The Steve Dangle Podcast - Victory Babies | January 14, 2021

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Celebrate with Frosted Flakes! (00:00), who wore the Crown?! (03:00), the Leafs beat the Canadiens in OT (12:30), Ian Mendes joins the show to talk about Eugene and the Sens (21:00), little more on the Leafs v Canadiens (37:00), Oilers vs Canucks (38:00), Cody Ceci's debut with the Pens (45:00), the Panthers have fallen out of favour with Keith Yandle (56:30), the Stars have a COVID outbreak (1:00:30), Dubois wants out of Columbus (1:10:00), Dom Luszczyszyn joins the show to talk about numbers (1:20:00), and the press conference: Frederik Andersen, Toronto Media on the Leafs, & Victory Babies! (1:37:00). Originally aired: January 14, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/MZebH-nZ97w Visit this episode's sponsors: https://www.bluenile.com/ca/ https://www.netgear.com/ We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake it's us and it's you and welcome to the first episode of a new season everybody all right now before we get to anything we got to bring back an old friend our good buddy tony the tiger personal friend great personal friend anthony the tiger johnson so as you know we uh in the fall did a bunch of uh goals of the week and then we had steve kind of reach back into the vault but because we want to focus on the future we're mostly just going to do goals of the week so far and so steve i mean we're going to pull from last night's Leafs halves game tell us about your favorite goal the one that made you and probably

Tony scream out loud in your living room well uh the overtime goal is the easy one so I'm not gonna pick it why would I ever do that have I ever done anything the easy way no uh so what I'm gonna go with is a goal that I think is going to be a sign of things to come in this Leafs season and something that they can build on and that's the first goal of the season John Tavares off the face off nylander to hall to nylander goal it wasn't just the shot and it and how good it was it wasn't just that willie seems to have added a slap shot to uh his little bag of toys that was a bit of a half clapper it's how difficult the leafs are how heavy they are in front of the net we talk about toughness and it's far too general we think about it as hits we think about it as fighting

no you just got to be unpleasant to play against in front of the net the leaf shot under three percent in their five game series against the columbus blue jackets you can just say oh well it's goaltending it'll bite you or you can make it difficult on the goaltender which is what the leaves did last night and it's what they did on this goal john tavaris and jimmy vc wreaking havoc willie with the snipe and to me that's my celly of the week friends that's your celly Celebrate with Frosted Flakes. Adam, don't interrupt Tony. Celebrate with Frosted Flakes.

You cut Jesse off. I'm not letting you cut off Tony. I know. I know. Who cares what Tony's picks are either? You know what I'm saying? He is a 700-pound Sumatran tiger, Adam. He's still not playing goal with the Leafs.

I'm sorry, defense with the Leafs. I'm upset. Probably should be. also i think he's i think he was offside just throwing that out there for anybody who remembers first of all he was second of all lou would have signed him that's true very very true definitely would have another segment we're going to bring back because it is the start of the season and this one goes unsponsored there was a sponsor with this at one point and the reason we built this feature is because the sponsor was coming on board however the sponsor is not here

the feature though people have been asking about it yeah let's bring back we don't care just we Yeah, we don't care what the hell we do. I would like to make up a sponsor each episode. Okay. All right. Well, then, let's start with who wore the crown? Jesse Blake, sponsored by? Dryer Sheets.

Dryer Sheets are an underrated invention. You need them every time you dry your clothes to avoid the wrinkles. And they go unappreciated. I'm so happy that they came on board this episode to sponsor the segment. Just all Dryer Sheets. all of our sheets yeah wow yeah but we're making so much money off this guys it's just crazy we're so wealthy even the dryer sheets that like when you put on a shirt you find one in your shirt and you're like hey dryer sheet hey hey i see you in there doing your work i see you i see you

putting in work dryer sheet that's crazy that you got all the way in there thank you for drawing that particular portion of my garment of clothing now um who wore the crown uh i'm gonna go jesse last on this one and and the reason i'm going to do that is because i feel like he might have the best answer so i'm going to start with steve steve you're our lead off batter tell us who wore the crown for you for the toronto maple leafs last night in montreal or in toronto against montreal i i i cannot do that for you adam i can't um because i can't focus until you you got to put the pins up there buddy what kind of bowling alley is this you got to put the pins up What do you mean? I'm dying to say it, and you won't let me say it.

What? What? Jesse, you know what- Jesse, what am I missing? Do you not know? I don't know the- I have no idea what you're talking about. Adam, it's two words that I need to say. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yes. No, dryer sheets, that is not their category.

No, I will die mad about it if you don't let me say it. You know what? Why not add some dryer sheets to your laundry? okay jesse you work in the sponsor i'll work in the the the end of the read with the why not all right so yeah each episode i'll set you up with a new sponsor okay and then you do whatever i'll do the the announcer read okay i thought i was gonna pass out hey have you have you considered an engagement ring lately why not why not get engaged because the radio ad told you to all right steven tell us who wore your crown last night my friend uh i am going to go with

anticipating jesse's answer uh i'm going to say i'm going to say wayne simmons wayne simmons interesting choice now why wayne well because his fight changed the tide of the game no um i think that is far too easy of an answer uh i do like that he fought it made me feel better it made me feel like i was i was sad that they were down 3-1 and immediately i'm like texting all my friends i'm like hey wayne wayne drain wayne got no fight that was pretty cool but he had two glorious scoring chances in this game that went completely untalked about that's right the uh they would have been two dump-ins basically right just right around the net i don't i don't know how he missed the one of them uh the first one with spezza oh my god i know but

