The Steve Dangle Podcast - The Referendum | December 4, 2019

Episode Date: December 5, 2019

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, who wore the crown? (00:00), ICE SURFING IS AMAZING and Steve had a terrible commute yesterday (08:30), the the Leafs lose to the Flyers 6-1 (16:00), when are we going to stop pretending that Cody Ceci is working (22:30), updates on Babcock and Crawford (36:30), and the Devils fire head coach John Hynes (58:30). Originally aired: December 4, 2019 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/g95rnVCW1oA Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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presents S-S-D-E-P-P, the Steve Dangle Podcast, with your hosts, Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake. Let's go! Somehow, someway, the Leafs went into last night's game. The final four minutes of last night's game. The city of brotherly love. Yeah. Somehow.

Where they throw batteries and snowballs at Santa Claus. With three minutes to go, well, three and a half, yeah, I guess just under three, or sorry, just over three minutes to go, they were up, they were only down by a goal. Two-one. At the end of the game, they were down by five. So before we do who wore the crown, I just want to ask, do we include the last two minutes, or do we say, who wore the crown in minute 58? Ooh.

Because. No, you got to do the full body work. Full body work. Answer's the same. All right, guys, it's pretty. No way. It's pretty ugly. But if you live generously, life will treat you royally.

As you know, why not? Why not? I don't even know if I have the full thing in me. Why not pour yourself a crown royal? Because, hey, we're going to talk about who wore the crown. Why not? Where we, with the help of you, recognize one Leaf player each show who gives it their all for the blue and white. Because it's our town, it's our crown, and it's not about what you have, it's about what you give.

and the Leafs sure gave it to the Flyers last night as in a big old two points. I want to go last. Live generously. Life streets are really. Let's get into it. Okay, Steve wants to go last.

I want to go last. All right. All right. Well, I'm going to represent the listeners of this fine show and say that at least through the first two periods, the crown for the Leafs

should go to the post because holy moly, the Flyers could have been up a lot more if a couple of those posts hadn't happened. So I'm going to say the post for the first time ever gets the crown. I can't say that? No, because the post

isn't, it's not, it doesn't count as a shot. It's true. No, a post is it's like you flung it up straight and it hit the ceiling. It's the same thing. Same thing. A post is like hitting the board. It's not, it's not, it's not the net.

It just makes the net. It's not the net, it just makes the net. It's a shot on goal, meaning it had a chance to be a goal. If it hits the post, that means it never had a chance to be a goal. That's why shots that hit the post aren't qualified as shots on goal. It's very logical. If you take a shot, it hits the post, then hits the goalie and goes in, no shot. That's a shot.

No, it's not. It went in the net. Hit the post. It went in the net. It went in the net, so it's a shot. It's a shot. Yeah, but it wasn't a shot. Yes, it went in the net.

It ricocheted into the net. It's a shot. If it hits the post and then it goes in the net, it's a shot on goal. It went in the goal. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. In basketball, if you take a shot. I have time today, Jesse.

That's what we're debating. And it goes off the rim and bounces out. Unlike Kawhi's shot in the second round against Philadelphia last year. That was wonderful. Bounces out. Does it count as a shot? No, it was actually four. Adam.

In basketball, they don't call it shots on rim. They call them shots. If you shoot an air ball, it's a shot. In hockey, we have shots. There are shots. You can qualify shots taken, even if they're missed or hit goal or hit a post. And then there are also shots on goal, which is a smaller stat or a subcategory of shots in general. So let me ask you this.

It's very logical, people. So, Adam, continue. Your crown is shots that missed. Exactly. No, my crown's going to go to Travis Dermott, who through the first two periods, at the very least, the whole team was bad in the third, but the whole first two periods

looked like Travis Dermott at his absolute best. And it looks like Sheldon Keefe is starting to get his talents into the talent that this team has. He knows, it seems, he knew enough about a lot of these players to get them to the NHL, right? He knew enough to develop these guys. So you would think that he would know how to use them at their strengths,

and it seems like we're finally seeing that with Travis Dermott. Dermott's definitely benefited, I would say, the most. Please put him. Please, God, one day, put him with Morgan Rielling. But it's not going to be today. Jesse, your crown. My crown is going to William Nylander. And not for last night's game.

Because no one deserves a crown for last night's game. William Nylander, by the way, a minus three last night. There's a lot of guys who are minus three, and one specifically who said some things post-game that made me very angry. But we'll get to that later. Okay. William Nylander does not deserve a crown for last night because no one on the Leafs did. Whoa. William Nylander deserves the crown for last night because he scored a goal in a game against Detroit last night that happened last week.

Right. So, William Nylander is now given the goal that Andreas Janssen scored in the Detroit game. One of the two. One of the two. So, Janssen had two on the night, they took it away, and now Willie has two on that night. Now Willie has one. I think that's crown worthy. You're playing in another game, and you get a goal credited from your past?

That's some Galaxy brain stuff. Who does that besides Willie? Gretzky didn't do that. Gretzky couldn't do that? No. Only Willy. A week later, he gets a goal. Congratulations, Willy.

Let's not talk about last night. Let's talk about the bonus goals you get. Going at Steve last night was great. They were a bad team. They were friendly about it. No, they were. Legit. All Orange teams are friendly about it when I'm wrong.

For sure. For sure. Yeah. It's funny. When you're noticeably more awful than Flyers fans, maybe pump the brakes. Just a little bit. Maybe it's you. Maybe.

Flyers fans, I love you. You were actually very nice to me. The crown, IMO, I-M-H-O, goes to you. Goes to anybody who made it to the end of that game. You deserve it. You deserve it. You've been watching this team for your entire life, or maybe just for the past year, or maybe at the beginning of this season.

If you started watching the Leafs at the beginning of this season, you've already gone through the entire rolodex of feelings that you can feel complete optimism utter despair renewed optimism renewed despair i what's the ultimate payoff no idea but don't worry that's not part of being a leaf fan being a leaf fan you don't get to experience the happiest thing but you watch anyway you watch to see what robin hood does at the end of the movie there's a deep podcast reference there. You get the crown if you made it to the end of that dog pile. I'm happy

to tell you that my bedtime is far before that, so I cannot make it. And I got to watch the highlights this morning and whoa. I've learned that if you pause a live stream, if you're watching it totally illegally on your laptop, if you pause a live stream and then you just leave

in the morning, you can just hit play and then you just watch the other game. Don't encourage people to do that. Hey, I can watch the game at any time now. No. No, I watch I like to watch the entire replay of ice surfing Would you yeah? So oh, I just I put it on Before Adam goes to bed every night. He told me about this

Adam texted me last laugh Steve what a story Adam texted me last night. He's like FT. I'm like I'm down Yo, he hit me up on FaceTime, and then he's like I gotta I gotta go to bed I really want to watch ice surfing. He's like you know what I mean. I'm gonna show you this little trick It's pause that I said yeah goes to bed this morning. We come to work We have to get to work for 5 a.m. Adam comes in at 4 or he has that extra hour before work so we can play on his ice surfing pause stream So you can watch yeah, you like the stat du jour there Adam

Oh, you don't know the snap du jour. You guys are bullies. What's I serving? Dammit, we work really hard. Stop laughing! I do want to. Stop it! I leave it on pause, and then I set it up on my toilet when I'm in the shower.

