doesn't do that. He's frozen in complete flamingo mode.

Allmark is literally falling backwards because he thought that too. He's a monster, man. He is. 21 goals. It's not even Christmas. Allmark, who had an amazing game. And allowed four goals. Hang on.

Let me jump in for a second. That's who wore the crown for this week. Brought to you as always by Crown Royal. Next time the puck drops, why not live generously and treat your friends to a Crown Royal old-fashioned. Okay, so with the Leafs. Linus Olmark always does play a good game against the Leafs. I don't know what it is. That first save was unbelievable.

On Barry? On Barry. Oh, my God. The face Barry made? Yeah. Tyson Barry was second in all scoring chances last night to John Tavares. Wow. Really?

Tavares was another guy. He couldn't buy one. No, no. And Mitch Marner was lucky to get an assist. But he seemed like a guy that if he keeps playing this way, he's going to blow people out. Like he's going to blow up. Who's this? Marner.

Oh, Marner. Marner and Tavares were on fire last night. And it was Linus Olmark that kept saying, no, no, not going to be tonight. Not against me. Not against me. But I wondered about, there was a lot going into the game about Austin Matthews. And when he's good, he's good. And when he's bad, he's not.

And it was funny because Jeff O'Neill is like, when he gives an A effort, it's an A-plus game. When he doesn't, it's a Z. And it was like, whoa, holy. I mean, it was harsh, a bit harsh. And Jeff rightly speaks in very quotable language, right? Bad guy. Yeah, like Jeff is, you cannot help it.

He's the kind of person that you walk into a room and if he's talking, everyone's listening. He just has that magnetism. He speaks like a novel. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like every sentence is kind of crafted. It's very interesting. Even though it's just blurted out of his head.

Right. Yeah, like you didn't think about it. But, you know, but he's right. And it's funny that a guy with 21 goals, Leafs fans can be and Leafs media can be so hard on a guy with 21 goals before Christmas. Here, let me. 40, on pace for 49. Yeah. Is that what he's on pace for?

On pace for 49. Damn, I was just about to do that. Oh, that's where you're going. No, I read it today. Yeah, on pace for 49 goals. Think about that. And it's funny because if you have any superstar on any team, there are nights where they're just not as good.

Like, if you watch, if you're an Edmonton fan and you watch the game against the Leafs. David, well, he almost had that one goal. Yeah, he looked good. Yeah, he looked good. He didn't look best player in the world. So there are going to be games where guys are just not the best player that they are capable of being.

Has Matthews been that too much, or are we just hyper-focusing on it? Someone left a really good comment on my YouTube video today, which was... That's right. Hey, you cuck. It was, hey, you suck and your dogs are ugly. But what under that? Have you ever gotten a comment like that?

Have you actually ever gotten a comment like that? No. Do you remember when you did the video when your dogs were good dogs and you made good picks? Yeah. And everybody ripped your dogs for picking the treats? I have only my right hand because they're stupid. And I should have done something more fair. Everyone's like, these picks aren't right.

What's the point of this video if it's not fair? They just picked from there. Shut up. Shut up. Where was I going? Oh, yeah, the comment. Matthews, so I was praising him, obviously, for having a really good game. And they said, Matthews is an elite goal scorer, not an elite player.

There is a difference. And I thought that was interesting. And my initial instinct was to go. And then I went, eh, okay, fair. At times, fair. He is, you know what, for his age, like, what is he, 22? To be 22 and already an elite goal scorer? All right, that's pretty good.

Now we're working on the elite player thing. And, yeah, he's looked pedestrian at times. Yeah, he leaves something to be desired defensively sometimes. Even on the power play where you're like, if you talk about Auston Matthews, like anybody from the outside looking in must be like, well, you know, he probably scores a lot on the power play like goal scorers do. He had 12 last year, which is fine, but out of 34 goals, it's great that he scores a ton 5-on-5.

It's amazing. That's fantastic. But imagine he was able to do that and the power play. It matters, man. The Bruins were... I'm sorry. What? It doesn't matter that much.

No. Well, the Bruins made it to the Stanley Cup final. You could argue they were the second best team in the NHL, right? But I think they were neck and neck. It was a group of about eight teams, but the Bruins just had the best power play. Yeah. They killed you. They killed the Leafs.

That was the deciding factor. The Leafs made it easy on them, though. They sent a guy with a knee and a half who doesn't take face-offs to take face-offs. No, that was the right idea. It was smart. Anyway, where I was going with that. But under Keefe, which, by the way, the Leafs are 8-4 under Sheldon Keefe. Is that good?

It's good. I noticed more of an effort out of Matthews. I kept seeing people go, can he throw a hit? He is. if you don't think matthews is trying to throw a hit you're not watching you got to watch him a little more closely he's trying and i noticed at the end of last year it was all i could talk about how matthews is trying to be more physical it's coming it's coming but he's 22 years old and he was tasked with being a superstar immediately in his nhl career yeah with a coach that he clearly

i wonder what would happen if you know austin matthews the fully developed guy at 27 gets to play with the next austin matthews but that guy's 18 and how much that guy how much leeway that guy will get because austin matthews is already the fully developed star that the leafs really didn't have up until tavaris you know what i mean i just think of all the in-season improvements like you're you're like matthews at 27 i'm like how about matthews at like 22 and tavaris at 29 how about right now how about right now how about what's going on right now well and it's it does look good and it's nice to have that hyman marner uh uh hyman marner tavaris line together again because they are they do seem like they're clicking um and with matthews i just feel like

him and nylander last year really didn't get a fair shake because nylander just wasn't nylander no and really yeah that wasn't good for matthews season either no and he still scored 34 goals yeah in an off year because he's an elite goal scorer yeah and he missed what he only played 60-something games? Yeah. Just like a month because of the Trouba hit. Yeah.

Dude, he's elite. Yeah, he's elite. So are people being too hard on him or is it impatience? No. You ask for and receive $11.634 million.

People have unrealistic expectations of you. I haven't heard people be over the moon about how good Panarin is because Panarin's making $11.6 million as well. You make $11.6 million.

Shut up and score. If you have an elite night, that's breaking even. I haven't heard anybody say, except for total idiots online, I haven't heard anybody complain about the Matthews contract, though. At times. And Panarin, by the way, has 43 points already in 33 games. Why isn't it 45? Why isn't it 50?

He's so freaking good. It's stupid. But to have the season he's having, and I don't know. I never hear anyone talk about Panarin. I never the number one guy I hear talked about on the Rangers

is Georgiev yeah well that's because you're in Toronto because in Toronto and Toronto fans want him but you feel like the Panarin season is just expected

so no one's freaking out about it yep you make 11 plus million dollars it's only it's only a story it's only a story

if he underperforms right there can't be a story where you outperform that contract it just doesn't happen unless you're Connor McDavid which cause he's kind of

yeah but even then no one references his contract No one's like like people will say well, she still steal a twelve and a half which fine Okay, you can make whatever argument you want I don't really need to debate that but you rarely hear people just naturally bring it up Whereas if you hear when you when you talked about Zaitsev in this market people be like and he makes four and a half million Dollars be like sucks sucks sucks sucks and four and a half million dollars that could go to somebody good Look at what Cody Cecius again another four and a half million dollar defenseman that people are like

Oh, and I don't hear them saying that about muzzin people think he's got about market value I definitely don't hear that about Morgan Rielly. What a flippin' steal that is. Some people are harder on him. On Morgan Rielly? He's had a tough season. IMO. IMO.

Yeah, agreed. But it's never like he's underperformed his contract. Does that make sense? Right. He's never been at least a $5 million player. Right. I agree with that. Yeah.

So I guess when you get to that level, it's just impossible to outperform your deal. And, McDavid, I don't know if you've noticed this, not on pace for 160 points anymore. Oh, what a shame. Him and Drysaddle. Who knew that 25 minutes a night would slow them down? Who would have thought having the best season since 1995 or something like that was unsustainable? Since Mary Olamu. Yeah, like Olamu and Yager.

Oh, well. We'll ask Mark about it. Yeah, I want to ask Mark about it, actually. Beyond that, the Leafs under Sheldon Keefe. Sheldon Keefe himself said he didn't think that the Leafs have become yet. They're in the next phase of it, but they've got another few steps to go before they become the team he truly envisions. And I wonder, for the first 30 minutes of last night's game, did we see a good chunk of what that's going to look like? Because until they let Buffalo back in the game, it would sure look pretty strong.

It's so different. The Leafs were playing from behind for so much of— The start of this year. I mean— 17 of 21 games? October and November. Yeah, it was ridiculous. Yeah.

Not just the first period, though. like second period third period you know final five minutes now it seems they are protecting a lead almost every single game they've won four of their last five and the one that they lost they had a lead heading into the third period the reason we talked about it so much is ah they blew it you know so that to me is that's the baby step that to me though is them getting back to what they were they were always the team that had the lead and had to defend it and struggled to do it And what I'm interested to see is how Sheldon Keefe makes them a stronger shutdown team. Maybe they just don't.

Maybe the way you shut them down is you keep pressing. Yeah, maybe that's it. I think it's unfair to ask this team to defend. That's not what they're meant to do. Anyone who watched them will tell you they were a carnival at times. They coughed up their fair share of big leads. And I remember a game a few years ago. Marlies were losing 8-4 in the third.

Neil Anders scored the overtime winner, 9-8. Because the Miners! But did they win? They won. And that's the thing. When you ask, when you were asked, what Mike Babcock was asking those players to do was things that they just were not capable of. He was trying to institute what he wanted in the last 10 minutes of the third period for the entire game. and I don't think it makes any sense to switch what you're good at

for a 10-minute period of a game to try to defend something that you've already achieved. Why wouldn't you just keep pressing them? Keep the puck. You notice Keith put Matthews out there for the hattie? Mm-hmm. He's done that a couple times recently. He hasn't had a hattie since his first NHL game.

Yeah, get out there. Well, he's technically never had a hat trick because you don't count four goals as a hat trick. You don't? The third goal is the hat trick goal. That's a hat trick. No, he passed the hat trick. No, stop it.

Austin Matthews. Stop it. You are not going to. All those people wasted their hats. Is that it? Here's a hill. I'm walking up. I'm walking up it.

Do you hear that? Now you've taken two strides right at the top. I'm about to die on it. Austin Matthews scored four goals in his first game. That is not a hat trick. A hat trick is three goals, and then that's it. What if you score six? You got six.

That's two hat tricks. You have to end the game with three goals. No, Jesse. That's how a hat trick works. No, what a hat trick. No, what Auston Matthews did was he had a hat trick. Everybody threw their hats, and he came out for an encore. And that's.

Sure. So that doesn't make. No. It doesn't negate the initial hat trick. When he had three in the game, at that point, he had a hat trick. And then he moved on from it, and now we've got four. Whatever a quad is I don't know what it's called

But if you do a quad in figure skating A top hat trick They don't say oh you did 3 plus 1 You get the triple No you did a quad So if you got 4 in the game you got 4 No one throws shit on the ice in figure skating Jesse They actually do every time

That's true I just think you finish the game with 4 Whatever number you finish with That's what you got I hope you score 4 at Easter Seals And everyone's got to get their hat back You don't take it back. It happened.