uh what i will say those are gonna go in and we were talking about wayne train like he was completely washed um he lacked the tools that got him his name and in that game i saw a player with lots of tools um he was faster than i thought uh he was gritty he was hard to move and yeah he threw a few punches but i think if he continues to play like that i don't think it's unreasonable to expect a dozen you know 15 goals something like that at a wayne train if you don't count a fight as a part of the play the best play i think wayne simmons made last night was pushing shea weber off the puck on the back check you know uh which one was that that's where wayne shea weber was coming in on the leafs net and and wayne just straight up pushed him pushed him off

off like and you gotta think shea weber you don't remember that no i think i do remember that i'm saying i okay yeah he was really noticeable he was he absolutely was i'm just putting my phone on do not disturb so it doesn't buzz again um so wayne simmons for steve dangle okay so my pick's gonna be um uh i think um one that i mean it's pretty easy um i gotta say it was really nice to see morgan riley be able to be morgan riley last night now i know we got the winning goal i know we got the winning goal but let's be honest morgan riley just positionally was in the right place to score the winning goal that was altavaris what i loved about morgan riley's game was he was able to play the best type of morgan riley game that he rarely gets to play

because he rarely gets to play with anybody good and so uh tj uh tj brody seems to be at least we're gaming the the you know we can talk we're going to break down the game after this but morgan riley to me looked like morgan riley from two seasons ago when he scored 70 points and that is exciting uh jesse blake this one for me is not a difficult one no no i'm just gonna say it it's william nylander of no way deserves the crown for this game and it's not it's not even because of the two goals even more so than the two goals the apple the apple on the jimmy vc goal yes steve you put it you put it perfectly in your lfr this afternoon which uh everybody was waiting uh like it felt like a week for you to release finally came out around are you rusty steve by

the way is that what happened yo he was rusty i made a lot of mistakes bro it's uh i'm glad i make these alone because if i had a co-worker for those uh someone would have strangled me for sure okay so in that rusty lfr the leafs fan rusty reaction you made you made a terrific point about Kyle Dubas's words and what how Nylander uh exemplified them in his play to Vesey when the puck bounced off of the ref what did you say Steve uh I said oh it's got to be about winning habits they were talking about winning habits uh before this season now that's bad luck for the Montreal Canadiens and good luck for the Toronto Maple Leafs that the puck hit the ref uh but that's like when the puck takes a funny bounce

Jonathan Drouin saw the official there he tried to backhand the puck off the glass and around which he's done a thousand times and he's more than capable of he was not able to do it because William Nylander took time and space away from him. Now, in a lot of instances, maybe the official won't even be there and he doesn't have to flip it out with pinpoint accuracy, but

that's the situation. The ref is part of the play. That's the NHL. That's the NHL. Shit happens. It should just be called shit happens, but you can't put that decal on a helmet. Like it's that is what the league is basically

and shit happens. William Nylander made his own luck on that play and I think the the winning habit is hard work so and I think I tried to hammer home the point was it 56 games we got to last year whatever it was 71 71 times last year with the crown that well the narrative of William Nylander being a lazy quote player I think we need to we need to get rid of that and like game one it's already gone away i i just want to throw this at you jesse just before you keep going here on that point i had somebody i read a tweet yesterday saying uh it was a reply to me because i was going at all of my friends who are not william nylander fans last night because it was

an easy game to do and somebody tweeted and replied back to me and said oh yeah well maybe if you worked harder not just showing up showing up well statistically i was like i mean i could go out there and work hard and not show up well statistically if that's what you want i think you want me an argument you know i would love to know the laziest scoring title ever who is the latest uh the laziest player to ever win the art ross just didn't try didn't care yeah i would like to know the laziest player to ever make the nhl because you know it takes no effort to do that right oh just kind of uh I'm not saying guys aren't lazy sometimes up there but honestly so sorry Jesse continue yeah just to wrap up my point you when you work hard you get three

points on the first game of the night when you work hard things show up like hey I forced that guy to shoot the puck up the boards and hit the ref uh you're in the right place for two goals William Nylander he worked all summer on that slap shot that little half slap I don't know what it is but it looks great it reminds me of how austin matthews every summer adds a new like trick i hope william nylander becomes that star where it's like every year we get a new addition to his game i'm still gonna be waving the flag and leading the train on the fan club and started with game one it started great so my crown goes to william nylander there you go and that wraps up who wore the crown for this episode uh the next time you're drying your

sheets why not why not use a dryer sheet because they're helpful i'm so happy any brand will do uh okay so getting into last night's game obviously five four leafs over the halves and by the way i should line up the show too we're going to leave tabs we're going to talk canucks oilers we're going to talk pen flyers and all the other games we also have ian mendez coming on in about 10 minutes here to discuss his move and also to tee up the game against the ottawa senators that the leafs have a back-to-back friday and saturday uh and also later in the show we're going to talk about uh john tortorella and pierre luc du bois and some comments in the media and jesse versus don lecision charts are dumb debate that's what the debate is so we're excited about that here's

