The Steve Dangle Podcast - Statement Statement | January 22, 2025

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Come see The Steve Dangle Podcast live in at Boston Pizza in Stouffville: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/steve-dangle-podcast-live-tickets-1205603405239?aff=oddtdtcreator On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Oilers release statement about McDavid suspension (00:00), the Penguins garage sale (34:00), Leafs beat the Lightning (55:00), Vancouver & Ottawa lose (1:18:00), and revisiting McDavid’s 2023 MVP (1:36:00). Visit this episode's sponsors: Join the 11 million men worldwide who trust MANSCAPED® and revamp your grooming routine with The Beard and Balls Bundle! Get 20% off + free shipping with the code DANGLE at Manscaped.com! For all the odds and to learn more visit https://betmgm.com/DANGLE Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. To learn more, visit: https://igamingontario.ca/en/player/responsible-gambling Or if you have concerns about a gambling problem, call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600. Must be 19+ or older to play. Find your push. Find your power with Peloton at onepeloton.com/en-CA Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at https://airbnb.ca/host Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1 Join SDP VIP: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0a0z05HiddEn7k6OGnDprg/join Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/thestevedanglepodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sdpvip/subscribe Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MtTmw9rrz7 For general inquiries email: [e-mail] Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content!Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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maddie usually switches the camera to each of us so that we appear when it says our names and this morning hey today maddie was asleep at the wheel listen i do shit i get a ghetto for jail free card because i got the date right for the boston pizza thing so without me you didn't get it right let me you know that we didn't say just had a bunch of shit in the comments so i i think what maddie is saying is we set a low standard for this show we just are constantly screwing things up and now she oh come on takes license to screw things up also well 3d1 is so unfair we need to step it up let me give you oh yeah oh yeah let me give you something happens to be all the time let me give you something that's indeed correct yeah february 12th is what it's a tuesday

it's for what though what am i doing four nations face off got it is kicking off that day and we will be at boston pizza stoville doing a show okay yay yay we've done a couple shows at boston pizza stoville we love it there uh it's a special location and obviously uh we're gonna do our little show at uh doors open 5 30 show starts at 6 30 canada plays at 8 because it's a tuesday and the nhl hates your bedtime all the four nations games start at eight i know but they hate your bedtime oh okay oh who cares oh we're worried about the west coast okay watch during dinner all right they're trying to make it a more prime time all right okay well guys stay up late now i'm kidding it's actually way it's so much better to watch um to watch games in the west like when

you live in the west watching sports is just so much better i feel like they don't know that no Oh, they know. They know. They talk about it all the time out there. It's the best. It is. The actual best is Central, if we're talking about the best time zones. Yeah.

Why? Because with the West Coast, sometimes you get that. If you're a fan of an East Coast team, you're getting that. It starts when I'm at work time slot. Right. Like, it'll be a 4 o'clock start if it's a 7 o'clock game. So, if you're a fan of an East Coast team, it's a little difficult. But in that Central zone, everything is just kind of primetime.

Right. You know, everything's in the wheelhouse. Yeah. but then you got to live in the central damn what are you saying adam's saying f chicago no chicago's great denver counts as central right i don't know what minnesota by the way i think you're on my headphones because i'm you deserve it it's cut now is denver but yeah so so denver's in the mountain standard time they're mountains they're that they're even denver it's a good debate between central and mountain which one's actually the best for sports because you even get

a little bit, a little extra more time within the mountains. Well, Stouffville is in the eastern time zone. Yes. But I will say this. Molson Canadian is the big sponsor here. They're an official beer for hockey and the partner of the Toronto Maple Leafs

and the PWHL. They're involved, it's fair to say. And I'm really excited because Molson Canadian is going to give you the chance to play Call the Shot, where you get to make some predictions for your chance at $40,000 worth of prizing. That's at BP Stouffville, February 12th. Molson Canadian wants to bring everyone in on hockey.

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Prizes in value of, I would assume, tickets and memorabilia. Groceries. No, I don't know about groceries. I don't know about that. Anyway, this location is also owned by NHL alum and friend of the show, Keith Acton. Who has a Stanley Cup ring. That's right, with the Edmonton Oilers. And he also played on a line and centered a line with Guy Lafleur, as he told us, which is bonkers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also Craig Berube. And was an assistant coach for the Toronto Maple Leafs for years during the last really good era of Toronto Maple Leaf hockey before this one. Now, usually, because we are Leaf fans, and this show really is sort of like the NHL through Leaf fans' eyes, we would start with the monday night games like right don't you think kind of yeah like we're leaf fans and we've got our perspective on other things happening in the nhl i don't think that's wrong yeah that's incredibly right actually the only thing that that annoys me is when we talk about another team and we criticize them and people go yeah what about the leafs right i'm

like what about the leaf i wasn't talking about them never heard the show huh yeah um i never talk to another leaf fan um no i i today we got to start with the edmonton oilers and this absolutely bananas bonkers what the hell is going on here statement it's short i'm going to read it all to you and it has to do with an event we spoke about uh last show which was the connor garland connor mcdavid the connor v connor this went in the total opposite direction i thought it was going to well we'll get to that yeah so the statement says this the edmonton oilers have released the following statement i don't know why they need to say that on the statement but they said that's actually a very good point regarding the three-game suspension of conor mcdavid the oilers organization

is disappointed and we share our fans frustration over the three-game suspension of our captain conor mcdavid we support him through this process and the organization and our fans look forward to having him back in the lineup versus seattle next week now they they go on to talk about McDavid scoring 20 goals and 45 assists 43 games yeah yeah stats are amazing slated to miss Tuesday's game versus Washington Thursday versus Vancouver Saturday versus Buffalo returning next Monday

versus Seattle now Thursday versus Vancouver is very interesting I didn't realize one of the games he was being suspended for is against the Canucks so doesn't it feel like the Canucks are being rewarded well I think you trade I think you trade Myers for McDavid anyway

at any day yeah yeah but the game that's in question is the buffalo one right he was probably going to be out for the vancouver one regardless yes yeah yeah that's probably a two game yeah we're gonna get into it so the the i think we need to start with the three game suspension itself because i remember jesse saying on the show and i didn't disagree with him he was like one game or two games it's probably going to be fair right that's what you said on monday yes yes and i can see that it was i you know when matthews did it it was two games uh earlier this season it was one game oh my him oh my i was in the playoffs carson susie a game playoffs different david playoffs i don't give a

shit um but now it's three yeah and i look at this and this is my personal thought uh this is him this is him getting a suspension for two games for cross-checking conor garland to the face and also chicken-winging that guy last week and knocking him out the game before. Marcus Johansson. Yeah, so when he took out Marcus Johansson and Conor Garland, this is the NHL going, all right, we let that first one go. Now we're doing summary punishment.

Lifetime Achievement Award. That's how it feels. Otherwise, how else does three games make sense? It doesn't. That's the thing. It doesn't make sense. It's the wrong amount of games. It should have been a two-game suspension.

Yeah, we're going to meet in the middle here. Adam has a theory. Jesse says that's nonsensical. that's why i think adam's right no but this is exactly tyler myers was also suspended for three games yeah but no i know and he didn't chicken when wing anybody on wednesday so the logic doesn't logic but here's here's where i think three games might have come from is uh it's both of them they both did it uh with if it's only one guy you can handle it you can be like this is different from this I think if Myers got more than McDavid or McDavid got more than Myers

um there would be several small fires blowing around the country uh beginning in the west it would uh not be a good time for anyone and the the overall conversation was what's Connor supposed to do and there was a lot of support for what he did so they're like you know what three maybe it should be two three no but that's that's the wrong decision i agree yeah i agree with you i too agree with that that's it that's the right statement but so that everything you're saying to try and justify it is wrong i'm not trying to justify it we're trying to get in their heads yeah like where did this come from yeah i don't believe that they had a rational explanation for any well they know they employ like eight people somebody must have tried to

rationalize this you know it's more than just george and and ryan gets laugh in a room there's a whole committee there's a lot of people that work in this department so somebody somewhere must have been well here's why like the question has to be okay two games clearly isn't enough here's why three is all right and then the answer to that question is the is the question that we all have which is what was the answer how did he fill in that sentence what did he mad libs i'm assuming it's a guy what did he mad libs into the end of that like you know you know you ever play mad libs were you fill in the blank i have what's the fill in the blank after that here's why it needs to be three games uh oh i don't think there is one what i was going to to do is welcome

with open arms the vancouver canucks and edmonton oilers fan bases into the if this is the standard going forward club every time a leave gets suspended well if this is the standard going forward than fine and it never freaking is i see there was a lot of criticism about the oilers releasing this statement and i'm completely on the other end of that i think they were completely justified in releasing a statement and saying something because the decision was not consistent with any of the decisions that the nhl has made for suspensions for cross-checking so i think that they should they should express their frustration with that because everybody should be frustrated in this situation because there is no logic to having a three-game suspension the problem is i

don't think they did that like they just know they didn't do that we're disappointed and it comes off as whiny and if they say how they really feel they're gonna get fined exactly so i think this is the most they could do so i i'm crediting them for doing the most that they could do the i understand the edmonton oilers organization is disappointed is how that statement reads and then there's like one other sentence after that doing that those those five words there is the most they can do and they went there and they did that so credit to them for at least standing up to the department of player safety which cannot do its job well that i think the line that got everybody and got me and i still think it's hilarious is we support them through this process

give me a break well it's three games you'll be fine now does that make it not fair it's still completely unfair but all you needed to do in that statement was say we're we're really disappointed and disagree with the thing and and connor will be back monday we support him through this process he's a grown man he's a captain he went to game seven of the finals connor mcdavid is good and we know that edmonton support supports connor mcdavid we're well aware his agent is the freaking president okay so like i get it okay the team's built around this man that that to me in the pr statement and i know it's a small thing but it was hilarious is we support him through this process no come on now that was a delicious delicious i think i think it should be in there

because in there you want to express how disappointed connor is as well in there without saying that so saying that we're supporting him like he's in the back in tears you know like we have to help him because he's missing this game against buffalo we're supporting him through that process and that's that's kind of what they're trying to express in those couple words there because they can't say anything, as Steve said, and they've got to provide as much color as they can to this two-sentence statement. I think it's great.

Can I throw something out there? The fact that McDavid and the team can't speak their mind on this is bullshit. No, that's pretty normal. I know it's normal. Yeah, but a lot of normal things are bullshit. I guess. And this is bullshit. They can't say how they feel.