Oh my gosh. When I'm in the shower, and I listen to you guys naked. That's great. There's something about you guys saying Yorkie. That's how comfortable we make people feel. I just feel right at home. Do you feel right at home? Yeah, and you just I'm having my shower in the morning. Yep Maybe where I was going with that

Maybe just just scrubbing a little bit here and there Fresh and clean for the morning show and I want to know what happened. I'm able to check with ice surfing That's Adam. How much do you stand ice surfing? Oh, I am. Oh my god I don't even know how do I even scale that you know what I mean? Like, how do I scale that in internet speak? On Twitter, because it's a Twitter show. I'm about to quit this podcast. I'm about to walk out of here.

Who doesn't have a big fandom? Let's say, okay, BTS is like, oh my god, I stan them. Right. And then where's, like, the low bar? The low bar is, like, Kevin Paul Dumont from Boston Globe. Are you a Kevin stan or are you a BTS stan? There were a lot of brain worms on Twitter this week. Oh, my God.

From him, he's on fire. Oh, my God. That's my problem. No, I'm at where, like, Selena Gomez would be, like, top ten, right? I'd be, like, Selena Gomez stan. You'd be, like, Ari is probably in that area. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ari is probably in that area.

I would even put Ari above that. I think her fans are maybe not. Selena Gomez is, like, the most followed person on Instagram, I think. And I don't know why that is, but that seems to be Yeah, I know, I know, I'm not really sure why Ariana Grande's fans are Passionate So you're not quite there with Ice Surfing

You're a little lower than that I'm working my way up, like Ariana Grande's put out like three solid albums in a row We need to Ice Surfing just missed out on being on Bang Bang Instead they chose Jessie J Yeah, exactly, exactly But don't worry, you're gonna put out Good To You And Back To You

and the other songs where she sings basically the same thing. I want to hear you slander! I serve it! Or Jessie J! I meant Selena Gomez. Oh, yeah, no, she's fine. No one cares about that. I don't care.

No, she barely even sings. Listen! And also, you reminded me of something. There was someone, definitely a person having a normal one, who was tweeting at Tara Sloan that, Oh, Hockey Night is all about feminism now. Time to watch the stream off Reddit. Oh, no, no, no.

What a normal take to have. Women are talking, so instead I'm going to steal. I'm going to become a thief because women talk. And that's who won a crown this week. Oh, right. Are we still doing that? Hey, it's brought to you as always by your friends at Crown Royal. Next time the puck drops, why not?

Why not? Steal a live stream. No! Why not follow the law? Why not not be a dick? Why not play in a tied 1-1 game? Why not get upset about people who are just asking you to treat them better? Next time the puck drops, why not live generously and treat your Leafs crew to a Crown Royal old-fashioned

We sure know Steve could use one. Now, Steve's had a rough one. And this is why it's so great that we're in today. Because Steve, after ice surfing last night, went home and three cities over is Whitby from Toronto. Oh, it's poor. And what happened to you in Whitby, Steve, on your way to Schwab? I don't know this story. I put my car in park for half an hour on the highway.

What? Like, I literally put it in park, got out, took my coat off, got back in, stretched out, stretched my neck, stretched my back. In the middle of the highway? On the highway. Because we weren't moving. Oh We were not moving Oh, Jesse, I didn't have a nervous breakdown

I'd get out in the middle of traffic I thought you pulled over and you were like No, Jesse, we gotta wait till At least game 40 for that We're not quite there, we're only at 29 So watch for just after New Year's When I am running naked through Whitby So, there was so much traffic

You were just stalled This would be at 11pm? Like 11, well, what turned into 11.30 They closed a couple lanes And I think there must have been an accident And Yep, they've just been working on Brock Street For forever

Because nothing gets done here ever Nothing gets done It's a bridge, it's a bridge, build the bridge Can I throw out a theory? What? Last night, when you were stuck in traffic You're on your way to your home in Ottawa And it was a Leafs lost 6-1 traffic jam

At 11.30 Do you think the construction workers at 11 had ice surfing on pause and then had just hit play at 11? And we're like, we got to watch ice surfing now. Yo, stop what you're doing. Ice surfing's on. We're so entertaining. Damn it. We got to.

You guys are bullies. You guys are bell bullies. But they could be watching it. Everybody watches ice surfing. What's this new campaign there, boys? Bell, let's bully? What is this? Huh?

What is this belliness going on? All I know is that everybody watches Ice Surfing, so the construction workers could have been watching it. They could have been. They could have hit pause on the live stream. You know what I'm excited about? What are you excited about, Adam? I am so excited about the listeners of this show

and their infinite creativity showing us the various places that they watch Ice Surfing on Twitter. In fact, I'm very excited that they wouldn't use Photoshop at all, ever. But I can't wait for them to tell us and show us through their medium of Twitter and Instagram. I'm putting on my coat

and I'm leaving. I'm putting on my damn coat and I'm walking out of the studio in a while. I don't have to deal with this.

Why are you doing that? I don't have to deal with this. Goodbye. Where did he go? He's very upset. You know, it's a good thing.

We haven't said, there's so much news to get to, but we're going to talk to Ken Reed and Eddie Shack in like, I don't know,

a couple minutes. Yeah, about 15 minutes here. Awesome. So that's going to be fun. Nice, nice. So I know Steve won't be here,

but at least Eddie Shaq and Ken Reed will be. Right, I have to get more cameras. They were on Ice Surfing! That's how I met them! I'm glad I caught it. Yeah, I knew that. Because I never miss Ice Surfing. Is this anyone's first version of the show?

I'm just wondering, is there any point in getting into the Leafs yet? We may have to wait until Eddie Shaq and Ken Reed leave. Because they're going to be here in ten minutes anyway. No, I think we would start. Okay. So let me run through the game with you. Sonata, we got ten minutes to talk about their shit. What do we do with the other nine?

First period, Leafs look good. Okay. Carter Hart looks better. Good. Second period, same story until about halfway through, Kevin Hayes scores. Flyers hit the post like eight times, period ends. Because he was allowed to just walk in to the net. Leafs tie it with 11 minutes to go in the third.

Whoa, okay, we're back in this. And somehow, again, 11 minutes to go in the third, it's 1-1. Remember that the final score is 6-1. So let's get into that. Flyers score a minute after the Leafs do. That's about 10 minutes. It's 2-1. Three minutes to go.