No, give it back. It happened. It's just not what you, he didn't end the game with a hat trick. He ended with four. Matthews has never scored a hat trick at the Scotiabank Arena or Air Canada Centre. Okay, he's never scored one ever in the NHL. He scored four goals in Ottawa that one time. Most reasonable people call it a hat trick.

Most do. No, because he scored four. He scored one in Toronto during a preseason game against Montreal. Al Montoya was in that Riku Coliseum. He's got to get one in that barn. He's got to get one in this building. This one. CTV.

Right now. This isn't CTV. In front of us. This isn't? This is Bell Media Radio, Sprint. Why did you call it CTV? I don't know. Because that's across the street.

No, that's the next building over. That's the next building in the complex. We, sir, are iHeartRadio Canada. Oh, which you can listen to the show on. You can. Actually, somebody did message me. And they're like, hey, I'm listening to you on iHeartRadio. I'm like, good.

That was the intention. Yeah, that's why we're on there. They're stealing our content. You can do it, man. It's like, no, we will take your podcast and also host it on our site. What? I just think it's absurd to call it a hat trick when he scored four goals. Jesse, your existence is absurd.

I'm here. I'm here and it happened. He scored four goals and it's not three, so whatever. All right. I don't like this. I'm going to leave your body on that hill. Yeah. Don't blame me.

There's certain hills I don't want to fight to kill anyone on, you know? If you're going to die on this hill, sometimes I'm like, I'm going to avoid the hill. I'm just not even going to avoid the hill. You know what? If Adam was on the beaches of Normandy, we would have left him in the sand. That's right. Wow! Wow!

I would have asked you to. If that's the hill that's waiting for me, no thanks. Yeah. Not for him. Jeans in the freezer. He'll die there. Yeah. Sleeping in an unfinished basement with dogs.

He's got lives for that. Yeah, exactly. I got time for that. Honestly You should see the kitchen I put together It's pretty sweet It's pretty sweet and I got like shelves I never want to come over ever again

You can't fit You can't come over to anything I have a big basement you just can't stand up straight in it Hey Adam if you want to come over to my House you can Ah it's okay Do you have your passport ready? Yeah I know

Go to Oshawa We have an airport We are not Winnipeg We have an airport. No, in all honesty, what complicates things is when you get a second dog, when you have one dog, it's fine. When you get a second dog, then people are like, oh. So I never ask people to come stay over because I have two dogs.

But also, I'm sleeping in my own basement and doing my own thing. It's sweet. I love it. I love it. Are your dogs, like, cantankerous? No. They're the quietest dogs. No, they don't, like, stab themselves with sticks or anything?

Not like yours? No. Iggy is, he's, like, a happy age. teen wheeler like he's just he just is like the freight train that will not stop that's wearing the biggest smile he's the it's hilarious he i literally saw just a streak of white like i always do at the dog park except there was like a little streak of red as well and he's just like pouring blood as he's running by and you think that was the time of his life you think it was a stick it was either he got attacked by a squirrel or he impaled himself on a stick he probably just ran

Buy a stick Like the British horses In Braveheart Running into the pikes Okay so fun story I threw a stick once Yes just like that actually I threw a stick once and my dog Bindi loves chasing sticks

So I was throwing sticks but it was in early spring Last year and the stick went Into the earth and stuck out like a pike Oh no And Bindi ran and missed it And it hit her right in the chest Now nothing happened but it was like it like bounced off her chest

like an arrow yeah and then she went she went and then and then turned around and like you know when kids fall in the playground

and they run towards their parents and they still like they're crying and they think they're hurt but they're not really that hurt and you can tell because they're yelling she gave you

she gave you the paw they run so she cried all the way up she looked at me and went and then she cried all the way like every time the paw

touched the ground it was like and then and then I was like oh my god you are a toddler holy crap Anyway, boring Batman story.

I bet there's a bunch of people in the comments right now going, oh, that's crazy. Oh, that's crazy. I've been getting a bunch of them. Have you? Yeah. Should we bring on Mark Spector? Yes.

3 o'clock. Look at the time. Let's do it. Check out the big brain on Brad. All right, the book is called Road to Gold by Mark Spector. That's right, Sportsnet's Mark Spector, the untold story of Canada at the World Juniors. And welcome for the first time to the Steve Dangle Podcast, Mark Spector.

My honor to be here gentlemen nothing short of an honor now. You didn't have to lie to us right off the top mark come on So so okay We got out we got to ask you because this is this is one of the things we were talking about this before the show Canada has this amazing history of losing or sorry winning at the world juniors, but also they lose Spectacularly does your book get into the winning side or the losing side or both? Both I would say okay But, excuse me, you know, because it is. Like, it's sort of like the Leafs.

There's so much focus on everything they do that there's no winning quietly and there's no losing quietly, right? So, you know, just as John Slaney scored that unbelievable goal or Jordan Eberle scored his unbelievable goal, I had a long talk with Lujan about his guy in net. Russian puck flew past him in overtime in the Google title game. I think that was in Winnipeg, and, you know, like, the poor kid was crying, gliding on the ice, bawling, and we got the net cap on him right in his face.

Yeah. You know, it's never been pretty to lose a world junior if you're a Canadian. Yeah, that was something that struck me, because I've had the opportunity to cover a couple, and I was at the awful one in Saskatoon where John Carlson broke everyone's hearts and ruined what would have been Jordan Eberle's crown jewel even better than the 5.4 because he scored those two goals to tie it. And after the game, we're talking to Brandon Kozin.

Remember him, Speck? Yep, I remember Brandon Kozin. And, you know, there's this story with him. I think he was born in California, so he was born American, playing for Canada, loses to the Americans, and we're like 20 seconds deep into this interview. and I think everyone at the same moment sort of turned to each other and was like, we're talking to children here.

And he's in the middle of crying. What was the hardest thing to write in your book about the World Juniors? You know what? I'm going to have to rephrase it a little because none of it was heat of the moment. I'm talking to guys mostly years later. But one of the coolest things was last year in Vancouver, where you'll remember that in overtime, the Canadian captain Maxime Comtois had a penalty shot in overtime against Finland in a quarterfinal game.

So it's lose and you go home. And he didn't make the penalty shot. He was foiled on it. And very shortly thereafter, the Finns went down and scored this incredibly lucky bounce goal. And we're out, man. That's it. And Comtois, you know, the wrath of Canadian social media came down on this poor Comtois kid.

And they beat him up for days, you know, in a foolishly stupid way, which really describes Twitter perfectly. I had a long talk with him about what it was like to be that guy, you know, who took, who jumped over the boards and said, I'll take this shot. And I talked to Carter McDavid about being that guy. And I talked to Sid Frosty about being that guy. and you know mcdavid said so perfectly he said hey sure there's four or five guys on that team that want to take that shot but he says there's a dozen guys who are burying their heads when the coach is looking around they want no part of that shot so you know we do put a lot of pressure on these guys and the and the players that take it on the most you got to have respect for them even

when they fail yeah i remember that um i remember the the hate for that i couldn't believe that he was like he was a trending topic almost immediately and then you looked at the the the vitriol the it was so crazy that people you you sort of expect that city to city in the nhl right you expect that a little bit like ah we're you know but you never really expect canadians the whole country to be so mad at a guy missing a penalty shot which is basically a coin flip it's it's surprising um that really surprising that the reaction came the way that it did and mark you know Now, one of the things about Canada at this tournament, and I mean, you know a hell of a lot more about it than I do, is there seems to be that sort of pressure following them

around everywhere they go from the second that the cameras are at their door when they get the phone call from their coach, right? Because they've got, you know, TV cameras at the door going, hey, how's it feeling? It's like 6 a.m. There seems to be this elevated status that these guys have for 30 days. There are, like, NHL-level stars for 30 days, and everybody's following them around and getting to know them and finding out about their history.

What kind of effect do you think that has on a 16-, 17-, 18-year-old? And was it in Crosby's case? Didn't he almost make it at 15? Something like that, yeah. It was some crazy thing. What do you think that – how does that affect them? Well, you know, I asked a bunch of guys that question. Basically, it boils down to, you know, we have this gold or bust philosophy, right?

We've all heard that before. gold or bust and we've even watched team canada's at various levels who find themselves in a bronze medal game because they lost the semi and on many occasions we have barely played like in that game our teams are lousy they don't care they're not interested in playing for bronze i believe uh there's an olympic team that that fell under that yes so you know i asked carter mcdavid i asked sid crosby i asked jerome mcginley and you know jerome mcginley put it really well he said the program of excellence he says they get us going when we're 16 years old in this thing right the best guys start on the u-17s and then the u-18s and he says that's how it is when you

play for canada you're supposed to win and we embrace that and he said that's the culture so that when we're walking out of that dressing room in overtime in vancouver 2010 in the olympics right and almost all those guys on that team canada had been four round excellent he said we're going out of that overtime and we're going to win right we've been steeled for this thing we're ready for it and if you don't start it when they're kids he says you're never going to learn it so none of those guys thought it was too much pressure conor mcdavid said absolutely not that's how players should learn that should be the expectation i'm kind of like you guys i thought it's a little bit too much pressure, but the guys

who have been through it, none of them agree. Wow. Okay. Because when you say that, the program of excellence, I'm half like, hell yeah, go Canada, and the other half of me is like, that sounds like a cult. It feels Soviet-ish. Right? You know? Yeah.