So leave it up to us. This league doesn't know how to officiate this player. Yeah, or any player. like i i do you enjoy your monster dr frankenstein you created that now created that you let him get figure four leg lock now now wait though the we support him thing i always try to look for this than that right there was a report that came out from i think it's a podcast called the two mutts yeah that's what i'm getting to oh that's what you're getting to okay bring it up because i think these two things are connected so too much says and i don't know how i don't know how

uh uh real this is but uh they said we are hearing that conor mcdavid and his camp are strongly considering scaling back their nhl tour events such as media interviews to push things for this league uh this was communicated before the nhl because the lack of protection of superstar players uh it gets in this league uh this is a story we'll follow over in a few weeks now they have they have a point it's important to note that came out before the statement yeah yeah it did and and i think the one thing that i have been annoyed with with nhl players uh generally specifically the superstars is this i don't give a shit attitude like i'm sorry i'm an athlete i i just don't care about the future of the sport or the health of the sport or the

health of the players union or how we're officiated um you know i respectful to sydney crosby and alexander ovechkin for all the things that they've done neither of them have taken a stand on anything against the league like it's except for Ovi going I'll take my one game suspension and skip the all-star game I don't care and uh and and it doesn't mean that it hasn't happened behind the scenes but I think you know you've probably got the agent working overtime here trying to you know getting things out right because it's not Jeff Jackson anymore it's Judd Moldover Moldaver Moldaver who represents uh let me check everyone everyone yeah he's got he's got some good clients um and I don't blame him if I were the agent I would want to be doing the same thing

I think in this situation, Edmonton releasing that statement, the NHL lets that fly off its back. Where leagues tend to run into issues is when the star players of those leagues sit down across from them at the table and go, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to. We're not going to stand for this. The NBA is great at it. The NBA PA has like all the superstars ahead of it. it's like chris it was chris paul and lebron james and uh and so many other these big guys coming in and going to the owners hey listen this is bullshit uh and since we have the power right

now because we're the product we're not going to stand for this this part of it if connor does threaten this um he's obviously there were some people claiming that you know he should sit out the four nations which come on ridiculous okay but there is and we've all discussed this many times on the show a real problem with nhl player safety it's here is here's a real officiating here's it yeah but let's start with just player safety sure and i know that the officiating or lack thereof led to this well i think one is getting better the other is getting worse so but player safety is an easy win for the nhl connor standing up to the nhl can force some change and go you need to release guidelines on this or you if he if he pulls his services back

the nhl hurts for that that's not good the nhl is on a roll and they don't want to get off this roll this is going really well they got tv rights deals to worry about their ratings are up things are looking good if connor mcdavid isn't you know waving the flag that's a problem for them so here's a real easy win nhl let's have a standard and let's hold to it why hasn't this happened so connor can get a win here and it'll look like a champ the nhl can get a win here uh because they'll actually be accountable for this um and and it's a win-win for everybody i just don't know if the nhl is smart enough to take the easy road here and actually put this shit down on paper and have a a legitimate benchmark for if this then that but also will every every and none

of this is a problem if they simply give him two games like none of this is a conversation we all move on with our lives that there's a lot of people who like clowning on conor mcdavid and They'll call him a crybaby in this situation because it's sports and they don't like the other team. And that's how you should react as a fan. But you also should realize how important this individual is to the health of the league. He's the next generation. He's the superstar currently driving the big marketing for this entire league. And if you want this league to grow, he's going to be a large part of that.

So there needs to be some sort of respect here for this player and what he does on and off the ice. First of all, a crosscheck to the face has been nothing. a fine one game two games three games five games that's how you know the next player is getting four because it's always something different four is the only one that's left i'm great at poker uh the the other thing um with with uh with connor in this whole situation so with that report it you know god this feels familiar well it's just some podcast talking about it what do they know hey listen did you hear about the three on three league every well sometimes those podcasts are talking out their ass and sometimes they have good shit yeah yeah right so when that statement

came out i was like okay we support him through that he's pissed he's really pissed like we support no he's not gonna die he's gonna survive he's gonna be fine yeah he lost nearly 200 grand he's going to be fine he's pissed so let's go back let's go back a year and again I'm so smart and so informed because of the CJ show CJ talked about how this was a really big deal uh for McDavid the all-star game last year him and I want to say Matthews but let's just focus on McDavid he was out there recruiting players and telling them how important it was for them to participate and participate enthusiastically kucherov didn't get that memo in the all-star game kucherov doesn't get any memo he's he marches to the beat of his own drum that's why he's so good that's

why he's so insufferable that's why i would have his jersey and his decal on my car if he was a um but mcdavid went above and beyond mcdavid last year was the star that we've been begging for and the nhl is doing so great well how come how ratings are up stanley cup final did really well well how come me me me me it all comes back to nine seven well maybe matthew kachuk too featured in people magazine come on adam he was in people magazine adam adam be for real nothing to do with the all-star game matthew kachuk is a is a gift to the league we're talking about the finals too right yeah we're we're talking about all of it but be for real it is Connor McDavid and if you want also

Connor McDavid right it was all Connor McDavid so he went above and beyond I did that for you Stanley Cup final I did that for you and this is how I get rewarded I still I get figure four leg locked and you have the same dinosaur you've had fucking all the other Canadian teams officiating my game and

not calling it right the the older and more experienced an nhl ref is the worst they are at their job it's just a fact it's a fact not interested in a debate about that uh i've told you about this this is a concern of mine i'm not being a baby about this i'm not whining because i lost this is a legitimate concern of mine what's your concern you want the all-star game to go well i did that for you you want the sport to thrive with a genuine superstar at the head of it i did that for you i stick up for myself because you guys won't do anything and i get more than the standard that's been set fuck you i'm not doing shit have fun selling tickets to this event where uh you're you're trying to uh the the fans in montreal have the habs they have the laval

rocket they have the victoire they had the world junior whose brilliant idea was it to have the world juniors and four nation face off in montreal in the same year i thought it was ottawa this year wasn't it split it was ottawa wasn't it split ottawa montreal ottawa had the world juniors i thought it was split okay well i can check that okay well anyway it doesn't matter the who's regardless the tickets aren't fucking selling yeah sure in montreal the tickets aren't selling in boston you know who could help with all that the same the model student that has been going above and beyond i could collect my paycheck and work on my knee that i fixed my damn self

mm-hmm i i could ice my ribs that i keep getting brutalized from every damn cross check um ice my back i could you know what i think i'm taking the day off you know i i think my schedule just cleared a little bit we have been begging for this and begging for this and begging for this and he gave it to you and you spat in his face don't blame him yeah that's why i didn't appreciate both of you coming into this with the energy that you did where you're trying to find leeway for the nhl and that like oh it's i i don't think that that is a complete misrepresentation of how we came in that's completely not i thought you're trying to find justification for the three in johansson and then oh maybe it's because the both of them did it and i don't think the nhl

deserves any leeway in that and that's trying to find logic in what they did because they simply did the wrong thing i don't care what justification they had for doing the wrong thing it was wrong You know, and I think everything that was said for the last like 17 minutes after that is the point that the NHL got this wrong. Well, I don't want anyone misconstruing. Oh, so McDavid should get away with it. No. Since when has it been three games? Exactly.

Yeah, it's never been three games. It's probably two, maybe one. Of course, a cross check to the face is a suspension. What the hell? Since when has it been three games? And, you know, on the last show, you spent 15 minutes talking about how the ref failed in the first place with Conor Garland jumping on McDavid. and then uh and then blase saying afterwards yeah so i cheated and it worked uh yeah it was totally fine yeah and so this is this is where you know jesse the reason that i i started the

show that way was because you have when you look at things that don't make sense it's natural to go okay there's got to be some sort of rationale that this other side is applying to this and i think a major problem for gary betman today and i don't know if he sees it as this but it is a problem is when you hire bad people you get bad results i don't think he sees anything as okay but listen to me yeah when you hire bad people you get bad results okay when you hire bad people no like bad at their job oh okay what do you what do you think i meant well listen adam you need you got a spoon thing okay feed when you hire especially in in volatile conversations like this one when you hire incompetent people how's that there you go incompetence like he gary has

just created a headache for himself by hiring incompetent people to run his department and the reason that that's the case is because a lot of the nhl runs on hey he's my drinking buddy and that is that's a problem right so gary now has to go and mend this relationship he's going to have to go and mend this relationship whether it's gary himself or one of his people and try to get connor back on board because the nhl is on a roll and they've got rights issues that they want to talk about and and and alan said it in the last show gary came to the board of governors meetings and said the the the amount of money that we will get for the national rights package in canada will be 3x the last one right now it's about 450 a million american dollars every year

so that david's uh we're talking about going up three times 1.2 to 1.5 billion dollars per year for a national right package which does not include your regional games right that's what they're expecting to get so if mcdavid's like i don't i don't think i'm going to be involved in that that's a problem for him and so when you hire incompetent people you then have to clean up their mess and i just this has been you know it always takes the best player in the sport for change to happened no one cares no no disrespect no one cares if this happened to matthews oilers fans would be like aha right if this happens to nathan mckinnon people like you know people who hate the ads like ah but it's connor mcdavid wasn't it jared spurgeon got speared in

the face by gustav nyquist no one cares yeah well no like there's a large majority of nhl fans right now laughing at the edmonton oilers going aha it's mcdavid like i feel like that's because of that statement because that's that's hockey like that's fandom that's sports and i i think that's okay like there's going to be plenty of people respond to this i'm like ah mcdavid's a crybaby all that stuff but i think the rational way to look at this is how detrimental doing this to him and both of them honestly because neither of them should have got three games and how the department of player safety is doing the wrong thing here the reason i was giving you a smushy face on uh on uh betman has a headache please save this clip for when peros is inducted into

the hall of fame as a builder like well gary won't be alive the game is rigged man like it's yep until the uh you know i want this guy to retire i want that guy to retire i want it's uh it's an ecosystem it's here's the the problems breed right and and they uh they create offspring right like what what is what is bill daly other than like gary betman's professional son you know what i mean yep like it's or whoever is next um i just don't see this problem ever getting fixed like peros gets hired what what's player safety jammed with his friends his younger friends and you know what they're gonna do once peros is gone hire their younger friends i i hope

you as a hockey fan and someone whose life uh revolves around professional life revolves around the NHL doing well I simultaneously need the league to do well and do better than it is doing and need things to change in order for that to happen

and I don't know if both those things can happen at the same time I just don't they gotta suffer a bit in order to figure this out and I just don't trust them to be smart enough to solve what ails them See, I think Connor can push this.

I hope so. And listen, Canucks fans are going to be all over us for this. It's, listen, McDavid can't do what he did. He can't do what he did. But let's be serious here. Garland was like na-na-ni-boo-boo about it after the game. He very much was. What he did was wrong.

and i hate i hate the depiction of what he did as oh it's a two minute minor no no no no this isn't there's not 12 minutes left in the second period this is less than 20 seconds left in a one goal game even if he gets called for the penalty they got to take a face off and he by his own admission is like yeah well i simply cheated to win like friggin eddie guerrero except it's real and counts it is inscripted this is a bigger issue than that and if it's Quinn Hughes getting decked in the face you're gonna have a much bigger problem with it you don't you don't think the Canucks you don't think Francesco Aquilini is releasing the same thing but potentially I think the Canucks have enough going on to worry about that they've got their own problems man well I think that's the

sort of thing Francesco goes you know what I'm gonna do and Rutherford goes well hold on you You know, so maybe he would have prevented it. But I think, anyway, Shu would have been on the other foot. But McDavid has power here. I hope he uses it. I think he's trying to. So this is where we wrap this part of the segment.

