The Steve Dangle Podcast - Tendies | January 19, 2026

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, 00:00 Andersson to the Golden Knights 30:00 The Senators need a save 58:00 The Leafs beat the Jets 1:30:00 Sherwood to the Sharks 1:39:00 Thomas Hickey of Prime Monday Night Hockey to talk about stories around the league! Visit this episode's sponsors: Start your business today with the industry’s best business partner, Shopify! Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at http://shopify.com/sdp Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code DANGLE at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/DANGLE LUCY's the only pouch that gives you long-lasting flavour, whenever you need it. Get 20% off your first order when you buy online with code STEVE. For all the odds, T’s and C’s, and to learn more visit ⁠https://betmgm.com/DANGLE⁠. 19+ to wager. Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Watch all episodes of The Steve Dangle Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEidkgWpSiHVkYT7HrIzLPXlY Watch clips of The Steve Dangle podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEieOJuIrqWyZPWSIJtVMCbLz Buy SDP merch https://sdpnshop.ca/ Check out https://sdpn.ca/events to see The Steve Dangle Podcast live! Watch hockey with us! Live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEifCTX0vkKEaGg9otrW4Zl2k Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1Join Subscribe to SDP VIP!: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0a0z05HiddEn7k6OGnDprg/join Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/thestevedanglepodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sdpvip/subscribe - Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MtTmw9rrz7 For general inquiries email: [e-mail] Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where TaskRabbit comes in and I think you should check this out because here's the deal. One of the things, one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to repel down and clean all the windows but they never clean my windows. And their way around on that is like, well, it's a patio window, you can do that yourself. And I'm like, well, hang on a second. What if I don't want to? I don't have the stuff because you got to have that scraper thing and the washer thing.

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download that taskrabbit.ca code dangle so i have a bit of a break on hand because my family are all out of town my in-laws are all out of town so my brother-in-law my sister-in-law my mother-in-law no that's that's the way you got it that's a bit of a break no i want to test to see if they're actually listening you know sometimes you're like listen we know that half of our family's out of town and so we're gonna get less phone calls hey my loved ones they got lost my name is adam i'm adam the point i'm trying to make is that i thought it was going to be less but then they signed up for saly and they don't have to pay the roaming fees that we would have to pay normally because they got saly and they got it at the recommendation of jesse blake my father-in-law reached out and

said does the saly thing actually work and i put him through to jesse and jesse what did you tell Yes, it does work and it works very well. I am a real life user of Saley and I can't recommend it enough. As is Maddie, who is constantly on vacation and is going. Where are you going? Where are you going next? I'm going to Vietnam next month and it works in Vietnam. So there you go.

Works all around the world. Same. You can get an exclusive 15% discount on Saley eSims using the promo code. Now go to Saley.com slash dangle or use the promo code dangle at checkout or download the Saley app. Make sure you use that promo code dangle for 15% off. Hello, everybody. Start of a new week. And let me just run you through this. In case you're worried about your team trading first round draft picks away, let me run you through the list of Vegas first round picks ever. They had three in 2017. They traded them to

nashville montreal and ottawa they had one in 2018 they traded it to detroit they had one in 2019 they traded it to buffalo they had one in 2020 they traded it to new york the rangers they had one in 2021 they traded at st louis another in 2022 which went to buffalo i'm assuming that's all a part of the jack eichel trade uh 23 to san jose they actually drafted in 2024 trevor connelly uh 25 san jose sharks 26 calgary 27 calgary and 28 is still owned conditionally could be going to calgary as well well as a switch i'd love to know who all those picks are because i don't actually hey credit sin bin vegas for putting that together i was going to i hadn't got to that yet uh yeah so pretty insane and uh rasmus anderson is the first true big

domino to fall uh in the trade deadline and and i it looks as though and we kind of thought this was going to be the case last year um it looks as though there's like a mini trade deadline happening before the big tournament right like last year we kind of thought uh is there going to be some stuff happening before four nations uh the olympic break it's definitive it's happening and going into the weekend the thought was well this is boston's to lose and they lost they did but like you know it's funny you get the initial story and then it goes away for a bit and then you forget about the initial story and you just have what's in front of you was boston ever in it well they weren't in it because they couldn't get the extension done and they weren't willing to

they weren't willing to part whatever assets that they were going to part with to calgary to get this trade done without it that's a very gentle way of saying they were never in it no i think they were very and they got i think that's wrong they got to the finish line in that they were negotiating the contract and they couldn't reach terms with vastness they were the only team that had that ability they had permission to talk to him i think that is very in it in it but he ended up at the place that we all knew he was going to end up i think steve you're you're you're quoting the uh brandy and brandy song almost doesn't count and that's true but the reality of the situation is yes boston was very much in it they were in the driver's seat decided not to go it

was boston's decision it's just i just find it very interesting that in the summer he only wanted to go to vegas it seemed like he was going to go to vegas they couldn't get it done and then they got it done he wanted to go to vegas like i think that's what happened man well there were rumors that he had he would have stayed in calgary had calgary been willing to go to eight years although eric francis reported that he never gave calgary a number and that's and that's like what that's nothing no i actually think that's a good negotiation tactic no you tell me what you think I'm worth and then I'll get a sense of yeah absolutely why would he start let them

start you want to keep me you start that's value yeah but the actual trade breaks down like this Vegas Golden Knights acquire Rasmus Anderson from the flames for Zach White Cloud a 2027 conditional first pick a 2028 conditional second and a prospect by the name of Abraham Weeb who we'll get to in a second

do you have the conditions on the picks I can pull them it's just one if they win the Stanley Cup this year their second becomes a first next season the 2028 right which is pretty good i'd say that's worth it um so i was looking at that and i'm like okay so if they win the stanley cup this year that means the first that calgary is getting this season is the 32nd pick technically 31st because ottawa wins it so it's almost like a second and then next

year second becomes a first so either way you kind of get a first and a second either the latest possible first and next year's first or this year you get a first and then next year's second yeah so either way calgary isn't really gaining that much in this situation i'll spoil it i think i think it's a home run for vegas and i think calgary got fleeced man and i think they got fleeced last time now you remember when we talked about this on friday when when uh hannifin ended up in vegas he didn't sign his extension for over a month right it was like march 7th to april 11th something like that. What Vegas can easily count on is the fact that it's pretty sweet to live there. Climate's great. Organization's great. They have a winning pedigree. They won the cup

within the last three years. And they're loaded with superstars. And what's amazing about both Boston and Vegas, because I do want to touch a little bit on Boston, is that when the trade deadline comes around, they're always in. And Vegas specifically does this thing where, oh, that team's core piece is available okay we'll move everything for that what i love about vegas philosophy on that is that they're willing to give the sun and the moon and in this case i actually thought the offer was kind of disappointing but we'll get into it in a sec um they're willing to give up as much as needs to be to get core piece players right they waited they knew marner like there had been smoke signals about marner we they kind of knew marner wanted

them they wanted marner everybody kind of knew like let's not pretend that the walls don't talk in this league but you look at what they did for Petrangelo you look at what they did for Hannafin you look at you know these big pieces that they bring in Eichel they're willing to really give when it's a piece that counts whereas a lot of teams and the Leafs could be faulted for this give big pieces for small returns you know I'm thinking about like a second for Brian Boyle a second for Thomas Pekan it's that's how you bleed yourself dry when the big swings come around and and if you look at what Vegas has done like who have they really whiffed on no one I mean nobody nick suzuki is that's a huge miss obviously you had the guy you drafted the you scouted the

guy you drafted the guy you got rid of the guy and it was for was it patch ready or tatar uh patch ready tatar was a miss yeah obviously at least for the the price first second or third or something it was the first second and there's a lot but uh beyond that like you still have hannifin you still have hurdle we assume you're you're gonna be able to keep anderson like that takes the sting uh out of losing your future but like they i i kind of love a team that operates the way their city does i think it's part of the reason the boston bruins have such a great culture is they behave like the city of boston which is to say fuck you yeah that's how they behave and vegas is let it ride well the house always wins i think it's more like what happens in vegas

which by the way is not something i would put out there if i was vegas tourism what do you mean i'm coming to vegas to go to the casino and you're telling me the house always wins that's not something that they say they say what happens in vegas stays in vegas that's their that's their tagline even in their commercials then the golden night should stop blowing up the scheme now what's interesting about this is by moving white cloud and adding anderson but remember this this contract is 50 retained uh vegas actually made up 475 grand in cap space hilarious which gives them enough room to bring braden mcnab and mcnab off ltir when he's uh when he's ready to come yeah the 50 retained part of the trade is when i kind of looked at him like okay calgary is really

sitting in the cuck chair here like they're helping them out so much with that retention and the boston package if it's rumored to be what it is and it was much more substantial or at least a little bit more substantial than the vegas one and it's on boston who pulled out because they wanted it with the extension and calgary i don't know if they just kind of gave in the keys and gave up on getting the most they could on the deal but i'm i can't you can't look at this and not be a little disappointed in the return if you're calgary a little they need one more piece in my eyes to really make it hey this is a good deal do we know what the vega like i saw some stuff with boston but there was like four different players that were mentioned so i couldn't get a

quick well yeah lori patra minton those names were all really rumored yeah i don't know that would have been that would have been pretty steep because like i mean that's a roster player right patra is in some ways too lori definitely is geez um the what i saw was from anthony petrelli who said if the reports are true that calgary could have had a prospect like Fraser Minton or Easton Cowan and a first for Anderson they eventually settled uh for White Cloud but that was right last year yeah so that was that was going around and some people misinterpreted it so that's Anthony Petrelli talking about a package that the Leafs put together so that was Minton what was it Minton Cowan and a first Minton or Cowan and a first

Minton or Cowan and a that's a pretty good pack so if I look at the Leafs were willing to offer that previously i think there should have been something similar what you're eyeing for here for calgary and that we want a prospect who can hopefully make the nhl very soon or we know is going to be on that curve or maybe is already there but as young plus that first round pick and i would have rather had that than this mystery second first pick in 28 this is the thing like calgary wants to keep white cloud we'll get to that in a minute but beyond him like none of this stuff's helping you until like 2030 unless you're parlaying it into something else you could always make a trade with those doesn't seem like they're gonna do that yeah well maybe

the maybe the picks yeah and like i saw some people like oh white cloud like geez huge guy he was great on a cup run like you could sounds like they're gonna keep them blake colman sounds like they're gonna keep them we need more cadres not less i need to like adam can you be the the calgary flames for a second and i just need to hold your hand i'm being a bigger pain in the ass than i already am i just need to girl what do you see in him and and by him i mean vegas what like so i i put out this tweet yesterday and not everyone uh knew exactly what i was getting at i was like vegas is going with the florida panthers model of call one team all of the time until they give you all their good players i was talking about buffalo's relationship with florida

because florida was just like they like half their roster is former savers yeah yeah and then i think it was julian mckenzie reminded me uh calgary also gave florida matthew chuck and i'm like oh yeah well they basically built vegas and and florida yeah but like they they have we we talked about the defenseman specific not even just players specifically defenseman that calgary has gotten from vegas miramanov pakal okay like why are you still moving heaven and earth why are you doing favors for this team that has handed you exclusively lemons i don't understand yeah what do they have over you other than they're not brad at least at least the kachuk trade got you huberto has been a i think a disappointment given the contract but he's still six 60 70 points a

year he's a good player but yeah he's disappointed mckenzie wieger is their best defenseman by far and was even when they had anderson and hannifin and tanev and all that when they showed when when he showed up excellent fantasy player there you go yes i think uh i i don't i don't know i don't know what it is i'm not really sure what what the flames kind of see here and i guess with i think they're they think they are trying to be competitive that's why you get a player like white cloud is 23 signed for the next couple years as they think they're competing for something and i think that's the wrong wrong way to go about things what did i say 23 29 sorry oh he's 20 i was Sorry, the words 23 came out of my mouth.

