The Steve Dangle Podcast - Summer Soup | July 29, 2020

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, we're back! hockey is back! let's go! (00:00), the Leafs steamroll the Canadiens, will Robertson play on Sunday, and Dubas' failings (02:00), the NHL's BLM efforts and Adam wants a different broadcast (34:30), Connor McDavid is a monster and Calgary's struggles (51:00), and we offer our predictions for every first-round series!! (1:06:00). Originally aired: July 29, 2020 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/wD55O8DgR4k Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

panago pizza presents s d p the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake hockey is back baby we're talking about an actual like game today also a couple other good pieces of news jesse is wearing a P.K. Subban Nashville Predators Stanley Cup Finals T-shirt that he bought at the Stanley Cup Finals, and we were there. So, sorry, I did not buy it. He didn't buy it there.

It was given to us by a listener who brought us down there. Oh, Kevin. Kevin got us all shirts, did he not? Well, yes, he did, but I didn't realize he got you the P.K. one. Yeah, he got me the P.K. one. He gave it to us right outside of Bridgestone, I believe, after we landed. So do you remember this?

Because it was Nashville, right? It was a sea of yellow, but every now and then, we would see five girls in purple and a sea of yellow and five girls in green because all that was going on was the Stanley Cup final and bachelorette parties. Right. Yes. That's all that's going on. That's what I remember about that.

Not bachelorette, the TV show, actual bachelorette parties. I mean, never know. maybe they well tv on the pedal tavern and um uh the other thing is jesse is broadcasting from his brand new apartment i am also not doing that i'm still in the old place he's in the old apartment hey jesse show us your old apartment rough start man well listen rusty i okay so hold that can you show us around your old apartment i'd like to see it no i can't i can't move the oh okay this was the mistake i made uh just before we started last time adam i go wow like uh front entrance looks uh wow it's like just like your old setup he's like oh man see nothing bothers me right now not even

that intro because i had the crispiest nap it was like the angels were singing above my head as i woke up not 15 minutes ago and i feel fantastic and i also feel fantastic about the fact that i fell asleep in the middle of the third period with the leafs last night because i am becoming my parents but you guys the toronto maple leafs won an exhibition game now does it matter no not really but of all the exhibition games they've ever played this one probably matters the most because there's only one in the series of exhibition games can i say so they're going into a spot where they have to play in for the playoffs and yes steve go ahead the montreal canadians were so bad that i'm mad the leafs played them for their warm-up yeah they were awful that's an awful

hockey team the one that we saw last night they should not be here so here's what i wondered here's what i wondered is it they to me it just seemed like the canadians had a bad night because they played the leafs really well this year obviously you know that first time hutchinson's a net and i think the second time too so a bit a bit skewed but they had that huge comeback right at the beginning beginning of the season yep i get that there's no fans and i get that it's not a real game but that's precisely why i think montreal is better than what they showed last night there's no like i know the power plays ranked 22nd in the league i know but there is no way montreal is that bad and there's no way toronto's penalty kill is that good i think

montreal was more bad than toronto was good especially on special teams last night that's how as bad the montreal yes no seriously both teams had uh pretty good pks but the they this is what i've been talking about with the advantage that the leafs have they don't do so great against heavily structured teams or at least they struggle against them they struggle against teams that thrive on intensity right the bruins have pretty much all the skill the leafs have plus they have that structure intensity absolutely they definitely have way more structure more intensity skill I still probably give the Leafs the advantage but obviously it hasn't worked because of the other two things Columbus is kind of like that they're uh they thrive on structure John Tortorella

structure they thrive on intensity they lost Panarin they lost Bobrovsky they're they remind me a little bit of the Islanders uh that lost John Tavares and then went on to make the playoffs anyway right the canadians are like that too when they're at their most intense they they don't they definitely don't have the structure of the two teams i just mentioned but when they play full full-blown intense they're hard to beat last night was a pillow fight it was awful like that was really bad to watch and how about jake muzzin nearly kills a man and no one even says anything yeah that was pretty wild uh it he mashed that guy belzeal it's yes his first game too yeah i've never heard of him destroyed that guy destroyed him and blocked a shea weber shot like someone

should have told jake muzzin what kind of game this was and zach hyman who was trying his heart out and nick robertson who was trying his heart out well nick robertson needed to nick robertson needed to and and in fact before we get to that i'm going to run down the structure of this show so what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about the leafs and halves we're going to talk about the flames and uh and oilers and we're going to talk about the flyers and pittsburgh penguins quickly and then we're going to get into the actual projections of what each series we think it's going to look like right the play in rounds okay so try to stay away guys from saying too much about columbus just yet because i'm going to need a little zip from you on that however

there are issues facing each of the teams that i mentioned and that's what i want to talk about and the first and foremost because the hype train is you know it's it's literally painted nick robertson on the side of it right now um how do you feel he did the kerfoot captain uh line that he was paired with you know scored two goals uh nick robertson got himself an assist which he set up and now we used to make fun of this is because it's kind of assist because it was the ghost assist right it was the thomas cabriolet to somebody who then gets it to somebody else and scores but that play develops because nick robertson slides the puck over to morgan riley who then shoots it or hard passes it to alexander kerfoot who puts it in the net i'm wondering

from what you saw with kerfoot last night gentlemen both of you just you i know you were working so or not working while working and moving did you have time to think about whether or not jesse nick robertson makes this lineup i'm asking you both does nick robertson play on sunday sunday can i answer first steve absolutely sir uh brian burke the great hockey mind has been uh peddling a narrative over the last couple of days that the leafs don't need more soft skill that nick robertson in this lineup is a little redundant and i don't disagree with his theory if the leafs excel at skill if their best aspect of hockey is playing this fast face game where they can outscore everybody why are we adding a player who simply adds to that

why not going why are we doubling down on this one straight because on the straight because there are there are these why not try and balance out the lineup oh man that's the most brian burke take i've ever heard in my life hey we're all swimming this one way i'm gonna swim the other okay fair we'll get now steve go ahead what's your response to that well so you're right they don't need more of that so let's then put in pierre engvall or frederick gauthier frederick gauthier has never thrown a hit that he hasn't fallen down from true you know what i mean like this guy i've said it

and i'll say it again the leafs uh are obviously hamstrung by the salary cap but one way they'd be uh very wise to spend their money is to pay somebody it's a little bit more different actually it'd probably be easier in the bubble pay someone whose job is to follow frederick gote around and fuck up his day fuck up his coffee order every time you see him barefoot you throw lego on the floor just every time you see his perfectly gelled hair you ruffle it and you screw it up and you run away you just you blow bubbles at him put if he's wearing a white shirt you squirt mustard on it just piss him off but if you want grit in the leafs lineup who's it coming from is it coming from goat no is it coming from engvall no it's coming from

clifford but robertson's not stealing his job is he it's clifford muzzin yeah i say uh leave robertson in there because he's actually raised the bar uh of intensity for this leafs group he's someone who is battling you know he engvall and goat should be battling too their their position in this lineup is not for certain but i saw only one guy who was playing desperate and that was robertson now was his first period good no no it was not good no but that's okay he's 18 uh i think the the thing for me here jesse is and i and i i respect yours and brian brooks points uh your collective points it's called it's it's like when when michael scott has you know you miss 100 of the shots you don't take it it's wayne gretzky michael scott it's kind of the same lineup needs

more grit brian burke jesse blake my thinking is i haven't seen my my uh my radar is a little bit different than steve's but i always like to look at the effect that a new player on a line has on the other two guys who are on it and it's not that Nick Robertson being there made Alexander Kerfoot score two goals I mean Nick Robertson is directly responsible for the play that set up the first one but again you had to add a Morgan Riley to that who was an elite level talent I think the way Kapanen played last night the way Kerfoot played last night Kapanen had a few shots of course they were always at the chest because that's where he shoots it but the point is that line was a I mean against a not as good Montreal team was a bit of an x

factor now it doesn't mean what it was great to see Tavares and Mikheyev score within the first 20 seconds they were rolling you know Matthews had a few good moves in there too it was good to see him rolling but what I like about this and what I think is going to be the difference in this series with the Blue Jackets and again we won't get to that too quick too much is doubling down on what you are because you know for sure the blue jackets are going to double down on what they are what they are is what they are and the the effect that having a skill guy in that line like i i looked at the way nick robertson and alexander kerfoot and capitan could just draw keep the puck down low keep the puck down low that's one of the major

things that we've struggled against the last two years against the bruins they could not cycle low and if they ever got cycled low against them they were screwed it was going to be there it was gonna be there for two minutes so I think in saying that I put him in the lineup once and I want to see what happens Engvall and Gauthier are all gonna play right they're gonna play they're gonna draw in it's a matter of where Engvall's the odd man out at practice today by the way sorry that is shocking that's shocking to me that tweet just came down so the fourth the yeah fourth line is Clifford Goat Spezza that's shocking shocking news but I love the fact that they're willing to give this a shot um I think he's earned just at one kick at the can against uh the Blue Jackets

and I don't think it's gonna hurt to have him I want to see how disciplined he plays and how he handles a very very tough Blue Jackets defense now let's move on because again we're getting into a little too close to let's project the series territory but um Ilya Mikheyev okay I wanted to give you props Adam because you you pointed something out that was very clever Oh, okay. And I don't know if even you noticed it. I don't think I did. Kapanen always shooting at the chest.

Oh. Do you remember – it's difficult because you fell asleep. Do you remember the first shorthanded goal? Yes, I rewound. I rewound. Don't worry. Kasperi Kapanen on the breakaway, shoots low, gets a rebound. Kerfoot roofs it.

Sheldon Keefe has to say to Kasperi Kapanen, if you lift the puck off the ice, I'm benching you. Because he's got – that line, man. Could be. Just frigging shoot low. Robertson's going to bury it. If he doesn't, apparently Kerfoot's got some finishing power too. He does.

If there's a rebound, Robertson's going to be there first, and it's going in. Don't you dare raise the puck. You shoot one puck at the chest. I'm benching you, Cappy. And there was one – there was an odd man rush where Kapanen was actually aware of the other players there, which is rare for him. And it's like, great, that's awesome.

Like, this is what you do with that skill set. it's such a great skill set and that's what's so delicious about watching him play is it's like oh and remember guys i mean if jesse to back back to your point for a second if andreas johnson is healthy i don't think we're having this discussion no i think you're right like i don't they're not going to put nick robertson on the fourth line it's we'll see it can next year that sort of thing but with this opens up for the toronto maple leafs long term and i don't want to talk contracts i want to talk games because we actually got to talk about them but you all everybody knows that that you know the leafs aren't in vancouver contract hell but they're

pretty tight they need to move on from somebody who makes three or four million dollars maybe two guys that's kerfoot captain johnson one one of those three potentially two gone next season so you can move those guys out get fair value back put it on the back end or whatever is you can get back for them maybe more of a controlled contract if Nick Robertson is able to step in here while Jansen's injured and he proves that he can play in the playoffs then he can play regular season which means this summer this off season at the end of October you have more options rather than going I guess we'll see in training camp we know the answer already and we can move on from one of these guys and bring back some value and dump some salary at the same time which is very

very exciting so let's move on to Ilya Mikheyev guys um when you see um when you see that happen in the first what 10 seconds 20 seconds uh 33 33 that is all tell me the feeling don't tell me the reaction tell me the feeling what do you feel in your chest oh you know what warmth like I'm like I'm cared for like like I've come in after a cold winter's day cold winter's morning shoveling the driveway wife's got to get to work and I got to do my husbandly duty just get out there move some pow you know what I mean and then I come in and what what do I got to do Adam I got I got to warm myself well you must be starving after working that hard oh tell me about it i'm famished adam what but you don't want to wait you don't want to wait to make

something you gotta you gotta you gotta grab something now i'm hungry now yeah and look at me i'm hot i'm svelte i'm i i need something light but hearty i don't want to come back to this kitchen within three hours i want to be i gotta be i gotta work i got work to do i'm trying to eat damn it i'm gonna have some soup just warmed my heart warmed my heart one of the one of the things i've been talking to people about is okay morgan riley being out of the lineup sucked that was really bad losing muzzin sucked they lost marner for stretches andreas johnson essentially did not play this season uh john tavaris broke his finger austin matthews played hurt freddie was playing hurt freddie freddie was playing hurt and then was hurt