a lifetime uh worth of research versus no yeah yeah i wish i had my mug today oh i know i should brought it out it's somewhere in the cupboard so um so i'm sitting there in the third period last night guys and i was thinking like no matter how this game ends this is gonna be a great game yes like it was it really if the if the habs had won in uh in in regulation time and the leaps didn't get a single point i still would have said that was a great game a little sloppy on both sides but fun entertaining and you can tell they're not gonna like each other very much by the end of the season that's cool i like that and it's going to be a battle this is the first time since i want to say maybe 2002 2003 where the leafs and the canadians are good basically at the

same time and i'm talking really good at the same time what a uh what an addition josh anderson has been by the way that was boy did he ever show that he was worth at least the first couple years of his contract last night that was awesome well i gotta i gotta tweet after the first goal he scored oh that contract's terrible and i'm like okay okay talk to me let's uh right how about game five man like how about 10 minutes in to the first game there were a lot of people who were jacked that david clarson got suspended for 10 games remember that you know who had two goals in their debut with the leafs patrick marlo owen nolan chill yeah just wait a sec yeah we'll give it a minute uh the leafs get into a bit of penalty trouble in the first

zach bogosian had a couple bad penalties last night yeah but it was the jimmy vc zach hyman too many men thing that that uh uh that led to the first montreal power play slash goal and it's funny when i was watching that i was thinking man this is just a throwback to the same stupid shit that we that we keep harping on dumb penalties from bad defensemen let's let's be honest zach bogosian did not have a great game last night And, but we don't expect, I don't expect Zach Bogosian to come in and have a great game by, you know, I think that's, that's asking the key is a, he is the six, seven guy. That's what he he's there for. And that's fine. I hope that he plays well. I hope that he plays Tampa Bay in the finals. Well, but the, all the same, the expectations on him should be limited. i do think watching that though i thought man like how do you give a guy ice time when he's taking penalties like that especially in the second period grabbing um i forget which montreal

like clutching clutch and glad grab hasn't been a thing for like 15 years you can't do that you're going to get a penalty every time 100 and then of course um i can understand the jimmy vc penalty but how many bench minors did the leafs used to get under mike babcock right oh a thousand you know they were talking about is that hyman's fault for playing it is that vc's fault for not paying attention to hyman beyond being off it was a terrible pass i think it was uh mckay of yeah you don't shoot it into the bench when guys are changing the trade yeah yeah what there's no there's no reason for that but you know it's i i don't remember the play exactly but maybe there was pressure on them like nylander drew in you get pressured into doing dumb things i i don't know

But the Leafs were down 3-1, and I'm like, oh, boy, are they in trouble? What's going on here? And then I took a breath. I'm like, okay, try to remember everything that's happened so far. And I thought about the game, and I'm like, okay, they're playing with the Habs. They're fine. They're trading chances. They're with each other.

But at one point, the penalties were 3-0. You're going to lose so many, such a high percentage of the time. If you're taking three penalties in the first half of the game, it doesn't matter how the second half of the game goes. You're not going to be able to come back from 3-1 every night. And you can't put it all on Bogosian, although he was definitely the worst offender. And their penalty kill was frigging awful.

Yeah, it was bad. So that's the thing I want to see worked on the most. Five on five, Riley got walked the one time. And that's going to happen. If you're a player like Nick Suzuki, it's going to happen. yeah like they weren't perfect but the the penalty kill was awful and with no exhibition games and the amount of turnover they had like i was thinking about i was talking in the video today andreas johnson was part-time um engvall was part-time kapanen was a critical part of their

penalty kill cody cc you don't have to like him but like he played half their penalty kill time um so they're you know trying matthews on it for the first time ever spezza's in there taking face offs bogosian was supposed to be out there and then he couldn't be because he was on the penalty or uh in the penalty box so much turnover and basically you know no time to practice i'm not surprised that they look like crap yeah it's just a lot of turnover a lot of changes um uh i think you know the thing that that freaked me out a little bit was the fourth goal that freddie anderson led into the in the third period that josh anderson yeah it should i mean yes he's entitled to it but i have to give him credit the rest of the way stood tall like that was a it was

a very solid freddie performance after that and i guess you know that's when they needed him really the most uh it was frustrating to see a goal like that go in though because those are the ones that kill the leafs and those are the ones that have killed the leafs in the playoffs there have been so many freddie freddie miscue goals in the playoffs in the last four years and i understand that they have had terrible defense but all the same you and i know you know you watching as many leaf games as we have that freddie anderson is prone to that from time to time it's it's fair to say after five josh josh anderson beat tavaris on that play but like yeah tavaris did a good enough of a job to you know it's like it's a backhander yeah it's a backhander wide and it

come on freddie you gotta be stopping those but again first what's all it has all right go ahead jason what did you guys think of the uh just to go on your uh penalty killing conversation there what'd you guys think of the first intermission discussion where they were kind of unhappy with matthews on the penalty kill because they don't want him out there blocking shots well by they you mean brian burke brian burke didn't want it the rest of them seemed open they were they were okay with it they weren't all on board though i and burke burke he's not saying that because he doesn't think uh matthews will do a good job he's saying that because he doesn't want him blocking a shea weber shot and then being out for two months yeah um and uh yeah i'm with you there

but someone was like i saw someone tweet like oh you would never say that though about anze Kopitar or you would never say that about Ryan O'Reilly and doesn't Jonathan Tays kill penalties from time to time or Jonathan uh probably I'm sure he has I mean they call him one of the better defensive centers in the league there must be a reason and like Patrice Bergeron and yeah you know Ryan Kessler back when he was playing but to that I would say that's what those guys do you know if Matthews could have been that if you made him do that you know what I mean that's Kopitar is a purely two-way center. Ryan O'Reilly, you can't do what Matthews can do.