29. I guess that sort of explains like Kevin Ball too. Jeez, you can work for the Flames. Why? You're wrong by six years. Yeah. Don't give me a job. There's a, you know, like it's not,

it's such a strange sort of position the Flames put themselves in. And I want to key in on that word. They put themselves in this position. They've got guys, like there are no centers available. You look at CJ's trade board 4.0, which just came out today. Kadri's near the top. And again, you had the president just several months ago going, we need more Kadri's, not

less on this team, which I understand would die for that guy. And you wouldn't have to retain money. Kadri is going to be 30, at least 38 by the time you're even kind of relevant. What are you doing? And, you know, a guy like Blake Coleman, who is on the trade board, but may or may not get traded. you know you look at what the New York Rangers did right they put out a list or they put out a statement said we're retooling uh the Vancouver Canucks didn't put it out publicly but they put

it out to all 31 other teams hey uh we're open for business the Calgary Flames are like no we could still make the playoffs this year it's a bizarre it's really bizarre Coleman's 34 trade what are you doing trade him now what are you like I'll just nakedly say the Calgary Flames have essentially helped build my two least favorite teams, right? They've essentially helped build Vegas, and Vegas, full marks. I got nothing against, like, they're just going around the league fleecing whoever they can find. Dmitry Filipovich, I think, said years and years ago, and it remains true,

number one, find out who the bad GMs are. Number two, call them all the time. That's the formula. Vegas has done that, and Florida did that. they both just happened to call the same team and since those two were one and two on my shit list i think calgary is now number three i grew up actually loving the flames they were my i can't say my west team because the leafs were west for a while but uh i loved detroit because of chris draper he went to my elementary school obviously many years apart but he was like a hero at our

school and when the Leafs weren't in the playoffs they had those back-to-back uh cup runs and he visited our school after getting hit from behind by Claude Lemieux there were a few years where I was like hardcore Detroit had the winged wheel painted on my face loved the Flames cheered for them in 2003 harder than I've ever cheered for any non-Leafs team Jerome McGinley was my friggin guy he was my favorite non-leaf ever mika kiprasov who the hell couldn't fall in love with that goalie so many guys on that team so many parts of that team i loved the flames growing up and their front office which i'm going to include the ownership and all that has made them so deeply unlikable uh like they keep making bad decision after bad decision i i feel terrible for the fans

but for the front office looks good on you keep just get fucked keep getting fleeced i did absolutely wrecked i think you could see that in the flames i think flames fans are kind of annoyed right you look at the talent get absolutely fleeced for it yeah i don't know listen i know they had a disappointing i think it was 2023 2024 or whatever it was well after the president's trophy right but they they had enormous talent on that blue line like crazy talent it was awesome If they hadn't fucked around, and I got a couple DMs from Flames fans for different reasons this weekend. One of them was upset that I would say, well, you got mad at us for booing Johnny Gaudreau.

Why would you be OK with the Leafs booing Mitch Marner? And I said, frankly, dude, the reason that I think these two situations are different is Calgary had Johnny Gaudreau. Johnny Gaudreau wanted to stay. They fucked around with his negotiations. And then at 11 p.m., right when he was about to become a free agent, they said, okay you know what we'll offer you what you think you're worth now and he was already gone and that led to matthew chuck going fuck that if he's not here i'm gone too yeah were there

rumors like a year out that like oh gadreau's going to columbus like no no he's looking at houses in columbus like i don't know maybe there were this is a this is a team that had a ton of talent uh and blew itself apart over a bad series with edmonton and you know and and maybe had a disjointed locker room you know remember matthew kachuk slamming the thing after jake muzzin flipped the puck at him and whatever and they wouldn't the rumors were well he didn't feel like the team stuck up for him and they and the team felt he was a bit of a side show and please don't make me stick up for matthew kachuk so please don't make me take his side on anything i think he was right flames fans see what should have been a very successful era and they also had markstrom

some pretty good years there i know he had a bad year but um up and down goalie they they had it they had it and now it's dissipating and it's dissipating slowly like the the talent that's that's left the team is slowly leaving and it's it's just progressively getting worse and then you had what you had last year which is hey they missed the playoffs by a point and and you know this year i think they went into the the season with the mindset of well we're gonna we're actually gonna get that point this year we're gonna make the playoffs which is laudable like you can you can applaud that but what i would say is okay um even if you did do that how far do you really expect to get do you want just the two home playoff dates is

that what you're looking for as as a fan of the leafs who missed the playoffs by a point in 2006 and then again missed the playoffs by a point in 2007 uh i can assure you that team was actually shit and was probably lucky to be in that position and things did not get better for a very long time that was another stubborn team and that was a team that had dave nonas's fingerprints all over it like all the stuff with brad and the snooty stuff with brad uh and the exhausting amount of flames leafs rumors none of them bore fruit or bared fruit well because they won't they won't do business with each other no they won't and it seems like the only person who doesn't know that is brad right um i can't fault him for calling but i can they're not doing it stop knock it off

yeah i think i think what it comes down to is murray edwards doesn't want to tear down the team doesn't want to rebuild they want a competitive team for the new building and don maloney and craig conroy are doing the owner's bidding and they're trying to keep the team competitive despite the evidence in front of them that the best they can be is a middling team that can't really go on the deepest playoff run like they i think it's a good point adam that like hey they could sneak into the playoffs but they shouldn't be realistic about any stanley cup aspirations and this is the worst place you can be as a pro sports team just this middling area where you're always competing there and never either tanking for the best players or actually

being good so they're just kind of tread water until somebody can pull the trigger in either direction here's how i here's how they're looking at it i can almost guarantee you they're looking at white cloud in for anderson and they're going this is like almost break even yeah they think they're oh we're keeping the competitive window alive because we got a player back who's gonna fill that hole plus we got a prospect in two picks here we are big giant brain uh on craig conroy or don maloney or who's it who murray driving the vehicle the murray edwards yeah okay virtue by virtue of the fact of the don maloney yeah don maloney is doing his bidding when murray's in europe don's taking his calls

yeah that's what that's because murray spends most of his time apparently in europe now well and it's hard and it's hard to say like they also got a prospect there meddling in elections over there too or what i don't think so sorry abram weeby he's a seventh round draft pick from 22 unsigned like he has no contract called him a good project ahler exactly tops out exactly i'm like dude what why did you even get him i guess it's a contract slot maybe he doesn't have a contract right so i guess you're helping vegas by just alleviating not having this player in their system it doesn't just taking him on i guess what if he just doesn't even sign right so i mean maybe i don't even i don't even count him in in that respect and they get these two picks and yeah

they think they got a replacement player for anderson because they think they're competing which is the wrong attitude to have for this roster and he's 29 like he listen i don't know if you're supposed to tear it down to the studs there there was some argument about that online i think it was chris pronger was online talking about you know in rebuilds you should tear it down to the studs uh and cj always likes to beat the drum that no you shouldn't well cautionary tales buffalo buffalo is the cautionary tale that's the only one i don't like that argument because every other rebuild has been successful even detroit changed took a while but look at them now detroit too isn't the same because they never got the top draft pick no they were never

That's why they took a while. They sucked. They did their part, and the lottery balls never fell their way, even though they had the best odds. That's just pure unluckiness, so I don't even consider them that same category of tearing it down. And then look at them now. They still kind of turned out fine this year.

And, like, the Sharks, I don't know if they make the playoffs. We can all agree they're heading in the right direction. Yeah. Edmonton, they were just bottom for so many years. But then you get McDavid and Dreisaitl. Yeah. And, again, it took a while. Uh-oh, uh-oh.

It also didn't help that no one wanted to go there, right? But now they do. Yeah. Now they do. I think what CJ is saying is when you're talking about a to-the-studs rebuild, it's probably the better part of five years, right? You look at where the Ducks have been.