um like this this year one thing going back through this whole season made me realize is what a nightmare of a season it was uh from the roster and just what happened in games losing ilia mckay of ruined the offensive plan for the toronto maple leafs he was such a key jenga piece and if you go and look at the leafs record with sheldon kiefer's head coach and ilia mckay of in the lineup it was like 12 and 4 like it was i'm sure it was just a hot streak but it was ridiculous they were so so good you take him out all of a sudden one of the more defensively responsible players fast lanky players on your team comes out and you're like oh we got to plug that hole okay well we're gonna plug him with engvall and he was good for a bit and then he

wasn't any good okay okay well so we're gonna take engvall out of there who else can well okay we'll try kapanen on the left wing and oh crap okay that doesn't work either okay so we're we're gonna take um spezza moves up and kerfoot is now the winger and oh this line is really good this works this works but lines three and four suck and oh my god and they just spent the rest of the season playing whack-a-mole after ilya mikhayev got hurt last night he's there bangs in the first one Kerfoot gets the next two because he's exactly where he should be which means Kapanen is exactly where he should be the Leafs forward group the way it is we're arguing about like the a player on the third line and the fourth line forget about it the offense the way it is is top five in this

league it's so good yes Jesse what does that mean about how Dubas built the team if you're taking okay what how important is mckay's contract on the scene he's got to be like 12 you probably ranked 12 guys ahead of it and you're taking the 13th most important contract on the scene you're taking him out and you're there's the jagged piece right there number 13 i know that's terrible like this isn't a good thing no it's not everything you're saying this sounds like catastrophe jesse you're right you're right and this is getting away from the conversation of last night but uh i was because matthews took some criticism this season and obviously he barreled through it he got 47 goals neil andrew didn't take any he scored over 30

uh tavaris took some but like i if you're a broken finger man and then he didn't then he came back and couldn't shoot if you look at his numbers yeah he actually did pretty well despite the broken finger and some of his best production came in games that the leafs ended up losing so it sort of got buried it didn't get the glory um and mitch marner too like he had a few really bad plays and people were bitter about the contract look at the numbers he he had a good season the big four did their job but when mckay went down the depth they just couldn't figure it out now jesse i i don't know if if this is the day for the conversation um but so we did a we did a playoff preview show with justin bourne i just did it's about 50 minutes long it's up on the

sports night youtube channel if you want to check it out after this but i go you know what if the leafs lose against columbus uh they gotta look at blowing it up and his eyes impressive his eyes went as wide as dinner plates because he's like you're going to base the future of the franchise on this yeah and i was like no i'm not i'm basing it on this and the last three years get over the hump get over it dude they hold on though if they win if they now again we're we're previewing stepping into columbus preview territory here but if they beat columbus steve they'll only just be on par with last year i know i know but if they lose to columbus worse and then beat the next team if they lose to columbus they're not even on par

i guess so but but they had two shorthanded goals yesterday and did you see what was on the penalty kill a holy shitting oh my godding center who was that steve what's that alexander curve foot oh he's a center who was also injured at one point this season and suspended after he came back from injury it was that kind of season but they okay the little things that this team has needed over the past couple years i'm like doobie i i love you how don't you have one of these things how did he make a bet on Curtis McElhinney or make a bet against Curtis McElhinney that I defended and I defended the logic of how did that bet then turn into two years of searching for a goalie that was one and the other is the straw that stirred the drink on the penalty kill

was Per Lindholm he was the last natural center on the penalty kill don't go don't you dare go and tell me frederick gauthier don't you dare go and tell me about take the face off and scamper to the bench as fast as you can because you're a liability out there on the penalty kill alexander kerfoot was the first natural center they've had a first natural center regular in the lineup every game player they've had since air lindholm that's inexcusable man there's lots of and don't even get me started on the defense and those are three things that we've been talking about for at least two years so not to get too inside baseball I don't know if I'm ruining your show plan here Adam not at all excited for hockey to be back and maybe you shouldn't base too much on whatever this

is but if they fail against Columbus people rightly or wrongly are going to look at the job Dubas has done and gone how well is this gone actually and I'm not sure I'm honestly not sure how much I'm going to be like oh come on guys you're being ridiculous well this is the point where it's like you got to put up or shut up right yeah you know and I agree with you there I wouldn't blow it up yet but maybe one more year like I'm not talking about trade Austin Matthews but like we've been talking about trade a three or four million dollar winger that's another thing for two years okay well now with Robertson and Mikheyev you have to yeah well you do have to yeah so one of them's cost controlled but the other is like here's the thing that the guys that

that were that are in this picture are mckay of johnson and cabinet those are the guys you want to keep mckay of one of them's got to go clifford's gone too i mean he's got to have a big playoff if he does then maybe you keep it i doubt it but apparently he wants over two million bucks and they just can't afford that no no simply no so it's you know they've got angle they've got go jade they can sort that out and spezza can draw in on that's a fourth line center so here's the thing though if you're talking about that Kapanen Kerfoot Johnson you need to keep Kerfoot because he's a center right and Kapanen's got that special skill set but here's the problem that I find with Kapanen every time they move him into that top six he underperforms so special he's not PK he

is special on the PK every time I see him on the PK I'm like how do you get rid of him Andreas Johnson comes in and he is solid all the way around but to Jesse's point a little bit earlier about a completely different subject how much of andreas johnson's skill do we need in this lineup versus somebody else and that to me makes him the odd man out now he's going to be harder to trade because he's just coming off a knee injury but value is low value is low however somebody might be bargain shopping go you know i took a shot on andreas johnson why not isn't this great well isn't this great don't didn't you miss this no i did now remember they've got letting in and Barabanov coming in, Letton is a defenseman,

but Barabanov could be a player, who knows, maybe he sucks. But I think that you're going to see one of those three guys go, and my guess is going to be Andreas Janssen, not because he's not a great guy, but because the skill set that Kapanen possesses is too special. Kerfoot's a center. Robertson's coming in. You can't let Mikheyev walk.

You just can't. He's too good. Remember Barabanov? Yeah, I know, right? Remember Mikhail Letton? Oh, my God. Is it just me or is the Leafs power play, like, are we concerned about this yet again?

No. No. That's one that I feel like, you know, we talked about structure. It's just not there. Like, I sort of wished – this is the problem with a warm-up game, right? I don't think it's a good indicator, really, of how good or bad a team is at all because you might force it, like I think the Leafs power play was last night

to establish your structure when they could have just gotten a little sloppier and relied on their skill and maybe banged one in I don't know I think teams are going to force it and you're going to look and you're going to go ah they kind of suck I don't know I think they were just trying to stick to the script

and make it work yesterday and I think when your power play consists of those four all stars like you can't eventually you got to be like okay these guys are going to put it together they're going to have a little you know paul mcfarland's been blamed for a lot of the power play struggle this year and last the whole thing now he's leaving anyway but how much do you think a healthy morgan riley would

have helped even if paul mcfarland was leaving would have helped the power play numbers because hugely hugely excuse me what i saw oh my god what i saw last night it's coffee ground it's not uh it's not covid don't worry um everybody after this after listening to the show gets tested it comes through the microphones and infects the frogs okay so the the thing that i noticed yesterday obviously morgan riley with a goal and an assist great game solid game all the way around look fresh look healthy look like and cool as a cucumber every time he scores yeah thanks cool great he looked like the guy that scored 70 points last year because remember Morgan Riley had 70 points last year 70 over 20 goals yeah defenseman on the Toronto Maple Leafs

was 70 points goofy I don't know if it's ever happened and if it has it's been like 40 years and no one talked about it I'll let you know in a second I just man I have no idea I have no idea but the point here he clearly didn't break any records otherwise they would have said something but the the point I'm trying to make here is that Morgan Riley really is that centerpiece on the on the on the power play to start i think and you know mitch martyrs got his role matthew's got his role like mitch martyrs on the far wall you know that matthew you know tavaris is cleaning stuff in front of the net matthews is either on his side or the offside ready to fire like an unbelievable shot at the net if you don't have morgan riley there i don't think that any of those

guys feel in their minds that they can play the same role that they're meant to play meaning that if somebody is stepping into that role that note and this is no disrespect to tyson barry these guys have just been together longer morgan riley puts them in their comfort zone and i think at the beginning of the season when tyson barry was put in that role i believe with keith over morgan riley morgan riley took a step back and said yeah you know you gotta let players be the the best that they can be and i'm glad that they tried it but morgan riley is very clearly the the the top defenseman and the top power play guy on this team and i feel like beyond what he brings skill-wise which is unmatchable uh there is also that comfort factor that the other guys the forwards are going

to have to be in their happy place and shoot the things and play and pass the things that they should pass and shoot you know what i'm saying and and just like a small thing so andreas johnson's out of the lineup and he was the kind of bang-in guy on the second power play unit sometimes the first depends on who was healthy uh he's obviously not there anymore um zach hyman was actually doing a very good job filling in for him as the banging guy right um and to me that's what that second unit was missing someone needs to establish themselves as the banging guy um and it's got to be someone uh i think kerfoot i guess coming off the corner because that's going to be robertson's job if he's in the lineup right if he's a boy like that's another thing like such a special

special skill set that i think could really exploit teams you have them on a power play with spezza and kerfoot two natural players oh no barry's on the top unit man no he is on the top unit i thought i thought it was riley i think i think they might have last night i think they might have switched it they had a little riley dermot listen i fell asleep so before the before the season was on pause barry was on the top unit remember they switched it for like the last two weeks there yeah so i don't know it wasn't going on and off yeah to answer your question adam uh ian turnbull is the record he has 79 points in a season wow for a defenseman so and that was in the goofy 70s was it not yeah yeah or is uh defense pairing with uh borya solving oh wow

yeah that would have been their only good defense pairing that year because harold ballard would only pay for one so you know i gotta say um i think you know remember we were doing those era adjusted things yeah we would talk about them steve you would actually write them with uh i think some of the pension plan puppets guys did them too back in the day if you were to era adjust what morgan riley did last year and compare it to the top defenseman uh in each era uh for the toronto maple leafs in terms of points or best single season i think morgan riley comes out on top i can look that up right now yeah what's 79 points in 1977 yeah can you actually do a conversion calculator yeah there's a little yeah there's a little thing right uh it is

hockeyreference.com why isn't steve and i were talking about them this morning actually i was very frustrated i think who are you i love hockey reference no not hockey reference i was frustrated with another site that does not list playoff stats for goalies and that was frustrating for me and steve said why don't you try hockey reference and this is not a paid ad but wow did i find what i was looking for hockey references we'd love to promote you yeah give you money no we wouldn't pay you they'd pay us oh right sorry man i'm not sleeping dude i'm not sleeping steve will trade you

some dolls it'll be cool hey they're very valuable some worth up to 60 dollars all right now how did i find era adjusted i don't know if you guys talk i'll find it oh here it is here it is here it is so don't you don't just say a fucking word jesse fucking found it shut up shut the jesse god damn it okay so so glad we went down this rabbit hole This is great. 1976-77. In 80 games, he had 79 points. As Jesse said, era adjusted.

That is 70 points. Tied. Hold on. How many games did Riley play last year? He didn't play a lot. Wait. Riley played less games. We haven't adjusted Riley.