You can't. Matthews is going to be 40 to 50 goals in an 82-game season all the time. So it terrifies me, but he should also be able to play. So I think they made too big a deal of it on the panel. You've got to have something to talk about, though. That's true. But, like, they had him out there because he's good at face-offs. He didn't do well in this one.

They had Spets out there for the same reason, but he didn't end up getting caught in his own zone because he didn't lose his face-offs. You know, Matthew's out there for a draw. Maybe he gets caught out there sometimes. He's there for one fire drill and then goes off. I don't have a problem with that. The Leafs had two full – well, okay, if you don't count Spets, it's eight seconds.

They had two full-time centers on the penalty kill in Matthews and Kerfoot. Is Sheldon Keefe all right? When was the last time the Leafs had two centers full-time penalty killing? I think it was the year they finished last. I'm serious. Because who would that have been? Jared Smithson and – Oh, hi, Ian.

Jay McClemmons. I don't know. Jay McClemmons for Jared Smithson. Welcoming Ian Mendez from The Athletic on – Ian, can you hear us? I got you. You guys got me? yeah we got to sound great there we go look at this oh man so we're so excited ian we've

been following your career forever man so it's nice to finally have you on that's a nice way of calling me old welcome old ian mendez or old ian mendez uh listen ian congratulations on the move obviously you know there's you know it's a huge move in your career um and you're going to be following uh the sends for the athletic and doing a podcast steve what did you want to say there i guess i cut you off oh just adam and i loved following you when we were in high school when was when was the because you had a video go viral uh i think it was back when you were with sportsnet so that was like several you know what one of the three places you could work ago

um when when when did you get hit by that baseball during batting practice that was uh that was world series 2012 world series uh san francisco and detroit uh covering that uh actually i covered that world series with a rash madani wow yeah great dude yeah great guy yeah who hit the ball still don't know like it just came out of nowhere and uh i kind of had my back to the field back to the uh you know uh where batting practice was taking place and this thing comes out of nowhere and like rockets down, hits me right on the ankle. It was the ankle bone that it hit me. I wish it was, you know, a tougher place or something,

but it hit me on the ankle bone and I had to suck it up and it ended up going viral. I think I checked it out the other day because I'm teaching a journalism class now and it has just over 2 million views. So that's my peak moment. Jeez. Imagine if Twitter was as big as it is now back then.

Like you would have been international news even more so. You would have been on Ellen. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. I beat Marilyn Dennis. Oh, no. Come on. That's really reaching for the stars, Ian. Let's not get mad. Yeah, that's the Canadian version.

So, okay, let's talk about the Senators team in a second. First, Eugene Melnick. Just starts the season with a big old tweet. And on the day that Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, for anybody that's not from here listening announces a lockdown and a stay-at-home order for literally everybody in the province 14 million people or whatever it is ian uh what was the reception in ottawa and what are your what's your understanding of how this happened because it seems like eugene melnick does have a pr person he just doesn't give them the heads up when he's

going to tweet something so here's my theory on this and i have no way of knowing if this is how it played out that reeked of like a scheduled tweet like almost like like maybe somebody else runs his account and they're like hey the day before the season starts let's make sure we put out uh this thing and i think the horse left the barn and people are like what on earth is like it couldn't be more tone deaf right let's be honest here we were like 90 minutes away from what was going to be um serious lockdowns put in place by the uh the ford government and then eugene melnick's like hey we got a plan for 6 000 people to come into canadian tires like Like, there's no way that he would have done that on purpose.

No way. Like, there's no way. So that would be my theory on that. And the way that that landed in this market was the same way, I'm sure, it landed in the GTA and everywhere else where people are like, come on, there's no way. And I've had it on very good authority that there is no way that this province is going to revisit any guidelines around the NHL this season.

So, like, this season goes into May. I've been told even if the numbers improve and we're in April, don't expect to see limited amount of fans at scotia bank arena in toronto or canadian tire center in ottawa ain't gonna happen no way no how okay and that kind of makes sense right it's sort of low on the priority list when we consider what's going on it's just you know what ian it's because eugene has built a public brand that he doesn't like to admit to that it was i know i know it it smelled to you like a scheduled tweet to me it's like that seems like eugene like his timing is always bad and uh i i just you know obviously somebody jumped on afterwards and said we better

take that down um is there is there any sort of uh any sort of reason that that would even needed to come out like do you like why do why did and we couldn't talk we couldn't figure this out on the show why does he think that anybody would care you know what it's a great question let's listen where i will give eugene malik a little bit of credit like he's his background is in pharmaceuticals so if anybody might actually have an idea of how you could logistically pull this off with rapid testing or whatever like he would theoretically be of the owners of the national hockey league in canada he might be the most well-connected well-versed on that front so i think that's probably and what here's what's even weirder about the whole thing so he put that he's

got a brand new um website out now eugene monlick.com where he's going to be putting all of his thoughts and and uh ideas that came out on i want to say it was the 4th of january something like that january 3rd or 4th i didn't see it i didn't even know about it until the tweet from earlier this week that certainly uh brought attention to it so i think in his mind he's thinking when we get the green light i'm going to be the guy that's going to be able to you know safely facilitate that and i know i'm wait we're i'm just waiting for the insert joke here about 6 000 ottawa fans you guys go ahead no no no whatever you need to do no no no listen we know that they can draw six it's it's it's uh that's no problem i think it's more like um i i don't