You look at where San Jose has been. It's taken them at least three to four to this point. Chicago, too. But you can have fun during those five years. Sure you can. It's not just five years of misery. At some point, the new crop arrives, and you have fun watching them grow whether they make the playoffs or not yep right and i just

you're going to you're trading cadre you know that right they don't know no i don't think they but you are though no they might not be today they don't know it might not be tomorrow it might not be this season you are trading this man you that's not true blake coleman you you know you're trading blake coleman right you know that they you are they don't they don't know that they don't steve well then they're a bad hockey also calgary is six goals away from the least amount of goals scored in the league this entire year cadre oh again yeah again and we're gonna fight tooth and nail to preserve what all these forwards what's fascinating about it is that if you look at their goals against uh it's pretty good they're top 10 and and like in least goals amount they

of goals allowed if they could yeah because they have got they have got a good goaltending not just dustin wolf but devin cooley's having a good year uh-huh um but i think you know where where it becomes a bit of an issue is scoring is like the hardest thing to do and it's difficult to just find that oh we'll just add some goal scoring okay well good luck with that how are you gonna do it and i i don't know nazem cadre is leading the team right now in points he has played 48 games he's a good player he's 33 points that's the most they've got what are we doing what and the the reason you hear me go what are we doing is because like i miss the sea of red like i do still have happy memories like i definitely have a soft spot for that team um

the people who run it like i really don't want flames fans to misconstrue misconstrue what i'm saying i don't hate the players i don't hate the crest i don't hate the team the people who run it like i think i hate them as much as you i probably don't hate them as much as you actually they actually run the team that you cheer for yep i can't imagine how much you hate them but i really don't like what they're doing with their team and this has nothing to do with the leaf i didn't mention the leaves it's not the leaves you know oh well what about what about well there's 32 teams and you're one of them do you think you're doing well amongst those 32 they just traded within the same division and what are you doing and uh you do and i think that maybe this

is their roundabout way of hurting the oilers maybe i don't know maybe it's crazy it's a crazy it's crazy i don't know what to say uh i cannot believe that you don't have to pay more uh to trade within division uh but they don't vegas is already leading the division edmonton is chasing them and and this is this is the way to hurt them cock chair is so aggressive jesse but like also how is it vegas again yep well why like i i i can't remember who it was it was years and years ago that they they talked about like um sometimes you fleece a team yep and you're radioactive and people don't want to take your call how is it the same team taking vegas's call again well here's another you know what in bed mg and big story we're getting into another team that

took calgary's call it's a good one sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where task rabbit comes in and i think you should check this out because here's the deal one of the things one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to rappel down and clean all the windows, but they never clean my windows. Uh-oh. And their way around on that is like, well, it's a patio window. You can do that

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Taskers across Canada book up fast, especially for same-day tasks. Get $15 off your first task right now with the promo code DANGLE at TaskRabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should download that TaskRabbit.ca code DANGLE. So the Senators lose on back-to-back days when leading each game by multiple goals for the first time in franchise history. That happened yesterday and the day before. Detroit and Montreal, both division rivals, too.

This is the important thing, right? Important points. Ottawa needs these points. And, you know, had they come out of this weekend closing out those games, we'd be talking about, man, look at the Ottawa Senators. look at you go with your bad self i uh like has thomas hickey aired no no never mind well later on we talk about like how they're a good team they are uh they just don't get saves and they

did actually get saves versus detroit here's another stat that will blow your mind who's in that who's in that james reimer uh i thought i think he's gonna be fine for them can i give you the stat though sure okay hey me ottawa gets 30 saves in a game for the first time since when your what um their first game after christmas jesse november december 9th holy cow yeah over a month over a month well over a month oh my 40 days 40 days yeah uh how do they have any wins uh exactly that to me is the craziest levy maryline and stat is that he's 8 10 and 1 yeah that he's not worse he has an 860 yeah that's barely below 500 how is that possible five goals on 14 shots saturday night and one of those by the way was called back um oh and it's it's you know it will

start with saturday's game because you know montreal like they're up 5-3 going into well in in the third period right it's it's late and they are doing a great job of preventing any shots going to the net because as i told you five goals on 14 shots that's only 14 shots that's really impressive against montreal who is doing really well this season it's uh uh it's kind of wild now uh i want to bring up senators yeah i want to bring up the jake sanderson comment because this has been the thing that's gone viral um and he made a couple of comments that were interesting and julian sort of gave us the heads up there were a lot of montreal canadians fans in attendance for this game often when montreal or toronto is in town this is what happens uh jake's not that

was high this was a high well i also think montreal fans realize that this is a really good team and you might as well go to the game right since fans realize the opposite um so after the game after the five goals on the 14 shots um jake sanderson essentially makes a comment about levy maryline and that you do not see defensemen make often go ahead jesse ever yeah i think uh you know levy made some some good saves but uh you know i think at the end of the day you gotta make more than 10 saves to win a game and that's how he ends it now he walked off he does make another comment we'll get to that in a second and then travis green jesse if we can bring him up too now this is this is less weird

because travis green is the head coach and travis green is a you know i i think anytime you get a head coach saying something like this it's like well that that sort of tracks but the teammates we'll come back to in a second because it's fascinating to hear both of them. Go ahead. How would you assess Levy's game time? It's hard to give him a pass. You know, six goals on 18 shots.

I'm sure he'd like to have one or two back and I don't feel bad for him. How frustrating is it to go through a season where you... Can you say I don't feel bad for him or I feel bad for him? He doesn't. Wow.

One more time. 18 shots. I'm sure he'd like to have one or two back. I'll feel bad for him. How frustrating is it to... Don't feel bad for him? He feels bad for him. He mumbles.

Because those two things mean very different things. I'll feel bad for him. I think he's saying you don't feel bad for him. I think that's what he says. Yeah, yeah. That would make more sense. I don't feel bad for him? Damn.

No, no. I don't think that's what he says. Let's go with that one. All right. And then the last comment from Jake Sanderson. Jesse, I apologize. I'm jumping around on you here. Because this had to do with playing at home,

but having it feel like an away game. This is the part, too. So the salt in the wound is that not only is this at home and you're winning at home, but you don't feel like you're being rooted on at home. The least we could have done is disappoint our own fans, not make theirs happy go ahead yeah uh we're used to it um playing an away game at home um it happens quite often so um you know it is what it is all right now when when the rumors

well not when the rumors broke on twitter the other week and ottawa had to make that crazy statement um not have to they didn't well so they felt that they had to yeah uh they did definitely did not have to you're right ellie friedman said if that were me i would walk into the front office and say i want to get traded and at the time and no disrespect to elliot i was like what yeah like listen buddy i i watch other sports i see what's written about people in their personal lives um i i just i i've seen how many you know not just athletes but pop stars and movie stars and all that stuff what what's written about theirs it's just sort of part of being famous is people make shit up about you um and i don't know whether these are made up or not these

rumors but him saying hey i don't know we're kind of used to it that kind of gave me pause to say maybe that what elliot is saying is coming from a place of there's already boiling frustration there and that would be the thing that would push it over the top and he's aware of that and i'm not which would be which would totally track i have no insights in the auto address yeah sometimes these guys say stuff and you're like what but they're they can't just empty the clip right usually when you're listening to an insider they're giving you a little bit of what they know like when i when i hear about like when when leaf fans were a little annoyed or austin matthews was a little annoyed at leaf fans and leaf fans were a little annoyed back about

how quiet scotiabank is he's fine now it's cool yeah how quiet scotiabank can be or when ryan reeves got up to fight and nobody got on their feet right sure that's fine that he says that that's fine that we react the way we react but i never have to worry about in scotia bank arena there being like a contingent of fans that takes it takes things over you can talk about how we have a quieter experience oh like a road crowd but i've never worried about another team rolling in there and you'll have canadians fans you'll have bruins fans you'll have that sort of stuff there's a reason they keep featuring that one guy and his daughter because he's the guy he's the road jersey guy it's mostly leaf fans at least i can be contented with the fact that at least

it's leaf fans there usually if you have 41 games at home and you're playing three against montreal and three against toronto i don't know that it's three whatever it is whatever well you've just lost four or five home dates and you get last change and i yeah you get last change but you get that and i think where the issue with levy marilinen gets even worse is that it's salt in the wound right not only did you give that up and your goaltender was bad but then you have a bunch of jerks in your building cheering against you and they're louder than your fans are yeah and i remember i had a friend that was a really big sense guy and and lived in ottawa and he said oh my favorite thing uh is when when the leafs come through town ripping off their fans

i love selling my tickets to rip it off there and i'm like but you don't go to the games and cheering it's like no no no we just sell all the tickets to the leaf fans and i was like you realize that like fine you get your money but that's not good right you know that and it is a smaller market sandwich between two original six mega markets in terms of hockey but that is something if you know we want to talk about statements that need to be made the ottawa center's organization needs to fix that because it's not just the Leafs no it isn't well and like this should be a better team they should be well they gotta get a goalie yeah like here's the thing with with the goalies like that you know what Sanderson said can be a cry for help

and that's something that the team can address immediately and have addressed they went out and they got a guy whether you think that was the right guy or not whatever they went out and they got a guy he got him 30 saves you can't guilt people into going to your games you can't guilt people into having more disposable income you can't guilt people into being available they come to your games or they don't um that is not a problem that gets solved quickly and it's not a problem that gets solved when you're losing hey guys we need you like how many people after that comment were like you know what they do need us here you go here's hundreds of dollars like couldn't have been many so i don't know how you fix that the goaltending i think probably arena

location has something to do with that yeah when's that getting solved three four years exactly that's not a quick fix and that's not going to make the tickets cheaper sure it is it's absolutely no it's not going to make the tickets cheaper it's going to make it more expensive it's not listen a time is going to come where ottawa's i think a destination market like if you're an nhl player i do i think that i i believe heavily in all canadian markets even the ones i'm born and bred to hate but uh it's gonna happen it's not there yet and the one thing i'll say like i don't know jake sanderson's speech patterns or anything it's you know i don't listen to him all that often he's vibrating pissed off like just got off the ice he's barely caught his breath

barely got his equipment off he's still drenched in sweat and he's just in the middle of it and he hasn't had time to cool down and those things came out and i bet he wishes he could do it over um like i'm not i'm not gonna sit here on a pulpit and be like that's he's a bad guy it's maybe not the greatest thing that he said it was not a great teammate moment um you know but okay but jesse you you you talked to these guys after games in a in a position like jake sanderson is what do you think the dressing room reaction would be what would be the reporter reaction like you ever like that you ever feel the heat coming off a guy yeah it's shocking that he said that that he was so blunt in in saying that because that's not something you hear out

of anybody uh during those moments usually the nhl players are very buttoned up and giving you that cookie cutter answer so i won i applaud jake sanderson for being honest we're getting we're getting steve's playing over there no it's off camera come on all right yeah we're getting honest answers and they're like the reason we're talking about this is because jake sanderson was willing to say something that is honest about this team there's a stretch there j uh levy merlin and started 20 games there's the middle portion of those 20 games he lost 10 of 13 appearances oh that's brutal he must have started okay then to have the record that he does yeah like there are wins in between that and everything and he's also started the last 11 games consecutively

up until yesterday's rhymer start and he's that's a lot of hockey for somebody who shouldn't be in that position 23 but eventually if that's the guy who's going to be doing it for 11 straight games that's not on jake sanderson to to be like okay i know you're not supposed to be doing this we're still going to lift you up it's like no management's saying this is the guy and i'm frustrated that they're saying that this is the guy i think it's even more of a statement to the way steve stayhouse is running this thing and not getting a goalie earlier than it is a statement right at maryline it because i think everybody knows he knows it's not been good enough and him saying that i don't think it's calling him out directly in that like it's your fault you're not getting these saves but