Or, sorry, four minutes to go. Flyers, 3-1. But remember, the final score is 6-1. So we're back. Four minutes, it's 2-1. Three and a half minutes, it's 3-1. 2-08 to go. They get a lob on an empty net, or at least we're trying to tie it up.

4-1. Okay, well, game's over. It's still kind of 3-1. But remember, it's finally, the score is four, six to one. Sorry, the score right now is four to one. The final score will be six to one. 45 seconds left. Shane Goss' pair wires a top shelf, unbelievable goal on the worst Leafs line change I have

seen since line changes existed. Because they don't care. They don't care. They don't care. And then 15 seconds later, so 30 seconds left in the game, James Van Riemsdyk, who never gets on a breakaway, who, I'm sorry, James, is not a fast player and should never be on a breakaway. It was never really fast, and because of his deteriorating health, frankly, he's even slower.

Yeah. He's even slower. But. Breakaway. He's a flash. He was also playing on the fourth line, if you noticed. Seven million bucks. Yep.

Whoa, that's four on. Let's talk about Willie's contract. What a fall. Let's talk about how we should have kept him. Actually, hey, he scored, so. Six to one. Yep. Real good team.

The comment that struck me that everybody was kind of talking about after the game was the Freddie Anderson one. He said, I'm not worried about myself. I'm worried about the guys out there and what crest they're playing for. Freddie Anderson said that. The Matthews is like his best friend. The Matthews one is the one that made me upset. What did the Matthews one say?

Oh, we just kind of, we fooled it. We quit. You're the one who quit. What I said in the video was, who the hell is we? Yeah, you can't say, hey, we quit. We didn't play that hard at the end there. No, it's not we. I want to know why.

You're talking about it. It's not we quit. It's, okay, why did you quit then? That's the follow-up to that. I don't understand how you can just stand there and be like, yeah, we quit. Then don't quit. You might just be bad in your own end. You can't complain about quitting when you're the one doing the quitting.

Just don't do it or tell me why. It didn't make any sense. It was such a bad comment. It was such a bad end of the game because you can clearly see they're not trying. It was very disappointing. You ever do the math and try to think about how long you'd have to work at your current job to make 11.6 million dollars and then think he's going to do it five times like dude i uh i'm sorry uh you need to do more than score goals like he's an elite goal scorer um that's wonderful that's

great um goal scoring is the hardest thing to do in the sport right that's what you pay for bullshit when it's against the leafs it's super easy super easy because we'll just quit and fold and be sad about it you look at travis connect me smiling and punching it guys the leafs don't have anyone who will do that they have they have loser hearts they really do like at the core of this team i'm sorry like they've they've looked better since uh keith joined but then you watch a performance like that and you're like oh no they're gonna get their head dunked in the toilet again and frankly i'm happy it'll happen in mid-april instead of late why delay it for two weeks what's what what are we what are we tiptoeing around it for they suck they're not good they lose

Two good teams And the Flyers are a good team You happy they're Flyers fans I would say They're not ready Not that they're not good For what They're not good enough yet

I still think if you look at the team They're still young enough You don't think Austin Matthews can learn how to win Look how long it took Ovechkin to get a Stanley Cup I still believe They at least won rounds Jesse Yeah but they haven't You're giving them four years in the league.

I'm giving them eight years in the league. I think there's a long runway in professional sports to learn how to win. And you can't do something until you've done it. And then these guys, they just don't know what it takes yet. But I believe that the core is still going to do it one day and figure it out and be like, it'll snap. But I don't think it's come yet. Right now, they look like a bunch of quivering children. Right now, they don't have it, but I feel like they'll get it eventually.

I feel like they're young enough that we need to give them that runway. I admire your optimism. Yeah. But this year, it doesn't look... Right now, it doesn't look like they have it. No, it certainly doesn't. And that's the part that's a little bit scary, right? I'm starting to become a real old man about this.

Throw a punch. Show you care. Show you care at all. You can understand why people are a little ticked, right? You get it. You get it. You understand why people are like, no, that's shitty. This is the older crowd.

You can understand why they're upset. Now, to be fair to the older crowd, they've seen far worse teams than this do far more. And that's the problem. If you look at the Leafs that went on that run that was two years in a row in the early 90s, if you look at the roster beyond Anderchuk, Gilmour, Wendell Clark, Matt Sundin, Kirk Muller, and then Gardner, the talent falls off dramatically. A little bit. And that's the thing, is that they did a lot with a little.

And I feel like the Leafs have a lot, and they're doing a little with it. Ken Reed is here. Okay. And was here 10 minutes ago. We'll come back to him. When you look at the Leafs the way it is, and you said it, Steve, loser hearts. I just wore two cup rings. I know.

It's crazy. I just want to quickly jump on a couple things here. How long are we going to pretend that this Cody Ceci thing is going to happen? Are we done here? Because James Myrtle's tweet last night is scary. Cody CeCe's 5-on-5 results, again, horrendous tonight. I've never seen that before. 13% possession, 1% expected goals, which means what?

When he's on the ice, the Flyers' expected goals goes to what? 99. 7% scoring chances. With him on the ice, and he's the second D in ice time and facing tough competition. CeCe at 41% expected goals on ice since the GM publicly defended him a few weeks ago. Terrible underlying numbers. match terrible eye tests the last 10 games or more? I don't know what the answer here is.

You can't get anything for them. So what's the answer here? The crazy one I keep hoping for, you know, I'm man enough to admit, my stupid little boy superhero dreams. You know how the Blues are sniffing around with the Leafs? Well, the Blues have too many righties, But they probably need a righty back

I know, it's not going to happen But that's my stupid Literally any one Of the right handed defenseman on the post Oh, oh, CeCe and somebody And CeCe plus major sweetener Major, major sweetener To the point where CeCe's obviously not even

Central to the deal Because he's not good I don't know what the answer is Stop playing him, just give up Yeah, I don't understand what Keefe's doing either I know Barry is not a solid defensive defenseman, and Justin Hall is literally on league minimum. So we always say guys making $700,000 are making league minimum. No, Justin Hall is making league minimum.

It's actually less. How much is that? It's like $675,000, something like that. You can't tell me CeCe's better than either of them at defending. You can't. We don't have a solution, but can we start just by getting him off the first parry? Why is that too big of an ask? I don't know.

Maybe they're really trying to get Dermott going. I feel like they have. I think they've done a good job. I think he's probably benefited from Sheldon Keefe maybe more than any other Leaf. That and Tyson Berry. Three goals in three games was pretty nice. But those two don't need to play together. No.

No. I don't care if it's Barry you put with Riley or Dermot or Hall I don't care anyone but this guy but we can't have the referendum well and that's

that's the thing now Steve you always say it and Kyle Dubas was in the middle of one of the worst lowest points the Leafs have had in the last five years when he said this stop saying things but stop talking

And that referendum line Just like, and I have to say this The we can and we will line did come back to haunt him too Stop talking Stop, oh yeah Stop talking unless you're saying what you feel You don't feel that No you don't

I have more faith in you than to believe that you believe that Does Dubas talk too much? Does he do too many No, no, I don't think so It's just, it's always a hit Right? It's very soundbitey Yeah Lou Lamorello would literally give you word dust.