even think like ottawa never had an attendance issue until things started to kind of go south with ownership it seems like they're they're kind of sending a message that they're they're fed up with this stuff so it's just a very interesting turn of events now the team itself pierre dorian's done pretty great job uh turning this franchise around um and obviously they're probably not there yet but what do you expect to see out of the ottawa senators this year ian um and when the leafs play them friday and saturday night what kind of team are they up against well i think you know what honestly i watched that montreal toronto game on wednesday night like opening night and my first thought is wow this was really entertaining really fast paced and really skilled and ottawa's

defense is going to have a hard time with this like this is going to be the senator's biggest issue this season guys is they just don't have the depth on the back end they have some nice kids coming jake sanderson jacob bernard docker some kids that um they're pretty high on will be part of their uh their future they're not here yet and so you've got eric good branson uh you've got uh you're all old pal nikita zaitsev you've got uh josh brown like those are those are three guys on the right side and now i'm thinking about mitchell marner and john taveras and austin Matthews and you know these guys Friday and Saturday back to back it's going to be a real challenge so the one thing you're going to see uh in these games look Ottawa's got a lot more talent

now they've got Dadunov they've got Timmy Stutzla they've got a little bit more offensive flair what they don't have I think quite yet is the ability to defend and that's going to be tough and then now we're going to see Matt Murray who they uh they pushed all their chips into the middle of the table to get Matt Murray is uh Matt Murray going to be one of those guys like you you guys like sometimes you can be a good goalie on a good team but sometimes you need to be like a good bad team goalie like craig anderson was a good bad team goalie like put that guy in 50 shots against he'll be good like like yarrow halak always seemed to me like that's a good bad team goalie like just pepper him with shots and he'll be good what's matt murray gonna be like in

front of a a pretty thin defense i think we're gonna find out on on friday night good bad team goalie is that's the best term and i am stealing it back pocket their defense like looking at it on paper i mean you're absolutely right it seems like a pretty glaring weakness but there's something about the sends this year the youth uh the addition of skill and just the expectations like does any part of you go you know what if they made the top four somehow it wouldn't shock me at all they just seem like the team no one's expecting well for sure if you're ever going to pick a year where uh you could make the playoffs it would be like like the the example i use is the Toronto Blue Jays like did anybody think the Jays were going to slide in and make the playoffs

in the American League like no a whole bunch it was supposed to be a rebuilding year and I think the Senators are very similar to the Jays in terms of their trajectory when they want to be a contender still feels like it's 18 to 24 months away right but they all of a sudden kind of got hot at the right time shortened season made the playoffs for Ottawa to make the playoffs this year boy like and I guess you saw it a little bit last like in the on opening night Edmonton right like you could totally see a scenario where edmonton misses the playoffs so there's one thing you could absolutely see it with vancouver or montreal or maybe even winnipeg like there's a bunch of teams like i look at this and i say uh and you're gonna think i'm playing to your audience here but

the toronto maple leafs are the only team i would lock in and say 100 unequivocally i don't see a scenario where they miss the playoffs i just don't every other past them yeah but every other team in the division i can make an argument that they could miss ottawa would need at least two if not three of those teams to severely underachieve and then they would have to hit like murray would have to steal games and stutzel might have to be a calder nominee and and shabbat might have to become like a norris trophy candidate all that like about eight things would have to go right and then about four or five things would have to go wrong for other teams it's a small window but in a shortened, truncated 56-game season,

I say never say never, right? Right, right. And on the subject of Matt Murray, what do you think he's going to do? What do you think he's capable of? This is, to me, one of the most fascinating career arcs I've ever seen out of a goalie. Matt Murray's 26, and he's got two Stanley Cup rings

in his back pocket. If you look at hockey history, how many goalies have won two Cups, been 25, and been expendable? Like, I was saying this the other day, like cam ward won a stanley cup early on and rode that for his entire career in carolina they were like that's our guy doesn't matter that cam wards our guy and he only won one cup matt murray won two and was suddenly deemed expendable and the reason why it was a double whammy for him it was

first of all it was injuries like he's only played 50 regular season games once in his career so there's like some legit questions about his durability and then inconsistency started to plague his game and i think the minute i want to say it was game five was it not of that play-in series where they went to tristan jerry and the minute they went to tristan jerry against montreal you're like that's probably it for matt murray if they don't believe that he can win a win or go home game uh in in the middle of august then that's probably it for him and sure enough it was so the expectations are kind of weird like had they not signed him to the four-year contract extension for like 25 million i would have said i would have said that is pretty you know the expectations are

pretty low but you're giving this guy's you know pretty much a legit number one goalie salary i think there's some expectations here that he had better at least be somewhere in between the goalie that had an 899 save percentage last year for pittsburgh and the guy that had a 930 save percentage and was winning stanley cups for them four years ago yeah i was stunned to see him sign for more per season than jacob markstrom you know especially after the season that markstrom had to answer your question about goalies and career trajectory cam ward's a good one because he's actually won a cup the guy i thought of who didn't win a cup but he won individual trophies do you remember jim the net detective carrie of course yeah washington yeah what what fell off the rails