In 82 games. In the 70s. No, this is Riley. In 82 games. No, hold on, hold on. before you announce it so you adjusted ian turnbull's 79 from 77 to what so last year to to 2019 it's been okay so era adjustment maybe we should explain this first yeah explain this because if you're error adjusting rightly that doesn't make sense right so um a like a 120 point

performance for example in 1983 let's say is not as valuable as a 120 point performance now because teams score less so basically they take the total amount of goals from this season and uh the total amount of goals from that season and they're like here's what the equivalent is sort of if that makes sense right so in turnbull because the 70s i guess were a higher scoring era than era than it is now his 79 drops to 70 which actually isn't that big of a drop i should say so it's relatively similar so what are you doing with riley's number i'm not doing anything uh hockey reference.com just lists here's what his era adjusted stats are oh okay right what is it what are you you're adjusting riley to if he's in the era no it'd be like if turnbull was playing

now that yeah so and it comes out to 70 i think it's basically i think it's the average of all nhl history pretty sure okay do do the calculation and then see what what number do we get no calculation you just read it off the site jesse okay what number is it 82 games riley had 72 era adjusted points oh i don't understand where that's the best season ever which is 72 it says 72 last year so i guess i guess maybe it's comparing it to now i'm not totally sure i'm saying i haven't done this in a very long time jesse thanks for completely ruining the bit jesse can you check the bottom of your foot for this bit you gave riley two points for no reason no i didn't it's the same amount of points but you adjusted to now era so why are we readjusting riley could

kick in turnbull's ass is what i said jesse adam you ever go i'm lucky to work with these guys i feel very good i feel very good i feel good um okay there's something i want to address i want to spend two seconds on it and then i want to move on unless you guys would really like to drive this point home good luck with that on mine but what chicken shit thing is this linking arms before the game are they serious two seconds are you for real like i think it just goes along with what we were talking about earlier but that is some chicken shit nonsense bullshit yeah well you can't kneel on skates yes you yeah you're right is it just hard oh okay no no jesse it's not

difficult whenever i play i spend half the game on my knees i suck i fall down i just i just saw that and i thought we just still can't get this right huh oh it's deliciously nhl it's deliciously nhl i think it's ridiculous they also didn't paint black lives matter somewhere in the arena are on the ice because all the other major leagues are doing it right like we're learning let's put out a statement oh my god we care too no you don't shut up well and like there was there was a here it's right it's right here on my timeline actually uh tic tac tomar tweeted this out so there's a warm-up game between uh the colorado avalanche and the minnesota wild and in the lineup there's uh pierre edward belmar matt dumba nazem kadri and jordan greenway

and they're all uh players of color they're all you know hands on each other's shoulder uh it's just it was just another thing or a little thing that even though they weren't kneeling you can tell like they actually give a shit about the thing that's happening at the moment they're not just standing there confused like most of the players i will say this like a lot of the players might have actually wanted something a little bit better than what they did and i think they were just standing there first of all in a surreal atmosphere to begin with there's no there's no people in the seats it's they had a moment of silence for eddie shack that was not silent because there was crowd noise being pumped in even though there was no crowd

it was a surreal atmosphere we don't we don't need the crowd noise do we do we need the crowd no well leave it i mean it helps a little bit when the game's going on i guess just a little like room tone and your room tone has got to be crowd noise yeah i was surprised how seamless it not not to get away from the conversation that we're having but the eddie shack thing was absurd that was i felt bad because you know i mean the person who was doing that obviously has not done that since march yeah or well no one's pumping in crowd noise right no one's pumping in crowd noise except for montreal i said it um yeah there's a little of that going on yeah um but whenever they play the goal song in the background of the goal

there's crowd noise in that as well like it's not everybody in the stadium yeah and in toronto you know they're not because it's fucking silent the whole time yeah that'll that'll be can't accuse us of that see the leafs were the visiting team yesterday sorry to get back to what we were saying it's just it was it's uh a lot of people called it out for what it was or what it sure seemed like which was performative you know what i mean and like they did formative is a great word performative it's yeah i hadn't really used uh hadn't really heard it used all like the past month it's really it's apt but like listen uh a lot of individual players have spoken out against uh you know what's going on right now they've spoken in support of black lives matter they've worn the black lives

matter shirts and everything there's obvious progress happening but then you know seeing what's happening in baseball and what the what the wnba is doing and what's happening in soccer all over the world and hockey comes back and they're standing next to each other and i'm just like okay okay like it's just it's a dud it's a dud and then here can i here you say what you want to say because i'm going to bring up the bruins statement and i want you to tell me if it smells funny jesse my favorite parts of the podcast are when steve wants to look up something of these. It's Utah now. All right, shut up. Shut up. I got it. Shut up.

All right, shut up. I'm going to readjust the Bruins statement, and I'm not going to tell you how it works because I don't really know. Meanwhile, Mike Frances is an old man. Now watch me do the exact same thing he does. The exact same thing. He's retired, by the way. He's officially retired. So shout out to Mike. Bullshit.

Until next year. Yeah. So a statement from the Boston Bruins players. Over the past several months, we have been trying to educate ourselves and learn more about racial injustice in our country and around the world okay as a team we have decided to lock arms during the play of the united states in canadian anthems as a sign of solidarity with the black community okay okay and then they just completely fuck it up this action is solely intended to be a

positive sign of support for the black community and a way for us to use our platform to help end racism what are you doing to end racism by linking arms they didn't also you don't get to tell the black people how you're going to support them you ask them how to support them and then you do what they say because you're asking them i don't understand what's so hard about this you read you read the words you solely read the words they're not bad but this action is solely intended to be a positive sign of support for the black community they're supporting the black community and a way for us to use our platform to help end racism who doesn't want to end racism besides racism okay you know what i'm fully supportive of the boston ruin statement it's you cannot

be like here's how we're going to protest the bad thing and then add now don't be mad yeah what the hell is that they did we're were you afraid of being on the wrong side of history about being anti-racism we're doing this to stand in solidarity with the black community and protest racism don't be mad jesse like you you can't it just it waters it down if i have a question i have a question for you jesse okay i have not helped but if i were to help you move you did not ask i did offer let me just say i did offer yes i have not helped but if you if you were to say adam bring your sexy ass honda truck over here yeah that's right it dumps like a truck because it is zero percent apr that's right zero down i have no idea what two percent finance oh i don't

even know if that's what i don't have no idea what my lease is on that thing anyway the point here is jesse if you ask me to come help you move then i say sure what do you need and you say adam i need you to take boxes from my house and put it in your dumps like a truck and drive it to my next place and i say jesse i'd love to support you on that but what i'm going to do is stand outside and blare my stereo so that when you're carrying your boxes over to your next department you've got a great soundtrack is that helpful that's not helpful right you understand my point here guys do you want to get mad you ask the community what they need in support they give you a bare minimum standard standard which is take one leg and bend it and take the

other leg and bend it the other way for 30 seconds and you can't do it are you kidding someone if someone got in your friend's face you'd try to at very least get in between that person and your friend and i don't know what you would say but i assume it would be relatively hostile or at very least strong you wouldn't say for what it's worth friend i'd prefer if you didn't do that no offense intended which is basically what don't be mad hey hey listen i hope you don't hold this against me but you're threatening my friend and i don't appreciate it but i mean we're still i value our friendship but listen you knock it off stand for something that's all stand for something by kneeling jesse but final thoughts on this uh it just seems like the nhl is doing

very little right now even though there's clear there's two like main global conversations going on right now it's coronavirus and then supporting the black community and then things on the back burner like climate change and you know we're asking the nhl to stand up for one of them you know tell people to wear masks support the black community and ending systemic racism and they've chosen to do very little about that they've chosen to do the bare minimum and their bare minimum isn't really helpful at all you know so hopefully that changes but right now you can't express anything but disappointment at the league for their uh reply to what's going on in the world right now fair enough hopefully we see something better when the games actually you know the real

games actually are in gear uh on saturday and sunday you compare it to the nba uh league that's clearly filled with black players and the amount in the w nba especially you just looked at that because the amount of money they've raised just how public they've been with their support of just everything that's going on has been unbelievable so yeah you you compare the two and it's like you can you can do the same nothing is stopping you you can do that yeah the w nba is trying to arrest the murderers of brianna taylor themselves yes on their own yes it's a bunch of black women who are like we're not going to stand for this shit and in the nhl it's like okay with quadruple the amount of money you guys could do just do something and they're not doing that so

we'll see what happens we'll see if anything changes if not we'll keep being vocal about our displeasure of what they are doing and in the meantime if you ever need me to help you finish moving i will ignore all text requests thank you sir just throwing that out there no i'm kidding um how was that for two seconds there i know listen i got it also also and this is something that i don't expect steve to comment on but if we could have a little excitement around the broadcast that'd be super duper that's all i'm gonna say i'm throwing that out there if we could have some pump up music at some point that would be super what do you mean i mean I mean, it was a slow trudge down Hockey Lane yesterday.

Adam doesn't want a Stephen Brunt essay. He wants a Michael Bay trailer. Yes, yes. Thank you. Are you not a fan of Stephen Brunt's essay? I love Stephen Brunt. No, it has nothing to do with Stephen Brunt. Nothing.

Okay, okay. So here's, we talked about this. Stand for Stephen Brunt. Adam, we're friends, but it's... Stephen Brunt is a, let's get this out of the way. Stephen Brunt's a fucking legend, okay? that guy tells a beautiful story but you have got to look at a broadcast at a certain spot now listen it's been like months right so everybody's a little out of off kilter and we've just come off

and not come off we're in the middle of at the height of in the states a massive global pandemic that's killing tons of people let's just be straight about that okay but take the global pandemic part out of it for a second what they have always done is chosen slow song that's dramatic potentially sad somewhat empowering to kick off the broadcast every freaking time by a canadian band that nobody's by canadian band no one's heard of and i fine take the canadian band all right you know what canadian bands are affordable if no yeah fair but is no one in canada writing a song at 120 beats per minute has that completely stopped can we this is the thing you can honor frontline workers celebrate them hockey's back celebrate the people that got us

here because it's happening here in canada both cities we should be like we should all be taking off our shirts what should we be like nurses doctors truckers everybody that washed their hands across our chest we should be waving the flag and pumped shaving in your ass 100 thank you thank you thank you not well we're gonna put our arms around each other and stand in solidarity yeah that's this is the thing and i understand what's going on in the states is serious but this is a canadian broadcast and also it's sports is back it's a celebration yes yeah and and that's what brunt's essay was and i think that that was cool i think it was that one to me run that after the first period right run that after i've seen some excitement but i need a damn sizzle reel it

took me five minutes to warm up to the game yesterday because and this is something that's been happening. We talked about this with Don Cherry when he was let go or fired, excuse me, from the broadcast. We talked about how they needed to amplify the excitement a little bit. It's getting a little, and that's my thing. And I would say that, and I say that with all respect, that is a tough gig. They're all doing it from home. This is not an easy thing that they're doing, pulling this broadcast off, right? It's a damn good thing that Sportsnet Studio is like 5,000 square feet at the top of a building uh at the top of the cbc building because social distancing won't be hard in there but let's let's it's a big studio it's crazy big it's so big it's the size

like a hockey rink it's amazing state-of-the-art incredible let's use it let's get pumped and and that's that's what i'm hoping for i i just maybe that's maybe that's just because it was an exhibition game and it doesn't really matter that much but they sure had the full crew out and I you could tell Cassie Campbell's excited you could tell uh uh you could tell uh Kelly Rudy's excited he was talking about you know while I'm you know 25,000 or 2,500 kilometers away but I'm still pumped like this is going to be weird and that's the thing let's get a little weird with this I just want to feel some excitement around the game hopefully Saturday and Sunday and Monday and whenever all these games start that's what that's what we feel but I can tell

you that my opinion is they haven't captured the excitement especially on saturday nights the way the nfl does with the nfl games every sunday that's just my opinion you can feel free to disagree it doesn't mean they're bad people and it doesn't mean that i could do a better job personally i would just like to be excited for the game is that not yeah absolutely i'm not being the company man here by saying this but i don't know what they have in the vault if i were to allocate my resources i would make the big splash either or both of august 1st and august 2nd that is when you drop the holy shit oh my god hockey's backpack you know what i mean you're right you're probably that's probably what's exactly what's going to happen i hope so i don't know i don't know i like

not asking because i like watching it just not knowing you know what i mean yeah and and eric angles wrote a tweet about brunt's essay yesterday and he said when he saw it at florida and he's right like especially the back half of that it was like whoa you know that's what that's what brunt's really good at very few people can hold your attention and tell a story and all of those things um i just i felt like i'm like please god just drop the puck like can we just watch this damn game do you know what i'm saying and it's it had nothing to do with brunt's essay and everything do sometimes it's placement i listen if you guys want to come at me if you want if you work it sports net and you want to angrily email me and tell me what a jackass i am i'm only the asshole