I want to know what you guys think happens here. Obviously, McDavid's going to play in the Four Nations. Like, that is ridiculous. And to be honest with you, when anything happens in Edmonton, it is fun to see the freak out. But this was, I think they were wronged. I think everybody knows that they were wronged.

Still interesting to see the takes. So we go to where does this end? Let's say the Four Nations is a wild success ratings-wise. I don't know how the ticket sales are going to go, but wild success ratings-wise, Conor McDavid scores the winning goal, that sort of thing. He is the most in-demand person in the sport. Let's say he does withhold doing NHL appearances.

What then happens, right? How does, you know, you've got this, it's weeks away, weeks away, the best players in the world, weeks away, most of the best players in the world, a couple of countries shut out of there. What do you, what then happens? Like you've got playoffs to promote. You got next season to promote. You got the Olympics.

You got a whole bunch of things. What happens? Well, like Connor McDavid, every time he's in front of the net or every time he tries to enter the zone or every time he tries to do anything maybe the nhl should just sit there and take their lumps you think so well they have they have two ways of responding to this either the problem gets worse and they say fu and uh the whistle for mcdavid gets even worse and there's precedent for this we we know it works this way um dennis weidman uh canucks fans are very familiar with Stéphane Auger with regard to Alex Burrows

and that whole game. You can look it up. It was a travesty. Or they can sit there, eat their shit, take their lumps, and at some point reach out to McDavid and go, all right, Connor, loud and clear, new standard going forward,

and then prove it to him. Jesse, what do you think? i honestly think we're gonna arrive on saturday they're gonna play that game in buffalo without conor mcdavid they're gonna play their next game conor mcdavid does his media veils he talks about it disappointed all that stuff and then we move on because that's how it always happens we move on after like a week we'll sit here next week next wednesday and this isn't gonna be a story and it won't be a story forever until the next time somebody gets suspended for cross-striking somebody the head or the next time mcdavid is in an incident that might require supplemental

discipline that's the next time we'll talk about it but in terms of a news story and withholding services and all that stuff we're moving on oh seven days from now the news cycle moves quickly and jesse you make a good point the most boring outcome is usually the most likely yeah um okay all right sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where task rabbit comes in and i think you should check this out because here's the deal one of the things one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to repel down and clean all the windows but they never clean my windows oh and their way around on that is like well it's a patio window you can do that yourself and i'm like well hang on a second what if i don't

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Oikos Pro, feed your strength. Visit oikos.ca for more details. So we could talk Leafs, but I'd prefer to do this for my own self. The report is out there, guys, that the Pittsburgh Penguins are considering a fire sale. But that fire sale does not include Malkin Crosby, at least, and potentially LeTang. and carlson you can't move so is that a fire sale no no that's a garage sale okay

okay hey uh can we have like a fifth rounder for a third liner sure what do you give me for this that you're not at a car dealership you're on my lawn i got some old garden shears like what what are we even talking about who who is a pending free agent on the pittsburgh penguins well i think marcus patterson is the one that uh yeah so so damn the the report is he's good i like him uh marco d'amico from rg.org okay um and uh d'amico asserts the that the ping that crosby malkin rust thomasino and pickering are the only players pittsburgh has no interest in moving sorry i incorrectly said so what kind of fire sale is this we're not moving so you've got like 10 guys peterson grizzly anthony bevillier

with uh expiring contracts raquel carlson letang and graves who would be available and have left on their deals stupid they should move heaven and earth to keep him who are the other names uh raquel carlson letang graves peterson grizzly anthony bevillier okay adam bear with me start the list of guys who are available again. Marcus Patterson, Matt Grizzly. No, no, no, no, no.

Slow. Marcus Patterson. Yes. Okay, cool. Matt Grizzly. Powerplay specialist, meh. Traded for a fourth at the deadline,

Anthony Bavillier. Meh. Ricard Raquel. Good. Eric Carlson. Ridonculously expensive. Chris Letang. Old.

Ryan Graves. Absolutely not. oh is that the end of the list that's it that's not a fire sale this is hey the penguins are open to trading their problems oh okay plus ricard riquelme guys what are we doing here well and this is where i wanted to ask you guys about is this the start of a rebuild in everything but name okay crosby and malcolm want to stay there till the end of their careers that's fine i get that um letang is making 6.1 million guys he's not playing up to a 6.1 million but if you get letang retained sure then that at three million you're like oh man i'll take that that's great

everyone knows they're rebuilding except them they they the rebuild began when they traded gensel guys well i don't i don't care what they think this is you traded jay gensel who didn't he want to stay yes his teammates wanted him he wanted to stay uh they wanted to extend him by the way that's a rebuild since last show ryan graves has played two more games still has not registered a point that's a rebuild what are we doing well and i'm just trying to figure out okay so so the rebuilding team is open to ditching players who don't help them moving forward well so i think i'm looking at this and and i i wanted to ask you guys about this because this felt like okay eric carlson at 10 million dollars eric carlson at 11 and a half was a lot

eric carlson at 10 is a lot right just due to age but he's got 32 points in 49 games i know a team the leafs who could use an offensive defenseman at is eric carlson at seven million dollars an attractive thing where you give up major assets for jesse blake do the penguins have retention slots available that is a good question i would imagine that they do i think the only team that is retentioned out is the san jose sharks at this point but i will check that and you know the reason i asked this is if they start to go down that road and retain on some of these contracts that three buyout retained oh they have three buyout retained yeah so they don't they don't even have retention that's not possible oh my god that's not even possible yeah so they would have

to they have to move these guys at full jack yeah they would have to get a third team involved and they'll get pennies on the dollar because uh you have to get a third team involved but you weren't able to retain yourself and you got to pay that team to retain obviously yeah you're significant you're boned and here's the other thing here are the three people that they have retained on slash bought out so jeff petrie was a retention when they traded him to detroit and that probably uh comes off the books what the summer after this yeah this summer okay so maybe they do something 1.5 yeah riley smith they had which they moved they wanted to move him they wanted to get him from vegas that was one of dubas's first moves was to get retained to send

him to new york 1.25 million oh that expires this summer and then jack johnson which was a buyout which was a ron hextall move which was stupid uh they bought him out so when's that uh that's two years from now almost a million dollars a year what are they doing man well what they're doing is they're still you know it's not all doom and gloom for the penguins really it's all going forward it's a world of shit but no but with the with those slots you're just talking about one of them's a buyout right yes so they still do have one retention oh they got one yeah yeah because you get three retention spots but the buyouts don't count for that so i was wrong they can they can retain salary if they you said the jack johnson one was a buy yes okay so they got one

retention spot left okay so there you go so if you have a retention spot and eric carlson who is valuable on one side not so much on the other uh as long as he's never taking an offensive zone start i'm happy with a guy like that on my team at seven million bucks especially where the cap is going i know he's 34 i know he's had injuries but the guy is still scoring a lot of points can can hey the leafs could benefit from a player like eric carlson like it's not a bad player so just a ridiculous amount of money what they're gonna need though is significant assets back and in order to get those like marcus petterson i think cj said like uh julian asked cj uh on the show the other day like what does marcus petterson get cj's like probably a second if you get a bunch

of bidders maybe you're able to push that to a low first but like that's pretty good okay that's great uh but you don't want to trade all of these guys who like hey we don't want to trade i don't want to give you any of my good cards right i got pokemon cards i don't want to give you any of my good cards but i want your good card get ready to get a bunch of energy cards back like if you could take eric carlson for just the salary would you guys do that for the leafs yeah no any team are you like the full salary 10 mil just take it i don't think the pens are just giving it to you for a seventh round pick are you taking that you got two more years uh after this one at 10 mil if i if i'm dubious and i'm unloading this deal i'm sending it away for just the cap space that

i get right what yeah but what competitive team can do that so even if we're let's let's okay we'll retain on some of that let's say it's seven million that adam's saying uh if i'm dubious i'm giving that away like i'll just send it away i think he has to right like i don't think there needs to be anything coming back the other way that's significant oh i understand there's no trade that needs the cap space is more valuable i if i'm dubas i'm looking at this and it's like i just want out from under this deal i'll take all of that cap space back the part of the reason the sharks retained so little is people forget the contracts dubas just pitched out the door and at the time it was like thank goodness he got those out the door and i hate grandlin one of them

was grandlin who was not a good penguin though yes he wasn't it's important to note he was not a good penguin he's been a great shark but the money was almost even going back and forth between the sharks and penguins yan ruda and there was another big ish player i can't remember wasn't it the petri deal that's detroit is all that is it okay it was different it might have been three way oh maybe it was petri yeah it was there was a lot of money going the other way um you would have to do something like that again and here's what i want to bring up if chris letang is well truly available first off uh he has a no movement clause full no movement clause so he gets to choose and even then if you work out a deal chris letang's mike hoffman oh my god yes hoffman

grandland and ruda and a first i forgot was the carlson deal yeah that was 4.5 for hoffman 5 for grandland and 2.7 for ruda it's pretty much carlson for a first this is this deal by the way for letang is not a Dubas signing. This is Ron Hextall. And you can't talk about Kyle Dubas with some of these deals without talking about Chris Letang, or sorry, without talking about

Ron Hextall and Brian Burke. However, it's not like Kyle came in and made it better. What GM comes into a good situation? So here's- It's rare. Here's what I'm going to give you. Do you know that Chris Letang

has three more years after this one? At $6.1 million, he is 37 years old. that's not gonna age great it's also robita right like that goes on ltir i would think so well i mean of all the players who go on robita island where i'm like that's some bullshit like chris letang it's a miracle he's still playing yes miracle he's had heart attacks and like like crazy crazy and have a heart i know you know what i'm talking about though like two at least two strokes that i can think of and 51 points last year gee like he's incredible it's probably a hall of famer i think so um like you know at minimum he's a pittsburgh penguins

legend um multiple time stanley cup champion but if one day they're like yeah he's not playing again we're putting him on ltir i'll be like i think everybody understands everyone yep deserve don't even investigate it just let it happen don't even here's the thing with what that's nuts who is oh it's oh okay fine uh you the thing with chris letang is he shoots right oh stop no i'm serious oh someone's carlson someone is always gonna want him but you know he might be one of those guys who what i'd be interested to know is what is the money owed on those years good question because look that up okay i gotta uproot my family and play another year somewhere else for two mil it's not great uh 4.8 3.8 and 3.8 so there are some savings

roughly 40 percent in the last two years but like you know next yeah sorry this year it's 6.2 next year it's 4.8 and it goes to 3.8 so so okay i'm gonna agree to a trade and like okay what let's let's rank like what's he has a 10 team no trade list starting years five and six by the way i should mention so he'll have a decision to make uh report to the team that your name is going to pop up in those rumors do you play those final two years somewhere else because they're moving you they are uh or do you just retire and how's that going to make sid feel how's that going to make gino feel now sorry what i was trying to say uh like a a few moments ago the penguins are four points out of a playoff spot yeah the team's ahead of them have a game

or two in hand but i keep saying it everyone's a hot week away except for the sabers everyone is a hot week away they're right there the penguins problems moving forward are obvious and painful but uh i wouldn't be surprised if this fire sale goes away real fast uh if the ship writes itself isn't it funny though we've been saying that for 18 months yeah they could just write themselves where's the evidence that that's gonna i know but they're right there like i i i think i think some penguins way of looking at it i think some penguins fans are no if adam if it was me i'd blow the thing up but but like i think some penguins fans are like all right we get it we're fucked like we're we're screwed going forward what do we do um what if you're

okay they're four points up right okay how do we get four points in how do we get to how do we leapfrog all the teams ahead of us and get one of the wild cards well it'd have to be a good team to do that yeah they they did well they've made the first step towards that by saying tristan And Jari's not playing here anymore. Right. Okay. There's a, there you go. We don't, we can, we can assume that our goalies most nights, not going to let in a goal in

the first three shots. How about Montreal? They got a guy back from injury. Yeah. They made a pretty nice trade with to, to, to boost their defensive depth. Kirby doc is starting to look like Kirby doc. And they got a little bit of luck by calling up a goalie. Yeah.