for him and you know how do you think a goalie gets it back if you're matt murray wow that's that's a great but see the thing with that with uh with jim carrey was like he only had like the one year in Washington right and then wasn't he part of that crazy oats talk it uh trade and then with Washington Boston we just kind of never I think we never heard from him again um it's a weird one like I'd have to go back and look and see like how many times has a goalie kind of had it early in their career and then lost it and then got it back like that it's a great question like because I think like again I'm a bit of a baseball guy like I think of a guy like Kerry Wood who came in was a dominant pitcher then it went away then but like he hung around and he made it but he

never quite regained it boy that's a that's a great question like there's so many goalies that have come in early on been great lost it and then but the thing with Murray is he won it twice like it's not like it was a one-year aberration the guy won two Stanley Cups uh as the starting goalie for the for the Penguins well we'll see what happens it's going to be an interesting one and if it doesn't work out they've still got four more years to go or three more years to go on that deal after this it's a long yeah three after this one you know it's a big bet and it's a big bet for a team that in a league right now that's a little cash trap and a team that's always been a little bit like they got out they got to watch their margins but good bet to make from Pierre

Dorian so uh uh Ian uh we've got to ask you about this this podcast too because you guys are coming out with something and we're going to see you and Haley every week and there's some other things going on so can you can you let us know what's happening yeah and I'm pretty excited with fact just to record another episode today with, I'm sure, I know he's a friend of your show, Down Goes Brown, Sean McIndoo. So it's going to be three times a week that we're doing the new athletic podcast, myself and Haley Salvian on Mondays, Pierre LeBron and Scott Bernsot on Wednesdays,

and then myself and Sean McIndoo on Down Goes Brown. I refer to him as Sean because I went to university with him, but I forget everybody only knows him as Down Goes Brown. So it'll be the three of us, kind of the three shows in a rotation. If you're an athletic subscriber, it's great, because you can get it without uh listening to me do uh ad reads for for diamonds and coffee and all sorts of things that we have diamond rings but uh if you don't it's uh it's all good you can you know the usual spotify apple podcast wherever you get your podcasts you get us so we're pretty

excited to to launch this foray into it as you guys know like doing a podcast is so much fun like i look i love i love doing tv and i love writing but there's something about uh the radio side of things where you can actually show off your personality and have a little bit of fun so um i i'm looking forward to it and i think i think the early reviews have come in and people seem to like it but uh as we saw with with jim carrey uh the net detective sometimes you can start out pretty hot and then you just disappear awesome just give me my comparable for everything ian mendez the athletic ottawa thank you so much for your time today man we really really appreciate it yeah you bet you guys anytime and uh enjoy these two uh battle of

ontario games on the weekend we will be we will be and we'll be tweeting you just so you know be ready have fun so uh it's great that was fun yeah uh he's uh he's a guy he's had my back forever and just for no reason like he had nothing to gain from me he was just always very supportive that's cool years and years ago just a great guy yeah great dude so just finishing off our coverage of the Montreal Leafs game on the Montreal side Nick Suzuki looks like a monster um and so does surprising Alex Romanov uh he looks really really good so and you know the whole conversation a few months ago when uh the Leafs drafted Rodion Amirov what the hell that guy only had two points I remember a conversation that we had about Romanov uh when we were looking

at his KHL stats because he's really highly touted and we're like all right what the hell is going on with this guy two years ago he had four points in 43 games and last year he had seven assists no goals with CSKA Moscow and I don't I don't know how much he's going to put up in the NHL more than that yeah a lot more than that that's really good scouting good on the Montreal Canadiens and you know what this is that was a fun fun night I can't wait we get nine more of those matchups nine more times and as wayne simmons put it can't wait can't wait uh now let's move on to the oilers and uh the canucks uh this was i think a big game for both teams because there are question marks around both teams about what they're going to be able to do have

the vancouver canucks taking a step back without tenev and markstrom and the edmonton oilers much like the toronto maple leafs didn't make it through the play-in round lost to the chicago blackhawks uh what are they going to be this year um you know i know leon dry settled said in the press conference you know people forget we were the best team in canada last year but again like it's like people have forgotten because it doesn't matter and and and it's not it doesn't it's not to diminish his accomplishment but it doesn't matter what are the edmonton oilers now what are the vancouver connects now so we saw a little bit what i loved anyway of on the vancouver side we saw a little bit of the future nils hoglander probably the best player on the ice

through two periods um just fun really really fun to watch uh and if you look at the score sheet for vancouver besser with two quinn hughes with the setup for a goal peterson setting up on the other horvat with the goal horvat besser peterson hughes those are the names you need to hear if the vancouver canucks are going to make the playoffs this year and sorry go ahead oh so losing jt miller we don't know for how long is obviously devastating for them losing markstrom in the offseason even though they got demko and holby is devastating but i look at their roster and just the way they scored yesterday and i'm already not feeling awesome about my canadian division picks the oilers we already know what their strengths are i still don't know about the

goaltending and if koskinen takes a step back you're cooked like you're not gonna be mike smith that brings you in no so like you need Koskinen to be great or you're cooked um and then with the Canucks like yeah they don't have Markstrom but like I could see a scenario where their goaltending's good you know no they you know yeah they lost Tanev but like I could see a scenario where their defense is good and then up front they still got all these monsters and then they brought in some new ones and then once they get Miller they'll have arguably their best forward from last season or you know top three i think we might have underrated the vancouver canucks well it is one game it is one but i hope he did look good jesse you want to say there was a tweet