on the couch uh watching the game and that's fair and i loved working at sports net when i was there for the three seconds i was there it was amazing so nothing against sports net the brand or rogers the company i hope that out there i hope frege pulls a woge and just tweets or just emails fuck you adam fuck you adam i just want to get excited is that fair is that is anything that i said unfair we should we should plug in jock jams on saturday and sunday i would freak out i'd be like yeah let's go maybe some sandstorm yeah yeah dude play go down run down the list of the top 10 i think nasher did this the top 10 nhl songs like in the na like ea sports

nhl songs of all time that they've used and like just go just roll those top 10 if you can't probably can't afford but you know what i'm saying i just pump that pump that in i'm in let's do it yeah i just want to get how many of them are canadian bands adam no you can't tell me you weren't pumped to see swollen members featured on nba 2k3 i was it was cool yeah it was a banger wasn't even their biggest one let's move on to the oilers and flames what about them well first off it is fantastic you hear chris cuthbert's voice again I'm sad that he's not doing the Toronto games only because I am Chris Chris Cuthbert's biggest fan he is right now the best working play-by-play person in the world in hockey no

questions he is the best secondly it's nice to hear him say Connor McDavid and Connor McDavid looked like Connor McDavid yesterday a monster he looked scary monster scary scary and that's why I don't have many questions about the Oilers because guys I can't remember a time where the Oilers seemed this poised for success can you name a time like they may not be on paper and Oilers fans are going to hate me for this the most complete team top to bottom but they have so much top it doesn't matter dude we we're gonna take crap I know I'm gonna take crap especially if the Oilers win I mean we all are it's a Canadian team winning the Stanley Cup 100% But I was not wrong in my trashing of the Oilers

because why I was so frustrated by their ineptitude was you have Conor McDavid. You don't even need to surround him with the best team in the National Hockey League in order to win a Stanley Cup. He needs like a middle-of-the-pack supporting cast and he'll take care of the rest. he's got leon dry sidle too that two-headed monster but they've been a two-headed monster for a few years it's just you can find shelter in their lineup okay we weathered the mcdavid storm

and now we attack their third line which is made of three people you've never heard of and we murder them we completely demolish them now they have a deeper roster a few prospects got called up who i was i wasn't too sure how much of an impact they were going to have in the lineup they absolutely have ethan bear's a big one uh kaylor yamamoto was a huge shot of adrenaline for them in the middle of the season he looks really good man yes first goal yesterday that was cool and then the one last missing ingredient a couple damn saves well and and that's you're right steve miko koskinen is giving him some saves shirely was right and no he makes way too much money shirely was not right it's ridiculous he wins the cup he's

right it's not no it's not a disaster make it a good deal it doesn't look like a disaster though you know what i mean like it's not good but it doesn't look like a disaster it was at the time He played two NHL games, and he said, here's $4.5 million for four years. That's absurd. And we've lost Jesse. Oh, there he is. There he is. Okay.

Yeah. But you're right. It was crap the second he signed that deal. And here's the problem, though. The reason that it looked so much like crap had less to do with Mikko Koskinen. I mean, again, it wasn't great. He wasn't great. And I'm not saying he was great.

Right. Boo. It's terrible. but beyond that it was that they didn't have room to fix all the other the massive list of problems that they had right and it didn't look like he was even the solution to the problem he was supposed to check off now he does leon dry saddle is up for 85 awards connor mcdavid for some reason is not up for all the same 85 awards it doesn't make any how come how come connor mcdavid and leon dry salad are not both up for the heart how's that possible despite fixing his own pcl

Yeah. What? Fixing his DZL by himself. Like, Leon, it's awesome that he's in there and he should be. So should Connor. Yeah, but neither of them are going to win. Yeah, it's like, well, they're on the same team, so they can't. It's McKinnon's award, Adam.

Well, for sure. I agree. For the same reason that Taylor Hall won it. Except I think Nathan McKinnon is more deserving of the heart this year than Hall was when he won it. I agree. Where are the Avalanche without Nathan McKinnon? He had 40 more points than his next closest teammate.

that's that's stupid how many how many teams second highest scoring player had 40 points right that was the gap and nothing to say against uh artemi panarin either who had an amazing season yeah but his gap was like 20 you know what i mean he's the argument for him is the same argument as mckinnon but mckinnon's is double if there is no connor mcdavid is nathan mckinnon the undisputed best player in the nhl right now it might be dry cycle without david yeah no because they get a lot of points from each other i'm not saying they're not good true dry but dry saddle did an amazing job with mcdavid out but that was like what a couple weeks but they also don't play on the same line anymore that's true thank god fredman's fans they're a two-headed monster like crosby

malkin oh yeah um you know but nathan mckinnon is so fun to watch which is key he's so skilled he's so fast he's intense though i kind of want to see i mean i don't think we're going to get to see it in this bubble but at some point i want someone to try nathan mckinnon and get clocked that's the ancient hockey fan in me because nathan mckinnon boxes uh to train um and he's just he's just a monster of an athlete he's just a monster of an athlete takeover ability there was one game in particular i want to say this is one of the games where the avalanche didn't have ranton and didn't have landis cog i think it was the overtime game against the vancouver canucks and nathan mckinnon just literally raged raged himself to an overtime winner like like i'm

getting sick of this and then he just ended it it was just lost his mind there's i don't know if there's i don't know if there are three better monsters in the league than nathan mckinnon i don't think there are i don't think so either i think it's mckinnon or sorry i think it's mcdavid sorry and maybe crosby but that light is eventually gonna fade hasn't yet hasn't yet hasn't yet Especially in the playoffs. Especially in the playoffs. I don't know how you rank Crosby out of the top three best players in the NHL right now. Oh, I would never.

I don't think you can. I would never. I think worst, he's three. Worst, yeah. I think you've got to look, too, with Sid, is that the Penguins, no matter what happens to that team, they're always in it. They're always in it. With or without them.

With or without them. But when he's there, like you never – it's like, well, never get bet against the Penguins, right? It used to be like, well, always bet against the Penguins. This Crosby kid's a loser. I know the Penguins lost to the Flyers, but if the motivated Pittsburgh Penguins run into the Montreal Canadiens, we saw the Leafs play, it's over in –

No, we're not talking about that. No, we're not even going to tell when it's – we're not going to even say when it's over. Okay, okay, okay. For a sport, that's like you've got to play as a team. He finds individually a way for his team to win, which is incredible. Never count out Crosby. No, I've always talked about it, but watching him play in person.

Watching him play is the best part of watching him play in person. Watching his opponents is the second. Their body language is nuts. What do I do? One major story for the Flames, and this is a major thing especially considering what happened to them against the nathan mckinnon colorado avalanche last year who do you start here are your options okay you got talbot who went to the second round with the oilers a couple of years ago pushed it to the seventh game

had a terrible kind of inter year period reinvented himself this season but had to be pulled last night which was key or do you go with big save dave who didn't play in the playoffs last year mike smith did did an admiral admiral job but nobody could score for the flames and mike smith isn't here anymore who do you go with your goalie because it doesn't seem like there's a clear-cut answer do you try a platoon and if you do try a platoon somebody's got to go first who do you go first with well and what's interesting i'm not sure if this is in the in that series but if i'm not mistaken every best of five series if it goes to game at least game four has a back-to-back yeah four and five in every round is back to back in every series sorry i think for the leafs it's

games three and four i'm not totally no it's i'm pretty sure it's four and five it doesn't matter at some point at some point there's look it up on hockey reference anyway at some point there's a back-to-back uh i'm stunned it was talbot um is big save dave hurt well he was playing he was he he drew in yesterday oh okay well yeah after talbot got lit up i was wondering if they if they were saving dave for the first game but like talbot got lit up so they moved him in like i don't save in big safe day people also aren't talking enough about how much he struggled this year he had like a a nine he had a 907 save percentage this is talbot or big save dave uh david david that's that's the crazy thing uh the crazy thing is uh in the two games

against the leafs he was so freaking good yeah so my my vision of him is he's this uh he it's funny he's not unlike mike smith uh in that his numbers kind of suck and every now and then he decides by the way you're losing tonight jonathan quick at his height right yeah i am allowing maximum one goal tonight and you can go frig off yeah pecorino is also the king of that pecorino but he does pecorino does it for an entire season not just a couple games yeah he does it season on season off If you want to score against me, you're going to have to wait at least 18 months. And then you can do it all you want.

Then you can do it all you want for the next two years. Did you see the game? Did you see the Florida matchup today with Tampa and the Panthers? I saw that Brian Boyle and Mikhail Sergeyev fought. Yeah, I saw that. Which is weird. Weren't they not teammates at a certain point? Anyway.

I don't think so. I saw Tampa was playing really good. Playing really well. And Bobrovsky was definitely not. No. That will be an interesting one. Contracts are disaster. I know we'll get to it,

but there's a couple of teams here who I look at and I'm like, you didn't show up to this bubble taking this seriously. No, Montreal is one of them. Florida's got on that list for me. We'll just put our skates on and have a good time and take a few more months off, baby.

Yeah. Um, but, but so do we have an answer Talbot with the nine 17 this year who had a bad night last night? Or do you go with Riddich? I'm asking Steve. I'm asking Jesse.

I want you guys. we're all going to make a choice steve go big save dave big save dave whoa jesse who do you go with uh you dance with the girl who you came with so you're going with dave wow yeah guys i'm dropping that girl and i'm going with the one i didn't come with talbot you know why that's hilarious because he's been waiting and he's been he's reinvented himself he's had a good season i know it's been four months so everything could change it's like another offseason but he a 917 save percentage you cannot ignore 10 save percentage points even in a short series that's a better argument it's a better argument than the one i was going to make which is well used to play for

the oilers hey cam how do you stop mcdavid what well like he has the answer to that have to play the oilers though he's got to play the jets and i don't think that that's and we'll get into that later on i don't think the jets are a great matchup for the flames um but um and also i i i've got a couple notes from that but we're gonna save those because that pushes us into projection territory a little bit uh lastly the game wasn't on in canada uh but if you were able to legally stream it if you weren't in the local area because the nhl streaming rules are absolutely ridiculous hey here so here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna buy a package that allows me to watch every game except for my team except for my local team i'm excited the blackout restrictions are

dropped for the playoffs oh are they fantastic if you buy certain packages from sportsnet oh so there you go yeah love that go ahead i believe you i also have sportsnet on and tsn on you know my streaming so i can just watch whatever but i just do find it a bit strange that people are like hey i'm in the pittsburgh area and i bought nhl and i can't watch pittsburgh games it's great love it you know that there's the blackout steve no i saw uh people complaining about it but i had a baby scream at me so i didn't know okay well yeah what happens um connor sherry scored his first ever nhl goal in the month of july so that's i think it was the first ever for yeah it was the first ever but it's not because it doesn't count so it's not um but uh penguins

offense lost three to two in overtime to the Flyers. Not a lot of emotion in this game. Some great skill. Is there anything that you take away from this, or is it just kind of two teams warming up? Because they're not even in the play-in, right? They're the guys – they're like kind of just – sorry, the Flyers are not in the play-in, right?

They're just going to goof around with the other top teams for a couple games. Right. No, they scored the overtime winner and didn't even look like they cared. Like Ron McClain was zeroed in on, okay, there's been a storyline. Is Sidney Crosby 100% healthy? here's a few plays of his and yep looks so looks like he's healthy so good like that's to me that's the main thing you know what i was uh texting someone about during that game the penguins essentially got jason zucker there's two examples of this i think in the nhl the penguins essentially

got jason zucker because jake gensel was out for the season now they get to have both right And the Vancouver Canucks did something similar where they got Tyler Toffoli to basically replace Brock Besser, and now they have both. Yeah. Which, by the way, apparently they're – and, again, I'm trying to keep away from the contract talk, but apparently they like Tyler Toffoli so much they're going to try to re-sign him and potentially trade Brock Besser.

Always bet on Bim. Always bet on Bim. They said it was fake. They said it was fake. Oh, God. Yeah. Come on, Bim. Entertain me, Bim.