like our organization needs these saves the one the one thing i would say to that because yeah they need saves desperately you're spending eight and a quarter i think on all mark and he's been out now on this leave for less than a month right and it seems like he's coming back soon i don't know if we have confirmation there you've got you went out and got a guy and he played for you and you earned a point at least i'm just not sure what ottawa could have done like you pay a goalie like all mark you have faith in him you hope he's gonna bounce back the one thing you could definitely criticize them for is like did we get the wrong person totally um but like he was pretty strong for you last year and you know i he need he obviously needs a break you're giving him that

break so you're taking a step in the right direction there and there was reason to believe that maryland could give you better games yeah but like to answer adam's question in the most roundabout way possible like people i think hearing jake sanderson's comments in the organization understand what he's saying oh yeah like i don't think anybody's sitting there being like nah jake like you're wrong is he wrong though he's he's right that they needed us they've needed a save all season long and they haven't been able to get it and if you're playing good hockey which they are then that is frustration you're allowed to say that i he one i don't think he's wrong two i'm glad that an nhl player is being honest and saying it three i don't think anybody would

disagree with what he said i i didn't see it but someone posted that there was a sign at the game that said play rhymer the game had not begun that person made and brought the sign before it began wow wow i gotta i gotta see if there's a photo of that that's so dry and it was one of his worst performances contextually of his career yeah it's brutal um and and you know what what's what's sad too is they had again multi-goal lead against detroit the very very next night look to be putting a really good effort in and obviously james van reams likes having a renaissance year in in uh in detroit jvr getting a goal against james reimer in 2026 is crazy crazy yeah the that game was fun to watch it was good it was it's always nice when the nhl isolates games

uh there was what three four games on yesterday and like they're all on by themselves so it's good to just sit there and watch it and jvr scores that goal against reimer and then they cut to intermission and there's frank corrado and it's like oh it is always about the toronto always jvr like two guys who were in game seven in 2013 yeah so so watching the game there they They threw up a board. I took a screenshot of it on TSN. It just shows how good the Senators have been and how little saves they've been getting. So for anybody listening, it's the TSN graphic.

They have expected goals against. They rank fourth in the league at 3.19. And the actual goals against, they're 29th. That is the chasm between their expected goals against and their actual goals against. and then on the pp their pp expected goals allowed this would be penalty kill power play expected goals allowed per two minutes so that would be the penalty kill i guess yeah yeah yeah we're on the same page uh which they rank eighth with at 0.25 but then their actual power play goals allowed per two minutes are 0.34 which would be 30th in the league so eight

to 30th and the expected goals against at five on five um fourth and 29th so they good team they truly are performing well and the one thing they're missing is the goaltending but goaltending is a part of your team if you're not getting goaltending that means your team is also bad so i'm not willing to just like separate the ideas this is represent your team too arguably the most important part well can i ask this because this is the what happens if lenis omar comes back and he is the same lenis omar as he was because that was not good well now i'm talking and then and then put on top of that this deal that he signed i think started this year and it's an eight-year deal isn't it and it's 8.125 million dollars

and it's the second if what if this becomes the second bad goaltending contract they've signed in a row remember matt murray a few years ago right took them a little bit to wriggle out of that i i i really don't like sewering one particular coach i was resistant in toronto and that has had hilarious results unfortunately well fortunately unfortunately shut up it's hard when you know the guy but uh there's more and more and more sends discourse that i'm seeing about um uh their goaltending coach justin peters i think it is if you look throughout the organization like the belleville sins can't get a save from anybody like hunter shepherd has been an incredible american league goalie throughout his career like forget his nhl stuff he's there were years in his

ahl career where he was unbeatable mad so guard i think is going to start for no he's going to back up denmark at the olympics i assume anderson will start um they can't buy a safe and it's i don't think there's a 900 or above safe percentage in the whole org uh what do you do there but is your is firing your goalie coach mid-season which i've never heard of um and bringing in someone new going to save things i just don't know i mean it might work on your power play i don't know if goaltending is i think goaltending might be a little more difficult well it's it's lenis has got to come back and be the lenis that we knew last year he was very good for them last year uh he doesn't and the guy over eight million dollars for no reason yeah

one of esna was pretty great with boston was part of that record-setting regular season that that team had along with jeremy swayman i mean they were both fantastic that year and he was he's the guy that got walked away with the trophy so he was the more fantastic of the two um we're gonna need vintage lenis olmark back like you're gonna need uh maybe not maybe you don't even need boston you need lenis olmark back in the in the buffalo days where he was taking 40 pucks a night like you've got to be able to you've got to come in if you're lenis allmark and and literally be stand on your head good so i would say it's the opposite he needs to come in and be league average like i think that's actually jesse's not wrong you're not wrong allmark doesn't he

doesn't need to be good can you give us 895 so right now the ottawa senators have the worst safe percentage in the modern era in the history of of the modern era that's crazy it going back to 1991-92 season they have oh my god third worst safe percentage in 865 wow the two percentages below that are the ottawa senators in 92 93 and the ottawa senators 93 94 which were the expansion ottawa senators right so if you want to take out expansion hockey this year's ottawa senators have the worst safe percentage of all time because you can't count the 80s right no no what's that off And contextually, all the teams there in the top six, like we talk about the dead puck era. This is all pre-dead puck era.

This is when Mario Lemieux was tearing shit up. So for anybody listening, can't see the other names on the board. San Jose had an 866 in 92-93. San Jose had an 869 in 95-96. And Tampa in 92-93 had an 870. Ottawa's worse than those teams. All three of these are expansion teams. Yes.

Yes, and Ottawa's right there with them. It's literally historic, the goaltending they're getting this season. So if Allmark comes back and is anything close to league average, even a little below. 890 might be enough. They will be a good team. Oh, yeah. Wow.

So here's what I think you got to do. I don't know when Allmark's coming back. I think it's soon because he started to skate and stuff. I think you need to see what you have with Reimer. you know what you have with marilyn and you got to get him down to the minors as soon as possible let him get his game back you need to see what you have with reimer because then all mark's going to come back you need to see where his game is at once you've evaluated both of them you need to make the decision okay how much net can all mark take and when he needs a night off is reimer good

enough to give him that if the answer is no you need to go out and get someone who can be like a one b and it's hilarious because i'm looking at cj's trade board and other than jordan binnington who's way too expensive uh there's and his contract goes through next year and he's got a 14 team no trade so i would assume that all canadian teams are on that that's what i always assume there's nobody on it there's no goalies yeah you have no one on the trade board you'd have to go and pry well no there's 50 guys on the trade board steve so no no no i meant no goalies that's what i mean though yeah is it that means you're calling guys and going i need you to part with this which means i gotta wow you the solution for ottawa is the guy we're paying eight million dollars needs to

be decent yeah like that's the that's what you've committed to yeah that's that's why he's out right because you need him to be good like that's why um the habs even though they were doing pretty well they took a look at Sam Montembeau and they're like let's let's punch the brakes here like you know we could see what we have with the kid you know we could see what we have with Dobish we did at the end of the day this whole situation probably doesn't go very far in the playoffs if we don't have you right so and Sogard was good last year not Sogard uh Maryland was good last year it was very good so he can get it back maybe it's next season but he'll he'll get it back i don't think he's going to be he didn't forget right there's times where it's like he'll be

was good a couple years ago last year he was really bad this year he's been fantastic that happens with uh you know the senators didn't make the playoffs by very much and the reason you made it is because you got saves from your backup and that was leaving maryland yep actually was he even the best i think he was i don't want to say he began the season as a third stringer yeah um and he came in and he gave you wins and that was what i said about the seattle crack and i'm like this isn't a terrible team they have a decent team they have a good starter they are getting no points from their backup and now they're at least in the fight because they are the one thing the senators have going for them the rest of this week at least the next two games is that they're playing uh i

mean well one team is a bottom level team that's the blue jackets who just fired their head coach who can score in bunches though yeah and you are playing the red hot don't look out you know look out now predators uh who started oh my god push predators one of the hottest teams in the league it's crazy yeah so it'll be fascinating to see how the predators aren't kidding around oh jesus jesse uh yesterday's game there snl yesterday's game with the sends and red wings it was a bad test for reimer i thought i thought one the nhl fucked the send so bad on the scheduling of this game they played seven o'clock on saturday this was a five o'clock start in detroit on sunday detroit also played friday yeah they had saturday off and then ottawa has to play

a back-to-back less than 24 hours with travel it's like 20 hours they were they were they were absolutely screwed in this game and i thought they did a really good job getting the point out of it they came away with that point even though they didn't play great and they really fought they got those those goals early when they had their legs and then everything kind of tailed off and you see detroit pick up but none of the four goals i thought were reimer's fault at all um two came on the power play one was a lucas raymond shot that was just a wire that he's great reimer was completely screened on and then the fourth goal was an ot winner that was on a break it was like two on one and he just got beat so i don't think anything that game was around as well as he

actually made a couple really good saves when they were on the power play and even in the late middle third so they need a real game to see what Reimer actually has would the Leafs be in a better position now had they held on to Reimer instead of claiming Caden Primo probably straight up almost possible yes James Reimer was a good NHL goalie last year Caden Primo was not yep interesting we don't know if he's a good NHL goalie this year no we don't he had a good we know Primo's not good no primo sucks that is very true yes i'll take the mystery box like i don't know i want to see what's in there i'm i'm excited to see reimer get an actual test in with a team that uh wasn't screwed by the nhl in front of him yes of course i like that too hey listen uh when we had to set

up our store and when i say we it's a royal we it was jesse uh one of the things that i think jess you had to kind of search through was like where's the best platform if we want to sell tickets to things, if we want to sell t-shirts, if we want to sell mugs and that sort of thing. And where did you end up jumping on? Our store is built on Shopify. Why? Because that was the best platform for us. And it has been amazing for us using it. And we've been using it ever since. And that's what we're going on five years now. Yeah, about that. You can get to start with your own design studio, hundreds of ready to use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online business store

in your brand style. You can get the word out like you've got a marketing team behind you. You can easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers would be scrolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise on everything from managing your inventory to international shipping and processing and returns and beyond. So it's time to turn your what-ifs into Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash sdp go to shopify.com slash sdp that's shopify.com slash sdp uh leafs uh took on the jets on saturday night it was the end of the road trip they went two one and one on that road trip that's two wins one blown win against vegas uh and uh a write-off loss against utah so

that's five out of a possible eight points um they were three down three one in the third period really sloppy first period kind of halfway good second period of the third period was a whole lot better and you know what what's interesting about Toronto Winnipeg is because of that weird north division thing that happened for one season these two teams hate each other and there's a lot of a lot of the principal pieces from those teams are still there yeah right that's not the case league wide but like Morrissey Shifley Connor Hellebuck Hellebuck Matthews Nylander even though he wasn't in this Riley Riley ton of pieces and uh there's no love loss no and you know there is the there is a clip uh a couple of clips floating around um but every time Matthews