I want to know, did you speak to any non-Canadians for this, and what's their perception of our weird little country and program? you know what i didn't when i did the when i did the chapter on pish danny uh i had a lot of stories relayed to me from people that were close to the russians but there's a couple of russian guys on that people could never find them so i was the valerie

was one of the guys he was in on that russian team but uh unfortunately my answer to you is no i didn't spend a lot of time talking to guys from other countries uh because this was a book about cats right okay right uh but that is a big part of uh canadian world junior history for some of the younger listeners can you explain what happened there yeah like a giant brawl where they turned out the lights and you know it was a 20 on 20 um that was a real thing it was literally well and both countries got disqualified did they not yeah right so well the the short quick story is basically it was the last game of the tournament if canada won by five goals they'd win the gold medal the russians were done so all they had to play for was screwing it up for canada so they

came out they were chippy they were cheap they were very disappointed them in themselves and their coaches were disappointed in them so right away canada had this weird opponent that had nothing to lose and let's fast forward all of a sudden there's a couple fights on the ice two russian guys jump off the bench the entire canadian team follows them so now it's a bench clearing brawl but i talked to brendan shanahan for a really long time he was in this brawl right and the cool thing was this that i never knew he said like we all came from these junior teams in canada so we knew how bench clearing brawls went like the fighters fight maybe there's four or five real fights and then all the other guys kind of grab a partner that's you know their level of

player and they all kind of stand around a watch right that's how we that's how we did it in canada for all those years so there's really only four or five fights they probably throw a couple guys out and then they resume the game and everybody else gets to play but in this brawl the russians had no idea how to do a bench a bench clearing brawl they had no clue and what they thought was every guy has to fight oh my god every guy so every russian guy comes over the over the boards looking to fight somebody and not only that they don't know how to fight because they have they didn't play canadian junior hockey right they don't fight so they're kicking and they're they're like when they went down they got up swinging like the fights went on forever and it was dangerous

as hell guys were stepping on each other and it was a real 20 on 20 and it was absolutely shiny said it was the craziest brawl i'd ever been in and he'd been in a whole bunch of them yeah so by the time it ended it wasn't anything like canada they kicked both all the teams out both teams got kicked out the end of the game the canadians went back to their room going okay you know what let's cool down we'll go out there and beat these guys well that was it man the end of the game and it was over wow i i think it's uh it's a little tough to come back when they shut the lights off i can't believe that happened like that recently like it's one thing when jeff merrick is showing you black and white tape of them who is who is the he's the wikipedia of nhl

fights just unbelievable uh you know when they're playing god save the queen and you know sending the police onto the ice i can't believe they had to turn the lights off for this thing that's got to be the weirdest moment in canadian world junior history right mark well like and you know what it made us really it made canadians and canada really look at like what we're doing here right we're these passive canadians we use the word sorry more than any other nation you know our our naval fleet is smaller than the amount of submarines in west edmonton mall hey that's a big mall you know it is a big mall so we're this we're this passive friendly country and then you put hockey sticks in our hands and we're the only people that have brawl protocol

you know they the european refs didn't know what the hell to do the organizers didn't know what the hell to do the russians didn't know what the hell to do but us canadians we've refined hockey fighting to the point where we've got protocol so i think we kind of looked at ourselves after that and said you know what maybe we should figure this out very shortly thereafter guys the nhl put in a rule where they find coaches and suspended players who came over the bench so they effectively ended bench clearing brawls right after piastani and frankly the only cool thing was luke richardson fought in that piastani brawl then he goes he gets kicked out like everybody he goes home to the ohl his first game back bench clearing brawl that's awesome hey mark to your mind who's the

best what's the best year of canadian talent that ever went and did they win oh it's for sure the group in north dakota in uh 2005 right that was the lockout year so it's on the cover of my book like you look at those guys huddled around the net around the the net and you look at the names on their back it's like patrice bergeron jeff carter corey pear uh you know who else do we have on that team mike richards dion phanuf shay weber andrew ladd right uh all kinds of just the very best guys guys that stalked our olympic teams dion phanuf that i mean oh did i mentioned Sid Crosby was on that team. Yeah, no kidding. Sportsnet's own Anthony Stewart. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, he was on it. He was on that team too. So that was the best team in world

junior history. They never lost a period. They never lost a game and they'll never be a better team than that one. I'm here to tell you. Well, talking about not the Canadian team, but going to one of Canada's teams, it looked like the Oilers were the best team in the world for about nine games there when they went 7-1-1. Yeah, no kidding. And it's been a bit of a tough go since. What's going on in Edmonton? You know what?

There's a reason they missed the playoffs for 12 of the last 13 years, right? Is there? Yeah. Yeah, what's that? Newsflash, right? They're not a powerhouse. So then they bring in a new general manager. He's got no cap space.

Pete Chiarelli butchered the team last year. And, you know, Ken Holland put a few players in here. He spent what little money he had. He brought in some guys for some depth. But they're, you know, they got two of the greatest players in the game in McDavid and Drysaddle. And they got a pretty nice defense going here and a little bit of goaltending. But they're going to have to fight like hell to make the playoffs. They're not an elite, elite team, not at this point.

Maybe they'll get there, but they're not there yet. Do you think that they're going to have the opportunity to add, because they definitely need depth scoring. They need scoring beyond the Cassian, dry-saddle, McDavid punch. Do you think they're going to be able to add somebody and find a partner who can take on potentially some bigger salary that maybe they need to shed? Well, it's a good question. I don't, how would I say, I think there's two sections here.

If we get to the deadline and the Oilers are looking like they could have a real good shot at making the playoffs. I think Ken Hall will just go out and find himself. He's looking for a third-line center. He'll be all over Jean-Gabriel Pajot, depending on what the price is on that player, but he'll be in on that.

He'll also be looking for, if you're ever going to split up McDavid and Dreisaitl, you've got to have more wingers. They don't have enough wingers here to split those guys up on a regular basis. I think that he will augment the trade deadline for picks and prospects.

and then come summertime when some cap space gets freed up, he'll probably go out and get a $3.5 million, $4 million either center or winger who can make his team deeper and better. Ignore whether or not it would have been the smart thing to do. Did you want Taylor Hall to come back to town just for the fun of it? Yeah, oh, for sure. It sounded like they were right in there. They were, but you know what?

Like, I'm not even sure what Arizona's doing necessarily, guys, because that trade is a trade you make when you're a Stanley Cup contender. Like, you give up a first, probably a second, three prospects. Like, that's a bold trade, man. You're giving up a lot of tomorrow for a guy that might not even play for you next September. So you've got to be winning a cup to me and ready to win a cup. The Oilers aren't that team. They're not ready to win a cup.

And I'm not sure Arizona is. Do you think they are? Well, they have Stanley Cup experience in Phil Kessel, right? Pedigree. Pedigree. Back to back. Actually, this is a good transition because Twitter has been begging me to ask you the question. There's one thing I know about Mark Spector. One thing in the world. And that is that he has a fiery hatred for the Arizona Coyotes.

And I want to know why. What have they ever done to you? Is that actually true? Is that what people think? He hates them. Okay, Mark, do you hate the Coyotes? No, I don't hate them. What? But Twitter told us that you do.

I wrote a piece on how boring they've been throughout their existence. Does that count? Yes. You know what? Like, I'll tell you, and I'll argue my case, and no one can. I just did this FM station the other day in Phoenix, and this guy was going to take me apart. And I made my argument to him, and he couldn't, he had no, since they came into the league,

the Arizona Coyotes are the third lowest scoring team in hockey. Whoa. If you break that down to the last 20 years, third lowest. Last 10 years, third lowest. So they never score, okay? So that's fine. They never score. They don't score goals.

So let's look at their attendance, right? How is hockey, the way they play it, sold in Arizona? I don't think I need to go much further down that road. We all know their attendance stinks, right? So the league has been supporting this team for 20 years, and they finally bring in a guy like Taylor Hall because they're thinking we've got to score some goals. Just give me some.

I don't like, I'm not into 2-1 hockey every night. Once in a while, sure, but not every night. So is that not fair? Well, I mean, yeah. You know, it's funny, Mark, to back up your point. I've told this on this show before, But for our honeymoon, my wife and I in 2018 went to went to Arizona and we fly into Phoenix. And I asked the person at the car rental desk and they there's something about car rental desk people.

They pretty much know where you should go and where they always give you a few recommendations. I said, you know where the hockey arena is from here? And she said, I have no idea. And I like it was almost as though she didn't know that Arizona has a team. How don't you know it as like a landmark? Right. Right, but they just, just no idea. So, what about this old beauty?

Well, the rink's not in Scottsdale, so nobody's going to the games. You know, there's like millions of people down there, man. And lots of them live within five miles of that arena. Yeah, isn't Scottsdale, like, beautiful? Have you ever been to Glendale? Have you ever been over to Surprise and Peoria and all those places on that side of the freeway? Like, there's millions of people even over there. But no one goes to the rink and they go,

ah, you know, because the rink's not in Scottsdale. Well, like, the guy from Surprise, he's allowed to buy a ticket, too, right? Right. Yeah, and they're cheap enough. And they're cheap enough. Are you kidding me? $20 bill gets you in that rink, I'm telling you.

Oh, yeah. I've always liked the Coyotes because they gave us the Wayne Gretzky head coach era. Which was such a failure that I like it. Yeah, whenever anybody talks about Wayne Gretzky, that is suspiciously left off. Nobody interviews Wayne Gretzky and goes, so tell us about your time with the Coyotes. Which was like four years. It was a long time.

It's like when, it's like Ric Flair's eighth comeback. You're like, that's enough, Ric. Yeah. Just stick to that song. Just talk about the 80s. Talk about the 80s, man. Listen, they're struggling to score goals. They're struggling to keep butts in seats and fill the arena.

tell us what's going on at Edmonton. Mark. Sorry, I had to get that in there for the Arizona listeners. One question I really want to ask you about, and Elliot Friedman mentioned it in 31 Thoughts, is Darnell Nurse. He's got an extension that's due. What do you pay him?

And, you know, he's an unrestricted free agent in two years. So do you go to arbitration with this guy this summer and do a short-term deal until you can clear cap space? or do you fight like hell to clear cap space and pay him now and try to get him on a long-term deal? No, no. I mean, you know, it always depends on how much the player is asking for. Sure.

I'm not erring on paying too much money to Darnell Nurse. I want to know. I'm still not sure what he is. Interesting. Like, you only pay so much money for a real good defensive shutdown guy. If he just concentrates on defense, he's big and strong and skates great. He can shut you down. But there might not be many points there.

He's still a player who, when he goes hunting for points, and when he uses that big, great stride and carries the puck to the other end, a lot of bad stuff happens defensively. So he's not – I don't know that he's the player he wants to be. He was a 41-point player last year. He's not on pace for that again this year. so I I'm a little concerned with with looking at Darnell Nurse and putting a finished product on him I'm not sure what it is and I'm not paying him six million dollars and then finding out later on

that he's a four and a half million dollar defenseman so I'm bridging him for a couple years and I'm taking my chances and if all these defensive prospects in Edmonton come up and turn out to be really good like they're hoping they will I'm either going to trade one of them or I'm going to trade Nurse or I'm going to trade somebody. You think Nurse carries the physical burden of the team a little bit too much? He's got to be a top five guy in the league

you don't want to fight. But also, I feel like your enforcer shouldn't be a defenseman. Especially a guy who's in your top four. Yeah, he's too important to the team to be off the ice that much. Ah, come on. Come on.

There's Speck. There he is. There he is. I was wondering what you were going to say about that. Part of me was like, I just thought you might be like, you know what, Steve, you're right. Nah. Fighting is dying in this game, and we don't need it anymore. What a dummy.

Well, no, my question is, it is dying in the game. How many fights a year would Darnell Nurse have? Yeah, maybe, I don't know, seven or eight. Yeah. Big deal. Like, so what? Yeah, it's not an ever-gaming thing. What are your thoughts on, and I know that you and Eric Francis kind of split duties on this and that sort of thing,

but I do want to get your thoughts on the Flames of late. They're, you know, 8-2 and 0 since Jeff Ward took over. Something like that, yeah. And it seemed like they always had the talent. The Bill Peters controversy aside, the Bill Peters-Akimalu thing aside, it seemed as though, before we knew what we know about Bill Peters now, that there would have been no way for the Flames to let him go, even though he clearly was not, or at least in my mind at the time,

was not the right coach for that team. His professional coaching record stunk. Do you think that Brad Treliving would have been able to make that change, A? And B, does it surprise you that the Flames have been as good as they've been? Well, you just described the dirty little secret that's getting revealed here in Calgary, right? Brad Treliving looked down at Bill Peters and said, man, Goodrell's not playing for them and our team's underachieving

and nothing's going well. Whenever he came out, he did that public vote of confidence for Peter. Because he's saying, I just had 100% last year for me. You know what, Mark? I gotta stop you just because we're losing you and

I'm getting pieces of what you're saying and I'm dying to hear the answer. Just so you know, you're cutting out a little bit. I'm not sure if it's a if there's a dead zone you're in or whatever. I just wanted to let you know. Let me see if we can change that. Is this any better? That's amazing.