Your boy, Bim. All right, so we're going to get into predictions now, guys. So we're going to start with the Eastern Conference. I'm going to ask you not only who is going to win this series, but how many games it's going to take them to win it. We've got, starting with the Eastern Conference, Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens. It's a best of five.

Steve, kicking it off with you, who do you give it to and in how many games? I give it to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they are going to turn the Montreal Canadiens into a near drinkable pulp um it's it's gonna be three games it's gonna be gross it's gonna be disgusting jesse same question i got i got pittsburgh i got uh four games because i'll give montreal one but yes why it's right well i will answer that question because kerry price will have a good game bingo you'll have a price deals one for sure if you play if you're gonna play a couple games, Carey Price

is bound to have an outstanding game, and Max Domi or someone will show up and score a couple goals for him, and they'll win one. I had no idea Jonathan Drouin was playing last night. I watched that entire game. I had no idea. I don't think they called his name out.

I don't think they did. Did he barely play? Did he get hurt? It was not a nice game for the Montreal Canadiens. Sorry, you mean top line and center, Jonathan Drouin? That's right. On the first goal Did you notice how when that breakout pass

Was hit to Tavares They had four guys inside of the blue line Like their own Offensive zone And there's just one defenseman back Starting the game they weren't there But like that's That's just sloppy

I mean the Leafs did that all regular season long So I can't hold it against the Montreal Canadiens That's a good point That's only one exhibition game I can't say I blame them Okay, and I'm going to give it to Penguins in four as well. And the only reason I'm going to do that is for the same reason, Jesse, is Carey Price can steal you a game.

I'm not sure in this series he can steal you a series, but I do have a question before we move on. If for some reason the Montreal Canadiens are able to win this series, don't think it's going to happen, cap it out at about 10%. Other than Carey Price, what's going to be the X factor for them? Like who needs to be big for them other than Carey Price because that's every game all the time for the rest of eternity. Carey Price needs to be big for the Canadians.

Well, for them to even take the ice, Philip Deneau has to be their best player because he's their best and arguably only true center. And he's going to be in a shutdown role against an unshutdownable team. So how the hell do you work that out? He's going to be either getting Crosby or Malkin or Jared McCann. Have fun. So for me, he's going to have to get help on the wing.

And you know what? The Habs did not start the season that bad. And they were getting a career season out of a guy who I didn't even know was playing last night. And that guy was Jonathan Druin. I know Max Domi's a good player. Brendan Gallagher's a good player. Philip Deneau's a good player.

Shea Weber's a good player. Jeff Petrie's a good player. Carey Price is a good player. Druin. drew it when he shows up is really really good and when he doesn't he's invisible it's got to be drew it moving on to the next series carolina hurricanes and new york rangers i'm going to ask you who's going to take the series and in how many games starting with you steve oh boy um this is a very tough one and an interesting one because uh the rangers have carolina's first round pick i

believe yeah because at the deadline they acquired brady shea and also vincent trocek oh that's amazing and also sammy vatman um i think yeah it might uh i'm gonna stick to what i said in my video for sportsnet although i'm starting to feel pretty stupid about it i said the rangers would actually beat the hurricanes i think the hurricanes if they get past the rangers have what it takes to go very far i think both teams in this series are extremely good carolina hurricanes are an extremely good team but the way the new york rangers were chugga chugga chugging up the standings and they have three goalies too and they have three goalies which they didn't have in the early part of the season when they weren't in the playoff race but they were

climbing and dj z bad was climbing and artemi panarin was amazing it just sucks that they lost brady shea one of the ideas i had is like you should have the option to take it back like it'd be funny or like just for the they should make a thing where like all right brady shea is not allowed to play in this series no no you know what i mean i i said the rangers i i said that on a hunch i know it's going to be the hurricanes but what i'm going to say the rangers well and that's what makes it so special and i'm just leaning off camera here because the games have already started carolina i believe no they've been playing this the whole time yeah washington carolina are playing right now just in a not a actual game but it's cruel and unusual

punishment uh minnesota colorado has been going on i think the entire time okay steve or sorry Jesse who do you take Carolina Hurricanes New York Rangers you know what I trust my hockey expert friend Steve Dangle and I agree with him wow the Rangers in five I think I've shot a lot of they're very underrated especially with the three goalie situation I if one guy doesn't step up you have two other guys who could literally uh be game breakers for you also zabinijad and panarin it's just nobody appreciates that and i think if they show up uh carolina doesn't really have they have like they have their defense is a strength for sure but i'm gonna bet on those guys in new york wow i don't know if i've ever sat on a panel where two other people have been

so wrong but here we are here we are i know damn well i'm wrong but i don't guys guys carolina of takes this series and they take it in four because i'll give the rangers one because i agree with you they are an underrated team and if you give them a full season playing the way they had been halfway through the season that's a playoff team no question uh jeff gordon deserves gm of the year that guy's done an amazing job turning this franchise around grabbing panarin i mean the city helps it's kind of great to have the you know one of the best cities in the world behind you panarin's a fabulous pickup he's such a great player chicago i'm sure you definitely would make that brandon sod trade again anyway i digress the reason carolina is going to win this series guys

one name jacob freaking slavin jacob slavin who should have win he should be winning the norris trophy there shouldn't even be other people in the nomination he's not even nominated nominated for the lady bing at very least oh that's great maybe above don't others so nice to give him the lady bing because everybody grows up and goes man i just want to win that lady bing jacob slavin is to me top three defensemen in the nhl probably the best one this year in my opinion jacob slavin is the reason that the new york rangers are going to freak out i don't think the new york rangers are ready for jacob slavin at all because there are other great players on that team including dougie hamilton great goaltending and you've got you know because

you've got a uh you've got a a fantastically balanced team with carolina with the rangers They're still incomplete. Carolina's been right there forever. This is New York's first time being kind of right there. Well, we're happy to be here. Here's Carolina, Carolina, Carolina. Hold on, hold on. Jacob Slavin.

Convince me that James Reimer or Peter Morazic can stop the offensive firepower of the New York Rangers. Peter Morazic. Tell me. Tell me how that's going to happen. I'm not going to try with James Reimer because I think we know James Reimer, and we love James Reimer, but James Reimer is a very good secondary goalie on a team, right? Is that fair?

Like, really, truly. Okay, so Steve's already mad at me. Okay. And he's not even saying anything. He's put his mic off. So now you're putting Peter Mrazik in there. Peter Morazic, when Peter Morazic is on, is another goalie that you go, holy shit, unstoppable.

And, of course, we only saw this because when Detroit would play Toronto, Peter Morazic would be in that. We're like, well, this will be a k-walk. And then he just decides to show up. We saw him allow 10 goals in person, Adam. Yeah. We did see that. Against the shittiest Detroit team since this year's Detroit team.

Like, that was the second shittiest Detroit team I've ever seen in my life. This year's was the worst. Peter Morazic. all right let's have a look at peter morassick's number if you guys don't think they were they weren't good i'm stuck he had a 905 save percentage doesn't matter look at carolina what's james reimer at i'd say both aren't great shut up i'm saying i'm saying carolina's goaltending might struggle versus the rangers And Panera might roof a couple top corner and pick up three wins.

And you could be right. James Reimer, by the way, is a 9-14. 9-14, not bad. I think – Go swing. I still think Peter Morazic's the X factor over James Reimer. Just throwing it out there. But their defense all the way down, those top six are un –

you can't compare any other defensive squad to that, so it doesn't matter. And they can score, so it doesn't matter. and that's where i think you know the rangers are a couple of lines the carolina hurricanes are an entire team that's how i feel without gold okay nothing you can't have everything man we're mad at you for different reasons what is it steve what is it uh okay here's how i know i'm wrong and you're right adam okay uh i think the rangers could win on a hunch but if they do win they're not going to go anywhere if the hurricanes win they could make it all the way all the way final yeah yeah all the way i think that's a hell of a team man but i've thought that for years

and uh they've never come through for me so we'll see uh new york islanders versus the florida panthers sorry there's a gigantic motorcycle driving by my house uh new york islanders florida panthers based on what we've seen from brobrovsky today uh what are your thoughts on the series how far does it go this could either be a very exciting series because i like the intensity of the new york islanders or it could be where fun goes to die uh because the oh my god the coaches we we talked about uh trots we we talked about we talked about uh quinville oh quinville thank you trots and quinville but all the islanders had was structure we're talking about a team that the toronto maple leafs shut out with michael hutchinson

and net right they if you play a certain way they play just this smothering defensive this bucket of that i just hate watching but here's the thing they had trouble scoring goals and they're going up against sergey bobrovsky it's their best shot at scoring the panthers should just play with six skaters well like it's he's been awful so okay and but the panthers are fun but also not good who do you give it to this series the islanders but in how many games four i give the panthers one because their offense is is so good but you know who the biggest losers in the series are us what for having to watch it dude i i i just look at i

look at all the series and i'm like do i have to watch this one yeah that one's a blur that one's like i i i know i was even announcing it i was like oh that sucks both teams have fun potential The Islanders are a fun team to watch when they're pissed off, and the Panthers are a fun team to watch, like Barkov and Huberto, when they're going off. But, oh, do I have to with that series. Jesse. I'm going to go with the Islanders in three.

Because you rarely see sweeps in NHL playoffs. It's a weird thing. But I'm going to say the Panthers don't really show up because they don't get goaltending. uh offense struggles randomly and islanders play good structured hockey they were so bad before the pause too yeah yeah yeah so um i'm gonna go this is our first unanimous pick in terms of team i say islanders in three i think they're gonna steamroll the panthers absolutely steamroll them uh the one thing i will say if the panthers have a shot first off brofsky's got to stop something

at some point he's got to be better than martin jones okay just be better than martin jones But also, Vinny Trochek. You're setting the bar very low. I know. Well, he's played that low. Vinny Trochek, to me, is an X factor for the Panthers. That guy comes on. I mean, obviously, we know Barth.

No, he's gone now. He's gone now. That's right. He's on the Hurricanes. He's on the Hurricanes. Oh. Oh. The Hurricanes are all the way to the finals.

I forgot. Adam, this was a fun factor with the bracket that I did with Justin Bourne is everyone forgot everything that happened at the trade deadline. Trocek is no longer on the Panthers. He's on the Hurricanes. And Jean-Gabriel Pajot is on the Islanders. That's right. I do remember that, which was a good pickup for them

because they needed some center depth. And he did well in – I think he might have only played one game. And he was really good in that game. But if I'm not mistaken, he got into a fight and they also lost. Dude. Yeah. They don't have any Trocek. Okay, yeah.

No, Panthers, you're toast, man. See you later. Goodbye. And, man, do I feel better about my Carolina pick? Not that I needed to, but damn. They loaded up. They loaded up because they were injured as hell, and now they're not.

I really hope that the Carolina and Toronto don't make or don't miss or don't make each other, they don't play each other in the final because I can't bear to see the Leafs be edged out by the Hurricanes yet again for the Stanley Cup Finals. I have already seen that once in my life. I don't need to see it again. Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets.