touched the puck uh they were booing him and he said you know they didn't boo me for nothing good right uh and then after the game I don't know if you guys saw that on Instagram somebody Matthews had the uh uh look at that there it is hey and then Jess can we bring up the Scott Lawton thing too because this i don't think i can oh you don't load oh okay it doesn't load oh that's a shame so uh basically he's basically doing the way scott lawton was saying when we went to the crowd and uh cj asked him about it today at morning practice and maddie show this here it is this is why you love great love that for us uh everybody was just spinning wheel great clip great clip um uh cj asked him about it and basically the clip is scott lawton going

went at the crowd after they after the jets lost um he he basically said that the fan was giving it to him first yeah like that doesn't come out of nowhere man yeah well and i i think you guys i mean we got to talk about the most important part of the game i don't i don't know what is it what you're talking about i love the internet i freaking love the internet did you see i think it was in the third period a puck got deflected into the crowd and it hit a leaf fan uh it hit it hit a leaf in in a phil castle jersey yeah oh it was unreal i got a message after the game because he made he made a he made a grab with i want to say his right hand and his beer was in his left hand oh i see i thought he caught it yeah that's what i say he made a grab yeah with

the with the puck and his beer was in his hand so they showed on the broadcast and then yeah cuthbert was losing it over the the phil castle jersey well fellas let me help you out with what happened a little bit my husband was the one in the kessel jersey who caught the puck tonight in the winnipeg no way he has been a fan of yours for so long and loved getting a mention on your show because i talked about it on the on the stream he has a bruise but is okay leafs forever and i said holy shit stephanie her name is stephanie first of all amazing second please tell me absolutely everything she goes he had just told me the leafs were going to win even though they were down it happened so fast and he caught the puck in his arm while holding his beer

which got all over his face we're both longtime phil and dangle fans and want the leafs to win the cup for you and i said i want the leafs to win the cup for us yeah so that's that's one of us that's one of our people who've caught that puck that's very what's his name i don't know what his name is i only know his wife i assume it's phil shout out no i don't know husband of stephanie yeah you know what let me message her what's your husband's name it's too late now one of the things that happened is towards the end of the game uh gabe velarde depending upon who you ask gabe velarde was high sticked but he snapped his head back like it was like he was a rock'em sock'em robot just nearly headless nicked about it so uh and and he and what was interesting and and um

anthony petrelli brought this up on his article this morning he said i liked seeing lot and go after velarde for the head snapback because this is with three minutes to go the penalty is called berube's pissed and lot and is so angry and won't stop yapping at velarde about it the tase has to get in the middle and then there are a timeout needs to be called to cool cool it was a leafs timeout right yeah i thought that was a really good move by berube because i mean don't take another penalty well don't take another penalty and also you got to screw lot and head on because this is a big kill right here and they friggin i can't believe the jets didn't win that game but back to the velarde thing well yeah sorry sorry the the velarde thing one thing

um we'll never know if i'm not mistaken the way the embellishment system works in the nhl is the first one is a warning and like the first time you embellish it's a warning um from the league i don't believe it needs to be a called penalty it's just they review it they're like you embellished don't do it again the second time you do it it's a two thousand dollar fine third time you do it it's a larger fine and then if you do it i think by the fourth time your coach gets fined now what i learned this year is it resets every season okay which is a joke because Nick Cousins, I think it was, got fined earlier this season.

And I'm like, if you go over the course of his career, he's got at least half a dozen. Yeah, but you can't have his current coach getting fined for something he did two years ago. Which is valid, but what if he's had the same coach the whole time? You can't make the rules that way. You got to reset it every time.

Or screw the coach fine, just hammer the player who's a giant diver, right? Velarde should absolutely have, if he didn't have a warning prior to that, he should have gotten a warning he listen it's a high stick take both that's disgraceful it's bad stuff and you know it was pointed out after the game even though the leafs won they cannot buy a call they uh i have this stat actually um is it the kevin pipetti it is the kevin pipetti one i'm just gonna pull it up here i'm trying to find it uh power play opportunities this season uh the

Leafs are 32nd do the whole thing well do the Matthews here this year it was no no because it's no no because you get people going no well they don't they never have the puck and it's the way they play all right let's go back 10 years last year it was they were tied for 20th the year before it was 25th 22 23 was 18th 21 22 was 21st 2021 was uh tied for 20th 1920 was 23rd 18 19 was 31st and 1718 was 29th that's three different head coaches that is god knows how many different personnel that is expected to be taking a step back expected to be taking a step forward expected to contend for uh division stanley cup expected to kids guys what are we doing they're getting jobbed the highest they've been in the matthews era is 18th get out of my face get out of my face

now someone i saw pointed out and i didn't bother to do my math uh myself because it's the internet apparently over that time the leafs have as many power play opportunities for as they have against which you might look at that and go see well i would go that's just how the refs ref the game Yes, that is clear game management, but the mere fact that they're always bottom half of the league and often bottom 10, I'm sorry, that is not a coincidence. You have to put on a tinfoil hat about that. What is that? Now, if you want to be real nefarious about it, you could go, well, they're rigging the games. Well, I don't think it's that they're stacking the deck against the Leafs, but part of me is like, I don't know.

Is that is that ad thing? I think it's not screwing with the commercial breaks, not screwing with the in-game activation. I think what is it? Because it's something I'm going to give you. No, I'm going to give it to you right now. You're not allowed. No, you can't keep guessing at it. No, it's definitely not a commercial thing.

it's a um when you're a referee uh it's always better to not make the call than make the call because when you make the call then it's on you when you don't make the call the theory is well then i i can't i missed it why don't they take that mantra into colorado i don't know historically their games are full of them there are more people that watch leaf games than most any other team and i think that guys that are in those games are aware of that and they're aware that the nhl is watching and i think that they are i mean listen you don't have to trust me on this look at the numbers i think they're they're well aware that they should make less calls because there's less chance for a mistake i think i mean you saw in at the end of

the vegas game that isn't true aiden hill knocked over scott lotten behind the net in a clear interference and the ref looked right at it and was like play on non-calls are mistakes and that's a mistake seven seconds to go vegas scores ties up the game and then ends up winning in an overtime listen you would have been on a power play i don't want to take anything away from vegas they won the game fair and square ish that should have been a leafs regulation win vegas should have nothing oh leaf okay what about all the teams in the pacific division that could have really used that swing and had no points oilers would be tied with vegas right now yeah i know well sorry oilers fans you got to take the leaf side on something here because they got fucked and so

did you so that's interesting now steve what's your best theory on why this occurs what's your biggest conspiracy theory i mean refs are spectators we know this uh games are managed not called it's an entertainment product not a sport like more and more and more i just know that and believe that when i see that and i'm trying not to be a stick in the mud about it dude but like what else am i supposed to take from it but what's what's your theory on why toronto doesn't get as many penalty calls i don't know what to tell you the only the the reason i brought up the commercials just because it was fresh in my head um is uh so when i was an arena host for the ohl top prospects game it brought back memories of when i did it with the steelheads

and there are certain times in the game where so you you have a sponsor um that you need to do a segment for and they're paying money for this this is important when certain things happen in the game you can't go on the mic and do it is that it like is like i would love an explanation because it cannot be merely coincidence that they're always bottom half and usually bottom 10. Like, uh, I was talking to someone recently about, um, it might've been this very thing with, uh, Hanlon's razor, like don't assume malice when stupidity could, could just as easily explain it there are just too many variables and too many teams and too many different officiating crews coming to town and too many different refs and why is it always the leafs always

that's crazy like i'd love to know if there's some sort of is there a hockey night in canada correlation like our our hockey night in canada games less uh or are there fewer penalties and the fact that the leafs always play in hockey night in canada our national games more likely to be called that way again because of ads because that's the only thing i can come up with because you can't look at it and go the leafs are getting screwed because they're getting as many as they take but you could argue yes they are because they play a certain way or did play a certain way like mike babcock was always like well our toughness is the power play okay too bad you're never able to use it it's too much of a thing for it to not be a thing i just wish i could give you

a better answer because i i don't have it well i think if the you know shanny uh or now keith pelly if that if they really want to make their money they have to address this and i you know the one guy that that i can remember ever addressing it was was brian burke in calgary with dennis weidman when he hit the the referee in the next year uh the flames just got absolutely jobbed in the penalties for department um and remember remember so weidman hit a referee yes injured him severely yes now weidman was arguably concussed but yeah and got a 20 game suspension that was rused to 10 i think or something like that he ended up serving all i want to say it all or most of the game but he got the money back for the 20 games but he got the money back because

that's how the nhl gets you right they're like well we're gonna take so long that you still have to serve it but we'll get we'll make the team pay you yeah they're all just lawyers at the end of the day but calgary didn't get a call the next year not a call until brian burke got in front of the microphone and said we're not getting any calls here and we know why like guys enough is enough babcock had to do that with cadre well and and so that's where i'm not saying keith pelly needs to come out publicly and say this but if you're paid the way these guys are paid The reason that they got Shanahan in the first place was because he was very well connected with the front office of the NHL. And, you know, the fact that Shani was never able to, I don't know if he ever tried, but was never able to argue this case.

He was never also able to argue the scheduling case, which is the Leafs regularly get over 16 back-to-backs per year. It's a lot. It's a lot every year. Over a dozen for sure. And no, no, it's regularly over 60. And I remember one year it was like 18. I think this year might be close to that. Now, this year's compressed schedule.