who i don't think i don't even think the habs knew he was that good he hasn't lost yet you know so is there some luck involved there sure of course there is where's the penguins version of that how do the you're telling me the the the whatever the penguins version of the carry a deal isn't out there kyle barry trots 1-800 barry trots before you get to the bottom of you yes he's feeling good this morning they they came back from a 5-1 deficit call him so he's not going to trade then maybe because now listen they're just a hot week away not the brats not the no no no there's like five or six teams around the league who are not a hot week away they're one of them i think the

penguins would be much better off accepting what they are and i think we've known that for a year and a half now especially with the oh the gold differential is the minus 32 is ugly it's last in the eastern conference by a wide margin and i think there's there's so much evidence here that this team doesn't have the ability to turn around i would like for them to pick a direction whether They're it's we're going to if they want to buy like do that, you know, go all in. If you have Crosby for two years and you want to say we're doing everything we can to win with Crosby, then there are things you can do to do with to go in that direction. Like if you want to keep selling futures, you can. It's your but they said that they don't want to.

Right. It's irresponsible to do that. But if you were to say we're going for it, then do that. And then the fire sale, if you're going in that direction, then tear the whole thing down. My least favorite thing in pro sports is the team that's finishing 11th in a conference, 12th in a conference, 10 even. That little middle area is where it's going to kill you because you don't have an immediate direction you're going in. So I'd like to see the Penguins, after all of these years of success, to pick, hey, we're going to fully rebuild or we're truly going to try and sell everything for the future to try and win for two years here. Pick one.

I think you've got to try. Okay, listen. we already know they're not going to decide to lose they're they're too stubborn they're not going to do it i don't think that's necessarily true like i think the team can show you that we need to decide to lose and kyle can pick that direction if he's continually being being forced by the performance on the ice to do that and i think kyle dubas because of his giant ass contract for a hundred billion dollars in 20 years can can sway it's going to sway management to do that because he should have that pull

if he truly is running the show as the president of the entire club. So like last show, I brought up Jack Roslevich in like a JT Miller trade. I'm not saying this player is available or Kyle Dubas should go out and get him. But what if you were able to go out,

get a guy who can help you win now, right? Get into the playoffs. And if the trade deadline, first or second week of March shows up and you're still in the same spot, you blow it to friggin smithereens i i don't have a problem with him giving the team the next six weeks or so to show us what they're made of but if what they're made of is still this volcano yeah you just you picked a direction like that's exactly what i'm just asking kyle

whether it's yeah you want to give them till four nations and after that then you pick your direction fine cool use the time that you got available to you but just like pick a direction here this you have a lot of contracts here that that a lot of teams will want or you can just simply get rid of because the money is not worth it and you can use that cap space for future assets and start really rebuilding and and i think it's i think jesse i wanted to back your point i think it's irresponsible 100 to it's irresponsible to trade futures but if you decide to be irresponsible which is um which is continuing this this idea that we're gonna support sid until the end uh then you need to be irresponsible in that direction you need to trade futures holding

them is the irresponsible thing to do because you're fucking with sid's legacy right and uh you're not picking a direction and i think you're middling well you're middling and you can't be middling you can't you can't you can't you can you can hit on on draft picks in the middle of that round might take three years to develop them there's a lot of teams that are in a really difficult spot right now because they don't know what to do because they're all a hot week away like the rangers but you got to put yourself in a position where you can't be a hot you also got you got to look at the standings realistically if you're the pittsburgh penguins there's one two three four teams between you and look how terrible i brought the goal differential before but the the

minus 32 goal differential is just it's disgusting for the Penguins there and you got to understand that if you want to get into the playoffs you have to bank on the Canadians not being hot anymore the Bruins not turning into the Bruins towards the end of the season Columbus be not being really really good the Rangers

not turning things around the Flyers probably being the Flyers and not capitalizing on anything but you have to jump all of these they won three straight like yeah I don't I don't think the Pittsburgh's looking at these standards and be like you know what we're we're gonna pass montreal any day now and by the way having seen what the rangers have done in the last 10 i have a hard time believing that the rangers are not making the playoffs this year

i i they hit me on that but i have a real hard they're really good at not closing out games they are it hasn't it hasn't been pretty in in losing but but that game last night versus vancouver you saw a real fight from the rangers even the goalie challenging brady kachuk uh you That was hilarious. Yes, the Rangers are bad at closing out games. And usually teams that aren't performing to their max are bad at closing out games. And you look at the 6-1-3,

three of those games are overtime games. They could have won, right? I just, like, are the Penguins that? As Jesse says? Are the Penguins the good luck Blue Jackets who had tragedy to start this year? They've come together as a team. They've been disastrously managed

for well over a decade, probably two, if you were to read what Aaron Portsline said, you know, the team that parody forgot. And yet here they are. I love teams like this. Band of merry men who are like, we're too ignorant to know what our weaknesses are. Let's just go for it.

You finally got the Senators sniffing blood. Playoffs! Hasn't happened since 17 playoffs. Montreal Canadiens haven't seen a playoff game since the finals in 2021. They're jacked. This is a fantastic year in the NHL. It is.

I don't think people are paying enough attention. Race-wise, it's awesome. The race is great. Are the Penguins any of those teams? Realistically, no. They got a worse points percentage than the Red Wings. Yes. Oh, my God.

Dude. The Red Wings, who are hotter than them, by the way. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, Penguins are 3-4-3 in their last 10, man. The Red Wings? Oh, my God. They were in such a deep hole. Six, one, and three in their last ten.

They still have 47 points. No, what did you just say? Six, three, and one. Six, three, and one. The Red Wings are what? They were in such a deep hole. The Pittsburgh Penguins are just right there with them. No, no, no, no, no.

Sorry, you're misunderstanding me. The Red Wings have done so well recently just to get to there. Yes. You know what I mean? Whereas the Penguins have sort of been toiling in that little, nestled into that nice little second wild card spot. I look at the penguins and I say,

the penguins are in such a deep hole. Now, I would like to... But if you're Kyle, you know, you give them a couple weeks, whatever. I'd like to bring something up. Yeah, Kyle, maybe. To quote his favorite... You're a hot week away.

Maybe. I need that on a shirt. Oh, maybe. Sorry, I missed it. The Chinese farmer? Yeah. Okay, so let's chat a little bit here about the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Yes! Sorry. This made the rounds, and I'm pretty sure Sportsnet is engagement farming when they're doing this, and they know how to do it. And there's nothing wrong with that. Fine.

Go and engagement farm. But Leaf fans were pissed off. They were mad. They made us all automatically follow Austin Matthews. Angry. Yeah. Leaf fans want to suspend Sportsnet for three games. Oh, yeah.

For incompetence. They cross-check us in the face. And they're NHL power rankings. Have you seen this? No. So the NHL power ranking sports, and this puts these out all the time. And the Oilers are at the top of it.

What a surprise. The Capitals are number two. If you've been watching Caps game, you understand why. They're unreal. They beat the Oilers last night after the Oilers were the better team the whole time. If the Leafs can't win the cup this year,

I sure hope Logan Thompson does because I will never forget traded at his own autograph session in Vegas last year for a third. Logan Thompson? Ovechkin might break Gretzky's record in fewer games this year and then win the cup

and your answer was Logan Thompson. Have you seen Logan Thompson's numbers? Yes, I have. Bonkers. But it doesn't... Logan Thompson. Ovechkin! Sorry, I'm cheering for the guy

that wasn't selected for Team Canada. But the Toronto Maple Leafs power rankings as of January 20th according to Sportsnet. Okay. Toronto rankings have them below the St. Louis Blues but above the Philadelphia Flyers

for 15th. in the league yes now fair enough they had a bad week and a half leading up to that a little maybe this came out two days ago they won the last two games before that this is what people are saying hey man 15th is crazy that's why i'm suggesting here here's me going this doesn't make sense let me rationalize it engagement farming the blues yeah the blues have been fine um yeah they've been pretty good what have you been fine what are we talking about behind the blue jackets panthers devils avalanche senators are ranked i think in the top 10 knights kings hurricane stars lightning jets and caps and oilers the leaf schedule leading into the

writing of that was win win win win win loss loss loss win win what are we 15 nearly halfway down the 32 team league uh i uh to say the least disagree where the devils uh devils are are they above the leafs or below above why five six seven eight nine ten eleventh just They have two wins in their last 10 games. They put the Senators above the Avs and Devils. Above the Devils, yes. Because the Devils have been slipping badly. What?

Who are the 14 teams? The 14 teams? Ahead of the Leafs. Okay. Oilers, Capitals, Jets, Lightning, Stars, Hurricanes, Kings. Lightning? Senators, Avalanche, Devils, Panthers, Blue Jackets, Blues, Maple Leafs. okay yeah so engagement farming no i mean we all give our opinions on the internet and sometimes

people agree with us and sometimes they don't jesse what do you think i don't think does that rankle you no that doesn't emotionally move you no i i think somebody just made something up yeah like that's not very that's not a very good power ranking no certainly not no that's not a I'm not taking it seriously because that doesn't make any sense. The St. Louis Blues are 21st in league standings and the Maple Leafs are 4th. Now, these are power rankings week by week?