Ross Atkins for the Blue Jays is like talking to anybody that works at an accounting firm. Like he's just the most boring. He might be the worst quote in sports. Yeah. He's the master at deflecting anything. Says nothing. What's the last, and this used to be a big hit on this podcast, what's the last thing you remember Jim Benning saying? That's interesting.

Ooh. He said some stuff. I think if we were in market. If we were in, well, not recently. That's what I'm saying. If we were in market with the Canucks, there'd be some things we could quote. Yeah. If this was a Canucks podcast, we'd probably be quoting him a little bit more.

Maybe. Maybe. But I just feel like he had such hits that it found its way out of market. True. Yeah. It's been like at least a year. Yeah. He hasn't said anything.

Do we want to run down Cody Ceci's time on ice? Not really. All right. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. 20-53. 20-2.

You've got to say the games, like which games. Flyers, 20-53. Tie game almost the whole time. Sabres, 22-54. Tie game almost the whole time. Sabres, 22-34. I think that was close almost the whole time, and they needed a goal at the end.

Red Wings, 19-48. That one they played in the AHL team. Colorado, 26-52. They got shelled and almost blew a 4-1 lead, but he also made the game-saving save, so who the hell am I? Coyotes, 22-54. First game under Keith, winning almost the entire time. That's their shut-down guy.

They will not win a cup. Or a playoff round, or make the playoffs. They might if they just say screw it, throw him through waivers, put him down to the Marlies, and say forget it. And then they bring up... anyone Sandin anyone

yeah Sandin here say a name from the Marlies you're right he's bad he's bad and I keep seeing some people go

oh well he's third pair stop the Leafs defense is strange because in in terms of their forwards

with the exception of Patrick Marleau it has been a bit of a meritocracy meaning that like you're you get to you get your ice time

based on merits especially for the younger guys whereas in the Leafs defense in the last 3-4 years it's been whatever the fuck we want and I don't care if it's not working, we're going to do it anyway and I don't understand that

I don't get, like Sheldon Keefe knows, Kyle Dubas knows, there has to be a long term strategy here with Cody Ceci that they'll never say publicly they pumped and dumped they did, I mean I think that's pretty clear now

that was a wonderful trade Wonderful trade. And I wonder if they were trying to do the same with CeCe, but I don't think he's capable. Like, I just don't think he's an effective player. No. Period. And it's...

Adam, what's with this referendum? Well, the referendum is that he's not good, and we can't figure out why the hell he's not playing. Or why the hell he's playing. They're trying to pump up the basketball, but there's a hole in it, so it's not taking any air. And I wonder, Jesse, if part of that is they want to get to 35, 40 games into the season

before they start bringing the younger guys up. That's what I wonder. If they're like, you know what, just give them half a goddamn season with the Marlies. If that was the case, great. Just tell me. You don't have to tell me you're sending CeCe down. Just tell me, well, the plan with those guys is hopefully to bring them up, assuming they don't get hurt.

Lilligren, that was the plan with him last year before he got hurt. I'll literally settle for not top pair. That's the bar. Can you tiptoe over that bar, guys? I would really enjoy it. i i just i don't know i well i said in the lfr today which maybe you haven't seen yet because you were too busy watching ice surfing is uh i climate change is real the sea sea levels are rising humanity is in danger and and water levels are going to start wiping out entire cityscapes

but then someone brilliant is going to come up with a great idea and we're going to save the world and we're gonna reverse climate change but then because god mocks us all an asteroid will fall down from the heavens plummet into the middle of the planet destroying all forms of life except for riley cc that pairing will still exist it feels like there's no hope there's no hope and i we're back to this at least they're four and two in the last six and we're back to this Sorry, it feels like there's no hope Yeah, they're 4-2 Sheldon Keefe's first loss with Freddie Anderson

As his goalie, right? Their record with Freddie is actually so good Yeah, and do we know They're clearly a playoff team You can't say after one loss there's no hope No, but Okay, if they keep going with that pair Tuck it in

Jesse, they're not winning a single thing with that pair They're not No, he's not wrong You're right You're going up against Boston with that? You're going to get killed. But I don't think they will. Yeah.

I don't think that's the pairing come playoffs time, and I think that's fair. I'm trying to picture it, and I can't. It's the Marlies. I think what Adam said, there's something they were not privy to that's going on behind the scenes. So they had a strategy coming in, whether it was to pump him up, or maybe they believed in some sort of analytics that he was better than this, or if there's just some other kind of strategy with the young kids. It's going to develop, and I think it'll be fine.

And as far as the referendum comment goes, I think about it a lot, and I think about how every show is a referendum every show we do is a referendum on whether or not we're good

every game they play is a referendum on whether or not they're good guess what you're in Toronto baby this is what it looks like sorry it's hard

yeah yeah and Dubas sorry but Dubas said later on like he said in subsequent press conferences

you know that's sort of what you sign up for here yeah yeah but don't throw the referendum comment out too like I would

I would say to Kyle Dubas if he was here Would you like to take that back? Because you know that we're not stupid. And he'd say no. Yeah, I don't know. I think he might. He's a pretty honest guy.

I think in this case, he can't. What's he supposed to say with CeCe? He can't. Nothing. He can't crush him. Nothing. You don't have to say anything. They asked him about him.

He can't say nothing. Lou Lamorello was great at just barfing words in microphones. Important and valuable member of the team. Yep. Yeah, he could have went with the Ross Atkins approach and said, complete garbage. Could have. I would have respected it more. All right, fair enough. Fair enough.

Leafs lost Nick Shore to Winnipeg today. We're not totally sure why, but they've got a couple injured centers. Wavers. Yeah, well, and they're not even the only team to put a claim in, says Chris Johnston. So if Winnipeg didn't get him, someone else would have. Now, it's kind of not the best for their, when you talk about depth and stuff for the playoffs in case there's injuries and that sort of thing. But what it did mean was Nick Patan went down today. So did Martin Marincin. Mitch Marner is activated for tonight.

Will play against the Avalanche. And big boon for Pierre Engvall, who may not be able to stick with the team once, who else is coming back? Trevor Moore. Trevor Moore is back. But Trevor Moore, according to CapFriendly, they're like, we're assuming he's on an LTIR. We don't have any confirmation of that. But when Trevor Moore is back, there are a lot of people debating whether or not he should be playing at all based on how good Pierre Engvall's been.

It's well and it's interesting. I don't, Pierre Engvall is completely different from Trevor Moore. They're both really energetic. One is an actual giraffe. The other is more of a warthog, kind of plays like that with the big butt. And I think he led the team in hits, probably leads the team in hits per game, which is ridiculous. I look at Dmitry Timoshev as far more of a Trevor Moore type of guy, right? So really you're choosing between those two.