too from uh washinsky on i think it was tuesday before opening night and he was saying a lot of the chatter from media members on uh preseason heart trophy winners was elias petterson like he's getting a lot of love from everybody around the game because i think he's going to take this next step that nobody really well some people are anticipating him to do and that's really going to push the Canucks I think this year a couple years ago at the playoffs a couple years ago at the Mets Mets and Dean tournament remember when we talked to Mets and he was like that's the guy I'm excited about yeah he was you know how did how did how did everyone go wrong that guy went fifth how did everyone go wrong so quickly Jim Benning's a great uh there's no

question about Jim Benning scouting and he's done a great job drafting for the Vancouver Canucks not crazy about his free agent signings but Brayden Holby looked all right last night too and that's a good sign now on the Oilers track you have McDavid with zero points but he had five five shots you know eventually he's going to score here's my biggest thing is obviously the Oilers know five on five that if they don't improve this year it's it's going to cook them right they need to do that one guy that I was sort of he scored last night but I'm I'm wondering more and more is this guy just does he just not have it anymore as adam larson i know he scored a goal and that sort of thing but he thought like he wasn't good last year frankly he just wasn't good

and it was not a good start for him and even if you read all the edmonton uh writers this morning they're all saying adam larson's noticeably and i don't know if that's if he's overmatched in his position if he's had too many injuries or if he is injured um you know because clef clef bomb is a right shot defenseman is he not uh he might i don't know if he plays the right side but i believe he's a lefty right and with tyson barry getting most of the offensive zone time on the right side you would think larson's gonna have to be the quote-unquote defensive defenseman the problem is they're not sure you can do that anymore and that could be a huge problem for the oilers yeah and it's not going to be buried defensively oilers fans um he'll put up points for you it's not going

maybe him defensively. So if Larson can't do it and you know, Barry can't do it at this point, you're looking at Ethan bear. And if that guy doesn't take an enormous step, you know, he's only 23. It's unfair to ask,

have fun with that. If he doesn't take an enormous step. Yeah. You could, you could really have a problem back there. And one thing to watch too, is Adam Larson, the UFA at the end of this year.

And there's a bunch of guys who are coming up this year. I think it's going to be a big off season for a free agency, But I think Adam Larson is a prime candidate for a trade deadline. Just either the the the Oilers are struggling to make the playoffs or they're in it and they ship them off for something else. And I think he might just be either it's a non contender who's picking up some salary cap and giving the Oilers something or it's a contender who thinks, hey, maybe Adam Larson on our third pair is what it'll take to push us over the hump. I think there's going to be a lot of activity at the beginning of February. um because we saw there was the beginning of the season waiver stuff there's some trickle waiver stuff uh you know what i think the oilers are gonna claim uh aaron dell um i do um i because

the leafs are doing their best to hide them and i think eventually they're gonna have to put them on there and eventually they're gonna lose them um unless they find the perfect scenario um and then i think you know once teams go okay we've exhausted the waiver wire um we've seen our team for a little bit we know what we got we know what we don't i think beginning of february teams aren't going to waste time because you know there's all these regulations and quarantine and all that especially if you see a team with like a four-day gap in their schedule which like the leafs for example only have one or two of yeah i think we'll see a flurry of activity there even more so if it's an american player or a player on american team going to a canadian team because you need

to leave even more buffer buffer room to get them quarantined and then they need to isolate and then get them on the roster and then get them adjusted with the new game plan and all that stuff so yeah you definitely see the actions happening earlier and earlier in the season yeah you have to make if if you feel like you're in trouble you have to make your decision now there are 56 games and now 55 if you're edmonton right yeah you got to make your moves now so i beginning of february is my guess wow really really interesting so uh then we see uh the penguins and the flyers and what do we see on the first few plays cody cc going to the box flyer score hallelujah and and here's the other thing it's i tweeted this last night but there's a few things uh i want to it's

not just cody cc the flame the penguins were noticeably missing somebody who should be playing with sydney crosby and that person's name is casperi capitan why are they missing casperi capitan he's on the covid protocol list right right which means he's probably in quarantine because you have to quarantine for a bit do you not you do but is he on the protocol list because he had the visa issue and then he's coming from europe and now he's got a quarantine in the states is is that the problem it's not that he has that's my no it's not that he has it it's that he's just quarantining out of abundance of caution right god what a pain in the ass this friggin everything about the beginning of the season man well i also think there were a lot

of players like if you look we we look at the leafs because the leafs are the closest geographically to us because barry has a place in pittsburgh where was he right up until the very last moment now i have wondered this you know and he's even got a place in canada right i'm pretty sure you might have sold it um i get wanting to be with your family for as long as possible you know i miss mine but uh at some point like dude your gig is you play for the pittsburgh penguins and you get to play with crosby and you it's a golden opportunity i i don't know the ins and outs i'm not his passport i don't know how it works it just feels like the situation he is currently in might have been avoidable and i would i would hate

i would hate it if it was i would love it to be beyond his control because then that means it's not his fault right from all reports the penguins aren't upset with him so then i have if they're not upset with them then i don't know but they could be and they're just not saying anything or um then there's the thing is is that when you especially in like a covid situation let's just be honest you push it you you don't have you can do in a normal world you can do type timelines on things and make it in a covid world everything is slower everything everything and so visa issues and things like that will slow you down. And then there's a manpower problem

and then people are working remotely. So you can't get your papers processed as quickly because the internet's not working as well because the remote desktop that you're trying to work, get into doesn't work. And like, we were facing that problem at work. There's no, other than Jesse and I and our two co-hosts and the rest of the on-air staff,