What was the excuse the other years? And I just feel like if you're the CEO of the organization, this is where you earn your money. The rest of the time, everybody's kind of doing the work for you. This is where you have to use your poll. And the Leafs, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment need to use their poll as one of the big revenue drivers to say, hey, there seems to be something up here. Hot take, say nothing.

and i'll give you two reasons give it to me don't say it publicly ever no never say it publicly say nothing for two reasons number one with the nhl you always have to worry about retribution you always have to worry about that number two 2019 when the st louis blues won the stanley cup first two games of that stanley cup final against the boston bruins i think they won one lost one but the blues took or gave Boston eight power plays in each game, in each game in the Stanley cup final. That's crazy. Think of what kind of absolute ax wielding murderers you need to be to take

16 penalties into Stanley cup final games. And Berube got up in front of the mic after game two. And he said, Hey, come on. And then they stopped calling them. i remember this and the blues won the cup yeah because of it because they the bruins ran into the one team that was bigger and badder than they were and famously it was game three or game four

was won by the blues on a non-call against the bruins i want to say bozak trip nola chari and achari was on the bruins at the time and ah oh well berube has a direct line to pelly this is berube hockey berube can yell about this call and that call all he wants but i think in the big picture he wants games called low with few low he wants fewer penalties because once the playoffs arrive it allows his teams to beat the shit out of you gotcha okay uh morgan riley uh on this 12 game post marks of art streak and i'm quoting directly from anthony petrelli here uh riley is averaging just under 21 minutes per game and he has been on the ice for close to 20 goals against while getting outscored by eight that means 12 for

20 against in that how many games in 12 games um the only leaf that even comes close to that is philip myers who's been outscored by five at what point stop enough with yeah philip myers shouldn't be like philip myers got burned against vegas on that goal that was called back but let's not forget he got burned by dorfayev like burned and then is matt benning's breath stink i don't and then and then put him in he didn't play i think he he didn't play from like midway through the last period like there was like a yeah i think like 9 18 i think he had one shift in the third period i want to double check that but yeah they essentially played with five defensemen uh come a certain point in that game on which means oel's got to play 25 and riley's got to play way too

much at 25 oh yeah loki won them that game he's well he's a fucking stud he's he's amazing he's such a throwback but my point is 41 38 was his last shift in the game so that's probably his first shift of the third and only shift yeah and before that he didn't have a shift to like 27 32 so between 27 32 and the end of the game he had one shift so i'd love to watch that shift you didn't play i'd love to watch that shift and just all right what well ben was hurt right yes but what what's so surprising about benoit is he's on cj's trade board today which he wasn't before yes so very clearly they see that this is a guy who's coming off of a contract like he'll be a ufa i think and he'll have value on the open market as a tough rugged defenseman they are

clearly looking to upgrade though that's what that tells me and what has another year left he's got another year left 1.35 this year and next that's killer term so i was actually about to say you know why then is myers still in the lineup for tonight well it looks like ben was back and myers is out good now that makes sense it's fascinating oh my god if ben was okay yes the morgan riley conversation for me is fascinating because again like he does like there was a couple plays he made against vegas defensively that i'm like wow but it's it's the jesse blake Kevin Pillar thing where I was like,

I remember one time MLB Network had the top 15 center fielders in the league and Kevin Pillar was known for making these spectacular catches. And I was like, wow, I can't believe they don't have Kevin Pillar in that.

In fact, he didn't make the top three. And I was like, Jesse, why is this? And he's like, because he has to make those spectacular catches because he's out of position. He's not that good. It's great that he has that ability and it's fun.

Yeah. But, you know, with Morgan, I don't know that that's totally necessarily the case. I just don't know if defense is his bag and it kind of reminds me a little bit of Jake Gardner in his term with the Leafs. He had to play too

many minutes. When they were able to get Jake Gardner under 17 minutes a game, he played great. Brian McCabe syndrome a little bit. Anything over 18 or 19 minutes and Jake Gardner used to get into like 21, 22 minutes a night. Then you'd get into I'm exhausted and I'm fucking up territory. And I think we

got to pull back and I know it's really hard to do with thin defense. They got to pull back Morgan's numbers, especially who they're playing him against he's a guy that could be very effective i think if you have him on the third pair well this is where bruba gets to earn his salary because now you're at home and you can protect him yep for this next crop of games and it's against some really good teams really hot teams you obviously have to protect this player he's coming up on a thousand games which it's amazing like with amazing feet oh like with with morgan i feel like he's still

in his 20s yeah and i think he's violently not um and but he's he's got hard miles and he can't do some of the things that he used to right and you know maybe he was never great defensively but he could make up for it in other ways and he's just not really able to do that i don't think so either and i feel like if you deploy him in a role that's perhaps a bit more limited against easier competition you're gonna get a lot more out of him and that and i and again i've been on the i think we got to move on from morgan riley train for more than a year now i said it after the playoffs it's not up to it's not up to me well it is up to the leafs well can make life hard they could just say no they can but it's a process um and they could have

started that right after the playoffs but they chose not they don't make decisions so now doesn't make decisions now they got to figure out a way to deploy him in a better way now on the opposite it's like because Morgan Riley to me feels like what Domi was in the fall right he playing Domi at center he keeps getting caved people are

mad at Domi are you mad at Domi I love or are you mad at the way he's being deployed now Max Domi in his last 14 games has 10 points and only two penalties that's a bit that's major I know

we got a great on a curve a little bit but yeah yeah yeah there's been no dumb penalties on Max with Max Domi really none I can't remember now that might change tonight guys but I think

that's exactly what you one out of a winger making three and a half million Ryan Hartman yeah yeah could happen but do you not do you not see how like that they took Max Domi out of a position where they were setting him up to fail they put him in a position where he they've set him up to succeed got him inspired scores the game-winning goal against Winnipeg from his buddy Austin Matthews gets to assist on the goal that ties and then passes Matt Sundin right which you know is big for for Domi you know it's quite symbolic 100 he looks great why not put morgan in a position where he can succeed and i think the way you do that is on this homestand okay you have to protect them

um leafs are the worst team in the league when it comes to closing out games literally 32nd um guys how are the jets not i know what what can they do is that just against toronto um they can't defend and sometimes i wonder about goaltending in certain situations generally their goaltending has been really really good this season horrible against utah the whole team is horrible against utah the vegas game was the first game where i was like joe a save man anything holy shit and now this is his opportunity for redemption with the wilds but that's a tall task man that's one of the best teams in the nhl i know they're in your barn you you need timely saves um and maybe that comes down to deployment

from uh from berube because it seems like stetcher has a game save or a goal saving block every two or three games yep literally a goal saving block does he need to make those those blocks though if they play properly no probably not uh jesse what would you do uh what would you do about the closing out issue do you think that they make an upgrade here i've been generally fine with coming off of that weekend i think there's it's a new curve that i'm grading the leafs on because i've been fine with how they played over that road trip i thought there were so many good things that they did and getting that win in winnipeg where it looked like it could have gone horribly like there are moments in that game where it's like oh winnipeg looks good and

that first period but the leafs turned it on and watching the way they play now i think it's a style of hockey that can hang with most teams in the league so i'm not as concerned about the lead thing as of like the last game ish as opposed to like the vegas game where it looks dire the fact that you come back in winnipeg and you're down there and you get that win i think there's so many good things that happen in that game that i'm not coming out of it concerned that a vegas situation is going to happen consistently over the next little bit and they really are playing friggin whack-a-mole with the injuries it's crazy we don't know if nice is going to play tonight uh kneelander it is a groin injury they confirm they actually said it he could be out god knows

how long yeah yeah they're they might not go to the olympics man and like you got to think they're missing tanev this whole time and the amount of injuries they've had to deal with it's very impressive all the guys that are that are suiting up for them and playing well and nice as you said is out he's at game time game time they said he needs more rest gets better with rest and obviously they haven't had it that's why you bring up quillen right yeah fill that spot yeah that almost to me confirms he's not playing but yeah yeah he they almost never play or perhaps he should just play but i i i think over the last couple weeks with the since the marks of art firing there's so many good things that they've done and the way they ended the road trip where it could have gone

bad if you lose that game to winnipeg even just i know ot's a coin flip but pulling out the ot win in a situation where you didn't do it against vegas like it's a very promising turn of events for the least and i think like specific players deserve shout outs to for spearheading it oel what an incredible game for him did you see the Canucks stat no he has more points than anyone else on the Canucks payroll because he's still on the Canucks he's still on the Canucks two teams I believe are paying Oliver Ekman Larson to not play for them and one isn't a franchise anymore right yeah yeah because they don't have them because they don't have them that's why he was incredible I love the fact that on the McMahon goal that tied it he got the puck and he threw

it on net yeah there's no wasting time there there were so many bodies in front so that helps screen hellebuck and mcmahon's there and just smart play for him just to throw it on net and get that goal and then nick robertson um he's a player dude he's a he's a freaking player and the the the the sequence before he does the stop up and finds oel which is one hell of a pass yes like great pass if you i don't know if you guys remember but he tried to enter the zone by himself against two defenders along the right side of the board and he tries to make this play and it doesn't work at all and the puck's just going up the other way because he loses it and he can't make that play and nick robertson is probably a coach's nightmare they probably hate this player in the

things he tries to do out there because he has to lead the league in offsides one a hundred percent balls per 60 we're pretty high there for a while too he's always out there with the mentality that he's in the class of mcdavid or mckinnon and that i'm gonna take these guys on and gonna make this play but that confidence also allows him to go into the zone do a stop up and find the guy across the other side and make that pass and that's a that's a goal there he has better playmaking chops than i thought because i remember calling that on the stream when it happened and i wanted him to try to burn stanley uh wide yes because you're looking for a goal i don't know how you're gonna do it and he stops up and no one else is in the zone so i'm like nick what do you do it

incredible pass to oel snipe yeah i'm like oh okay great and then that comes right after your failed zone entry where you're trying to play hero ball yeah so like like i said like he's probably a coach's nightmare and where it's like you're looking at that as a head coach of an hl team you're like stay in your structure so i'm trying to take these things one-on-one do all these things but nick robertson has that mentality where it's like no we need to push yeah because i'm recognizing the situation and we need a goal so let me just try something here and he made a really nice play do you ever play be a pro and imagine what the coach would say if they were real yeah yeah that's nick robertson that's essentially nick robertson but he's capable

of finishing in the situation you know what i thought he was really selfish played a terrible defensive game but he did have five points so you know what so he's really come around on me and i think the whole team when they're going and same with max domi like i'm glad you brought him up because that's somebody who's found his groove next to matthews and it's which is where he was always supposed to friggin be that's on the coach deployment there we know what max domi should be which is austin matthews is robin and he's he's excelled at that job as of late so the leafs i'm I'm very happy with how they're playing and the Winnipeg game, I think is just like the cherry on top of a really good road trip.

Agreed. Agreed. And, uh, the Leafs now have to play in the next five games. Okay. Minnesota, Detroit,

Vegas, Colorado, and Buffalo, all teams who are red hot, all teams who are going to the playoffs. I think tonight, no fun at all. Uh,

now they are 16, five and five at home this year. wool is ridiculous at home so the one thing i'll say with minnesota is that because the next game is detroit wednesday night uh is you you are the nhl's top face-off team the leafs are yes you have to beat them on the face-offs tonight you have to beat them into the ground on the face-offs tonight it's a lot to wreck them massive advantage massive advantage um minnesota's a great team They're an unbelievable team, but they have their injuries, too. I think, is it Joel Eriksson-Eck?