Okay. And then you've got to decide any given night, do I want Engvall in the lineup or do I want one of Timoshev or Moore? I would think Trevor Moore gets the gig over Timoshev. I think he provides something the Leafs lack. Timoshev's got a bomb. He's got a really good bomb. And we saw that with his second goal of the year there. But he's not quite as tenacious.

He's not quite as likely to score a dirty goal in front of the net, which they lack so badly. So really, to me, it comes down to more of a second goal. Well, and what about Gauthier? What about him? Guaranteed lineup spot. Does it have to be? No, but yeah. Until they prove it's not. Right? Until they prove it's not.

They got him killing penalties now, and the penalty kill. You know what? Since Mike Babcock got fired, it is undeniable that their penalty kill has been better. Yes, no question. So that's been good, and he's been part of that. But you know what? So is Engvall. So if Moore comes back, he's got to be part of the penalty kill, or I don't really see much of a point.

Right. And was he before? He seems like the type of guy that would be perfect for it. He was, well, we're going to get a better idea tonight. assuming they put Mitch Marner on the penalty kill. Because Trevor Moore was always, like, penalty killer number five. So, like, if someone got hurt or was taken a penalty, he'd be in there. Now I assume it's Engvall.

So I'd be a little surprised to see Engvall on the penalty kill tonight. I don't know. Do we have the Lions for tonight? No, that was a weird thing. They had no morning skate. Yeah, they didn't have a morning skate. So we didn't know if Marner was playing tonight until Leafs PR tweeted that, Who was it, Patan, and who else got sent down?

Marincin? Yes, yep And also Mason Marchment was activated from the IR Which I did not know I guess he got hurt in camp and they loaned him to the Marlies as well The Marlies are frigging good And by the way, for anyone too concerned about Nick Shore Which I think was approximately none of you

Adam Brooks, Prairie Jesus, Prairie Jesus, there it is He's been really good for the Marlies so I don't think they would hesitate to call him up. Interesting. We've had some updates on Mike Babcock since the last show. And Mark Crawford. Yeah, and Mark Crawford. We're going to get to Mike Babcock first because we are a Leafs podcast first and foremost.

But there's more that Elliott Friedman has just added because he just released 31 Thoughts. So I'm going to start with Chris Chelios. Oh, today? Oh, geez. So I'm going to start with Chris Chelios. On Spitting Chicklets. Yeah, he was on chiclets, and he was saying, this is the best headline, when Mike Babcock benches you at the Winter Classic in front of your friends and family, might as well drink some beers.

His two boys were handing him beers the entire time. Now, when they asked him about Babcock, he said he tried to healthy scratch me at the outdoor game in Wrigley Field against Chicago because he knew it was my hometown, just things that were so unnecessary when he talked about how difficult it was. Whitney said, hey, when you say tried to scratch you, and, you know, what did you say? like no chance and he said oh uh oh well trust me i will say kenny holland and jim nill for three days argued with him so what babs ended up doing is he suited up 70 for the first time ever first and last time he suited up 70 put anders lilia in the lineup and played me the opening shift and

then didn't play me another shift for the rest of the game that was his way of you know showing kenny and now and jim nill he's not going to be told what to do and again you know it's funny I'm sitting there, second period My two sons were about 40 feet Sitting on the boards And they're looking at me going, what's going on? And I look at them, I tip my glass A cup, to get me a beer

So the boys were handing me beers the whole game And then McCrimmon tried to get me to go out there With a minute left to kill a penalty And I said, not a chance And also, you know what Chelios, his original assignment Was in Detroit They're like, you're going to babysit Brett Lebda

like you're you're gonna be the guy who makes sure brett lebda has a good game out there so the jason's fun chris so the jason spezza thing when people did make a big stink of it they were right he's a nightmare he's a nightmare like i i frankie corrado has retweeted a few things recently that are interesting i would wonder what peter holland would have to say i was just about to say peter holland i there's a bunch of guys still playing frankie corrado i think is still sniffing for an nhl contract peter hall and i want to say was in europe most recently there's there's a bunch of there's a bunch of guys looking for it now chelios it's a little bit more playful at least right yeah dickish right he hasn't committed any crimes no right like we're

we're uh the comparison between babcock and peters ends that they both sound like not so great people yes uh very different degrees of what they're being accused of the johan franzen stuff which is where i'm going to get to is nightmarish so what what chelio said was that essentially mike babcock would pick favorites and pick guys to pick on and johan friends and happen to be one of these guys but he wasn't until a couple guys left and then it was like All right, it's Johan's turn. Right. He's got to have guys to abuse, I guess.

And apparently it started in the playoffs one year, especially against Nashville. This is what Chelios said, and then I'm going to read you the Franz in translation from the Swedish newspaper. And essentially they were in the second round, I believe, of the playoffs. The incident happened 2012 first round game five versus Nashville when Nashville eliminated Detroit. Okay. So Chelios said, basically, he abused him so badly that he had a nervous breakdown. Jonan Franzen. Now, I had one of our listeners, Anton Helgren, Helgren30 on Twitter, who's from Sweden.

He reached out and said, hey, did you see this interview? And I said, can you translate it for me? Because Google Translate doesn't work that well. And he was actually, I think he was one of the guys that reached out to when a couple of our tweets were featured in that, in this big Swedish newspaper a couple weeks ago. Oh, Expressen. Yeah, about Mike Babcock. So I believe this was an Expressen interview.

And anyway, yeah, it's Sport Expressen. And here's what Johan Frenzen said, and this is a direct translation. Thank you to Anton for doing this. I get chills thinking about it. That was against Nashville in the playoffs. It was rough, nasty, and shocking, but it was one of a hundred things he did,

you know, the tip of the iceberg. And then the interviewer says, how would you describe him as a coach and as a person? As a coach, he's extremely detailed and prepared. He's great at putting together a system and getting everybody to buy in. That's his strong side. But then he's a terrible human being. The worst person I've met.

A bully that went at people. It could be cleaners at the arena in Detroit or anybody else. He jumped on people just because. Let me jump in there. The cleaners thing. Let me jump in there. Yeah. You can't just

It's not just NHL stars Who are going to speak up if you're an asshole Let me just put it that way I've gotten a bunch of messages From Toronto Really? Not fans In arena

Can I also shout out Simon At Trendy Macro who did the exact same thing In my DMs He translated the entire interview From Swedish to English So thank you to him as well for doing that That's amazing, well thank you for doing that So the interview continues.

Do you remember when it started? He was on some other players before me, the kind team players, like guys who were nice, the ones who didn't say much. When they disappeared, the energy switched over to me, and I had to take a good round of that from him. It was verbal attacks, terrible things he said. And then the interview goes, Johan Fransen won't go in on exactly what he said, But the Canadians' words affected Franz in no doubt, as in Canadian, as in Mike Babcock. Since 2011, I've been terrified of being at the rink. My only focus was getting up in the mornings.