Much better. Okay, so let's start from your answer again. Sorry, the dirty little secret. That's okay. It is. It's the dirty little secret in Calgary, right? It's hard to fire close to 107 points for you last year. Yeah.

So you're looking at him and you're going, you know, I could go to ownership and say we're going to fire this guy, but, geez, like, that's not something a GM wants to do. And then along comes the whole Hakeem Elu controversy and the whole thing, and now Peters is gone. And they've got a new coach in there. The team is revitalized. And if this thing keeps up the way it looks like it's going,

people are going to look back at that. We all thought it might be a negative turning point for the Flames this season. It might turn out to be a positive turning point for the Flames. Seems like that. Who's your pick to come out of the West in the playoffs? Who do you like the best in the West? A Central Division team, whoever they are. any one of them if I had to pick one uh I'm gonna go with Colorado yeah sure okay

Colorado uh I really you gotta you know what the thing about St. Louis is they've made it through the toughest part of the schedule where Stanley Cup winners get bored and don't play very well they're past that now right we're almost halfway through the season and they're playing great. So, you've got to keep them in the mix here. They're a really, really, really good team. I always look at Dallas. I always look at Dallas. I think they should be better than they are.

One of these days, they've got to be good, don't they? You hope so, because they're getting older. They didn't get any younger by signing Pavelski this summer, but they're looking good. They're in a wild card spot with Calgary. They just fired their coach for mystery reasons. Yeah, we don't know the reasons

for that either. We have no idea i was saying last show like i didn't like how they executed it because it's like you know that board game guess who does he wear a hat flick flick flick was it this kind of misconduct flick flick i don't know why uh the guessing game with that you just kind of have to let it go yeah i think when they fire me one day they're gonna say we've fired him for non-journalistic reasons. Hey Mark, what are your thoughts on, and I don't know how much

Eastern Conference hockey you're seeing, but like, you know, because it always comes back to Toronto. What are your thoughts on the Leafs and how the season's gone? They obviously let Mike Babcock go, they're now 8-4 under the new guy. You know, what have you seen from the Toronto Maple Leafs and actually I want

to compare too with the Tampa Bay Lightning as well. You know, two teams that were pretty strong last year, Tampa far more strong, and what are you seeing now that prevented them from being successful, and then they've changed since? Well, for me, the biggest interest for me in watching the Leafs is Kyle Dubas and the whole program, right? Like, he's such a smart guy, and I've met him several times.

I have a ton of respect for him. He's clearly, him and John Chyka are sort of the flag bearers for the new, young, analytics-based general manager, right? And I say that respectfully, like they're both smart, smart cats, you know, and Dubas' program there is built like an analytics guy would build it. You know, for instance, the Cadry trade, you know, what you trade away in Cadry are all those things that you cannot quantify on some kind of a chart. you know his abrasiveness and his his what he does to the opposition and and the physicality of his play is is the exact elements that the analytics movement has a i think struggle to quantify and some people in it not all some people in it disrespect those qualities they go

who cares if he hits well i'm looking at at least team now that's pretty light I'm looking at a Leafs team that needs to be able to I couldn't believe when they walked into St. Louis the other night and won but that Boston St. Louis team to me Washington is a huge mismatch for Toronto and I'm interested

to see how Dubas sort of backs up a little bit and if he says okay you know what it is about analytics but there's also got to be some old time hockey in here because look at the teams that succeed they're all big, they're all strong They win their battles, and we're not winning enough battles right now

to be one of them. Kadri was such a tough one because he does all those things that you mentioned. He's actually an analytical darling. He's got really good underlying numbers. The trouble man, back-to-back playoffs with a suspension. You can't have that happen a third time. You just couldn't risk it. At that point, it's on management.

Yeah, if it happens again, it immediately falls on Dubas because it's like you're new. That's fair, but then I would suggest that you needed to replace him with a guy that brought a lot of what he had. That's fair. That's fair? Yeah. That's fair.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And they still might. I think there's this hope in Toronto. I don't know. Darnell Nurse. Well, Darnell Nurse. No, I think Wayne Simmons.

Everybody in Toronto seems to hope and pray that Wayne Simmons. But Wayne, he's a winger. And there's no room for that. That makes $5 million. Yeah, there's no way. And I guess, Mark, I've got to ask you about you. Because one of the things that I love about you Is you say what you think

And people get really upset about it Soft spoken And you seem to be able to let it fly off your back Like very few people You know it doesn't seem to bother you And I just wonder How you handle that Because there's times where

And I think we can admit it on this show There's times where you say something It's unpopular, people are pissed off at you And you're able to just smile about it And the next day it's like whatever uh and i i really i i frankly admire that uh so how do you do it well you know what i don't take myself too seriously for one and i think that i'm not right all the time i'm like any guy out there making predictions i'm wrong sometimes but i think if you look you know i i

i'm not keeping a scorecard here i let it go but i think if you look back on a lot of those unpopular things i've said lots of times they're right you know and i think there's an old saying out there that says the truth hurts like when i talk about arizona being boring and i tell you that they're the lowest scoring team in hockey for a quarter century and they're the lowest drawing team for a quarter century that's not opinion gentlemen that is pure fact so guys don't want to hear those facts i get that but listen that's tough luck pal that's what i love listener of Lizzo. Yeah.

Truth hurts. Mark Spector, non-confrontational author, reporter. And one last question for you, because I know

we've already held you for way too long and I so appreciate you giving us the time, honestly. Pleasure, boys. Pleasure. Is Steve Dangle,

and I'm asking you about Steve, because I want to know what your perception of Steve, because Steve's a bit of a different animal in hockey

and that sort of thing, and I want to know what your initial thought about what Steve was doing was, and if that's changed at all, or if it hasn't. Well, you know, it's funny because I've always had a very unpopular expression out here. Every time there's a free agent that's around, available. You know, whether it's John Tavares, or whether it's Drew Doughty, any time there's a guy that grew up in Ontario, right,

and he's coming towards UFA status, Steve Stamkos, remember all those? Oh, yeah. A little bit. The Toronto media always talks about how he grew up a Leafs fan, and they trot out these pictures of a guy in Leafs jammies, and they actually did that with Tavares. Right. But I think the original guy in Leafs jammies was Steve Dangle.

Oh, yeah. I think he is the original Leafs jammy guy. He's original pajama boy. You can't put a price on comfort spec. So I was talking about Steve Dangle before Steve Dangle was Steve Dangle. And I'm proud to say I feel like a little bit of a father now. Wow. What a disappointment.

Western dad. My Alberta dad. Well, Mark, it was a pleasure to finally get to talk to you. And please keep being you because, man, it makes me howl with laughter. some of the things that people get upset about. Like a coyote. First off, can I just throw this out there, too? If a guy on FM radio is talking about the coyotes,

he has, like, no ratings, right? There's no way. Probably, yeah. Adam, how dare you? I'm sorry, but come on. Come on. You're talking about the Diamondbacks. You're talking about the Cardinals.

You are not talking about the coyotes on FM Sports Talk. Get out of here. Anyway. To some guy from Canada. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Well, listen, Mark, it was a real pleasure. Again, the book is called Road to Gold, The Untold Story of Canada at the World Juniors by one Mark Spector of Sportsnet.

Mark, thank you so much for making time for us today. All right, boys. Always a pleasure. I had to ask him those last two questions. I thought it was important because Mark is a guy who, I mean, there's no other way to put it. He is a lightning rod. He's a guy that he splits people and it's fun to watch.

It's a shame he covers the Oilers because he's got, like, a little bit of Matthew Kachuk energy. Yes. He just, he loves it. Yes. Oh, you hate me? Good. Good. And he just laughs about it.

Yeah. Anyway, I just, I mean, and I want to know, I love asking people from the West about you. And that's why. It's just. He's a dick. It's a sick thing. One day, you got to ask him when I'm not here. Yeah.

That would be some problem. We should just have him on and co-host. I think most of the answers would start with, well, listen. All right. I want to talk about a few things and Mark mentioned some of them and it's too bad we didn't have them the whole episode because honestly I could have asked

about Western teams the whole time I do want to talk about that Taylor Holt trade because we didn't really get a chance to jump into it. Some of the stuff that's been interesting that's come out is why Ray Shiro made the trade, excuse me, now rather than closer to the deadline when

perceptually you maybe could get more coming down to the deadline and some of the prospects they got i mean they got their first round pick and whatever which you would expect that seems like that's the best goes without saying the prospects are not they don't seem like they're going to be guys that are stars and it was interesting when i read an article uh in the athletic and forgive me for uh who i read it by but they basically were it was pierre lebrun actually he said that another general manager said that that ray shiro did well by that trade because rentals just aren't worth as much anymore

people have gotten smart to the whole rental thing and aren't giving up the a plus prospects for these players anymore no and for the devils you definitely you want to get as much as possible and you want to get more but to me the amount of pieces was good for them uh kevin is a ball um you know doesn't project that high according to a lot of people same with nate schnarr and same for who's the third prospect can't remember them all off the top of my head and then they got the the first that's guaranteed and the third that could be a second or a first it's five parts like even if none of those guys end up being super duper stars well that trade is so rarely available the dushane trade was a mistake it wasn't intended to be that way

it was a mistake um so to me the devils have jack hughes who they're going to build around Nico Heischer, who they've locked up and they're going to build around. So those are their stars. Those are their stars of the future. If they can fill them with, if they hit on both draft picks and those three guys make the NHL even as periphery contributors. Relevant players. Relevant players.

That's a great way of putting it, Adam. I think that works for them. Here's also why you trade Taylor Hall early. He's played 30 games this season. He played 33 last year. 76 the year before as an MVP. 72 the year before that 82 in his last year in Edmonton

Wow! But it was the only time he's ever done that, as far as I can tell. 53 75 45, although that was the lockout short in one 61 and 65 So you're saying some hard miles, maybe. Guy gets hurt a lot, man, and while

he's healthy, you might as well deal him now Don't wait for him to get hurt If Taylor Hall gets hurt and you run at a runway for the trade deadline, it's a disaster Right. Although I have to say, I respect the hell out of Arizona for making that deal. I know Mark said, he's like, I don't see them as a cup contender.