Who had a good performance this week? Yeah, that's fair. Am I misunderstanding what this is? Maybe, yeah, maybe I don't. Is it, like, are they taking, if they're taking a whole look at the season, that still, that doesn't compute? So I just think they're not very good power rankings,

so I'm not going to get worked up about it. But if it's what's happened recently, there's zero justification for putting the devils higher yeah zero justification for putting them anywhere near the top 10 if that's the case yeah they've been one of the worst teams in the league over the last 10 right yeah i don't think whoever was in charge of doing those power rankings did a very good i so i'm not going to get worked up on just poor work i disagree yeah okay that's fine i disagree i disagree to the i disagree so hard that i went through all the levels of anger i have and reached um numbness okay i oh that's so bad i don't care so then let's talk about that game

against tampa what do we draw from that the leafs win five three uh really fun game you get really fun game you get really a great game on both sides i think that great match um you know the lightning were in the first half of a back-to-back they did start jonas johansson you almost get a perfectly executed michigan oh from austin matthews jonas johansson stops it he read it he read it um you're allowed to stop them as it turns out it's crazy uh there are that you know the best players for the leafs are stepping up uh-huh um tavaris is still not in the lineup but the lineup looked good minton is back like where we want to start guys with this game oh um we could start with fraser minton okay i i guess so here's the thing with fraser minton and this i

I want to set this up and then I want to hear what you guys have to say. Okay. Fraser Mitten's got an opportunity here to be the Leafs' third-line center that they need right now. And it allows them to not make a trade

at the trade deadline. It allows you to move Domi to the wing where he's better. It allows you to potentially add on either wing or defense, although I think their wing's been good unless you can really upgrade. Or just hold steady and go,

hey we got our own you know you know how they call uh people who are going to free agency and own rental which is bullshit by the way fraser mitten would be an own rental because here's a guy that they did not have playing in the lineup coming in and filling a role that they need there's your rental kind of that's a real own rental own rental for a guy going to free agency that's not an own rental that's a member of your team whose contracts right to come from your farm team yeah like well and that's what that's how i would look at it right that's a better definition so if it is frazier mitten that steve and jesse uh jesse you want to go first since you were in the building i got no problem with frazier mitten being 3c i think he's mature enough ready enough

to take a step in that role and have a shot at especially because i don't think domi can be trusted right now at that position i think he's much more useful on the wing and there's enough evidence of that tavarez not being around really i don't want to say it hurts them because they've been winning but having Tavares there would be so helpful right now but but with this lineup they don't have them but Fraser Minton in his time in the NHL has not shown anything that he can't hold that role I don't remember him having a big mistake that's costed the Leafs anything and that's all you want out of somebody who's so young and so fresh in the NHL is just to not make those big mistakes and I think he's adapted to Craig Brewe's system really easily and on the

defensive end where he's being very responsible playing especially between Domi and Robertson yeah it's it's been great so I got no problem with Minton getting an extended run here and being 3c he had every excuse to I think be crap in that game he was on the ice for a goal against but you know uh he had every excuse he gets called up from the minors and sits there for a couple games so he's not used to the pace right it's his first NHL game in over a month Craig Berube said he wanted him to practice with the team before he put him in that's why he didn't play this weekend right yes okay uh yeah fine that's fair um uh i'm just i'm just giving you the explanation yeah no no i know no i just remember we really disagreed with it last show and i'm like all right fine fine

i mean any explanation seems okay when the outcome is good right and the outcome has been good um but when it comes to fraser minton like man that third line at times this season i have dreaded them being on the ice just dreaded it and he had an excuse to be crap Domi had an excuse to be crap he's he's how many games has he played at left wing this season probably less than half a dozen right and every time they took to the ice they look a-okay they were great and Berube I noticed it's a one goal game he was using them with about five minutes left and this is a guy who will shorten his bench if he doesn't believe in you so the fact that like that's one of the later shifts nick robertson has had this season yes in a game where the leafs have been winning

right like berube hasn't been shy to be like all right we're gonna go with the third line and no no no not you nick uh we're gonna throw someone else in there um no he just threw them out there as is because they've been good another guy who's been really good um after playing well i thought and then being a healthy scratch and then being a guy where i'm like what do you even do here pontus holmberg he's looked good when given the opportunity the the leafs keep doing this one of the questions i got asked um a few lfrs ago was why uh why does it take the core four becoming the core three in order for them to be great i don't have a good answer for you because because they're stale playing together when all four of them yeah but they're

not like they've when all four of them are when all four of them are then they're stale god when they're all great at the same time you can't beat them right but it's so rare you shouldn't resign resign john tavar i think you resign but i think you don't put them all on the same power play unit god marner's crazy that's what i think he's crazy he's never looked this good 52 assists now on the season for mitch marner like come on he's listen people are gonna every time i say that what are you talking about you haven't been paying attention sorry nope never been this good never been this good no i think you're right and and i i wanted to shout somebody else out here too guys matthew nice who did go through a bit of a bump he went he went into that game in 10 career

games versus tampa he had six goals and six assists so now in 11 career games he has eight goals and seven assists screw this team in particular and he it's really reason like the reason is is amelie arena which is where he lost the frozen four yeah and so he hates that arena and therefore has turned it into because athletes do this i hate that team i hate it's personal that one in particular let's talk a little bit about the resurgence of the matthews martin eyes line which you know like a couple weeks ago we were talking about them versus carolina throwing up minus six minus six and a minus five well they look bad you see so i don't feel bad what do you tribute the turnaround to guys oh and it was quick it's a quick turnaround it is a quick turnaround

um everyone looks really healthy um Marner looks fit as a fiddle Matthews listen we keep going through the timeline he was out for a month came back did not look good sat out again came back he hasn't looked as good since last year whatever was ailing him I'm not gonna say is cured because they said they're going to have to manage it this season whatever they've done he looks good there were games earlier this season where yeah he's getting shots he's getting chances he doesn't look good at all yeah he looks freaking great they at that line at their best skates the dog shit out of you dog shit out of you and they do a lot of it they create a lot of their offense with defense you when they bring the puck into your zone yeah you can take the puck off them

you can interrupt what they're doing but they're gonna take it back Matthews and Marner are they're so good at having two guys on the puck if it's Matthews and Marner or Marner and Nize or Nize and Matthews whatever it is they're so good at just hunting and hounding you and there were there were times somewhat recently where nize was playing timidly when he came back from his injury and i think that caused the whole deck of cards to come down a little bit um when he is playing like the modified jeep that we know he is as a human being 22 years old six foot three 227 pounds i'll be still my beating benoit said in in morning skate today he doesn't realize how bleeping strong he is i love benny i don't you can never make me hate benny but when nize

realizes who he is i don't know what you're supposed to do i don't know what you're supposed to do with that whole line other than if you're sam bennett torpedo him in the head in the playoffs yeah choke slam them no it's fine that happens every game so jesse did you get a sense from first off willie you told me yesterday uh offhanded that willie didn't have a whole lot of time for the media on uh no no he couldn't be bothered with us after a win on uh what day was that monday yeah yeah so he came out and because craig berube pregame had said the that quote it went around about how he's been trying to talk to willie and learn about willie and he doesn't do a lot of talking at will he tries to listen a whole bunch so

obviously the first opportunity we get to talk to neil ander that's the first thing we're going to ask him and he had really no response to that it was less than a couple words um in response to masters i think it was who asked him about brube saying like hey what do you guys talk about that he's just talking about things you know that was kind of his response and then he answered like three more and then was like all right guys and walked away and he said it's three wins big deal Yeah, he had no time for three losses. He had no time for three wins. Are you aware of the gem from Mike Augello?

That's Mike in Buffalo. What's that? We were talking about, yeah, Willie in interviews. He doesn't go for very long. He goes, yeah, that's why I call him 92nd Willie. And we all went, no. Mike, I don't think so. I don't think that one should stick.

Yeah, I don't think people are down with that one, man. Yeah. You also get different vibes of Nylander when if he showers before his postgame or after. So on Monday, it was he went and put on his suit and showered afterwards or before the postgame. He comes out and he's wearing his suit and he's not shirtless this time. I think he has less time once he's already like halfway out the building. Right. You know, so I think he had even less time on Monday.

He's ready to go home, walk his dogs. yeah couldn't get couldn't get more than four words at any answer couldn't get more than like i think it's five four questions in and he walked away yeah will you gave us one zinger you keep playing like this that's enough yeah he doesn't care because they won and he scored right so what does he have to say to anybody but that's him where are you going again was it suko or whatever it is sugo sugo sorry yeah get some pasta you can tell you're not from toronto i know i know I've never been to Sugo. I would love to.

Yeah, no, you would like it. It's Italian. Italian food. What is that supposed to mean? You are Italian. You like Italian food. That's a stereotype. Oh, you don't?

Oh, I didn't say that. I just said it's a stereotype. I give that line turning around, Matthews, Marner, Nylander. I give that to Matthews, Marner. Nye's turning around being so good. I'm giving most of the credit to Austin Matthews matthews being on his unbelievable goal streak since he's come back mitch marner hasn't really changed i think he's been really consistent all all year like we're not giving him enough credit

like as steve said he's at his best right now and it's been a whole season's worth of it but i think the real reason that the entire line is now going and not just mitch when austin's out going by himself is that austin has returned to his form from last year and in his since returning on january 4th he's on a better goal scoring pace than his 69 goal season so right now he's on a yeah 72 point something something something goal it's uh it's eight goals in nine games that's wow unbelievable for for any top goal scorer so i think austin matthews is all the way back he has 19 this season not in the top 10 you have to be 20 at 20 i had it right here right here uh you have to be at 23 to be in the top 10 willie's got 28 tied with sam reinhardt leon's got 34

can austin matthews get assuming he plays every game can he get at least into the top five by the end of the season oh he's so good assuming the top five will be somewhere in the 50 plus goal range who's fifth uh currently it's a tie between shifley and point with 27 so it's real tight at the top those guys are real good and he's eight goals back it's gonna be i would bet no but if there were anyone who could who would just be like actually i'm from outer space uh him i want to talk a little bit about the leafs breakaway uh chances specifically willie who is a breakaway king i'm noticing and i don't know if you guys have seen it too shot deception techniques that they're using you ever notice when willie's on a on a breakaway he's on the foot that makes it seem

like he's gonna shoot right and he ends up shooting left like he it looks like not to be mighty ducks about no i've i just keep i just go yeah because watch him the next time he does it i like there seems to be uh like like mighty ducks was like well he's he's he's fancy he's gonna go glove side not block you gunner stall should have gone blocker side you know what i mean like it feels like he needs to do less than other players like he just shoots it right like he doesn't have to do all this like he just he's really good at shooting the freaking puck but you have to deceive a little no no of course there's something behind that and obviously he's tricking goalies right right right and it's because i mean he and austin i think are doing it uh i'm wondering

if the rest of the team can learn it from them you know who's like robertson could learn that You know who Willie's really rubbing off on is McMahon, and I hope they stay together. He's doing a lot of rush goals, McMahon. It's not just his shot, because his shot is really good. He's getting a lot more breakaways and half breakaways, and it's developing. He's getting better.