That's when he targeted me for the first time. And last year was the first time I slept naturally since those days. Wow. That's unreal. And he had the post-concussion and everything. He gets nightmares from this. What was really distinct to me from the Chelios interview is he was talking about Mike Keenan, who was like... Radsky hated Mike Keenan. There's an example.

Keenan, the ass coach. But he also talked about how players would attack him physically if Keenan really got on their nerves. But the way he talks about Keenan's little offenses is he kind of laughs about them. I haven't heard anyone like, ah, yeah, Babs. No. It's personal. Yeah. There's a push, and then it gets personal, right?

And I think he takes it personal. And one thing about Chelios' comments, with the Franzen incident, he wasn't on the team at the time. Right. Which he didn't specify in the interview. So some people were a little confused about the timelines and how he knows exactly what went down. I've got something about that from Elliot, by the way, just to clarify that. So this came out during the show. Yeah, so Chris Chelios' spit-and-chicklets interview about Babcock

had some confusing timelines because when the Johan Fransson incident occurred, Chelios was no longer on the Red Wings. He referenced a meeting with Ken Holland, who he had with the players, and Ken Holland at that point said, if you've got a problem with the coach, come see me, I'll trade you. Oh, it makes Ken Holland look terrible. Where the GM defended the coach, and Chelios said apparently it was a good speech. Again, he would not have been in the room at this point.

And then Friedman goes on to say, I think this has to do with Marty McSorley. McSorley worked on the San Jose Sharks broadcast and said none of the Red Wings players liked playing for Babcock. Word got back to Detroit reporters who asked Holland about it. The current Edmonton GM declined to discuss this,

but did speak to the Detroit Free Press's Helen St. James about the Franzen incident. What I heard is Holland didn't like how players gave McSorley that information and told them if they wanted to say something to him or be traded, they could meet him privately in his office. and he would keep those conversations secret.

I don't believe anyone asked for a way out. McSorley left his Sharks TV role following the 2006-07 series. Anyway, just some clarity on that situation. Now, let's continue with this interview. There were more nightmares, according to the interviewer. He said, it was just, this is Franzen,

it was just insults that kept playing in my head every day. But I got good help with those obsessive thoughts during a three-week stay at a center in Colorado last year. It was me and a group of veterans who had also suffered from concussions and PTSD. Johan Fronsen describes Mike Babcock

as a hockey coach with two faces. Says he was a specialist in handling the media. He creates teams that are very hard to beat. You can't take anything away from him. But he makes players very anxious. They're terrified of making mistakes and his teams rarely advance past the first round. Last question.

How do you feel when these things are made public? uh franzen he is surely getting a new job somewhere but hopefully this maybe calms down his behavior so let's get affected that's well here's what friedman had to say time heals a lot but like that's a tough look if you're the next team to employ mike babcock number two on 31 thoughts maybe the most impossible question to answer is mike babcock's future when he was fired the word was that at least two teams privately reached out to gauge his interest in coaching right away only to be told he preferred to take some time i heard from russia that there was khl interest well yeah he's not either as a coach or a consultant you know he's not there were rumors

he'd be offered a world junior role not as a coach but an advisory position uh or the head coach for the world championships then came the avalanche and now that's all in doubt um so one of the things i have heard from coaches is that they're two different people uh some coaches anyway the one at the rink and the one away from it away from the rink i saw firsthand how he dedicated time to people's mental health but that two-person approach no longer works and it's not in a it's not a defense for anything that happens at your workplace and that's true like you can't that's the problem is that like you know mike did a lot of great things for bell let's talk and and a ton of different initiatives and it's such a shame that that

like how could how can you disconnect those two and if you watch the way the leafs played at the time before he was let go they were terrified to do anything like you could tell they just didn't know what to do what's a mistake here i don't even know what a mistake is especially the what should what's the most obvious choice okay I gotta do something else yeah what am I

yeah how am I going to not get screwed over for this in the video room later that's essentially it you know yeah that's all it is

and then and then that second hesitation you've blown the play you need to know exactly what to do and when and not freak people out now Mark Crawford's the other guy

he's uh it was announced in the middle of uh I guess our last two shows that he is away from the Hawks they announced this while they look into the allegations that he physically assaulted players. Brent Sopal, about a year ago, said he kicked him.

Sopal said he was kicked by Crawford, let me specify. Patrick O'Sullivan said that Crawford was awful to him. He wrote about it in his book, and he said in the tweet, I look forward to being a part of that investigation. So I'm assuming that he's like, you better reach out to me. So that's Patrick O'Sullivan and Brent Sopal, both of which told their story publicly at least a year ago. Yeah.

Sean Avery said, he kicked me too, But then he put it in a video and he said, yeah, he kicked me and he probably should have spit on me. I was dumb and an asshole. And so Sean Avery obviously really loved Crawford and says that in the video. Yeah. What a confusing guy. Yeah, he is. I can't read him at all.

No, I don't know where he's going to go. I don't take much from what he says. Yeah. Because there's so, I feel like there's so much going on. So many different angles. So many hidden agendas. I don't know if they're hidden agendas, but like so many different angles. Yeah.

Is this, like, he goes and chirps at people, and, like, a couple of them made me laugh. And then, like, you keep clicking, and I'm like, now he's just accosting homeless people. Like, what's wrong with you? You're a millionaire. Right. Messed up. So it's weird when you hear someone like that speak up, but then also take kind of both sides on the issue. Well, and then, you know, some people went, well, it was friggin' Shawnee.

Well, yeah, but you're not allowed to punch and kick him either. Right. Which is, it's amazing you need to say that, but. You know, I get it. I get it. Paul Bissonnette said something very interesting near the beginning of that episode. And that was what he thought about Dan Carcillo's approach to this whole thing. And what did he say?