Gentlemen, how do you think this series goes, starting with you, Steve? uh i think i even said before the pause i said if the leafs ever have to play the columbus blue jackets in a playoff series they're going to struggle because columbus uh is kind of the rock to their scissors but i just don't think it's going to be as big a factor because everyone is super sloppy i think we've seen that with the warm-up games um you know with with extra intensity even even though they got guys back because columbus was injured too seth jones probably being their biggest injury and getting him back is huge with added structure um I'd give

them a better chance against the Leafs but I just think skill is going to be such a factor the Leafs win the Leafs should beat these guys they have no excuse not to and in how many games I'm going to say I'll say four just because it's difficult to bet too hard on the Leafs defense but there's this isn't me being a blindly fan like you have to have confidence in this team that they can at least beat the Columbus Blue Jackets and if they can't like I said you got to look at making some big changes you don't have to trade Mitch Marner but you got to make some big changes because this team clearly can't do it Jesse if they can't beat him they can't do it did Steve just tell us he wants us to trade Mitch Marner he will on Monday when the Leafs lose game one Sunday night on

sports net no he's he's he's low-key he's low-key like the new william nylander every trade proposal guy yeah it's not gonna happen no it's especially not at 11 million dollars or almost 12 now he's not gonna get moved um also frankly would as much as i there i have said i think this season i was like i'm ready to turf this dude uh not because because i was not thrilled with the way it was going uh mitch marner on your team is always greater than mitch marner not on your team and this is a guy that does love playing here and you know we talked to chris johnston about this uh certainly was a tough start to the season for him and he was a little upset with how the fans and media treated him and you could say what you want about that because we've already had our

opinions on that and where they're well stated and i think some of that was drawn by his camp i'm over it over it mitch marner what mitch marner is living your dream and he's living my dream he's getting paid an obnoxious amount of money to play for the best team in the world so I think Mitch Marner belongs here let's just throw that out there Jesse go ahead I'm gonna take I'm gonna take the Toronto Maple Leafs in five because I think it's gonna take them a little bit just to get it together because we've seen consistently over and over again with this team is that they'll have it all one night and then the next night they'll poop the bed you know and i don't see that changing just because they've had a little break here so i see them

struggling a couple games but then eventually winning the series and hopefully this is a precursor for the leafs getting it together for a nice solid playoff run that's how i see it playing out they struggle maybe a little bit in a couple games versus columbus but then the offense just kind of takes off the defense will never be there because it's not there the guys don't exist on this team but they're gonna win on the back of frederick anderson turning it on which i think he will do because of the consistent play he seems to be really good at that and then the offense turning it up so i see that happening i see them getting it together by the end of the series and then going on a nice little run after this it's gonna be hilarious when jack

campbell plays game five before i get out not happening steve before i give you my answer i want to ask you a question i'm gonna run through some game ones with you 2017 leafs capitals game won who wins who loses leaf scored the first two goals blew it and tom wilson won it in overtime for the capitals 2018 leafs bruins who lost oh leafs got friggin killed uh because now some cadre tried to kill a man six nothing or six two one of the two where the first two games were off it was bad the next year 2019 leafs bruins who wins the game leafs play their best playoff game in i don't even know how long and actually beat the bruins in boston mitch marner scored on a penalty shot bingo what we've seen from freddie anderson in the last few years is growth at the

start of something so those first two especially that first october when we when they had two wins remember that at first october they only had two wins with freddie anderson and people were asking mike babcock is freddie really the guy and he's like oh no he's the guy and he was and he is the guy freddie anderson throughout the regular seasons has gotten better and better and better off the jump from right away because he has committed to getting into better shape working on skills all the things that you need to do as a pro athlete to continue to get better i think we're going to see the same thing in the playoffs i think we're going to see a freddie anderson ready to go and as nick nick kiprio said four years ago on this show

the leafs live and die on what freddie anderson does and i believe that the leafs will take the columbus blue jackets in four games i definitely think there's going to be a speed bump in there somewhere i don't even know if they're going to win sunday i know freddie anderson's going to play well but don't be surprised if the leafs do not score on sunday don't be at all wow don't be surprised i'm not saying it won't happen i'm just saying they may need a game or two to figure out these columbus blue jackets defensive schemes i think we're gonna see very few shutouts wow that's wow way way way more skill than columbus but tortorella taught sheldon keith tortorella was his coach yeah and now and now keith's not playing anymore and he's in the so

tortorella's a bad coach i feel like torts might know what's going on in sheldon keith's head and i would love to see i i can't wait to see steve's reaction if the leafs lose game one i can't wait especially how they lose game one if freddie anderson stands on his head and they can't score monday is going to be a fun show and by the way that's going to be our next show the leafs if the leafs lose game one it shouldn't be a problem like they should they should win this series even if they lose game one and i you can definitely see them losing game one they should win the series period yes but they often don't show up right away and that's that's a curse with the team and i think we need to know that going ahead is that it's not the end of the world if

they drop game one it will be to steve though it will be raining and uh reigning nba champion toronto raptors game one against the orlando man they got destroyed by terence ross yeah dropped a bunch of threes for no reason in the magic people that was the thing with terence ross and you know who had zero points in the first game where i wore his jersey ever kyle lowry he had zero points in that game yes he got 11 in the first like three minutes against golden state i remember uh uh sid tim and sid uh sid just because he he he made it a point of going after kyle lowry a little bit last year and boy after game one did he go after him but i think i think Lowry must have seen it because or he just is Kyle Lowry and ice cold because he came out and just

exploded the next game he needed that game to happen dude because I remember he got a foul and he still had zero points at this point and he gets a foul and everyone cheers because they're like he's gonna get one and then he missed the first one and everyone that you could feel the whole building go oh my god he's gonna miss both yeah yeah well and what was amazing about all that too is that Lowry had scoring issues in the playoffs leading up to that to that you know like the entire the entire time he'd been a Raptor him and DeMar would just it they would just stop being him and DeMar yeah in the playoffs and that was part of Western Conference Edmonton Chicago Blackhawks this is a really interesting matchup because Chicago ultimately like Montreal

probably shouldn't be here however they've got this could be the last playoff for that that duncan keith patrick kane jonathan tase cory crawford uh core because obviously brent seabrook is not playing um depends do you go with experience or do you go with conor mcdavid and leon drysaddle uh i thought the oilers were going to win in two because uh they made it sound like cory crawford wasn't gonna play right and they don't have robin leonard anymore they traded him to vegas and he was elite for a hot minute which means their starting goalie i believe would have been malcolm suvan now he had an amazing game against the leafs this season dude that guy's not robin leonard he's not cory crawford or at least cory crawford when he's on now cory crawford

is there and like did i misread did he at one point have covid and now he's back and that's why he was home yeah okay for two weeks but okay so even if he's fully recovered and everything's fine then that took away from his preparation time and you're preparing for the hardest thing you could possibly prepare for as a goaltender which is facing leon drysaddle and connor mcdavid uh what do you say blackhawks uh blackhawks or oilers in and how many games oilers in three easy jesse easy oilers in three because i'm not betting against connor mcdavid for this entire playoffs i think edmonton is poised for a deep run because mcdavid everybody keeps saying he has never looked better in his entire career and i think he's not even peaking plus uh i don't think

the blackhawks are ready for the playoffs because they were never supposed to be in the playoffs and then all of a sudden we were like hey here's some playoffs for you yeah hey we need to local television not not the greatest defensive depth the only way they stand a chance is if they like velcro duncan keith to conor mcdavid the whole series and and to be fair duncan keith's had a bit of a resurgence this season he's been been much better his instagram's scary his instagram's oh he's in amazing shape yeah but edmonton has they've become more than mcdavid at this point yeah dry set up for the heart and like yeah my moto's up it was looking great well and you've got clef bomb and and darnell nurse and some really strong people on defense as well

Like, it's a – that's a much more complete team than those two guys. It's just they're the story every night. And James Neal isn't in Calgary, so he plays well. Yeah. Crazy. He's been decent. Did you see Pooley RV doing a bit of a walk back today? Yeah, same way.

They got a new GM and coach, so I might sign it in. Never say never. No. Man, he should have put his pride aside. Should have put his pride aside. You could have been a part of this, man. Yeah. All right.

Well, he's learned his lesson. also if i were him and they had tried to make me play through double hip surgery which they remember he had that last year remember i wouldn't assign with them either he was right to leave he was right to leave but i think it now's time to come back sure it's time to come sure but they had to earn that man yes no they did they 100 did disaster you're absolutely right 12 months ago disaster totally um okay i'm gonna just say my quick prediction on the uh oilers and blackhawks i'm gonna say oilers in three i don't even know how many goals the blackhawks score like i think this is gonna be remember when they played nashville and everybody's like well that seems

like an even series and nashville just kicked them around like it was nothing i don't think chicago scores more than three goals in this series i'm serious like i just score but they'll maybe the brin cat gets a couple but like i really don't know like who's gonna score for you tase is not a big i know that guy couldn't even beat me but like it's gonna be is it gonna be alex kneelander you know is it going to be brandon sod like i don't think so um uh edmonton and three uh that's the first time that we've been unanimous on our games in pictures hey i want to uh i want to ask you something adam what the blackhawks have a guy who was nominated for the calder what's his name no idea kubelik oh yeah that guy had over 30 goals he he had the most it's weird the blackhawks

get all the attention in the world but, like, only three guys? He gets nothing. Can I tell you why it's ridiculous that he's nominated for the Calder? He's 24. We have another Panarin situation.

And it's Chicago again! It's Chicago! Always! They'll trade him for some middling guy very, very soon, guys. The good news is they can't trade him for Brandon Tuck. No, it's right now. Or they trade Brandon Saad again and they'll get him back.

You know, we're going to take one more swing at it. Hey, can you hold this? All right, thank you. No offense to Brandon Saad. It just wasn't a fair deal. Full offense to Brandon Saad. It's not Brandon Saad's fault. No, it's not.

You guys are cool with the 24-year-old getting a call there? Yeah, I'm fine with it. I think if it's your first year, you're a rookie year. I don't care how old you are. What if you're 30? Who cares? It's your first year. You're a rookie.

greenhorn baby doesn't matter i don't like the caveats that they put on it like gretzky was never rookie of the year because he had previously played pro frig off yeah and then ray bork won it which should he had austin matthews be disqualified for his rookie season they changed based on that logic yes but no no it's very no no but remember this is 1980s nhl logic where they had just absorb the wha and they were very proud of that because they'd been legitimately threatened by the wha in the 70s and they were like no and then they were also trying to legitimize four franchises that they took from the wha so it's like well that that was pro hockey too these count so it's stupid and terrible logic and should never happen and grad ski was the best rookie that year

no offense to raymond bork but we all know who the best rookie on the ice was um uh nashville Predators Arizona Coyotes this will be a very interesting series you had both teams up and down years some struggle scoring who do you give it to Steve this is very difficult because the Coyotes were a very good team when they had both Darcy Kemper and Antti Ranta playing they were low-key one of the better uh goaltending tandems in the NHL uh Taylor Hall a little bit of a comeback uh they still have Phil Kessel we had a bit of a down season I I think Arizona's goaltending if it's healthy and it's on can definitely steal this series but I got to give it to Nashville just based on seniority um yeah no I think um but I I will say this and I'm gonna

I'm gonna carve another team later in this conversation I am tired of Nashville being the western team that cries wolf i am so tired of every year or like this is their year and have you noticed we've stopped doing it well they legitimately got close they got close they went to the stanley cup final you can never take that away from them but then after that what noise have they made somebody had to take san jose's spot and they were and there was another team oh just you wait but there is another team to be fair to both they had some pretty stiff competition like the west was pretty strong for a lot of years ask st louis blues fans if they got any slack they didn't oh we keep running into who gives a shit go home you lost and then last year they won

they but what boston's good so they lost boston well they ran into boston so who are you giving it to i give it to nashville in five jesse blake this is this is a tough one like i don't know if there's a wrong answer here honestly because i don't know what either of these teams are jesse blake what do you think yeah admittedly i don't i don't know a whole ton about nashville and arizona but i like the idea of arizona finally gearing up to go forward this season and working out a little bit i like the idea right after is john jenka there anymore i i missed all that so he is done yeah i knew there was something wrong no i don't think so was there a statement oh it was i was wondering why we hadn't talked about it yeah i've been a bit distracted okay

so you talk about it i'm gonna look it up okay so uh jesse who continue sorry um i'm gonna go with arizona because i like the idea of chica gearing up to finally go for it making metro taylor hall deal getting phil kessel uh rant or temper whoever when they want to go with actually playing well you know and i like the idea of them knocking off nashville this first round hopefully in uh five games i'll pick five games and so yeah arizona's my pick and the chica situation we'll get to yeah so we will get to that let me just make my quick predictions here first And the reason I say I don't know what these teams are is because every time I've seen them, they've been different.

Each time I watch the Coyotes or the Predators play this year, they've been different. Sometimes you see the Nashville of old, although they can't score. They're missing whatever James Neal was in 2016. They're missing that. And they've tried to solve that, and they haven't been able to solve that. They just cannot score. Arizona, got guys that can score.