I know he's not a kid. Bobby McMahon is deceptively old just because of how late of a bloomer he was. He's like 28, 29. watch for bobby mcmahon man i think i had a screenshot of what you were talking about but i can't find it um on that breakaway goal what you're saying adam is correct in that when he does his leg pump on the i'm trying to it's usually his left leg isn't it yeah depending on what angle you're watching the camera from it whatever foot he is that's typically a shot that goes um on the right side of the goaltender but because and that's how goaltenders react you know

it's i'm looking at the body i'm not necessarily tracking the puck and where it's going the goalie is leaning towards that side and he simply shoots it on the other side which is not how you're supposed to shoot the puck so he's shooting the puck in an unorthodox way on the breakaways which is fooling the goalie the the breakaway he had on monday is the exact same technique he used in the previous breakaway in the previous game so he's just been fooling goaltenders by shooting on the wrong side that his body is supposed to be shooting at i love when star players just take okay so the usual rules don't apply to me oh oh you're preparing like i'm normal well i'm gonna make you pay for that see so the toronto maple east are playing a team in columbus that is on a hot

streak feeling themselves and it's interesting that they're doing this with two goalies if you don't count count jet griefs uh mers lincoln's and taras tarasov uh mers lincoln's has a 306 goals against average uh tarasov's got a 364 so you have to score four goals to win most games mers lincoln's has an 890 save percentage tarasov has 872 so they're doing this on the way up yeah i guess he's better than he was yes grieves is the only one and he's played five games he's the only one that has a above 500 save percentage above 500 excuse me above 900 i hope so uh rorenski and marchenko have 51 and 50 points monahan has 41 veronkov 31 ken johnson 27 and fantilly 23 where rinsky is 50 points yeah he's in my fantasy team it's the best pick i've ever

made he's gonna get norris votes he is oh we've been paying too much attention to the goals um got a lot of goal holy 36 assists uh mr warinski so he's got 14 goals yeah second on the team 15 goals 15 goals yeah oh man so yeah that's a really underrated norris candidate holy crap if the leafs can upset their goaltending tonight they can win this game but columbus kicked their ass the last time and it was by the way yeah coming off a game against tampa where they look really good and who was a net i don't remember hildeby oh and hildeby's a net in this one too so it's a bit of a redemption you hope so you hope so uh hildeby in his last game had a better start if i remember correctly he'd given up a not very good goal against buffalo and then a not very

good goal i think it was against the flyers um get a good start the leafs as a team haven't had a lot of very good starts recently tampa i thought they were great so i honestly the leafs outside of the first 10 minutes of a game have been fine recently perfectly fine um but for most games it's bad start and you go from there when you're a mid-sized business you need every competitive advantage you can get like an ai solution that works for you not against you sap grow is built with ai embedded at its core working across every system and it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running bring it with sap grow ai cloud erp for any size business um the canucks and senators lost last night gentlemen uh canucks have been losing except

for against the leafs maybe that's why except on hockey night yeah yeah they beat the leafs beat the oil uh brady kachuk and the senators uh uh lost last night senators obviously brady kachuk hasn't had a point eight games which is rough different teams at different parts i but there's some similarities here both are fighting for the playoffs both you always look at and go they're more talented than their results suggest we know what the issue is in vancouver we know that you know the jt miller thing is going to play itself out and it sounds like and this was crazy did you see the patrick alvin press conference well which one it feels like he does one every week well the one where he talked about rick tocket and this is one that's on the

horizon i was shocked by so he said something to the effect of i'll paraphrase it we want him here long term but quote it it's a two-way street meaning rick tocket at the end of this year is a free agent coach and might just decide to leave that organization doesn't learn eh they don't learn uh remember when um jim benning was their gm and i was like stop putting him in front of a mic it's mean he can't do it every time he does it it's a mistake stop and now they have an entire roster of new people and we're just gonna say so many words stop trying to talk your way out of shit go on the ice and win if you don't it's not gonna work you can't talk your way out of losing oh yeah well with talk it and bless the media for asking the right questions

obviously to elicit these answers Canucks management please learn from your predecessors and shut up dude you keep backing yourself into corners and trades and now with the coach and what are we supposed to extrapolate from that quote well that that rick talkett is holding out what else would you extra or unhappy or this or that or that well they've it sounds like they've offered him a contract and it sounds like he's going i'm not sure damn and that's an indictment man you have got to shut that up well and and i listen it doesn't shock me that uh bad like owner that is known for chaos creates chaos in organization you see it with the rangers owner known for chaos in multiple sports creates chaos at the management level uh the owner in

vancouver uh for as much as he loves the canucks and no one can doubt that is absolutely known as a chaos creator there are people in your life who you know right now who are probably in your family who are like i try to stay away from them because all they do is cause shit wherever they go it just kind of leaks out of their pores it's the way they are and i'm looking at the canucks and going you have the best defenseman in the league you have two three of the best forwards in the league you've got i mean demko needs to be better but he's coming off of an injury you got lucky with lincoln and how strong he's been he's been awesome you were in the second round you drove the oilers to game seven and if brockbester's playing i think that's a different outcome guys one game away

from the conference finals last year and now we're losing games like this well you know what do we start the show with the Oilers supporting Connor McDavid and we and a lot of the hockey world laughed at them and said what a bunch of losers who supports who with the Canucks like by the way I just want to say before you keep going they lost to the Sabres last night canucks yeah sure so keep going they're pretty bad uh i meant the sabers but yeah um like if if i'm uh rick talk it oh thanks pat attaboy way to throw that grenade in my lap you haven't thrown enough of those i'm trying to have a private contract negotiation with the team and the general manager just comes out and says that i'm trying to manage one of the most volatile

locker rooms in the sport and you throw that one out there into the media media can't wait to get asked about that you know it's it's so bad that i'm like is this intentional like to distract us all from the pedersen miller stuff which has very quickly become just the miller stuff because because they've made a choice yeah it's clear they're they're trading miller if they're going to trade anyone i mean it seems clear pd was the problem for a little bit and And we just alternate blame and maybe the Canucks, the whole strategy is just juggle until they hopefully make it. Did you know, as of this morning, there are six Canadian teams in the playoffs? That's great.

I don't remember the last time that was the case. Who's the odd man out? Vancouver. They're the only one. The only one. And what sucks is if the Vancouver Canucks leapfrog the second wildcard team, it kicks Calgary out. So unless Colorado goes on some crazy losing streak.

Somebody's not making it. Six is the best we can do. Jesse, I want to pivot to the Senators, unless you have something you want to add to the Canucks. With Vancouver, the thing that stood out to me about that game last night was they were leading after two periods, and they blew the game. that is something that vancouver has done consistently all season long their win percentage uh or wins when leading after two periods their 18th in the league and i had their win percent

win percentage when leading after two periods is uh 31st what is it they have a 682 win percentage when leading after two periods and in comparison the only team worse than that is the san jose sharks uh who have a 500 win percentage uh when leading after how many games and if you look at the teams who are near the top of there the toronto maple leafs minnesota wild seattle crack in all are a thousand percent when leading after uh two periods and then you have the top teams in there like winnipeg florida uh colorado new jersey who are all above 900 and that's just speaks to me strictly you don't know how to defend at all and this team i don't think right now is a playoff team at all the west is so tight and there's a lot of good teams in there like st louis and

calgary that i think are easily going to leapfrog leapfrog them uh in the standings by the time we reach the end if they don't learn how to play defense and i know like the tyler myers suspension doesn't help them here because that's they're already thin on d and and now you lose tyler myers on the back end but rick talked to mr roenick for a while he missed roenick all season long and now now he's back in the lineup and obviously gonna take a little bit of time for him to get back up to the speed that he was at last season playing at an all-star pace he's got no choice for the next three games he's gonna be taking on a role and he's got to be playing in that that chemistry that he has with hughes needs to get up back to speed but quinn hughes can't do

everything on his own and right now it is quinn hughes and then five on their defenseman trying to play uh defense on this team and rick tocket has them playing a type of hockey that he didn't have them playing last season where they are a leaky ship off of the rush like teams are able to take advantage of this team and come back in games time after time after time more than any other team besides the san jose sharks in the national hockey league and this is it's a bad formula and they've been doing this all season long this isn't a small sample size this is from the beginning of the season they've been terrible at this what's their uh their team save percentage i don't have that in front oh i thought you might have because like i feel like this you can't put

this on goaltending lankanen has been in there for the majority of it and been so good like is demko bad like i'm trying to think of who else they've had in net i don't think she loves team save percentage at all 30th in the league at really 89 well okay that'll do it there you go yikes can't win like that so the other side of that is i'm surprised the ottawa senator The Ottawa Senators are our first wildcard team. Second is Montreal. Boston, Columbus, New York, and Philly are all within two points, which is a crazy race.

It's a great race. It's awesome. The Senators are 5-3-2 in their last 10. Really respectable record. Totally fine. The headline today is Senators Need More from Brady Kachuk. Zero points in his last eight. I have a hard time with that headline

because Brady Kachuk has been the senator. And if we're talking about a player who goes on, it's a devastatingly cold streak. Listen, I get it. You, I have a hard time going, well, yeah, it's, it's Brady Kachuk. This, this is the problem with the way the senators have been built and they have major talent around him. I watched him fight three guys at once yesterday. What's he supposed to do? Like, I guess, listen, the headline is A, correct, B, leaving out the fact that Brady Kachuk, for a lot of his tenure with the Ottawa Senators, has been the only guy.

Only guy. we we talked about this at the beginning of the season like he's gonna get fed up with uh being the guy who tries hardest every single game and i'm not saying he's not trying now he's just unlucky it would would it kill the rest of the of the team to have his back in this moment you know what i mean uh and support him and get a get a few goals not that these two are anyway the same but that was sort of Matthew's problem in Calgary, right? Oh, Kachuk. Yeah, would it kill you to...

Oh, well, that was different. It's like, well, no, it was similar. Because then the Flames kind of apparently internally were like, well, we're sort of tired of his antics. With Matthew Kachuk, it wasn't a matter of his offensive prowess. It was he kept trying to drag the team into the fight. And instead of going into the fight with him, the team went, ugh.

And then he went to Florida, and Florida got way more violent and won. And the Flames got the Flames prior to Dustin Wolfe. Dustin Wolfe has made them fun again. Brady, like, I'm not saying the Sens aren't joining him. I'm just saying sometimes guys go through cold streaks, and someone else has to step up. Drake Patterson's allowed to score. Tim Stutzel is allowed to score

Josh Norris is allowed to score Who's it going to be? But I'm wondering if the Senators And they've taken a really hard stance guys About we're not going to make any big moves And I get why Like hey man let's see what we got It would be nice to get him

Some physical help up front Because sometimes it's not And we saw this with the Leafs Sometimes it's not I'm not trying to go out and get Kyle Clifford From five years ago To come out and play three minutes and punch a guy's face and get suspended in the first game of the playoffs.