I see them as a team that needs to contend for fans. You know, their goal should not be winning Stanley Cups. It should be winning new fans. And not that they couldn't, but when you saw the play Taylor Hall made last night to win the game, right? And that was all he had. He fought through a player, stole the puck, got it to Oliver Ekman-Larsen, back of the net. and it's that's what you get a Taylor Hall

four. You're not getting Phil Kessel to four check like that. You're getting Taylor Hall to four check like that. And he goes brain first into everything. He's done that since junior. I think this is the Arizona Coyotes saying okay not that the cup doesn't matter but we're

the top of the division. We gotta make a splash in this market. This is a great player anyway and we've gotta be able to show that this is a team worth coming to see and they've got it they're lucky right now because um they were able to do it at a kind of a quiet point of the year arizona cardinals i don't even know how they're doing this year uh they're not good they're not good no kyler murray the diamondbacks they're not good the diamondbacks i believe just made a huge baseball signing um but they're not playing be

weird if they made a big basketball signing it would be weird but they're not playing so you're in a spot where you're sort of in a sports dead zone so if there are sports fanatics in arizona of, which there are many, you know, what are they paying attention to? What are they watching? And all of a sudden this becomes, in the news cycle, one of the top stories. And right around Christmas, any Coyotes fan in the family gets to go, oh, Taylor Hall, something like that. It's good for team chemistry.

Get them in the lineup nice and early. Get them to bond with the guys. Get Phil Kessel going because even though the Coyotes have been good, Phil Kessel has not been. Clayton Keller's their leading goal scorer. Chayka was probably, yeah, which he should be, But, like, I think Chayka was counting on, like, the Phil Kessel trade being the one that brought offense to the team. Not quite so much.

Yeah, he struggled mightily. Yeah, he has struggled. Still hasn't missed a bloody game. And if maybe ought to. If plus minus matters, he's a minus 18. At a certain point, it matters a little, right? Right. When it's so egregious, I feel like it should matter a little.

Like, if you get into the minus 20 range, maybe it starts. There are probably other indicators before that that are probably better indicators, but it might be like, oh, even that's bad. Dylan DeMello, plus 7 on Ottawa. I go, whatever. And he's second on that team. Jean-Gabriel Pajot, plus 18. What?

Probably matters. Probably matters. Matters just a little bit. If you're leading the division and you're minus 18, it's not a very good sign. One thing about New Jersey, too, they were specifically looking for defense prospects. Yeah. And they got it. Didn't they only get one?

Yeah, well, they got, yeah, Ball is who they're looking for. They're looking for Vince Dunn out of St. Louis, but that never. That wasn't going to happen. That was never going to happen. No. But they got what they were looking for to fill up their prospect system. To get him to Edmonton, it would have been Ethan Bear. Yeah.

At least. At least. Ethan Bear plus. Yeah, he's got to be part of it. And Edmonton's not giving that up. There's no way. No. You might, like, do you even give up a Cale Jones?

Like, I don't think you do. And, you know, I defended Vegas when they were just throwing around picks like a drunken sailor. The Coyotes can sort of do that, too. Like, they got that first-round pick for the ghost of Pavel Datsyuk. That's cheating. That's a free pick. It's a free pick. Like, it's not cheating, cheating, but it is free.

It's like the Marlowe pick that left, yeah. That's the Detroit pick that they gave him, isn't it? Yes, yeah. I can't remember if that was Chikrin. That projects to be a pretty good pair. It was Chikrin or Keller. I can't remember which one of those two it turned into. I think it was Chikrin.

So you've, you know, the team's not old. It's got some young guys. The defense is a little here and there when it comes to age. But you got arguably the best goalie in the league this season right now. You have one of the most underrated pairings back there with Goligoski and who's he with? Can't remember. They need goals. Why not go out and get Taylor Hall?

I like it. It was their own first round pick. It was their own. Yeah, I got confused there. But they had the extra first round pick from Detroit, I think is what you were saying, right? They don't have it anymore. They had in recent years. Had in recent years.

Sorry, I got confused by that. Yeah, I was also confused. Oh, okay. Sorry. No, you know, I'm looking at the Jersey roster right now. And the thing that is surprising to me is now we keep hearing, oh, it's not going to be a fire sale. It's not going to be a fire sale.

This roster is primed for a fire sale. Yeah. New Jersey should be what Detroit is now next year. Who's UFA, Jesse? Forget who's even UFA. Just guys that you should move on from. Zajac's making 575. I don't think you're going to get a taker for him, though.

That's the problem. Simmons is at 5 million, and it's one year. You can retain on... Simmons at 2.5 million? Yes. There's value. Yeah, absolutely. Palmieri's got two more years at 4.6.

You've got Nikita Gusev. You probably want to hang on to him. And then on the defense, P.K. is obviously the first guy you look at. He's got two more years after this one. But Andy Green and Sammy Vatanen are both guys that are up. Andy Green is the captain. He's got a no trade. He's 37, but he gives you some experience on the left side.

Same with Sammy Vatanen. People really like Sammy Vatanen. I wonder if, you know, at this point, why wouldn't you try to find some assets, try to find some value? Yeah, why not take advantage of your bad season? and instead of trying to salvage something out of it, just sell off all these guys who look like they won't be a part of the future when you're actually good. You also don't want to completely burn it to the ground like Buffalo a few years ago.

Like they're just recovering from that now. Well, if you do it smartly and you hit on some of the pieces that you trade for when you burn it to the ground, then it won't be Buffalo. It won't be that slow. It'll be the Leafs where it's a quick turnaround. If you hit on Matthews, Nylander, Marner. They got two first picks this year. What about this?

keep most of your guys, get a freaking goalie. Stop a puck. One of them. Ever. That's what they need, man. They've traded their second and third round picks with PK.

Nashville did well there. This is why I think that they should sell. They should sell some of these guys. Don't burn it to ash. You probably could get a second for Sammy Vatten and a third for Andy Green. Why are you so against that? Burning Thash.

I worry because now you're committed to a rebuild. You got a GM who... Well, commit to something. They haven't committed anything. The waffling thing is the problem. I agree with that, but Ray Shiro cannot rebuild the Devils. You can't allow him to. He's the one who screwed this up.

So bring in someone new. Yes. Absolutely. To me, if you're going to rebuild, we have to have another conversation first, which is firing Ray Shiro. So Simmons, only being on the one year, I didn't realize. For some reason, I thought he signed for three. Yeah, he's the perfect candidate to trade off.

And maybe those two guys on D. Because, I mean, are they good? Anyone who's not going to stick around, you've got to get rid of. Yeah. Anyone with term? I don't know how easy it is to lure guys in New Jersey. You know what? Go get Kovalchuk.

Listen, if you're in New Jersey, you're across the bridge from New York City. I think it's not that hard to lure people to it. It's the cheaper. Why live across the street from New York City? Because it's where families live. When you work in Manhattan, you live in New Jersey. That's where the families live. And so a lot of these guys would love to be able to jump into the city and go out for a night out.

But I can tell you they probably don't want to live in it. And, you know, you actually can get a house in New Jersey. I think New Jersey is a very attractive market for people to play in, yeah. Who's listening to this in New York traffic right now? I want to know that. That'd be interesting. I don't know why I looked into the camera. If you're looking at me dead in the eyes, you're driving dangerously.

Take the subway. They take the subway. They're taking the subway. Gotcha. Which is actually good. There. Yes. Which we do not have here.

No. Or roads. Our subway system is, unless you're specifically on one street, or specifically going along another one, the subway is pretty much useless. It's like, you must be specifically going to this destination. There can be no veering. Commuting today is costing me $50. Really? $50.

You cannot park at the Oshawa Go Station, because it's trash. You can't park at the Whitby Go Station, because it's trash. Ajax Pickering, same shit. So I just Uber from my house Which is $15 either way And then the GoTrain is $20 Every Wednesday I'm not driving, I'm not wasting

Four hours of my life And also the money The wear and tear on the car, the gas I'm confused Do you enjoy transit? No Oh, transit? Yes I enjoy it greatly

It's like the Steve Carell I love inside jokes I wish I was part of one I love transit I wish we had some We have none And you also don't like driving No I don't like driving

I like driving Jesse I don't like being parked in the middle of the road I literally put my car In park on the highway a couple weeks ago It's a nightmare I hate this place I want to go home It's the worst

It's too bad the government mandated That Steve live in Oshawa It's too bad they made him. Did we vote on that? It was a city council resolution that said, no, Steve Dangle must move to Oshawa. I'm sorry that I didn't buy a friggin' Ikea cabinet down

the street from here for three quarters of a million dollars. More than that. I know. Three quarters. Three quarters of a million. That's a steal! Show me where you got that. Exactly.

So all of a sudden, 50 bucks seems cheap. Yeah. I hate this freaking place. It's the worst. I love, Toronto is great once you get here. Yeah. Yeah. That should be the city slogan, honestly.

Great once you get here. The number one trending topic in Canada. When I woke up this morning, what do you think it was? Adam Wilde is a cuck. No, what? That was yesterday. Oh, sorry. Pre-impeachment proceedings.

Right. No, what do you think it was? Trending topic, Austin Matthews. Jesse, what do you think? I know, because I was with you this morning when you said it. Was it the TikTok with the llama? No, keep going. No, TikTok with the llama was great, though.

Was it Hamilton getting screwed out of a transit system? No, go sports. Was it the Blue Jays actually doing something? No, they haven't done it, so. They haven't done anything. This is in Toronto? But it's across Canada. It's a cross-Canada topic.

Sports related It's not Jays or Raptors What sport do we talk about the most? Hockey It was a hockey topic Across Canada It wasn't the Leafs What happened last night that would make any fanbase

Want to burn it down? Who likes to burn things down? Oh, what happened in Vancouver? Hashtag firebending Oh, really? National topic Hashtag smoldering fire betting Number one

Really? Number one Because they're Well, they're 23rd in the league now Which is weird Because they're not that far Out of a playoff spot, right? Like, when you look at

Where they're at They have 36 points They get into the playoffs It's a two-win differential The Pacific is the Atlantic West Yeah Basically The Central is the Metro

That's how it works They are Eight points out of first place Now, that's a lot in the NHL Yeah, but that's a hot streak. You can make that up by New Year's. Can I provide some reasons for their recent struggles? Sure.

22 of 34 games, the Canucks allow the first goal. Man, the Pacific's been bad for them. Calgary's even worse. Really? Yeah. When the Leafs scored the first goal in the game against Calgary, I want to say Calgary leapfrogged the Leafs for most first period goals given, or most first goals of the game given up.

This year, the Canucks were fourth. Their power play was fourth in the league. But in the last four games, they are one for 12. And they rank on the season 20th in even strength goals. Oh. Or in the last four games, they rank 20th in even strength goals. The scary thing I heard with them. Thank you, the province.

I want to say it was Friedman was talking about the Canucks and it's great when you have a good excuse but like they're healthy they're healthy their goalie's pretty good so let me read something out to you that was tweeted after the game

one of the top hashtag firebending tweets it's from at Canadian Adam who describes himself as a streamer, sports guy, movie reviewer not me you are not those things his name is at Adam underscore Pied P-Y-D-E. So close.

Pied. Not piled. Pied. Adam piled. There's no L. Is this your burner account? What the hell? But he writes this. It's not even stealth, Adam. Adam's like, oh, this guy's so smart. This Adam piled. Yeah.