Basically, he said, you know, he likes the essence, I think, of what he's trying to do. He does not like the way he's going about it. um sort of vigilante justice and what he basically said was he's he's he wonders if carcillo is um willing to tell the whole truth now what the hell does that mean and i i think that's what prompted carcillo to then go on i think it was a four-part tweet thread where he's like i've you know i've been racist i've been homophobic and and all that and and i don't know it's really interesting because i don't know all the stuff's coming out about crawford now like what what's next like as as a fan who hasn't been involved you know i'm not in

the locker room seeing people get yelled at or i'm not part of all these stories i'm like i just don't know i'm just gonna sit here and wait for what happens next because i really have no idea but like you know we sort of talked about redemption on the last show and like if stuff does come out about like carcelo for example i mean he's so far he's had a pretty nice redemption arc right so i guess it depends i think dan's got the receipts man i mean the one thing i'll say and you could disagree with the methods i don't know what the right method for this is but i could sure as heck tell you that it's not the nhlpa and whatever we were doing before i mean the fact that somebody came and lou is going to get on national television

if he doesn't tweet oh no 100 not and and so what dan is doing is what dan is doing what dan feels is right the one thing i'll say about dan is dan went to rehab dan fully admits all this stuff and um and beyond the the brain damage aspect and and how he was treating all that stuff dan is a guy that went and got help and has continued to and fully admits to and cops to what what it was that he did so in that regard the redemption comes from owning your past failures and going i went i got help i see what was wrong i see why it was wrong and at that point like it's not it's not that it takes away what happened because he he did some awful things but he at he at least has the whole thing is about life is that it's about growth right and i think in dan's

case man if there's anybody that's got the like you talk about bill peters or mike babcock or and i don't lump them in together steve simmons put the post the stupid article this week about how people are conflating the two which nobody is conflating the two nobody thinks that bill peters and mike babcock are even similar nobody but but what steve did was he he took a little piece of what akima lu said can he be stevie little stevie he's stevie he doesn't get steve i'm steve yeah okay fine stevie what what stevie said was that you know it was it was sort of like that there's a comparison between the two made and it started with akima lu and akima lu said well that's you You know, Mike Babcock's protege, Bill Peters, not surprised, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Nobody, and not even Akeem Alou, made that connection. No one thinks Mike Babcock is beyond coaching again. I mean, I'm sure there are people that think that. Bill Peters might not. I don't think Bill Peters is going to coach in the NHL again, guys. No. Unless you go and you do, I went to anger management. I apologize.

I did some shit in the community. I took a few years off. Come back as an assistant. yeah maybe a scout quiet humble right you know and and honestly if you're an nhl player do you sign with a team that employs mike babcock or bill especially bill peters but my babcock right now no i don't think so and so i i think i think that at least at least in dan's case and i say this as somebody we had him on the show i don't know dan beyond the time we had him on the show um but at least he's got the receipts to say i went and got help bill peters never went

and got help bill peters his apology was a joke even though it was a lawyer's apology and we understand we understand why he's trying to protect his client it's nothing but it's nothing it means nothing yeah and he could have fully said fuck the law and the lawyers and everything involved and just outright apologized he chose not to do that so he could have issued another one after right then he still hasn't done that he could do that now he could do that now contract sign like the the out clause whatever whatever with calgary's not the head coach anymore like where's the apology yeah yeah i don't know yeah and he didn't even mention akimalu no in the thing and now that was a lawyer thing but now you come out and you say okay now that the lawyer thing's

out of the way let me just tell you how i really feel right um interesting too nobody's heard from mike babcock and i'm interested you know he always talks about how um and ryan was it ryan strickland that said that mike babcock accosted him and had him pinned against the wall and andy strickland andy strickland who's a reporter yeah uh said that you know he'd written a story about him and mike came after him and pinned him against the wall was super pissed about it and mike's a big guy on talking about how he doesn't read media reports maybe that's why um but i'm wondering where Mike Babcock's at on this. If you're him, do you talk?

Do you do an interview, or do you just hope it passes? Guy shit. I hate guy shit, man. What do you mean? The pinning against the wall. Sorry, I'm getting mad. So, I like to think I have relatively

big guy privilege. So, you know what I mean? So, well, as I look at someone who's seven inches taller than me, um but like if like i hear so many of these stories yeah and you know the you know the twitter meme well i would just simply i'd simply punch you in the fucking mouth you pin me against a wall are you kidding me i'll deck you i'll bench press your dad like i said before but you know it's easier said than done it's way easier said than done if he punches mike babcock

The story is reporter punches Mike Babcock Right And the reporter knows that But like I don't know That whole shtick about Running around the arena In his Babcock in his coconut water

In his John Arbuckle socks Like you're a bag of bones Don't pin me against the wall You're an old man I'll deck you Sorry I hear that and I get so mad Yeah but you're sitting here challenging Mike Babcock

through a fictitious fight. Yeah, no, in a fictitious scenario. Oh my god, KSI versus Logan Paul. Tango, Babcock. Let's get ready to rumble. Can we sell out

the Staples Center? Oh, yes. No, Tribute Community Center in Oshawa. We could. No, I hear stories about people getting bullied and then getting mad.

And the fight is who can emotionally destroy each other quickest. It's just a dis-off. mentally battling each other. Your mother jokes. Listen, Mike's not the coach anymore.

His psychological damage, it's peaked with me. And he did speak after the Marner News came out. He texted LeBron, and then he got his word out through that. But since that, he hasn't said anything. Okay, so now that we've discussed all that. Sorry, last time I got pinned against the wall was a long time ago. It hasn't happened since. Mark Crawford.

But Mark Crawford's interesting because there are, with the exception of Sean Avery, who we, I don't know, you can't count him one way or the other. You just don't, I don't understand that guy. Yeah. But where's the win for the Blackhawks if Mark Crawford keeps his job? I guess they think he's a really good assistant coach. They're an already bad team. Yeah.

Or okay team. Maybe. They're okay. Like, and there's another one, like, what's his redemption arc? Like, a lot of this. I think the redemption arc's easy. You go. well it's not easy

the road's not easy but you go and get help like yeah the Blackhawks are like second last in the Western Conference you need Mark Crawford

that badly to be bad yeah the distinct thing with the Peters and Babcock is a lot of the

things being said about them are very recent whereas Crawford there was the Bertuzzi thing that he was involved in 20 years ago

but that was a while ago 2003 one of the one of the players who spoke up is Patrick O'Sullivan. That was a long time ago, too.

Sean Avery, that was a long time ago. Brent Sopel. Brent Sopel's probably the most recent, but then there was another one last night coming out of Newfoundland, Harold Drukin. Oh, from Vancouver. Yes, which would have been, again, probably in the early 2000s.

I missed that. I can't remember. There's so much. Yeah. There's so much. So, interesting things. Now, we did have another coach let go last night, and I want to ask you this.

Did New Jersey fire their head coach because they could not get a good goaltender this offseason? Yes. That's what happened, right? And Ray Shero, the players also didn't show up. But their 5-on-5 save percentage is like 897. It's really bad. You're just never going to make the playoffs with that. You will never make the playoffs with that.

Ray Shero spent his bullet. Like with Dubas, it's interesting. I feel like the onus kind of falls on the players. um you know and you can tell you can tell in their stress level the way they talked after that loss to philly they're like oh fuck like that's us yeah we got our guy ding dong the witch is dead and we and we laid an egg and that was us with the devils i'm like man you overturned your whole damn roster and you're on the verge of losing taylor hall and you just got suban at $9 million, the full $9 million,

and he is not P.K. Subban anymore. Like, can we talk about that? Can we have a frank discussion about that? Do you guys know how many points P.K. Subban has this season? In how many games? He's played 27 games. I'm going to say six. I'll say ten.