Taylor Hall, Phil Kessel, come on. Can't score. They put on a Coyotes jersey. i don't know what happened to my skills they're gone now i think that the potential that arizona has in scoring is going to be the edge in this series bill kessel and taylor hall need to show up oliver eckman larson you already know he will darcy kemper pretty darn good goaltender and if you can't get him playing well auntie rant is not bad either because auntie rant to remember was supposed to be the starter there are good players on both sides here if

If Pecorine is anything other than spectacular, Arizona wins this series in four. And I'm going to give it to Arizona in four games. That's what I think is going to be the deal. I actually think offense is going to be the – I know that's a big hot take. But I think Taylor Hall is showing up for this series because he definitely needs to with this new contract on the thing. And Phil Kessel has been a disappointment.

And I think he's a good playoff performer. We've seen it. The one time he got to the playoffs with the Leafs, the two times he was there winning the cup with the Penguins, outstanding in the playoffs i would love to see arizona and their fans they deserve this sorry nashville you know i freaking love you but i think this is arizona's time so steve nothing um now i did sort of i did see a little bit about john shaka being offered a job outside of hockey and then the coyotes being cool with him interviewing for the uh it's the devils

oh it's with the devils yeah yeah now is that the rumor just here was that confirmed so it's It's confirmed but not confirmed because they can't, I think, legally or technically say anything. What happened? The idea is he got offered the devil's job, but the job would have been more than team president. So there was a rule in his contract where he couldn't leave for, like, a lateral move.

It needs to be an upgrade and kind of have more titles. So he had to have GM and president or something like that. Yes. So New Jersey, actually, the New Jersey group who owns a Premier League team, I believe, and they're also going to own an MLS team, and they own part of a football team. I'm not sure which one. It might be the Steelers.

Not sure. But those guys wanted to talk to Chayka to bring him in to run this little that he'd be president of hockey plus a couple other things. Wow. Arizona told him he wasn't allowed to go talk to them for the interview. He wasn't even allowed to talk. So, yeah. So, did he quit?

So, then he quit. Yes. So, here, I have a bunch of tweets. They are fantastic. I'm going to say – Steve, your microphone is a little bit muffled, too. Just throwing that out there. How's this?

Great. How's that? Okay, sorry. So, this is from Kent Summers, who works for the Arizona Republic. Latest on GM John Chayka's status with the Coyotes per NHL source. John Chayka terminated his contract 48 hours ago. I have no idea what the team is doing at this point. Craig Morgan wrote an article, and the line to bring you in is an NHL source

says John Chayka is a liar and a quitter. Ghost Hoffa put together a series of tweets, this one from Craig Morgan. NHL source, John Chayka is a liar and a quitter. uh from john gambadoro this yotes chica situation could get very ugly apparently opportunity for chica to go back to the east was for a lot more money this is what jesse was talking about could yotes look for compensation is this breach of contract could be some legal battles upcoming from an nhl source chica lied to coyotes about his opportunity with another team that it was non-hockey related yotes would have never given him permission to leave if it was for a hockey

job he quit on the players coaches and staff as team prepared to depart for edmonton the timing sucks let's be honest and just uh just to correct myself it was the uh the owner of the devils owns the 76ers it was a pennsylvania team but it was the philadelphia 76ers and then crystal palace in Premier League. That's a pretty big team. This is their official actual statement. Coyotes? This is from the Coyotes, as tweeted out by Chris Johnson. The Arizona

Coyotes issued the following statement today regarding John Chayka. John Chayka has quit as general manager and president of hockey operations of the Arizona Coyotes. The club is disappointed in his actions and his timing as the Coyotes prepare to enter the NHL's hub city of Edmonton

where the team will begin postseason play for the first time since 2012 chica has chosen to quit on a strong and competitive team a dedicated staff and the arizona coyotes fans the greatest fans in the nhl well they're not but sorry the club is the ones that why do we say that stop that shit come on the club is moving forward and his name steve sullivan is interim uh general manager you keep it down uh he has the full support of the organization including team ownership executive leadership players and coaches the club will have no further comment on the matter as the club

remains focused on the opportunity to pursue a Stanley Cup. You know what this smells of? Who's the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers? Jesse, remember his name? Dan Gilbert? Yeah, Dan Gilbert. Owner of also the Washington Football Club.

Or is he? Maybe I have the name wrong. I think it's Dan Gilbert, isn't it? I thought it was Dan Snyder. Oh, Dan Snyder. but anyway forget that part dan dan gilbert threw a hissy fit when lebron left and he said benedict arnold called benedict arnold and then said we will win the championship here before lebron ever wins one in miami they didn't even make the playoffs so you know i think in this

particular situation you got a coyotes group that is admittedly small right the ownership group on down it's a smaller staff than a lot of nhl teams have and that has to do with the fact that they just don't have a lot of market share of arizona sports as i told you i went down there for my honeymoon back in the day and i asked the person at the car rental place hey where do the coyotes play and she said don't even know who they are in phoenix so let me in fairness they don't play in phoenix but they're the one fucking hockey team in the state you think they should do and she's at the rental car place where you ask people where things are in fairness i i got into a car in uh regina saskatchewan and i asked to be i asked to go to the arena and the guy had no idea right

what arena for what team there are five buildings in regina are you joking me like where the regina pats play the big arena the biggest the biggest building in the province no i'm joking no that's where the rough ride in regina it ain't it ain't far off basketoon i like but can i say that i don't think the two stories are the same they're not they are they are but let me throw this out we are the same you and i steve's taking this story going i made this adam made this i made this but the thing is you know with a smaller organization and anybody that works for a smaller business and i'm not saying the coyotes are small and i'm not by the way saying that their fans are not great but let's not overstate the best in the league come on there's

you got to fill an arena before you can start trying that I think maybe Nashville is up for that but I don't know about I don't know I still want to see a Coyotes game up close the point I'm trying to make here is this is when you have a smaller organization things get it's a little bit more like a family it's things get personal and John Shaka if this were a normal year would have quit at a normal time but what the um what's happened here with a global pandemic going on is it's thrown the timelines off now is him quitting right now good no no but i don't want i don't want to think i don't want to think for a second that the coyotes ownership is blameless here i for sure i just don't know i don't know john shaker personally but i have a hard time

believing that he wouldn't have wanted to stay there finish out the season and go you know like what steve mcfarland's doing with the leafs right now as the assistant coach he's going to move on to the kingston front next paul mcfarland excuse me and i understand that that's a different league and it's a different thing but this is very clearly if he is going to the devils it's very clearly an upgrade and he's gonna make an astounding amount of money and he's going to be on the east coast near his family do you really think this guy do you think that john shaker would want to just quit and make himself look terrible because if he did like think about this from his perspective you're the general manager and you're the president of hockey ops for an nhl

team if you quit going into the playoffs without any prompting or without someone pushing you to do so then you're an asshole right you're an asshole and no one wants you no one wants to hire you when's this guy gonna quit on me next no he's blacklisted but you got exactly but you got a smaller ownership group that's new to this because they just took over right and they're pissed understandably and you got a global pandemic normally this would be the right time to quit but it's not can i and and they stood in his way and you know frankly in life sometimes you got to do the asshole thing and secure the fucking bag which is what john chaka did he went he got his money he's closer to home and he's with a franchise with frankly more stable

leadership i don't really think i don't really think that he necessarily made the worst choice in the world can i give you the quote from uh az central about the hall negotiations from now last week this was the other thing the other thing he wasn't even involved there's so much there's so much evidence that this is not chego's fault and that he had an opportunity i did see this we'll get back to the bracket in a minute folks right okay so this is from azcentral.com coyote's General Manager John Chayka, who signed a contract extension last November, is no longer leading negotiations to re-sign forward Taylor Hall, according to an NHL source with direct knowledge of the situation. The source confirmed reports

that Coyotes owner Alex, I don't know how to pronounce his last name, Marulo? I think so. Marulo and his son Alex Jr. and team president and CEO Xavier Gutierrez had a dinner meeting last week with hall at the meeting the coyotes made hall a lowball offer according to the source john wasn't at the meeting he wasn't the one who set it up and he wasn't the one making the offer wasn't invited he's the general manager and president of hockey ops and it's so weird that negotiations with taylor hall would be made public i know who could who could have done that and who could have said it was a lowball offer even if the law yo even if the offer was 20 million a year dare that's lowball bullshit what is this somebody called darren drager

and get me get me my story listen i re-watch my favorite movies too welcome to the party arizona coyotes fans welcome to the party don't worry he inevitably signs that's the way the movie ends he'll stay who else got the cap room to sign him he's a ufa guys rodeo he's staying he's staying he's staying that's the that's the team with the money and the desperation to sign him trust me he's staying because now cap space and money are not the same thing uh well but darren ferris is in a great position here if i'm darren ferris you've just lost your president of hockey ops and your general manager and you look stupid and then you tried to make him look terrible which just makes you look bad what what what the coyotes did with their

press releases instead of being classy they they went after the guy personally and made him look terrible in front of the public right all they would have had to do is say thank you john for your contributions and people have been like what the hell's wrong with john but but instead they attacked him so they look bad and they need a win that ownership group that president they need a win alex and alex jr and mr gutierrez need a win they gotta resign taylor hall darren ferris knows this and he's looking around the league going caps frozen for the next three years at 81.5 million dollars and most teams are already up against it taylor hall is going to stay in arizona and he's going to make a fucking fortune it's great darren ferris wins again man darren ferris

is the evil villain that always gets away with it when he and i one day have our reconciliation beer he's buying with darren ferris yeah yeah listen i'm not turning down a beer with darren ferris don't you want to pick that brain oh yeah i want to see him haggle with the waitstaff please i want to yeah please write a book so i can learn how to negotiate like you man seriously what's on tap how much okay how's three anyway so that that is one hell of a story you guys you're absolutely right and i'm sorry i almost missed it uh let's move on to the next one here because we are running out of time vancouver canucks minnesota wild this is an interesting one because the canucks are getting

back all the players that were not healthy and minnesota wild were you know fine joke team joke team uh who had just fired bruce budro and were somehow the uh like one of the hottest teams in the national hockey league heading into the break and the fact that uh the way their season went the first half of it and the nightmare summer that they had the fact that they're even in this 2014 pool is impressive to me kevin fiala had like 16 games and 12 games after we wrote him off as a bust um minnesota can make some noise paul fenton was right paul fenton paul fenton barris they're they're all on the island of relics really bim jenning will throw in there too yeah i'm gonna i still pick bim jennings team though so you pick canucks in how many games

five it'll be a fun series it'll be the most fun minnesota wild hockey you've ever watched true jesse i'm gonna go with canucks in four because i i secretly love the canucks team i love pedersen i love hughes i love besser i love horvat i they have such fun young guys that i don't want to root against them and i think they're gonna show up uh what about jay beagle Antoine Roussel. Tyrone. They can't compete with Tyrone. Holy.

Holy lovies. He's going to be dressing. Oh, yeah. He's going to be playing. In the warm-up game. Jesse, I'm with you, but I think Vancouver sweeps this series. And I think the X factor is a healthy Markstrom. That is the guy for me that, you know,

if you look at what matters in an NHL game, goaltending is number one. And you look at who's got the best goaltender, And usually you pick the T that's the team you pick to win the series. They absolutely have a better goaltender in Markstrom, assuming he stays healthy. Cause if he's not in, it's a different series, but if Markstrom's in, I think with Vancouver scoring punch up front, remember they still got Chris Tana.