Kevin Durant. If I were to give you a number, let me give you a number. Bevin Durant. If I were to give you a number, what number would you associate with the forward line? Okay, so I'm going to give you an amount in millions of dollars and you tell me what line it is on the Canucks.

Okay. 6.5 million. What line is that on the Canucks? The whole line is 6.5? Yeah, that's what it costs. That's their third line because the top line is Pedersen and Horvath. Pedersen's ELC though. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So their first

line, their first lines are all the young guys and I assume their third line is the one that's jacked up with a bunch of guys who aren't worth it. I'm going to say it's her first line. Jesse's right. It's the third line. Okay.

Good. One of us had to be wrong. But don't worry. I'm going to give you now the figure of $10 million. Oh, God. What line is that? That's the first line. That's the first line?

I'm going to go with the fourth line. You're going to go with the fourth line? Yeah. Burn it down. What do Horvat and Besser make? That's probably roughly $10 on their own. And then, no, because Besser just signed his extension, and then Pettersson's still on his What is it?

I don't know. apparently, it's the second line. 13 million. That's the fourth line. The fourth line. That's the first line. 20 million.

No! You went up! I don't think that's it. I'm looking, I'm looking. 20 plus 6.5 plus 10 plus 13. 20 million

plus 6.5 is 26.5 million. 36.5 million. And that brings it to plus 13 is Oh, Adam, don't make me do this. 36 plus 13 is 49. That would make sense.

I'm trying to figure out if this actually works under the cap. Oh, well, you don't have the defense in there. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to make sure that that would still work. 6.5 million for the third line. For the second line, it's 10 million. For the first line, it's 13 million. For the fourth line in the press box, it's 20 million.

Oh! Well, because that's Erickson. There's six and a half right there. Louie Erickson, one of the worst deals in the race. Jay Beagle's 3.5, Antoine Roussel's 4, 3.5, 4, something like that. Oh my god, man. That's been the problem with this team. Put down the phone on July 1st.

All they had to do. This is why I defended them. Because I was like, I think they have good players. The problem is they all pay them way too much for way too long. The caveat to what I was saying is they have to win this year. Also, Brandon Sutter. 4.375 it feels like he's been there

36 years and you know what's funny is that none of the deals that I mentioned that we just talked about expire this year or next like Tanner Pearson at 3.75 million is another deal that does not expire

until the end of 2021 oof tough and that's the thing is that they've got some incredible pieces like amazing This is the main criticism is, okay, you have these guys. How are you going to pay Pedersen when the time comes? Pedersen's going to get a lot of money, man.

I know people talk about, oh, well, people in other markets will actually take a discount. Look at what Mikko Rantanen got. I don't think Pedersen should be signing for anything less than that. I don't think so either. And to be fair, when Pedersen will be in RFA, they only have one defenseman signed and one, two. That's bad too! One, two, three, four, and five forwards. So they're going to have a ton of money come 2021 or 20, yeah, 2021 offseason.

But also a ton of vacancies. But also a whole roster to build by then. Yeah. But yeah. And they got a potential, like, with Kel McCarr out, Quinn Hughes has a real good shot at the Calder. and they're still this bad? And like most horrible teams

you can immediately point and go their goaltending sucks. Their goaltending is average. It's not terrible. And they got guys coming up. Mikey DiPietro, he's probably still way too young. I think Thatcher Demko's hurt. He's their backup right now. Yeah, he is. Well, because Demko's out. Adam Gaudette

strikes me as a guy that might be better than he seems. Gaudette on the... Yeah, he's their third line center, and I've always, I look at him, I don't know what it is. There's something about him that I like, maybe I'm crazy, maybe Canucks fans would blame him. Adam Godhead? No, he does not make seven. He's a guy, he seems

to be like found money, you know? Not an overly expensive guy, but has, what does he make? Yeah, he's a 23-year-old, he's making 916. Close enough. You know, that's a guy, it's like for a third line center to be produced the way he has, he's playing

between Pearson and Levo. I like him. Yeah, third line center is putting up 15 points in 25 games, you can't complain. Yeah. But you've got to fill your roster with that. Instead of paying everyone $3 million. But I don't understand. They brought in Jay Beagle to be a $3 million,

a $3 million fourth-line center. They look like the fourth-line center position. It's crazy how Jim Benning is just giving everyone on the team contracts between $3 million and $6 million. It's just, hey, whatever's in there, just here you go. Blank checks. You want five. The Leafs, like, oh, we're going to have elite bottom sixers.

Right. Like all that, and we're going to have Colby Armstrong three times three, and I always make fun of him for that because he scored one goal for every million the Leafs gave him. A lot of that was in Greece. Oh, yeah, no, I ripped him. Really? He was making fun of my skating, and he was telling me how to get better. I'm like, that's the kind of advice that gets you nine career Leaf goals.

Wow. Did he punch you in the face? He really should have. No, he loves me for some reason. Yeah, and I love him right back. He brought his dad yesterday, just hanging out in the background. He's a pretty lovable guy, eh? Yeah.

Colby? He's great. He's really funny, too. Is he? Oh, yeah. Yeah? He likes, and he's always, he's the Mitch Marner of our office. He's just slamming Red Bull all the time.

I'm like, you're in your mid-30s. Stop that. What are you doing? He also looks like he's, like, 22. Oh, yeah. He's got a baby face. He's not old. No, he's not.

Right, he retired young, so it helps. Except for his nose is old. Speaking of young guys you wouldn't expect, when we were talking about the World Juniors with Mark Spector, one guy on that World Junior roster with Crosby and all of them was Jeremy Colleton, the current head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks. Wow, really? He was on that roster with Getzlaff and Colby, not Colby,

and on Hockey Central. And Andy Stewart. Yeah, and all those guys. And now he's still 34 and coaching the Blackhawks with all these guys he played with. The Rolfe Juniors. It had to have been tough, actually, I think, to play on that team. It'd be interesting. I want to talk to Anthony Stewart about that.

Because if you weren't a star, it's like you were on the bottom half of that team. Like, you know who else that team had? Clark MacArthur. And you look at some of the other names on that team and you go, Clark MacArthur. Clark MacArthur had a wicked career. Yeah, he did. Not Ryan Getzlaff. Not Corey Perry

Not Sidney Crosby He's not Dion Phaneuf even He's not Sidney Crosby He's not Shea Weber He's not That team was murderous If Clark MacArthur hadn't been smashed in the head 80 times He was good for 25 goals a year

Easily Who was their goalie? Oh, I don't know I have no idea Justin Pogge Really? Hell yeah Leafs prospect Justin Pogge

Leafs pro Oh wait, no No, no Pogge was after You know who it was? Um Tra... Uh, no.

Who did he play for in the KHL? Can't remember. It was Jeff Glass. Oh, Mr. Glass. Mr. Glass. Wow, that's crazy. Glass. I remember Jeff Glass.

Wasn't he a Leafs prospect, too, or something? No, he played for the Marlies for a while in a pinch because they had no goalies left. I see. And he was not great. So here's the thing. I just want to get back to the Canucks for just a second. Yes. Oh, right.

No, you don't want to talk about Jeff Glass? No, I don't. Why? The Canucks are capped out without their first-round pick and are in tough to make the playoffs. What do you do? Do you just stay the course? Do you think it'll course correct?

Are they the October Canucks or are they the December Canucks? What are they? I don't think they're as bad as they've been, and maybe they weren't as good as they were. They're probably somewhere in the middle. That's still not good enough. It's not good enough not to have your first-round pick. Right.

Yes. That is a good way of putting it. It is. JT Miller's been really good, too. Exactly. And, yeah, they won that trade, except until they lose it because they missed the playoffs. Yeah, if they have their first round pick, I don't think their performance so far is even noteworthy, really. They're just another team sort of duking it out.

But that puts undue pressure on them, I think. Yeah. The issue when you have all these guys making money is now you've got to make money trades. but now you're calling teams and asking them for their player who makes a bunch of money who they're willing to give up you know what i mean so you're looking for a player who's underperforming his deal yeah and there's not a ton of those out there that are super appealing like with the canucks for example they got rid of erica branson brought in tanner pearson that's the sort of deal you're looking at so unless you really nail it with one of these trades like

what could you even offer up that would make any sense for anybody okay here's here's a deal that's making a bunch of money that could work out for you that his current team is soured on alex kalchenyuk do the canucks take a look at alex kalchenyuk what do they offer up for him does he make a difference? That's a lot of questions, man. But you kind of have to take that risk at this point for Jim Benning, because if you fail this season, it's pretty much done. You have to take that risk, and you have to take it more than once.

Do you think he's done if he fails this season? He should be. I don't know if upper management in the Canucks organization would do it, but he should be. He's been there a long time, and they haven't really done anything. Especially if you go and you trade your first on pick for JT Miller, or your first and

a third and Merrick Mazanek for JT Miller. Yeah. How many years has Benning been there? And have the Canucks won a playoff round? I'm going to say 2014. No way. Has he been there that long? I don't think they've won a playoff round. I don't think they've won a playoff round with Jim Benning.

And I know that's going to sound rich coming from a Leaf fan. We're not happy with it. And also it hasn't been the same guy the whole time. Yeah. Right? Yeah. The Canucks introduced him as their general manager in May 23, 2014. That's correct.

There you go. So let's check and see. How many times have they made the playoffs? When was that series against the Flames? That was when I was, I want to say my first year at Sportsnet, 14-15? And they lost? Well, you've already been there that long, huh? I know.

Jeez. I know. I've been there since the horror check year. Wow. It sucked. Yeah, it did. It sure did. Actually, I had flashbacks last night because the Preds scored eight or more goals for the first time since the 9-2 game.

Wow. They smoked the Islanders last night. So, the Canucks introduced Jim Benning offseason May 2014. That year, they go and they make the playoffs in 2015, and they lose in the first round to the Calgary Flames. The next year, they finish with 75 points, don't make the playoffs. The following year, 69 points, don't make the playoffs Not nice Jinx

73 points, do not make the playoffs 81 points last season, do not make the playoffs So that's Jim Benning's track record right now So if you're Jim Benning You just keep beating the drum that Hey, we're improving Which, not a lie But

No man, you gave up our first You gave up our first, let's go Let's go Well, he's, you know Got Brock Besser in the draft. Actually, did he? Yeah, I think he did. You got Brock Besser in the draft, Elias Patterson, Quinn Hughes.

Okay, that's good. You got Antoine Roussel back because he had a knee injury, I think. I don't know. You got him back. Win. Win. You got to win. It's not enough to have a—

And that's weird because— And I look at all these beautiful pieces. Win. It's unfair. I stop giving a shit if you don't win. But it's unfair to have—not saying that they aren't here, but it's unfair to have them here. because of the moves they made because it's too early in what their arc should be

to be in the must-win stage. Right. I don't disagree with that. But they're not... Yeah, I do agree with that, but they sure don't sign players like it. No, well, that's what I kept saying, and this is the thing, man.