Someone to be feisty in your middle six. It can't just be him, right? And I feel like that's where the sense, if there was ever a time to make a bold move, now is the time. Show these guys, you've worked hard. You've surprised a lot of people this year. You deserve it. I think when the Canucks, when the Senators talk about not making a big move,

i'm not totally sure about this but i think the context of those quotes is like well you need a right shot defenseman and no okay we're not gonna panic all right you need a goalie and all right we're not gonna panic and in both both cases they've held and done fine defense has done okay levy marilinen uh because because jacob dobish is doing so great in montreal it's taken away from hey just down the road they have a similar situation with this young goalie who's come in and done really well um long and short of it is like even though brady kachuk is not scoring he's still having an impact the rest of the team has to pick up the slack and i'm sure he'll be right behind you jess thoughts i think i think there's brady kachuk in this situation deserves some

criticism because he's on a seven game pointless streak julian mckenzie was writing that's his longest pointless streak since his rookie season damn where he was on an eight game pointless streak then and with the senators my thing is that the only thing they miss is offense that's strictly what they need right now during this little stretch where they're playing really good hockey they still sit since january 1st 30th in goals for per game and it's since january how are they even in the conversation they've been a really good team they got their their five four and two but they've held that that playoff spot i think they've played a lot of good games and with uh levy on yesterday that game against maryland and new york um not good uh got pulled

i believe 14 uh after 16 shots two goals uh not a good start so like that that little cinderella might have like it might have struck midnight who knows but he had a great stretch there and what this team needs is their entire offense to pick up and that's got to start with your star does it not i feel like stay house to get this team more offense probably can get them some winger depth they need um some help in the middle six getting david perron back can be their own rental for the uh trade that would definitely want to look at it like that that'll help things and brady kachuk needs to be better offensively because this is the area where this team struggles they've been winning despite only scoring 1.91 goals per game which isn't a way to win games

they've been finding a way to win now imagine if they did that plus had goal scoring yeah um A little bit of just interdivisional chirping that I saw this morning. Lane Hudson has more points than Brady Kachuk. That's not good. A rookie defenseman, a special rookie defenseman. Yeah, 39 points, by the way, 39 points. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good.

Now you can go into the weeds about why Brady Kachuk is struggling offensively. Maybe he doesn't have the right players around him and he needs more help in that situation. But I think, point blank, he is struggling offensively as of recently, as evidenced by not scoring any points. And that needs to stop. Is it time to trade him to the New York Rangers? I feel like the Rangers, it's funny, they seemed like they were holding everything up. And now they're really holding everything up. It's not just them like, oh, you know, let me weigh my options.

It's, oh, wait, are we good? yo man if the devils who are apparently rumored to be on the jt miller sweepstakes if they get him they all of a sudden go the devils the devils apparently are in in there somewhere some according to some rumor watch who freaking knows i mean listen if you're a general manager and you haven't called about jt miller you're not especially heading into the playoffs you haven't done your job jt miller with the devils for me is like a great fit yeah they show you need more psychotic in that lineup yeah when i watch them they're still a little too very early stage matthews leafs um high flying super fast i'm trying to avoid the word soft but like

they're soft they're they are here they could be harder ah it's they could embody the city from which they are from yeah better harder tougher yeah no um like i just sheldon keith who has been begging for that and you know basically his whole nhl career you know hey jt good to meet you what you eating it's a human bone marrow sandwich god i love you i get a hundred percent c that being the introduction no he'd be here's uncooked liver too me and jake chick oh god i love you i just um i don't i mean it would make them formidable as hell down the middle i just i wonder what the hell is going back the other way because that's one where you know carolina has been mentioned heavily in jt miller talks

the devil's a better shit to to offer i mean if you're not giving me are you giving me seth jarvis no no okay i think i it feels like a nicha situation doesn't it he asked for the trade but now he's found a spot like even that like that yeah but that's not what you're looking for if you're the canucks this yeah he's really good he's really good but that's not what you're looking for i want you know i'm giving you a vampire who's like 220 pounds most of them are skinny and svelte i'm giving you a big one um no the devils if they wanted to would be able to come up with a way better package than probably any other team that's been rumored interesting i'm into it i'm into it too i'm into it too interesting uh okay anything else you guys want to hit or

should we do the press conference that's my answer no no hey hey now sdp the steve dangle press conference this isn't hockey but what are your guys thoughts on media people slash writers in pro sports being annoying and it's my it's actually my favorite i'm gonna need more than that and pedantic and difficult and getting in the way of history oh i think i know what you're i have no idea where you're going so ichiro suzuki was voted into the baseball hall of fame he was uh one of the greatest hitters we've ever seen play the game ever um he has more professional hits than anybody if you can combine his numbers in japan and america he would have the most hits all time um if you're a baseball fan you know ichiro and getting into the hall of fame yesterday

he received every single vote except one one writer decided to not include ichiro on his ballot and he failed to become i believe only the second or third player to ever be unanimously voted into the hall of fame um the writer who left him off his ballot hasn't been revealed yet like we don't know who it is because you do not you have to agree to publicly disclose your ballot there's a like a checkbox on your ballot that you can submit that says yes you can reveal it so we might not know who that is uh right now but maybe it'll come out eventually what do you guys think about this situation uh it's it's complete trash complete garbage ichiro suzuki you suck you and like so other players have been inducted um unanimously yeah i believe it's either two

uh i'm gonna just check and see who it is i think it's two or one which means i know mariano rivera's one like he he got 425 425 but i don't know who i think it's it might be only uh rivera yeah okay so how is he the only one mlb.com because this just happened uh they have the highest voting percentages in hall of fame history mariano rivera is 425 425 100 total vote 2019 ichiro is now tied for second so um also yeah great point how is rivera the only one you don't be great players who ever played why would you ever disagree that they're not a hall of famer so ichiro and derrick jeter who also fell one short one vote short what are we doing we got a lot of petty writers 30 was that 3400 hits that eric jeter had each row probably had

more ken griffey jr was a three vote shy out of here 437 griffey jr three people said no i'm leaving him off my ballot because i don't like him uh three people said that about ken griffey jr uh tom seaver had five votes short nolan ryan oh my screw off nolan Nolan Ryan wasn't unanimous in the Hall of Fame. Nolan Ryan, it says there, 27-year career. Nolan Ryan had seven no-hitters. What? That's the most by any pitcher ever.

Yes. He probably has more no-hitters than most teams. He has more strikeouts than anybody in the history of baseball. And Mariano Rivera. That's like, I don't want to disrespect the guy, but it's like, oh there's only one player who's ever gotten into the hockey hall of fame unanimously who is it oh it's peter bondra yeah yeah what are you saying peter bondra no i'm not saying that i'm just saying i wouldn't have thrown that name out ty bob ty cobb fell short george brett had a high

percentage hank aaron what the all-time home nine people the man who had more home runs than And anybody in the history of baseball at the time of his retirement did not get into the Baseball Hall of Fame unanimously. And had it for another 25 years after. Sorry, he is a 25-time All-Star? 25-time All-Star? I don't know. He is a former century of All-Star? I'm not putting him in.

I don't know. Nine people said no to Hank Aaron. Jesse, to me, it gets a lot worse when you look at the class. Yeah. When you look at who else was eligible to vote for. I don't know if you have that anywhere. His paper? Yeah, I can pull one up.

If you want to pull that off, I'll find one. Because I was looking at that. One of the guys who got Hall of Fame votes, very few, but was eligible was Troy Tulewitzki. And again. Very good player. rich very good very good player pardon he eats your eats your oh suzuki i don't understand so there and it's one guy so it's funny you know like when i we talk about hockey and it's you know we've learned a lot since we started this show and you know uh whatever okay there are

baseball is like i grew up watching baseball you know i can remember really bad jay's years where i watched as many games as i could okay baseball to me the older i get becomes more and more like a different universe and i and i just like this you know i the stats are one thing you know it's a real number sport sure but the way it is covered sometimes and the way that things are done the hall of fame ballots and the fact that you can get kicked off of a hall of fame ballot forever if you don't get in after a certain amount of time like there's some insane shit that happens in baseball where i'm like you don't have to do it that way it doesn't need to be this difficult this is another prime example of baseball being really fucking weird it's weird oh it's a weird

sport it's a weird sport the coverage is weird and if you talk to people and you say you know that's weird they're like the fuck's wrong with you what do you mean it's weird you ever go to a hockey game and there's a father son sitting next to each other uh you know marking down the shots yeah next to each other or go to a basketball game and it's three percentages low tonight and they're manually why are you doing that why do you do it in baseball look it up why did you pay to be here and then do that it's weird man it's weird so this is an official ballot if you want to take a look at what they look like good names on there this is the one from a writer tweeted out their ballot this is the official baseball writers of america association of

america 2025 hall of fame ballot bobby abreu carlos beltran mark burley uh carlos gonzalez curtis granderson felix hernandez tory hunter adam jones andrew jones alex rodriguez which alex rodriguez is that the alex rodriguez like horse above my bed painting of myself alex Rodriguez? Yes. I own the Miami Marlins at one point. I'm surprised he's not... He, by the way, should absolutely be a Hall of Famer. I know why everybody hates him,

but he's a Hall of Famer. Put Barry Bonds in the Hall of Fame. Put an asterisk next to it, but put him in there as a museum. So, you get five votes? Ten. You get ten votes? Yeah. You can vote for up to

ten players. You can vote for up to... you are not required to vote for 10, but you can use 10 checks. So you're not required. You are not. You can use two if you really. And you didn't give one of your checks to Ichiro Suzuki. Somebody had 10 checks.

You thought Ben Zobrist. What? Well, this. No, they could have just abstained. This isn't the ballot. This isn't the ballot. This is just a ballot. This one, this voter voted for Ichiro.

You can see it. No, no, I know that. I know that. Here's the thing. i'm just hypothetically it's not exactly like i could have put that i i have a base level knowledge of of microsoft word i could have done that document myself um i'm wondering if it was a mistake like did somebody just look at it and they got called away because they had to go to a meeting and came back and go that's a way better theory i feel like it has to be right because it's

not like look the names are there there's no reasons why like i feel like with a document like this it's like here's the case for andy pettit here's the case for dustin pedroia here's the case for alex rodriguez right shouldn't that like i understand why you know that would be extra work and stuff but it feels like the hall of fame's a big deal and perhaps everybody should get a refresher course on why these players were good some of these baseball writers are going to be older and they forget some of these guys some of them are going to be younger and they were in high school when these guys were great like i maybe maybe it was just like a shit i forgot to wait so you it's you think they forgot to put a check on each row isn't that like well because

it's just like click click click uh it's not click i gotta or with a pen and paper with a pen and paper too like yeah like is it possible that they just fucked up is that even possible i like adam's theory i like adam's theory and here's why okay because the moment the moment i saw one guy you know how bad your hall of fame ballot has to be for me to automatically be like there's a greater than zero percent chance you're racist dude how it's it's intro suzuki for god's sake i think it's a mistake i think somebody screwed up and i think when this comes out if you are making a mistake on your hall of fame ballot you don't deserve a hall of fame ballot because this is history right if you are if you are so flippant

about handing in your ballot your your test your survey whatever you want to do like then you don't deserve it then you shouldn't be tasked with this the this is this is a serious job let's let's power rank likelihood um fucked up his ballot okay that's one number two is is racist well Number three. I don't know what you jumped to. I think it's like somebody who's salty because Ichiro hit a homer against the team that they cover that they love. Oh, okay, okay, okay. All journalists don't have any sort of, they certainly don't fall in love with the teams they follow.