Yeah, he's out. He's out. And they're thin up the middle with him. Yeah. The fact that they don't have him, if you're going to beat Minnesota, it's got to be up the middle tonight. And Matt Boldy just went on IR, too, right? Yeah.

Oh, geez. If you were ever going to beat this group of guys. Hartman is their number one center. Yeah. Eriksson-Eck, Boldy, Bogosian, and Brodine are all on IR right now. Oh, Brodine, too. Yeah. Take advantage.

You're missing two Olympians. Don't worry, though. They still have Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber, Greg Middleton, and Jared Spurgeon in their top four. Who do they got? They still have Hughes, Faber, Middleton, and Spurgeon in their top four. And Gustafson and Goal. No, that's garbage. Who is that? That's Ottawa's backup, isn't it?

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looking to extend him ballparks his new contract is about five years 5.5 million um interesting Sherwood will play on the top line he's penciled in next to Celebrini uh wow so this is a guy who I mean, he was nails in Nashville. He was even better in Vancouver. Obviously, at age 30, you're not, you know, you're thinking that you're going to get a few more good years out of this. He's a late bloomer, but he's a big-time goal scorer, and he's going to be paired with a guy in Macklin Celebrini

who can set him up. This could be a match made in heaven. It also helps that they're playing the Panthers tonight. Matthew Kachuk will be there. If Kiefer Sherwood's in the lineup, it probably makes it less likely that Kachuk goes after him. There's no way. Or more.

You don't think he's playing? No. How would he play? He's got to fly over right now. Is it a home game for Panthers? Yeah, it's in Florida. Oh, then there's no way. There's no way.

He flew already there and is going to be ready for the game. No, probably not. Probably not. I think that's a little quick. Kiefer Sherwood is a hilarious fantasy player, depending on how your league is scored. In 44 games, he has 108 shots. Wow, that's pretty good.

210 hits which i believe is second in the league behind yakov trennan and he's also got oh yeah i should probably mention 17 goals vancouver currently are sitting last in the nhl uh by a significant margin that's this is going to be a long few months assuming they win the draft lottery and this is from josh elliott wolf um who is a uh producer and uh host of uh canucks brunch on sportsnet 650 assuming let's say that they win the draft lottery they would have the first overall pick they would have likely if it was today the 26th overall pick with minnesota with quinn hughes right then they'd have the 32nd overall pick because remember it's only 31 teams in the first round because no ottawa first round pick right right so they technically have a second

first rounder in any other year and they just got the 44th overall pick with san jose that's not bad for a rebuilding team i mean between this and between the friggin um the quinn hughes deal that's one way to kickstart your your rebuild and i talked to somebody about um two names that were on cj's trade board that i was surprised by first off jake debrusk is in the second year of that deal and i asked sixth and uh scoring yeah and then he just got scratched yeah uh so i was told he's a streaky player he goes like 10 games without scoring and then we'll score six goals in five which tracks like even back to his boston days um and apparently neither head coach he's had in vancouver were fans um and then see well okay it's valid obviously because it's two head coaches

but the current head coach was on the bench last year yeah so maybe it's carryover they're just not well it's definitely carryover yeah uh garland is the other guy connor garland who i love uh he's got a new move that kicks in july 1st they don't want to move him but if they get an incredible offer they'll take him and i they'll take it and i think if you're vancouver like do it that is a prime first round pick player yeah don't you think there's plenty of teams looking for uh a strong under contract playoff hardened valuable feisty motherfucker on their line that's a great description garland is on your second or third line yeah going into any game he's killing penalties he's a total bastard to play against so shifty listen shut up how does he become a panther i

know i that's what i thought i'm like that's how florida panther shut up your mouth how does he become the rattiest rat bastard panther of all time just just tell me blake coleman would be another guy but i don't think calgary's gonna trade him but those are that's the intel i got on garland no he's got too much uh lightning in his blood for haig he never is yeah he didn't play that much colman's got too much lightning oh no garland he doesn't care garland doesn't yeah he's oh that cheese eating rat bastard yep yeah it would be great he would be great so anyway we wanted to make sure we got to those one just uh just on the san jose side of things give it to us of the trade um keeper sherwood just to clarify his availability he's been out uh with vancouver

he the last game he played was the toronto maple east game oh okay on the 10th that was and then he's been out and at the time they said adam foot said he'd be out one to three weeks so he's currently on ir uh when the sharks are acquiring him so hopefully he'll be back in the next week or so for the sharks and get into that lineup part of me tinfoil hat wonders how much of that is he's gonna get traded let's just let's just yeah yeah i think they're 100 last place team in the canucks they're on what is their losing streak now at like eight or something it's bad i'm looking at it hang on hang on uh it is oh eight and two so there you go yeah they've lost seven in a row but they haven't won a game and like they're getting games brutal so act in some

of these what's the rush for keifer sherwood to come back when he's gonna get um he's gonna get traded anyway so um i think that makes a lot of sense that that he would just remain out so good call on that one and for the sharks this is a move like i've been since this season has gone along i've been hoping they do something like this because they have so many assets because they've been stockpiling them through their rebuild and these two second round picks they're not going to miss them at all no like who cares send them away you can read their draft capital right now if you got in front of you see they have two first this year and a second next year they have their own first still no second and the year after they have a first and a second now they

don't have a third round pick in either of the three years but can i offer the opinion of who gives a shit exactly um if anyone can afford it it's the sharks so yeah if you're the sharks this is what you should be doing to now support a team that is performing above i think most people's expectations like your rebuild now is done yeah there's no talk about being the worst team in the league anymore you are fighting for a playoff spot you are in the last wildcard spot in the western conference build on this team and support them by getting a good player like he for sure would for assets that aren't relevant to you anymore because you're trying to be good in this year and next year and the years that are going on now and he's not going to free agency they're

resigning mostly i think i don't know i think they're resigning that guy i can't remember there was a segment i was watching i don't remember if it was on ts hunter sports net but uh there was a game sharks weren't doing so well it was during a rough stretch and someone messed with one other guys i don't remember who it was the sharks swarmed them and uh there was a little fu uh to their game like it's it's not just reeves who leads the league and he's right up there and hits like he's he's running around um but now you add sherwood to the mix too like yeah they're they're young they can score well one guy can score he's like 40 points up in the next closest guy um but they're they're trying to play adult uh hockey here grown-up hockey and i think it's

it's easier for the kids to perform in that kind of environment yeah and and i think like everybody is playing really well right now and it's weird that the kids aren't really the problem with the sharks and lately it's kind of been the goaltending askeroff has not had a little a good little run here uh recently so hopefully if that's if his game steadies back to where it was the sharks just shoot up the standings and get back to where they were a little higher in the division they are tied with the ducks for that last wildcard spot um ducks are finally winning games again by the way uh according to jeff patterson who's a reporter in vancouver uh sherwood uh thanked the canucks management for getting the deal done now because he and his wife are expecting their

first child in april and he wanted to be settled before that happened so that was good of them to do very valid yeah and one last thing with the sharks uh will smith who's nearly appointed game has missed a bunch so that obviously hurts yeah it's gonna be uh it's gonna be a fascinating race at the bottom of that conference going into the finals here or the final few weeks before February because I think it's going to decide a whole heck of a lot.

Now, we got to bring on Thomas Hickey to ask him not just about the Leafs tonight, who will be on Amazon Prime Monday Night Hockey, but also about the Rasmus Anderson trade, some things going on in Calgary and Jake Sanderson. So let's do it. All right.

We're happy to bring on Thomas Hickey of Prime Monday Night Hockey. We're so excited to have you back, Thomas. Welcome back. Round of applause. We've always got to do that. So he's in a hotel room in Toronto as of right now. And the game tonight's a big one.

I mean, this is the kickoff of a five-game homestand for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Thomas. And I want to know, you know, they've been red hot since the firing of Marc Savard. I hate to make that the break point, but that seems to be the point where things turned around. What have you seen from the team that makes you feel like, okay, these guys are legitimate,

or do you feel that way at all? Yeah, I do. I think they're legitimate. I guess what type of legitimacy are you talking? about like do they look like a playoff team absolutely they look like a playoff team but it is so tight they've just sort of built themselves back up from the basement into a spot where if you look at their season they probably deserve to be sitting uh right where they are um what's changed i i talked about this i think a couple weeks ago i i think so much has

been made and let's not go there again over mitch martyr's gone and the team's different i i think they've realized that it's a different type of hockey that they have to play to to win games consistently and um doesn't make it easier when you subtract a guy like William Nylander out of your lineup and you you miss that but it's a workman-like uh type of game that they're playing uh it's competitive hockey it's it's what you expected the Toronto Maple Leafs to be coming into this season a little bit more blue collar than they were in the past a little bit more of a grinded out hockey team uh and that's what they've been I think they've shored things up defensively at the start of the year that was sort of the thing that stood out uh it was like

you know this shouldn't be a team that's trying to outscore all their problems it should be a team that defends the right way sort of like you saw when Craig Berube took over and I think they've in a roundabout way finally got back to that realize there's an identity of uh not just structure but like a competitive edge that they should have against other teams that's the type of group that uh Tree Living's built it's a group that's gonna out compete you and outwork you and I think you're finally seeing that it's it's resulting in a lot of wins but clearly uh much has been made of austin matthews and uh his success of late and sort of the up and down season he's he's carried the team as far as you know showing the right way to play and and producing and that

that also goes a long way too you've been in nhl locker rooms that's something the three of us can't say we've been so you would know like the dynamics of an assistant coach and what they do and their responsibilities and how much that can affect the dressing room. Marc Savard getting fired, which is something that NHL teams don't do very often, is fire one of the assistant coaches. That seemed to turn the season around and change the way they played. What role did Marc Savard play or does the general assistant coach play to the head coach? And how much could that firing of actually help this team get to this point in the season

where they look really good? It's a good question. To your point, I've been in NHL dressing rooms, but the one thing I would never try to do is, just because I played, pretend that I know what's going on inside a dressing room of a team like the Leafs or the Islanders or whatever team you pick. You don't know, right? You don't know the conversations in that room. Is it sheer coincidence that they've been better? Maybe, probably not. What role does an assistant coach play?