Canucks fans are such an interesting bunch because you get brilliant Canucks fans. No, you can't even talk about them. Well, you can. No. You can. I can. You can.

you can, there are guys that are like hey listen, you were right on this point but you weren't right on that point and then there's the Canucks fans that are like that go ballistic every time you mention them you don't know what you're talking about, you've never watched a game yes I have what about the Leafs? I'm talking about the Canucks

I thought you wanted this but in Jim Benning's arc with the Canucks Jim Benning has to start winning now but where the Canucks should be I don't agree with that And hello Pure Relator

By the way they're outside Apparently they're Get out of here Baby Are they in Must make the He's in Must make the playoffs mode

Right Like this year If you go What would that be If you go five straight seasons Without making the playoffs How do you justify Having a job

You know He's gotta win He's gotta make At least make the playoffs Eventually And not Not just It's National Hockey League

Half the team Just lock into playoffs. Well, and it goes to, I mean, I think they have the president with Trevor Linden, but GM, I mean, it comes down to ownership. You're spending my money. You know, you need to make the playoffs. It's not for the lack of money that I've given you. You sign this guy, you sign this guy, you send the...

Yeah, they're a cap-to-team. They've got $30,000 left in the cap. They spent it all. I mean, they're not alone there. That's every team because the NHL screwed the entire league. It's not like they're being held back by an internal cap, right? But if I'm the Aquilines, I go, okay, I've given you enough money to give me a winning team, and you haven't done it. Why isn't it 2011 again?

Why isn't it 2012 again? Why aren't we winning back-to-back President's Trophies? But you're about to come up on the 10-year anniversary of that. You would have thought that in that time you would have been a little bit better at this point. You'd think. You know what's weird? I don't think Mike Gillis has done anything. Since getting fired.

The guy who was in charge of all those things. Weird, isn't it? He's just sort of gone into the woods. He's probably still taking his time figuring out what he wants to do next. Mike Gillis did everything at the speed of his horse. So slow. So dry. You know, I think what I'm going to do is get tougher real slow.

You know what's funny? He doesn't talk anything like that. No, he doesn't. No. The Canucks have missed the playoffs Five of the last Six years Four of the last five years

Five of the last six And if they miss it again Counting's hard And they're another team I look at them, I look at the pieces I'll stick to it, I look at the pieces And I think they have what it takes to At least make noise

For sure, and it's not Travis Green I think at a certain point you've got to recognize That you put your money in the wrong spots You just did and you can't now what they've done is they've painted themselves into a corner

the Jay Beagle contract in a vacuum their top six is fine yes but the Jay here's what here's what bothers me

about talking to Canucks people about this in the moment or what has bothered me the last few years and whatever you just use people to connect

no I didn't use people oh yeah you do all I said was at the time the Antoine Roussel deal and the Jay Beagle deal are not deals that they needed to make

and not deals that they should have made and people said what's wrong with their contract here's a little Michael Furlan for you there Adam there's a little JT Miller there for you Adam

when you buy on the free agent market you probably overpay especially for a guy like Jay Beagle who was just coming off a Stanley Cup however the Jay Beagle contract itself yeah he's overpaid but maybe by 500 grand to a million you can absorb that but when you have

well it's when you do that over and over and over and over again Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel Brandon Sutter, Tanner Pearson Tyler Myers guys that they did you know what i mean like that's that's where it gets to be like okay now we're paying too much for a lot of people and that's where they've painted themselves into a corner so you look at the canucks and go well the answer better be in that dressing room their most exciting month

is july oh but it's not i can't imagine right like our canucks fans really jacked up about the jay beagle deal no i don't think so they're like okay well i guess whatever and people at the time say well they've got the room they can do it yeah sure but what about when you don't have the room It's the flexibility that You can find Jay Beagle anywhere You can find Jay Beagle in the AHL right now You've got to be able to Fill your third and fourth line

Penalty kill specialists And Jim Benning is supposed to be this draft god And by the way, if Jim Benning Goes on the market, I'm doing what I can To bring him into my scouting department Because he's very good, there's no question He's gotten some really good finds Great drafting

Keep him away from a mic Just keep him away from a phone on July 1st Like, I think that that's the issue here. So, if the Canucks don't start winning, what do they do to change it? I wonder if we're going to have an interesting few days. I wonder if this podcast is going to be out of date by the time it's released. Doesn't a freeze go into effect soon? It's, like, tomorrow, I think.

Yeah, it is tomorrow. Yeah. But, like, Taylor Hall just got traded. So, if you want to make your moves... Yeah, I don't think so. It's now or you've got to wait. I think they'll wait. This damn show's going to be out of date.

Nah, I don't think anyone's going to make a move. Which coach is getting fired? Nobody. It was Pete DeBoer last time. They're saying, Elliot Friedman was saying actually in 31 Thoughts today that he thinks DeBoer can coach again this year. Like, there's already teams kicking tires. I know where he's going to coach. Where's he going to coach?

Tampa. You think John Cooper's gone? I wanted to bring that up next. John Cooper benched Nikita Kucherov. Yo, man. Dude, if you bench Nikita Kucherov and they lose in overtime last night, he's fired today. You think so? Can I give two more Vancouver stats before we move on?

Sure. Since their cup run in, this is the last playoff stat I'm going to throw out there. Since their cup run in 2011, they have three total playoff wins. What? They got swept in the playoffs, and then they had one win, and then two wins. And then that's it. Since 2011, three total playoff wins. That's right.

They got the one against the Kings and two against the Flames. Now, if you want a what about the Leafs stat, at least they won a playoff round this decade. Which the Leafs did not do for the first time in their history Sure And that gives them a cup That's how it works Stop it If you're better than the Leafs

If you're better than the Leafs you win the cup Have you won the better than the Leafs cup We should create a better than the Leafs cup No we'd need too many rings No we'd go broke No I think that would be fun No we'll just hand it to somebody new every day Oh there you go

So you win the better than the Leafs cup If you do better than the Leafs If we make a point A relevant point about your team The Capitals And then you say Yeah, but the Leafs And you go

Whoa, he's right Give him the better one Than the Leafs Cup That's all you have to do to win Is just go But the Leafs And we just reshoot The no words commercial

Where people are like Like just on the verge of tears Next to the Seven foot tall Better than the Leafs Cup I want to see it Other thing You can argue that

Jim Benning has not missed on a first-round draft pick. No, man. He's done great. It's Quinn Hughes. I'm not counting last season, last offseason, because we don't know what the schedule is. Hey, that's a Russian guy. What's his name?

Podkozin? Sure. That's what we're going with now. Podkozin. Sure. Podkozin. He's Italian now. Quinn Hughes.

Great. Petr Shin. Great. Oli Ulevi. Brock Besser. To be seen. Great. Jake Furtanen.

Bo Hortman. Not the greatest pick. No, Bo Harvath's not his. But Vertanen, Besser, Vertanen's the first year he was GM. Vertanen, Besser, Ulevi, Pettersson, Quinn Hughes. That's damn good first round picks. It is damn good. He didn't nail every one of them, but you're not going to.

I gave him that. I think he nailed it. Yeah, Pettersson, Hughes alone makes that amazing. Add Besser to it, I forgive Vertanen, who is still a player. Yeah. He's just not like, I don't know. Vertanen's a guy. Did he draft Vertanen, though?

Vertanen was one of the guys who I, like, jumped up and down, was picked head of Nylander in Philly. Right, okay. And the other was Hayden Fleury. So Kucherov, you mentioned a couple episodes ago that you could see a world where Tampa moves on from Kucherov, and he ends up in Detroit. I just threw that out there,

because now I'm trying to think of, like, how Detroit can go about that, and I can't envision the scenario. But Kucherov makes $9.5 million. I think we're maybe a couple years away from seeing, I think, a bunch of big money guys moving. Because there are guys who probably deserve their contract when they got them. Yeah. But then they've got to live up to that every single year. You know who I'd kill to have on my team?

Who? Jeff Skinner. Yes. You know who I don't feel like paying $9.5 million to? Jeff Skinner. Kucherov won league MVP last year. I'd say that's pretty good. Worth it at 9.5.

At 122 points or whatever he had. You've got to be that every year. You've got to be that, and he's very not. He's very not. I told you, I told you, did I not call this. You cannot lose the way the Tampa Bay Lightning lost and not have something break. I'm not writing them off.

I'm not saying they're not going to make the playoffs. I am saying that if they're going to have any success, something's got to change in terms of personnel. And you think John Cooper is the next guy to go? Could be the coach, could be the players, could be both. I think you should have fired John Cooper after you lose in the first round. Really? I don't think you bring him back.

After winning the President's Trophy, though? I don't think you bring him back. Whoa! I think you go... I mean, the Raptors did it with Dwayne Casey. I think you go Dwayne Casey and you say, this is unacceptable. You're the best team in the league.

You can't be losing the playoffs every year. Coach of the year. Especially in the first round. Dwayne Casey won the NBA equivalent of the Jack Adams. Yeah, he won it. After he'd been fired. There's a lot of Raptors hockey comparisons that suck. That's a good one.

That is a good one. The bold thing to do would have been to fire John Cooper. Who, by the way, is the longest tenured coach in the NHL right now? I wonder if their general manager there, Briseois, I wonder if, like, had it been Iserman, I wonder if Iserman would have done it. But I think maybe Breezewa was like, okay, I just got started here. I'm just sort of getting my... Now, he's been the assistant GM there forever, and I get it.

I know. But it's different. You step into the leadership role. I'm sorry it's different. It is. Yeah. I'm getting nostalgic watching the Twitter feeds of Brad Crisco and Ryan Hanna with the Winged Wield podcast. Oh, man, it's great.

I'm getting nostalgic because every good thing the Red Wings do is a win. It's a win in the standings to them. Yeah. Right. Because they want the team to stink. But it's hard. It is hard. But like, hey, Adam Ernie, he scored two goals.

Wow! And they almost won. I miss being like, PA Parentos sick. It was a simpler time. It reminds me of childhood. You know what I mean? Red Wings will get back to it. And Eisenman will help them.

But right now, he's got the easiest job, which is just let the team be bad. Any one of us can do it. Mm-hmm. I could manage the Red Wings right now. Just let them stink. Easy. Simple. Way of Eric Comrie.

Why? Because who cares? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I feel like they're going to be just fine over there. In Tampa? In Detroit. Oh, in Detroit.

Yeah, they're going to be just fine. Yeah, but so when you do have Kuch on the bench. He played two shifts in the third and zero in overtime. And that was after he gave up a terrible turn away to Duclair, who scored a goal in the second period. The last time I could see something comparable was when Bruce Boudreau benched Ovechkin. He called him a fat fuck. Ovechkin did? Oh, yeah.

Sorry, what? If you look, I mean, the mic doesn't pick it up, but if you read the lips. Ovechkin calls Bruce Boudreau a fat fuck? I think so. I don't know. How does a benching work? Because I've played hockey, and I have to tell you, I was never at a level that was competitive enough

that you were going to bench a guy. There were guys that coaches got mad at, but it was never like, you're not playing the rest of the game. The only reason you wouldn't get played for the rest of the game is if you were bullying another kid or something like that. And so I wondered, does a coach just passive-aggressively just not play you, or do they say you're not playing? They might just not call your name.