Okay, so. All of them are non-biased. I was going to do three. Let's do four. Fucked up their ballot, is racist, is salty, legitimately thought Ichiro Suzuki wasn't one of the best baseball players. that's on the ballot number three number three is the most likely i think the mistake one is me throwing a wild card in there number three is the most likely you yeah my that team that year they had it and suzuki screwed it up although the seattle seattle didn't make the playoffs very

much maybe it was when he was with new york i don't know but like it it feels like this is a salt which is what i think most people are assuming i think this is i tried to interview ichiro and i could never get to talk to him that sort of situation it sounds personal i don't like all the reporters that follow him around yeah for you to do this it sounds personal i'm sorry if there's 395 people and 394 of them disagree with you you owe us all an explanation yes yes i think that is very true you if you're being a giant baby about this and then you're also hiding behind it you're you shouldn't vote on this i don't you suck i don't love that you know if the person were to come out and be like yeah here's why um they probably get death threats

let's be totally honest um because people are nuts so i don't love that but like when when the NHL started releasing ballots, not the NHL, the writers started releasing their ballots. Some didn't want to do it. And I'm like, that flies completely in the face of your profession. Make your choice based on your expertise. You're here because you know a thing or two about hockey and the sport that you cover. Make choices based on your expertise and stand on them. And then guess what you get to do in the 2000s?

What? It's such a great thing for you. You get to create content. You get to write something or make a video or whatever it is that is going to create money for either you or your employer or both. No. I want to do this anonymously because I'm – because what? But also don't just do it for the content, please. Just don't do it.

No, no, don't do it for the content. Because I think we had that similar situation in the NHL two years ago. After his 153-point regular season, McDavid received first-place votes in 195 of the 196 ballots cast. Not having him first was shocking enough, but it resulted in even more public outrage when it was confirmed that the one writer who didn't give him a first-place vote instead had him at fifth. The PHWA has since revealed that writer Seth Rorabow of Tribune Review Sports was the writer who put him at fifth. This isn't the first time the Pittsburgh Penguins columnist has taken heat for his voting at the NHL Awards, as he also had McDavid and Austin Matthews outside of his top five in Hart Trophy voting a year ago.

So, Jesse, what does that tell you? like i'm not saying do it for the content i'm saying give your legitimate opinion and also you get to make content but which is what we do like that's what we do for a living you're like seth roar roar but like it didn't help did it that that's that's not a name that rolls off my tongue now because you did this it might be if you live in pittsburgh sure or follow the tribune review sports which is a a long time big time i'm sorry that's a default that's a default if you're a huge leaf fan and you don't know who i am i fucked up oh oh okay i see what you're saying like it so if you work for one of the how like how many

yeah but how many people get the privilege of covering i think penguins fans do know who this is i think it's the rest of us probably that's what i'm saying and i've i've quoted from seth's work before of course yeah he's wrong that's stupid he's uh and i would say you're wrong cool he's catastrophically wrong right but yes but you know what i think uh first off the each row thing us like that aside um like seth missed a great opportunity if he didn't immediately right here's why i voted for connor mcdavid in fourth no that should have been the column fifth he did and but it's so it's so wrong i didn't even bother right i don't i'm not interested in your explanation for why a player with 153 fucking points is the fifth best player

in hockey do we know how he voted jesse do we know who he voted yeah i it was just there did i read it uh well you said he voted oh i didn't say it yeah who was his number two and three for that matter oh no yeah i actually i didn't it was the next sentence that's why i thought i read it he had um pastronach jason robertson elia sorokin matthew kachuk and then mcdavid that's his five oh shit okay listen we all listen we all we all need a take we do we need a point of view we need doing it that has not aged well and no disrespect pass is great conor mcdavid that's crazy if you ever had a great year i'm not trying to take that away that was the season that mcdavid had 153 points it was the most points in a season since mario put up 161 in 95 96

what season what season was the 23 season 22 23 22 23 yeah 153 points a quick and roberts quick question he had 25 point lead over uh dry sidle robertson had 46 goals and 109 points mcdavid had that's robertson's best year sorokin though he had a great year and the islanders went what to the conference final that year was that second round well it doesn't matter doesn't matter though because they have to do it by game 82 did it wait that was when he voted he must have won the vesna right no of course not no what kind of fun house mirror ass ballot seth what the fuck see now how here's how you make good content out of that you put him with another pittsburgh writer who voted right and say seth seth like that would be that debate would be fun who's the guy who watched

that who's the guy who cut a promo on the capitals in the playoff rob rossi rob rossi you listen to me seth just start cutting a macho man randy savage promo on him yeah 64 goals that season 153 points uh pasta who was ahead of him in the heart trophy voting at 113 points so he had connor mcdavid two wingers ahead of connor mcdavid had over 50 percent of his points like so 50 of past your next points connor mcdavid still has more goals than that yeah you see what i'm saying yeah like if you just like that is i know that's a bonkers way to look at it what is that what are we talking about also i i want to like go back and look at matthew kachuk's numbers because i can't imagine they're anywhere near mcdavid now i'm trying to

remember what team he was even on i think that was still cowrie wasn't it because kachuk's best you know 22 23 would be florida oh is that what this is no oh yeah sorry yeah first year with the panthers yeah well he had 40 40 goals 69 assists for 109 points so that's akin to what jason robertson had didn't he have 190 yeah he did yeah oh wait so it's three you had three wingers oh man i didn't think about that and a goal oh man you had three wingers and a goalie do you want to pull up seth's reasoning because i'm sure no no oh maddie maddie wants it all right the first thing when you type in his name is uh seth rora mcdavid well maybe it did work then uh that's enough though yeah it's that's the fact that he's done this more than once that's

enough come on man jesus what are we doing mcdavid also had a unanimous heart trophy win in 21 21 it so so this is what happens though writers are like well i'm not doing it again yeah um so he had the opportunity to get too unanimous and i believe it would be him and gretzky are the only people to ever do that and when he did it in 21 he became the first person to ever be unanimous since gretzky in 85 three so wingers and a goalie he ruined steph ruined history yeah this is part of the reason why like one of the things i had to like dig through for the book when writing about all timers is like like are we gonna have any idea that happened in like 40 years when we're looking back and we're gonna be like oh yeah one writer

shafted like you have to explain to people the aginla teodor stuff like that was a weird one too people misremember that all the time yes i love bringing this up because a lot of people go aginla didn't get all the votes and everything taylor was also left off ballots it happened to both of them and neither should have been left off of any ballot yeah but that context is being lost to history like we get further away from it and people yell about the aginla thing but taylor was also screwed in that situation yeah and that as as time goes on we're probably just going to forget that this happened by the way and i think part of that too is that taylor's career after that was not as good as the ginless exactly uh tator was un-fucking-real that season he was

unbelievable and also you can't just look at oh this player won this award this year that meant they were the best one and the reason i always i always bring up the 1996 vesna that jim the net detective carrie got uh fucking no absolutely not i think sometimes people just want to be sort of like hipsters about he wasn't a top five goalie in the end like i just want to be different i want to be nominated i think i think sometimes it's like no i'm smarter than everybody else yeah and and listen let me ask you this okay okay forget the heart vote who'd you rather on your team connor or any of those guys well it's not about that but isn't it i was most valuable to their team it's a little about that it's most i don't hate that i'd trade all five of those guys

for connor i'll rent a sprinter van i'm in like are you kidding four of them four of them right yeah four uh who cares because connor connor jesse literally add another player and i'll trade them too so you would do pasta robertson kachuk sorokin for mcdavid think of all the cash space hey yo you'd never have a problem signing a free agent you know what yeah you know what yeah you get mcdavid but i think the best part of that trade is the cap space it's true those other guys make money you know oh hey who the hell's playing center on that team jesse there isn't one you got too many wait oh my god i think it speaks to freaking pontus holmberg centering kachuk and robertson steve it speaks to what you're talking about because

when i look this up and i'm trying to find a rebuttal from seth i can't it's not i can't get it like it's not easily googleable that i can get like his response article or even his tweets i've got to go searching searching because everything that comes up are just articles about him fucking this up like i'm not i'm not getting the first click isn't here's what i did the tribune you know it's not that should be the headline first thing i type in mcdavid seth blah blah it should be here's why i left put mcdavid in fifth and that should be the banner that should be the most click thing but it's not you should so submit your ballot write that article at the speed of light and publish it the moment the vote comes out you didn't even get

clicks out of this you know oh you would just kill that day that would be your best day of the year it'd be a lot of hate to be the most red writer in the sport yep absolutely i mean listen if you're doing it not to be the most red writer in the sport then you're doing it for the wrong reasons like at least if you're going to troll troll properly oh my god man that's crazy jesse i forgot about that completely yeah i think we probably had this exact same conversation in 2023 so uh repeat for those listeners but it deserves it there's also like hf boards they did a good uh summary of the time seth was a contrarian and we can end on this oh yeah that just runs with the headlines yeah 2018 he was the only

voter to give william carlson a first place vote 2019 he was one of two voters to give johnny goudreau a first place vote 2020 he was the only voter out of 170 to vote john carlson in the top three 2021 he was the only voter to vote for jonathan huberdo and one of two voters to vote for patrick kane uh 2022 he was one of two voters to give carol caprizoff a first place vote uh he was the only person to give jt miller a vote um 2018 didn't include mcdavid 2019 didn't include mcdavid 2020 didn't include mcdavid 2022 didn't include mcdavid 2023 put mcdavid in fifth okay include him didn't include him did you didn't include him okay fine you didn't give the first place you didn't include him every year that player should be top five mvp end of story

are you freaking kidding me especially by its definition which is which is most valuable to their team i say this as a leaf fan who has been personally wronged by the boston bruins many times yeah uh there's no player in the league i hate that much if if given the opportunity like i can sit here and say with zero reservation whatsoever brad marshambalog's in the hall of fame when it's all said and done absolutely so what the fuck and i'll be rooting for him what's going on nations like i was when he was at the olympics yeah we all he scored the tournament winning goal and all of toronto went yeah oh you why i gotta yeah although although really not really because we hadn't lost a bunch of playoff series to them at that point uh that was 2016 20 so yeah it was

yeah it was just the one there's only one simpler times simpler times it's been a few more yeah don't be this please don't be this if you're out there and one day you become a professional writer and you have the ability to vote on awards don't be the guy who left each row off don't be seth who's leaving mcdavid off for no reason so do this i think number number one is guy who left each row off salty number two for me is made a mistake number three i think is legitimately no no i think i still go racist no number three is racist number four is legitimately thought ichiro wasn't one of the best players in baseball i don't think anybody thought that yeah it's got to be last racist is definitely higher than that that's crazy holy shit yeah dude i think that's

just salty damn salty number one damn okay well listen it's hard to get a hundred people 20 people to agree on any one thing you can agree on each or the fact that each row got that many when you put it in that perspective maybe that's a win geez so no hank aaron not not aaron man 25 all-star games are you kidding me 25 ryan yeah who was yeah who was like uh he was nolan ryan's last perfect game and he had like nine of them was against the Blue Jays and he struck out Robbie Alomar to finish the game.

It's the only unanimous person inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Ed Belfort. What the fuck? Mariano's. Yeah, all right. Yeah, what about Hank Aaron? What about H-Hero?

Yeah, you're right. That's a good point. I didn't say he's bad, but what the fuck? Thank you That was fun That was really great Thank you Jesse That was fun

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