They've still got a pretty strong, solid structure defense. I say Vancouver wins this in a walk and it's nothing against the Minnesota wild who definitely deserves some credit for coming back and actually playing with some fire after that trade deadline and everything. you know what i mean they kind of they resurrected a bad season it's a jeff merrick quote that he brings up once a week hockey should just be called goalie right that's fair absolutely and the last series in the west and we're gonna we're gonna ignore all the uh the championship play-in stuff because who cares uh those teams those teams don't care we don't care whatever one's seated

where that's great good for you sorry pittsburgh philadelphia washington you know whatever not pittsburgh sorry washington philadelphia boston tampa like yeah we get it you're great um calgary and winnipeg who do you take in this because this is a very this this is the opposite of the islanders and florida series this is excitement this series adam what should what should hockey he be called goalie Jetson for dude the and and this is the team I was alluding to earlier uh every year we go here we go they're gonna go a little bit further just you wait just you watch and I at what point do you stop believing in the Calgary Flats listen if they do it this year it'll be a surprise to me because I am tired of every single year being like oh and I I mistake the

intensity of their fans for the intensity of their team i love watching calgary flames games uh but i think their fans and the atmosphere in that arena make that team appear more intense than they are and johnny gaudreau has laid back-to-back eggs in the playoffs uh sean monaghan i would file under very good i don't know about number one center um they got some really good pieces i just don't believe in them uh calgary just from being to a million flames games the fans are always great the team just doesn't seem to ride that fans are unbelievable and they're so great they're so loud in that team uh jesse what do you think we'll forget too that the winnipeg jets were one of the best teams in the national hockey league before this last season for the

last like five years right they've always been in the conversation in those top teams and then now that hell of us been playing out of his mind and it would have been cool what if like dustin muffler came back no surprise come back that would be crazy but you'll have like a like time to play the game right boom fireworks yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna pick the the one of the best teams in hockey right now versus a team that's been so wishy-washy over the last two seasons okay i'm gonna go jets in uh four steve what did you pick it was jets in jets in four uh and i'm gonna echo that and i'll tell you why there's two reasons yeah jets in four for me now the first one is connor hellebuck should be up for the heart this year and it's absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing embarrassing

because they they talked about it even on the sports broadcast they were like well you got a couple votes what what are you watching the winnipeg has a trophy the winnipeg jets do not exist without conor hellebuck this year no most valuable player to his team is absolutely conor hellebuck i've been beating this drum and if you disagree with me look up his numbers look it up the guy's been amazing and here's the other thing as we said talking about sean monaghan talking about johnny goudreau i'm a kachuk guy love him goudreau when he's on love him monaghan when he's Pretty good guy. Pretty good player.

Pretty good guy. Between those three guys last year in Colorado, how many goals did they score? You guys guess? The entire series. Those three guys. Who are the three? Goudreau, Monaghan, and Kachuk.

60 goals. No, no, no. I'm talking about just the Colorado series. Oh, one? Between, like, one each? No, total. As a total? Okay.

Jesse? I'm going to take the over. You're going to take the over. What do you think? Two. Two. Well, you're both wrong. Three between the three of them.

Ew. It's not good. Ew. Monahan didn't score. Monahan scored one goal and had an assist. Goudreau had one assist the entire series. One assist. And Kachuk had two goals.

And I think he had a couple assists, too. So you actually came and showed up. We were talking all wishy-washy, who's going to be the starter for the Calgary Flames. You cannot be asking that question Heading into a series against Kyle Conner Mark Shifley, Blake Wheeler Patrick Laine, Nikolai Ehlers

Murderers Neil Pionk? What are you doing in that conversation My love He had a ridiculous season But no, Hellebuck 9-22 Save percentage, a record of 31-21-5 He was unbelievable If he gets hurt, Laurent Brassois

Was 6-7-1 with an 8-95 And I'll say Calgary in 2.5 Yes, 100%. But with Hellebuck in this series and playing like Connor Hellebuck, there's no reason they should win. If – and this is a question I want to ask you guys before we get to the end of this here. If the Calgary Flames do not win,

if the predictions are correct on this show, which they often are not, and the Jets win this series, four or five games or even three, is it time to blow up the Calgary Flames' core? Yes. Blow it up or make it move? blow it up is the question i asked what is blowing it up well i mean i think the two major pieces are monahan and gaudreau so if one of them goes because giordano's in there but he's getting older uh tj brody i don't know if he'll be back uh so what what are you saying blowing it up would

be getting rid of giordano uh because he's old value that's the move that's the move but uh it's to me monahan wouldn't be blowing it up that's a significant move it's not blowing it up blowing it up is either you get rid of the leadership in exchange for new leadership so that'd be giordano or you get rid of the guy quote unquote which is goudreau and he hasn't been a good enough the guy for them hasn't no okay if you look at the battle of alberta right or you even look at their division right you want you want johnny goudreau or you want elias patterson oh patterson patterson so they lose that battle all day you want you want johnny goudreau or you want conor McDavid. Well, that's not fair. You want Johnny Gaudreau or you want Leon Dreisaitl?

That's not fair either. How far down the Oilers roster do you want me to go? Well, if it was Kassian or Gaudreau, I would say Gaudreau. There you go. Do you want Gaudreau or Kachuk? Or James Neal. James Neal scores more in the playoffs. James Neal scores more in the playoffs. He's a playoff guy. Unless he's on the Flames. Well, he didn't make them. It's just he's got to at some point And again, what are you going to base it on this year? So if they were to trade them, you'd be like,

oh, you're basing it on this year? No, I'm basing it on this year and the previous two. And if he doesn't look like he's ready, which some people have said like, oh, Johnny hasn't looked very good. Well, then what have you been doing? Right. A lot of other players in this league look ready. And don't forget, too, that Calgary does not have Travis Hamannik.

He's decided to sit out. And so, you know, that's a major loss for them. TJ Brody is an incredible defenseman, But it's a big load that that defense is going to have to shoulder against Winnipeg, major. If they can get past Winnipeg cycling low, Calgary's got to shoot on – they might be able to make it through the defense, but they got to shoot on Connor Hellebuck.

I just don't see how they do it. And let me ask you this. This is their core, guys. This is their core. Giordano, Lindholm, Kachuk, Gaudreau, Monaghan. If they lose, which of these five fingers am I not holding up? Adam, I think there's a toe you're not holding. Who's the toe?

The toe is Brad for a living. I think if the Calgary Flames. Oh, my God. I was pressing it into the floor. That's why it's yellow. Jesse made such a good point. Oh, my God. For anybody who's listening to the podcast, Adam just showed us his toe.

You said there was a toe missing, so I was just bringing it to the show. The title would be Adam's Toe. Mine's Puglier. I'm not showing it, though. Oh, God, man. I'm going to read you guys some things. Okay. Beat the Canucks in the first round.

4-2. Good series. Lost in second round to the Anaheim Ducks. Nuts. 4-1. Did not qualify for the playoffs. Lost in first round. Got swept by the Ducks.

Did not qualify for the playoffs. lost in the first round 4-1 to the Avalanche that is Bradshaw Living's record since 2014 when he took over as GM I just don't think the resume is there for him to

remodel this team if they lose here so I think you bring in a new GM I don't know about a coach but they just had that coaching change after Bill Peters several coaching changes so I think it's about time for

uh brad to leave the franchise if they lose here in the first round wow which means rebuild a little bit a little bit a little bit bring somebody else in this weekend they're already young yeah and they could be a good trade away right like it's not it's not hopeless they're not a disaster no not a disaster it's just like i keep looking at them and i'm like i just see second round max and that's all i can't get excited for that and how many kicks of the can do you get right now 100 so next show is going to be monday night because we are going to go back to our regular schedule except for when the leafs are playing on the night that we would play so so if we're if let's for instance if the leafs are playing a sunday night we usually do

sundays and wednesdays uh we're going to move it to the next day so we can talk about the game and preview the next one obviously because it's least first on this show um but we will be covering the rest of the playoffs and all the other teams just kind of like we did today because that's what we do um so be looking out for us either sundays or mondays depending upon them with the leafs play or wednesdays and thursdays right that's sort of the we're going to be you know riding that line as long as the leafs are in the playoffs and if you're an anti-leafs person don't worry they probably won't be in that long so then we'll go back to wednesdays and sundays anyway if you've been watching the leafs you know this now uh one thing no we'll bring back the press conference

next uh next time uh we'll even maybe do a history corner one of these days uh but i think i wanted to end it on a happy but a bit somber note um because today is the final show where we will be the panago pizza steve dangle podcast um the show isn't i'm leaving the show guys panago pizza adam and jessie show about uh we're not sure uh no it will be just the steve dangle podcast um after seven years with panago pizza um the relationship has not come to an end but the contract has and obviously uh you know this is not how they wanted to end it this is certainly not how we wanted to end it but unfortunately when you have a global pandemic your plans change um you know this was supposed to go on a lot longer than it has and i think you know rarely

do you get to talk about a sponsor of a show an advertiser on a show uh in the terms that we get to talk about about panago but if i were to write a book uh panago pizza pizza is going to be featured prominently in it when i talk about uh this story as it was in steve's book um this is a group of people that believed in us when we were doing 2200 downloads a show if that if that no no we were we were doing 2200s i remember i remember talking to them about it like how's your show doing and they said yeah we'll we'll jump on board with that and they have grown with us every step of the way there's only been about three or four months of ever doing this show where panago wasn't involved. And so, you know, with that, I think relationships like that are very special. You

don't see them. If you work in marketing and advertising, you know, this it's seasonal and these guys, no matter what stuck with us through everything. I think we did a great job together at the live events. They were cool. They didn't stop us from doing anything. That's right. We kept saying, are we, do you have a problem with, and they never know. And they, you know, amazing social media team that interacted and uh so here's the thing um we just wanted to say an official thank you to the panago pizza part of the panago pizza steve dangle podcast it's going to be very strange doing this without you guys uh but fiona rigby especially at mercer creative in vancouver uh what a wonderful person to work with all of these years um and there have been

so many people that we've worked with in in the intermediary as well as carly who is no longer with panago but was ahead of their marketing team for years and years and years um you know thank you to both of them for believing us the way that they did um and you know we certainly hope that this is not the last time we get to work together uh it's just a mere pause you know what i'm saying and that is the theme of 2020 isn't it even like even like the little stuff of just like every live event we've ever had has been catered by panago pizza yeah they They're just eating pizza. They're just eating pizza, you know?

Like, that stuff, it really matters. Yeah. And, like, this is – this isn't a bad breakup. This is – No. Think David Dobrik and Liza Koshy. Remember that? I will not think about that.

I'm going to cry. Oh, man. I know. That's what it was like. Yeah. But in this particular case, it took a – this is how strong this partnership was. It took a global pandemic for it to end.

that's that's the kind of strength we were on and and i just you know i think uh it was a it's a very special relationship and we'll always hold a special place in our hearts yeah stuff in our face with deliciousness all this time always and i do want to say this is a good opportunity to say first off we've got some a new partner coming on board uh in a different capacity next episode which we're very very excited about it it's a pizza nova it's not i'm just kidding it is not uh uh but it is it is a partner we're very excited to talk to we've got several partners joining us for the playoffs and that sort of thing but i think it's

a good time to mention and we never do if you've got a business big or small uh you know if you're a sole proprietor if you're in a partnership if you got a marketing company working for you whatever it is feel free to email us stevedanglepodcast at gmail.com we've got all sorts of rates for all sorts of different sizes and packages available and that sort of thing so that's different packages that's right we can we can fit any budget um but in the meantime we're very excited about this group coming on there's a couple of others that will come on in mid-august uh but thank you once again to panago pizza and thank you to everybody who supported panago pizza supporting us by tweeting us every time you went to a panago pizza because that was amazing too

that pushed our relationship with panago like over yeah the top you know because people actually went to panagos and was like i'm eating panago because i listen to this damn stupid podcast from canada yeah people coming from like the states and like people flying over from england and like i'm doing what every toronto tourist does i went to the panago on bremner it was so cool and like it was just it was amazing guys how often over the last seven years like people from panago who had been with us the whole time were just like wow so they're you're your listeners are different eh yeah they're really different they're something else and they they uh loved loved you guys and still love you buy a panago pizza damn it yeah that

one's for free don't stop oh yeah that one's for free i'm gonna they're opening one by my my house and i'm gonna open so uh we will be back with another full show on monday afternoon slash monday evening whenever jesse uh and his fine editing skills are able to get the show up uh and then we'll see with the rest of the weeks but we'll be announcing each show uh and when they're scheduled to be uh obviously you know during each each broadcast so that way you're aware of when the next one's coming but again as soon as the Leafs are out it's back to Sundays and Wednesdays and hopefully that doesn't happen till late October right the next time we all sit here an actual professional hockey game in the NHL that counts for standings and points

will have been played the steve dangle podcast follow the guys on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake brought to you by panago pizza order at panago.com and stuff your face with deliciousness connection complete