You just don't tap the guy on the shoulder. Or they just go F you. Yeah, and just, yeah, they might not call your name. Because Kucherov scored in that game. He's part of the reason that they got in overtime. Yeah, but that's, again, it's with the Matthews 11.6 thing. Scoring for Kucherov is baseline. That's what we expect.

Don't give the puck away. You're literally the reigning MVP. What are you doing? What are you doing? We're dying right now. And it sends a message to the entire rest of the team. You bench a guy. And you know what's interesting in both scenarios is Cooper benched Kuprov.

His team wins the game. That game where Ovechkin lost his mind because he got benched because the Caps had the extra attacker out and he wasn't one of them. Caps tied that game with Ovechkin sitting on the bench. And Bruce Boudreau ended up fired later that year. It was 4-3 versus the Anaheim Ducks in 2011. God, I missed Deadspin. Deadspin had the article up in 2011. 4-3 versus Anaheim

there was a timeout called with 127 left in the third and Bruce Brujo didn't put Ovechkin out to be the sixth attacker and Ovechkin called him a fat fuck according to lip reading according to the terrible lip reading on this SD video very much honestly I have

to tell you I'm I wonder how long they're going to keep not having dead spin I don't think that I think they got to come up with something they got to come up with what are they going to do bring everybody back. Why not? And also give them freedom. Yeah, I think a lot of those guys have new jobs now. Like, I think they've

moved on. That's what happens when you're dumb fucks with your business. Maybe don't be dumb fucks with your business. Makes me so sad. I just, I want to hold out, I hold a little candle just to hope that maybe they will. Also in that game, Thomas Chabot, 37 minutes. Round of applause. Round of

applause, but let me say this. I hate to be the guy that says this. Thomas Chabot was the one that gave it up to Anthony Sorelli in overtime when Sorelli went and scored. And if you're playing a guy for 37 minutes, what do you expect? I don't put that on Shabbat.

Nick Paul got walked. He did. But I also think playing Thomas Shabbat that much, 22 minutes is fine. 37 minutes? Are you out of your mind? That's insane. This is a 33 at even strength.

That's outrageous. That is so not necessary. And I know that they were in that game And I know DJ Smith's trying to You know, they're playing for something They're playing for something They're playing for something That's ridiculous

What's the ice time for all their defenders? In that game or the season? That game You gotta give me a second Because we're talking about As long as we're talking about guys getting benched That's not a lot of ice For the other two left D to split between them

Holy shit, and even strength Like Riley played I want to say 32 minutes total One night and we were like what a hero This guy played more than that Even strength That's disgusting What do we got

He's working on it Poor hot Sambacho man I just think I feel bad for him because at 37 minutes Who's not giving up the puck What did you think of the goal Because there was a little bit of controversy With how Sorelli scored it

He crashed into the net. Yeah, but he scored at first. He scored before he made contact with Hogberg. But what is Hogberg supposed to do? Because the options seem to be stop the puck and get injured or stay safe and allow him to score. You're a goalie. You're an NHL goalie. Here we go.

At a certain point, yeah, okay, I get it. You don't want to get injured. You're an NHL goalie. You signed up for this. If you signed up to be an NHL goalie and you don't think you're going to get run, come on. Spoken like a forward with a big butt? I'm just saying. Adam is one of those.

Listen, I don't think he enjoys it, but what NHL goalie is going to give you any other answer other than it was my job to stop the puck? It was his job to stop the puck. He is the last line of defense. Sometimes that means taking contact, like the rest of the guys on your team. Damn, boy.

Just saying. Do you want to take a look at the time on ice for the boys on the team? To do, let's run down the defensemen. Brandstrom, 18 minutes. Okay, that's wild, that's a lot Gold above 10, 0-9 Not a lot

Andreas Englund, who's definitely a person 7 minutes and 27 seconds Hot Sambacho 37-50 Do you think he's pissed he didn't hit 38? Mark Boryetsky, 18-18 Ronald Hainsey Played 26 minutes!

Wait, is he Shabbat's partner? Yeah, looks like it So wait, Hainsey played the second most set of any D. 24 even strength. 24 minutes. What's the difference in time? 11?

11 and a half minutes difference! Holy God! And also, DJ, you're going to kill that poor man. Yeah, don't do that. What are you doing? Don't do that. Forget Hot Sambacho.

What are you doing to Ron Hainsey? That guy is 56 years old and a millennial who drives a Hummer. What are you doing? Oh my God. Little shout out to Gino Malkin

400 goals Yeah Give it up for Gino Yeah Do you realize how hard That is to do And like I forgot

I forgot how old he was That guy was drafted Before Crosby Yeah I always forget that He was drafted in 2004 After Wasn't he drafted

After Ovechkin Wasn't he second pick too He was second It was the first ever Russian 1-2 Wow That's cool That's a hell of a draft

Yeah Wow Not bad eh Not bad at all And who went third? Who cares? Doesn't matter. Probably Eric Branson.

Steve Dangle. I think it might have been Eric Stahl. No, he was before that. Mark Boreacki. No. Yes. That's who it was. 2004 draft.

We sent it into a mic. It's true. Nope. Don't look it up. No, no. Don't look it up. Hang on. Jeff Petrie.

Dylan DeMello. I want to know if you can actually guess this. Do we get a clue? Nope. Yeah, you got to give us some clue. Who was the team? It was, hang on, hang on. So we had Pittsburgh first, Washington second.

2004. Jesse, I don't, no offense, but I don't know if you're going to, I mean, feel free to take a swing. Adam called you an idiot. All right. All right, mister, I live in my basement. All right. Don't throw shots at me.

I do live in my basement, so at least it's not my parents' basement, but it is. Go write a blog. Chicago is the team. I know the player. Who is it? Cam Barker. Cam Barker! Wow!

Love him. I have his rookie card. Cam Barker. He did great. Did he? No. No, he didn't. Cam Barker.

How many games did he play? Ooh. It doesn't say here. Probably at least, like, four or five hundred. Oh, really? That's not bad. He's only 33 right now. He stopped playing.

His last games were with the Canucks. He still plays in SM Liga. Does he? Yeah, he was in the Swiss League last year. KHL for 4 years before that 5 years before that He was playing for Astana Boris Astana

He was playing in the Eastern Conference in Kazakhstan And then Bratislava for 2 years And then Astana Boris Astana And then Bratislava again So he's only played for those 2 Bratislava, Slovan I don't think they're a team anymore

He played 3 games for last season No he didn't Last season was 18-19 right? Yes, I do that too. Yeah, so he played a little bit of cage, and then he played three games in the Swiss League, and now he's in Liga seven games. Last NHL season was 2013.

Played 14 games for the Canucks. He's still going, eh? Good for him. Yeah, he's still making a good living. Who is on his team this year? I want to know this. He's on Ilvis Tempera. Oh boy, a bunch of names I don't recognize.

Yep, nope, this isn't as fun as I thought. No, there's no one who looks like... It is amazing when you look at that 2004... Nope, not him. When you look at that 2004 draft, it's like Ovechkin, Malkin, Andrew Ladd,

Blake Wheeler, Al Montoya. Andrew Ladd's a guy. Yeah, he's a guy. He was a guy. Blake Wheeler drafted by who? The Coyotes. How did they end up with Blake Wheeler and then not end up with him? How did he end up in Boston? I want to say he walked.

I think he might have been, he might not have signed. No, no, no, they traded him. But then you get into guys like Al Montoya. He was fine. Rostislav Olius. Olish. Rusty. Rusty Olish.

Andre Picard. Ladislav Schmid. Boris Valabic. Oh. Laurie Tukkonen. AJ Thelen. That was the end of the era where you just drafted guys because they were big. Yeah.

That was Valabic. Drew Stafford, who played. Devin Dubnik, who played. Radulov, good player. Petteri Nokalainen. I remember him. Merrick Schwartz. Kyle Cipchura from the Canadiens.

Korpikoski, Laurie Korpikoski. Travis Zajac. Jesus, Lord, that draft. Wotek Wolski, I remember him. Wotek Wolski, come on! Lucas Kaspar. Andre Meziros in Ottawa. Chris Chuko.

This is when Calgary just blew their first-round picks out of the door. Oh, Chuko! Yeah, Rob Schremp, and I remember he was pretty highly touted, but there was something up with him. I don't know what happened with him. He was just a guy who could do stuff and then chose not to, sort of thing. Oh, was it an attitude thing? He had the crazy shootout moves.

I want to say he was part of those ridiculous London teams, sort of in the mid-2000s, but no, he never really put together the full game. Corey Schneider was a 26, Jeff Schultz a 27, Mark Fistrick 28, Mike Green, good pick, 29 with the Caps, and Andy Rogers. So think of how crap that first round was that you just said. Terrible. The Caps came out of it with Ovechkin and Green. That's really good.

Yeah. Not bad, eh? Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all. I'm looking at the second round here. I won't go through every name, but I'm just trying to find stars. Like Bolin was drafted. Bickle was drafted.

David Booth, who had one-time 40-goal score, David Booth. Carl Soderbergh. But like, whoa. Not a good draft. Goligowski, 61. Krejci, that was a good pick. We're at talk about random crap stage of the podcast. Oh, yeah, let's get to the press conference.

It's just crazy. That is a wild draft. We are running out of time. So I will announce that next episode we will do Bachelor Bios. Oh! Oh, also, a special episode will be Friday this week. Instead of Sunday. Instead of Sunday.

Because we don't want to. And then we are off to the third or the fourth, something like that. We're off to that weekend. The fifth, I think. Whatever that Sunday is after New Year's. Yeah, fifth. Yeah, that's when we'll come back. Yep.

But yeah, so we'll do that on Friday. But we're going to have YouTube content still. We are. We're getting a little, we're doing a little stuff this week that we're going to have releasing over the holidays, so look out for that. Yeah, don't worry. No spoilers. But yeah, if you follow us on YouTube,

you'll, first of all, do that. If you haven't done that, do that. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Do it! And then you'll get some extra content over the holidays. Do it! All right, lovers, so line up whatever you need for next episode, because those are our last questions

of 2020, or 2019, that is. And it's the last questions of the decade. So if you have any decade-related questions, we would be interested in hearing them. No, it's not, because boring things. Yeah, have you seen that? The people who argue, no, actually, the decade goes till... Don't care.

What? So the decade goes till the first year of the decade? Yeah, it's something like that. The decade starts on one? Yeah, I don't know. Nah, that's not true. Shut up. That's actually not right.

That's not true. Because the years start on zero. Yeah, it starts at zero. Zero to one, or... Yeah, it's zero, one, two, three, yeah. When you're in year one You're in the second year Instead of the calm act

It should be you explaining why the decade Actually starts next year Actually Alright anyway we're going to let you go But we'll see you on Friday Last show of the decade Screw you on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake brought to you by

panago pizza order at panago.com and stuff your face with deliciousness connection complete