Five. Do you know how many goals Taylor Hall has? He doesn't have very many. I think he's spending money this year. How many goals, Adam? 6 I take back what I said About him making more

Than McDavid That's not happening I don't know 8 4 Oh He's got less than Kerfoot Nobody on the lineup

Showing up Wow Oh my Yeah so the roster's Been built like a bag of shit Right Gustav also was their Big offseason pickup

No good Wayne Simmons How many goals Gustav has And Wayne Simmons Wayne Simmons 11 points That's okay 27 games

That's decent for Wayne Simmons At this age And the role he plays And the injuries he's had. That's okay. That's okay. What's Gusev got? He wasn't cheap.

Gusev, 12 points, five goals, seven assists. We're just looking at points here, but I don't know. Okay, so that. But yeah, the goaltending. But, okay, so maybe the lineup was a mess. But you can't tell me, even if those guys were performing, that New Jersey's even in, like, I'm sorry. The goaltending was always the problem. Yeah.

So maybe they score some goals, and they're up where the Tampa Bay, the Leafs, and the Rangers are, which is 4, 5, and 6 out of the wild card. Let's be honest here. Maybe that gets New Jersey 4 or 5 more points in the standings currently. That still only puts them at 27, 28 points, which is still out of the playoff picture. The problem was always going to be goaltending, and they didn't do it. They didn't find it. What?

Taylor Hall ain't coming back. No, he's on another team by February. They're going to trade him. Yeah. They're for sure going to trade him. So I think, I don't know, I think you're an operation. You give Nasruddin half a dozen games, see what he can do. Or I guess, you know what, give him until January 1st.

And if you don't even look like you're turning around, last night wasn't very good, blow it up. Blow the whole damn thing up and then Shiro is gone. The weird thing about all that, too, and I feel bad for Nasruddin because he found out. And Horacek. Yeah, and Horacek. He found out he was going to be a coach, a head coach, three hours before the game. They fired him three hours before the game, guys. That, to me, is not a sign of a functional organization.

So the story there is a report came out, and they're like, well, we were going to do it later, but since the report came out, now we've got to do it. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. No. Unless Hines goes, fuck you and quits. What you could have done is do it the night before.

Yes. They weren't playing. You could have done it earlier. You could have done it later. You could have done anything but what you did. But instead, you were like, have fun, everyone, and you just burned two points. The move was not what you did. It was a terrible decision all around.

And so I wonder about New Jersey because they seem miserable and dysfunctional. And it's funny because that organization was very well run for a long time, run as like a tight, tight ship with Louie Amarillo. It's weird, right? It is. It's weird to see the Devils not... I'm just used to... Because of how I grew up, I'm used to the Devils always competing. And look at the Islanders.

Damn it. Yeah. Tight. And again, you look at the roster on paper, and you go, alright. They're good. Good parts. They're not fucking... What was it? 17 straight?

Good? They're, man. 18-6 good. They're 18-6. Come on. Who's the one who beat them last night? Montreal. Snapping their eight-game losing streak.

They played really well last night. Montreal needed that. That's a great combination of two trends meeting and reversing. Yeah. Hey, we don't even know who's starting the Leaf game tonight, by the way. It could be Anderson. Nope. They said, what was it?

Hutchison was out skating around. So, yeah, so usually that means that Anderson might start. Yeah. Because he wasn't out there? Listen. I don't know. Why not, man? Do that once, maybe twice.

Get another goalie. Yeah. Get another goalie. Holy shit. This is bad. This is bad. And I saw there was a chart. Was it Sean Tierney?

It said Hutchison has actually faced the most difficult shot quality in the league. Stopped less than five goals. Once. Oh, man. Sorry. No. The Sabres one? Sorry.

No. That's one where I've got to be like, I know what I saw. Right. Listen, I don't disregard the numbers, but I know what I saw. Sorry. Like, I know your eyes are dirty liars, but I know what I saw. At what game level does it become, oh, those are just the numbers? Yeah.

Like, how certain guys have higher shooting percentages because they're fucking sick. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, that's unsustainable. You know, he's too high. Maybe he's good. Stop waiting for Patrick Laine to regress to 9%. He's not going to.

He's not human. No, maybe he shoots and he's good. To be fair, most experts in analytics in hockey would agree. There are people, though, that are like, well, I think that's a great thing with numbers, is that they're an amazing tool, but they can be interpreted a million different ways. I don't think at this point that there's a logical argument to Michael Hutchinson other than the fact that they don't have any other option. They've got nothing else.

And they lost the contract today with Shore, but they still had to get more on LTIR because they were $700,000 over the cap. Listen, you got your coach. He's willing to work with you. you have ridiculous wing depth you got a few options at center um you know you got a couple guys in the minors who can play d for you including morinchen who can be a spare option make a move make it doesn't have to be right away relatively soon would be nice you know the mission who's the guy you target goalie who stops pucks right hand defender better than cc

Like, you're playing on rookie mode. But with the cap, you're not. The right-handed defenseman is in the organization. Lilligren? I think you move Hall up and you split Lilligren. Is he the answer? I think he's a better answer. Yeah.

I'm not asking for Lilligren to come in and win a fucking Norris trophy. I'm asking him to be better than... Yeah, move Justin Hall up who deserves it. Don't tell me that Justin Hall doesn't deserve it. Okay. Let's do this. Riley Berry. Dermott

on the right of Muzzin Sure I don't know and Sandin Lilligren Steve, not hard You could have listed those names in any order as long as CeCe was out of the top four

It's fine Who cares? You can't have him playing 15 minutes a night I don't mind him so much on the penalty kill Give him his little penalty kill minutes Have him on the third pair. He played 26 minutes four nights ago. That's too much.

He played 20 last night. I don't get it. What the hell is that? Mackenzie Blackwood, by the way, has a better save percentage than Michael Hutcherson. Barely. Well, good for him. Blackwood's at 896. Hutcherson's at 876.

Mackenzie Blackwood, you know what? Grading on a devil's curve, I bet on any other team he's sick. Or he's going to be something. They're probably selling soon, so. You think so? Randy Anderson will start according to Daily Faceoff that was just announced. Oh. You think Mackenzie Blackwood would be a better goalie on a different team?

He's got what it takes. I think he's got what it takes, and he's kept the Devils in some games they should have lost. Well, and he's also not played well. He's under 900. He's a Devils goalie. Devils goalie. You got to, I don't know. All right.

We'll acquire Louis Domingue. that will solve every five goals in one period oh my god yeah I gotta roll

yeah I'm sorry to wrap it up because I'm running out of time with my babysitter so that's fair so I gotta leave

so I can be home and be a parent but we love you guys thank you so much for listening thank you to Eddie Shack and to Ken Reed for being on

we'll be back Sunday we'll see how the Leafs do tonight in Colorado ooh you said lose there Leafs do I say Loofs. Go Loofs!

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