usually it's either good cop or bad cop uh one or the other uh and you know sometimes it's it's echoing the message of your head coach and other times it's um you know maybe playing the good cop and working with the guys specifically so i really can't speak too much to the marks of art thing because i've not been in that dressing room but clearly there's there's been a bump and a boost the power play number has been better so um in the end i think it sort of looked like a sacrificial move on the surface like we had to do something because things were so bad uh and you look at it now i i don't think it's a matter of a the bump that you get after firing a head coach and having someone new come in um you know uh i can speculate on a lot of things one of them is maybe maybe guys

like it more that he's not there but how could i say that i don't know maybe the other part of it too is some recognition that people are losing their jobs we're going to pull up our socks and play better hockey whether it be in the power play or elsewhere or uh someone else is next or i'm next uh i think those are sort of the mindsets you have a player when when you see someone lose their job you ever have a streak in your career where you were like why are we winning like oh yeah we're doing a lot yep uh a hundred percent we had one i think it was uh a few olympics ago it was uh 2016 right so we john taveras went got hurt oh he came back in our yeah 14 sorry uh winter winter olympics he played that uh jt got hurt he came back and we were you know we're in the

playoff mix and then we we played horribly played poorly uh didn't have our stuff and we fell out of it and then it's near the end of the season and we probably had a roster 50 composed of american league guys that uh were grateful for the opportunity to play really good hockey and we couldn't stop losing down the stretch and you wonder like why is it that without the skill without the scores uh without a lot to play for that we're winning you can't really put your finger on it but when things are going good like that i think the as a player the best thing to do is not ask questions just show up and do the same thing and i think that's where coaches or analysts get into okay what exactly is different why is this team playing better but as a player uh you just

ride it and you hope you got a game the next day it's pretty pretty clear we're seeing the beginnings of a uh of a mini trade deadline happening before the olympics here and we kind of saw this a little bit last year with four nations i'm curious about what your reaction growing up in calgary uh to the flames and the vegas golden knights make another major defense trade here hannifin obviously being the first uh Rasmus Anderson goes to Vegas uh we could talk about him in a second what did you think about the return for your hometown flames uh I think Craig Conroy just continues to stockpile premium assets and you know when you look back to when he took over and you look at all the players that were moved out for firsts and seconds and prospects it's it's actually incredible to think

like that was your roster and you had all these guys that demanded uh valuable assets as in first round picks or a multiple seconds you know that Noah Hannafin, Zdorov, Lindholm uh the the list goes on and on Markstrom like it's incredible that they've got so much so you know I think for Craig Conroy to have a guy like Anderson to go out and get a first potentially another first and Zach Whitecloud who's a good defenseman I think it's a good return and then Whitecloud's a guy that uh early on in his career I was like this guy's gonna be a really good player for a long time to sort of settled into that type of third pairing role and you sort of got to ask yourself as we look ahead to the deadline or maybe the more moves that are made before the Olympics

you ask yourself like what would the return on a Zach Whitecloud be you know a reliable defenseman that might be on your third pair but doesn't make that much money and has a little bit of term probably a lot of value in that just one-offs like teams don't want to give away guys that have term and are at a stable number whether white cloud's been at his best or not that's a different thing uh i think it's a good return and um it's it's tough to say because i'm not uh ears to the ground on trades and what else was out there what else was available but um you know to move them before the olympic break and avoid any scenario that you've got a guy that isn't it I don't want to call it a distressed asset.

You've got a great asset, but he's healthy and playing good minutes. And realistically, when you think about a Stanley Cup contending championship team, Rasmus Andersen probably slides right into your second pair and brings a lot of offense and probably going to be a lot better with structure. So I like it from both sides. But I've been impressed by Conroy's timing on things where he seems to get a great return that's not going to enthuse anyone too much because there's so many prospects in first-round picks.

But eventually, with all these building up, I trust that he's got a plan and all these assets are only going to help get that further along the road where Calgary's back and competitive. I want to see that, but patience is probably the name of the game right now in Calgary.

We can look at the stockpile of picks and assets and be like, that's awesome. They're doing a great job. But Nick Kiprios has always been very open that when he was a player and teams he was on did that sort of thing he was like well great uh where does that leave us do you remember ever having uh a similar feeling where your team might have made the right choice like they're trading a veteran they're they're getting capital back but you're like cool now there's a massive hole in our roster without a question and it goes both

ways like i remember uh i think it was that i think it was that year 2014 and uh you know some of the media would ask obviously like in a roundabout way like the team's not doing good but you are gonna pick higher in the draft you know how do you feel about that and i'm like that means there's some kid that the future is going to be invested in that's going to take my job like you don't say it in those blunted terms but like that's reality of it and if you're um if you figure you're not part of the solution you sort of feel like you're part of the problem and i think a lot of guys probably look at rosters their age the direction it's going and the fact that they were probably signed for a different idea to help you be part of the solution and now

you feel like you become sort of part of the problem so it's a delicate um i think it's really delicate for a lot of general managers to make moves i mean it's clear in calgary the guys know that uh so you really have got to have guys that are committed to competing and setting the right example but also ushering in the youth but for me as a player no that's not a good feeling because i know that this this high-end pick is going to have preferential treatment for me because he's probably going to be here for twice as long as i'm going to be or 10 times more so it's not a it's not a great feeling but that's the business that we're in in hockey and i think pretty much every other sports the same way you're either think you're on the way up or you're rebuilding

And if not, you're somewhere in the middle where you're your fans and everyone probably isn't all that enthused at being in the mushy middle either. The last thing I want to ask you about is obviously this weekend, Jake Sanderson and and Travis Green. But, you know, they both made comments about Levy, Maryland, and obviously the Flay or the Sens lost two tough games. Right. They were up. They had up against Montreal. They had a good chance against Detroit, lost both games. And after Saturday's game, Jake Sanderson said, you know, you got to have more saves than 10, basically. And I'm paraphrasing here.

You can see a coach calling out a goalie. You often don't see a defenseman or a forward doing it. I wanted to ask you how that goes over in a dressing room. What effect does that sort of public comment, whether it's frustration or not, what does that have on a dressing room? And how do you handle that between the guys? i think i like i'm such a big fan of jake sanderson obviously as a player but as someone in a dressing room as well and if you listen to the ottawa senators look about all their games

recently you know if you lose six five the other night obviously it's frustrating uh they're the first ones to acknowledge their goaltenders when they do play well uh when they don't they've protected those guys over and over and over again and frustration obviously boils over but he's speaking the truth the reality is i get frustrated like i'm an ottawa guy i don't know why i've got no ties to the senators i like watching the ottawa senators play because they play with structure they've got some great high-end skill when brady's in the lineup there's there's this heart there's this belief they've got such a great blend of a hockey team and they can't get saved so i get frustrated watching it and you know i still think the ottawa senators are gonna make the playoffs

and I know they've been in last place in the conference, I think that they're that good. I don't think it's a matter of we're not getting saves and we're losing. I think the potential is so high for the Ottawa Senators, especially after making the playoffs last year, that if they don't get saves, they're going to miss. And what do you do with the direction? Well, Steyos just got there, so probably stay pretty steady.

But in a roundabout way, um i think jake sanderson has a great feel for knowing that in that room he's boosting up his goaltender they protected their goaltenders in the media and it's a young guy in maryland and that saved their bacon last year when lena solmark couldn't play and came in and he was the difference and right now i think there's just frustration because time's running out um and the reality is that they need saves bottom line so i i don't have any issue with what he's saying I think you've got a passionate guy that is still a really young player in this league that hasn't really said anything to make you go, what a bold statement that was. But I don't think it was bold. I think that's the truth and reality.

And I think there's some desperation in Ottawa because there's a much better team than where they are in the standings. But I'll be the first to say it. You're only as good as your record. If you're not getting saved, you're just not that good. So they've got to find a way, whether it's Maryland and Reimer, Allmark coming back to make those saves or figure it out. But I feel like they're wasting something. I shouldn't say that. It's a bad way to put it.

If there was ever a year that the Ottawa Senators had your best shot of doing some damage in the playoffs of the East, it's this year. It's that wide open. That's why I get the frustration. All right. Well, Thomas, listen, thank you so much for joining us again. It's always great to have you. I have to say, your take on the Flames,

what they recouped for Rasmus Anderson versus ours is very different. So it's kind of great to get a different view. What do you guys want? Let me know what you got. I want to know why Calgary wants to keep helping Vegas and Florida win cups. I think we all kind of feel that way. I don't think it was enough. But I also don't know what was on the table.

Like, what was Boston offering in terms of roster players? Had that extension gotten done, would that have been a better-looking deal? does that you know the boston offer probably makes them better now if it was patra and lori and i think futures potentially yeah we don't we don't really fully know yeah i would say thomas you know the thing that that is is i think it's it's less about maybe this trade more about the overall yes they're compiling assets but what are they going to do with them the last time they traded a defenseman it was you know they got some picks and they got mirror man off who's turned into a guy but he's not like the guy uh that they think they were hoping to get for us it's a little

bit of why can't calgary just commit to tear it down uh build it back up right for right in time when the arena is built which is sorely needed in calgary that for us is the frustration like you've got the opportunity right now to do it you run out of time though right you don't want to be bad that first season you'd rather have a cornerstone than more draft capital is that right That's what I'm saying, yeah. And maybe that's not on offer here, but can you parlay that into something else? Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I hear you, and I understand that frustration because eventually those picks need to become not just players or prospects. They've got to be impact players. I guess league-wide, I think you've got to look at Anderson, who I'm a big fan of. I like the way he plays.

And sort of ask yourself on a rental, you know, how good of a player is he? Is he a top pair NHL defenseman? He can be. he he's done that in Calgary. He's been their best defense, but he's a really good player, but moving forward and on a really deep hockey team,

where does he slide in? And I think it's a really good fit in Vegas, but I do understand that. And maybe there's hope here that maybe a reclamation project in white cloud, not saying he's gone down, but this guy played at a young age and Stanley cup champion. I think that there's a hidden value in perhaps what him on that contract in a bigger role with a little more trust

could turn into. I'm not saying he is, but I think that there's value if you were to just put Zach Whitecloud out there and go, what do we get for him? Then you go, the pick, the first-round pick, potential second-round pick, plus whatever you got for him, and you look at that haul and you go, pretty good.

But I hear where you guys are coming from. All right. Well, listen, it's good to have a different point of view on it, Thomas. We're open to it. We want it. Hey, listen, best of luck tonight. Say hi to everybody down there at Prime Monday Night Hockey. You guys have a great team. We love your broadcast. You've been doing a great job all year long.

Everybody talks about just how great the quality is and, you know, from the camera work on down. So thanks so much, and we'll see you the next time, okay? All right, guys. Thanks for watching. We'll see you. S-T-E-P. The Steve Dangle Podcast.

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