there's nobody actually in the office. And so everybody's working remotely. So they have to log in from their computers to their inner office computer and it slows everything down. There's a sign on one of the computers that says you can't access this computer from like one to five because remotely somebody is using it so like if you're in the building you couldn't because they need that computer they

need to do their work and needs to be done on that computer so somebody remotely is using that so you can't physically even though you're in front of it touch it because somebody's using it wow it's a different world that's crazy man crazy crazy so and i also saw like so many americans for example on january 7th tweeting like so like do i still have to work like after everything that happened at the capitol they're like so i'm just like supposed to like drive around and like i got to do a report and stuff still after yesterday yeah it's um everything is going slower january is usually a hazy month like a lazy month anyway right who wants to work the first half of january garbage and then we got several moments in human history happening at the exact same time

it's been a little difficult to get work done well and back to the original point that we've had i'm not sure how the capital riots went in there but we got it in there i got it in there we did it lateness has been an issue before so it's something to keep an eye on And that doesn't mean that this is a bad person. That doesn't mean he's an irresponsible person. It might just mean he's a young person. I'm a guy who's known for being late too. I get it.

But what I'm saying is if you're going to get to play with Sidney Crosby, give yourself some buffer room and you need to be on the ice. Penguins fans, just note it. That's all. Just note it. You don't have to go blaming them and everything. Just remember. uh we uh we tweet i tweeted out about i retweeted one of dimitri filipovich's tweets yesterday about

um uh about cody cc's defensive zone coverage on one of the first goals for the flyers you know it may be a little unfair because it might have been crosby's guy it doesn't really matter the point is what is what are the tweets there it was just basically like cody cc's back at it and i didn't see it i'll send it to you so you can put it in the youtube video it's pretty funny but it's a funny tweet jessup uh disagreed with so uh dimitri's uh assessment and i'm sure it was all kind of in jest anyway the problem is is that like i had some penguins fans reaching out going like oh you can't i mean we don't we don't know what he is yet i'm like well we do and so does ottawa and you know this is the thing like it's no offense to cody himself but it's like

it's he is nervous energy on that puck he's nervous energy in his own zone you want a guy with ice water in his veins and there's just a there's like a it's like the puck goes near me and he goes no please don't please don't put that thing near me uh and and i just i saw more of that last night or i guess yesterday afternoon and i meant i thought man i don't understand some of jim rutherford's defensive moves for all the good things he's done in pittsburgh two cups can't argue there have been some things we go jeez i think dimitri deleted it did he delete it but are we gonna get the true honest opinion from kyle dubas on his thoughts on cody cc never probably never you have to admit he was wrong best case that's all i want to hear a book

in a book 20 years from now just and even then he'll say but there was reasons because he's clearly wrong dude and he tripled down on it every single time now okay dubas was objectively wrong in his defense of cody cc he was super duper right in now they don't have him anymore and you know what they don't have nikita zaitsev either yeah which was the point yes but what they were never obligated to do not once for one moment was play cody cc with morgan riley someone tweeted me today for the lfr video is zach bogosian the new cody cc and i'm like first of all new guy can you not second of all zach bogosian is not playing with morgan holy shitting riley forever for the whole season almost what's what's the point of that sorry pittsburgh i'm just sorry i'm reliving

trauma here that was that was that was a tough season man thankfully cody cc's not playing top line minutes in pittsburgh either so less less of a problem there than it was here we behind crystal tang well god you put him in a position to fail like in toronto they just they they set him up to fail there was no reason for it like i i know oh we have this stubborn these numbers and that numbers and he did he did like uh berkshire wrote an article and he's like actually cody cc does this and this and this well but the list of bad things was so much longer right and like every every single attack from the other team oh hey weird they're going in on the right like oh there they go again on the right oh here we go again on the right it's uh you know just by

making it slightly more difficult to get in on the right side the leafs defense is changed entirely well and and and the fact that morgan riley is not worried about playing offense and defense simultaneously yeah you're right your best defenseman and he's watching the attack every time yeah like because it's over there yeah yeah and and tj brody can cover and tj brody can also take over on offense he can score points he can and like he had a down season last year and was like still decently effective offensively like i i've been saying it for months so maybe i'm not right anymore but i feel like people are really underrating like the impact of having tj brody in that slot instead of it doesn't have to be cody cc we don't have to pick on the guys anybody else

anybody the least have used um but his defense partners is a sad list of players like uh i think it was either jonas or james put out an article and it was like here are here are here are the past morgan riley defense partners and all it's like no no no no no ron hainsey is the best one ron hainsey is the best defense ever had and i'm sure ron hainsey would say that's not right that shouldn't be that way right yeah ron hainsey should not be the best defense partner a number one defenseman on a team that's trying to challenge for the cup you should not be that anyone would tell you that the leafs had riley berry and it worked because they had muzzin hall yes to do the grunt work uh and then riley got hurt and they never went back to it not once

the berry was never like i feel bad for tyson berry because he just didn't fit on the roster no he's he's such a talented player but he just doesn't work in the system on the team in the way the defense pairing just matched up and he had to just stay here and get the like the bad side of everything and it was it was sorry not dubious it was Nazem Kadri's fault yeah because we had we would have had TJ Brody right I think you know it's interesting because Tyson Berry uh it's a shame that he was brought in at all not because you know we didn't want him to succeed obviously we did and that sort of thing but when you look at what he brings the Leafs already had that they could score piles of points that's what you bring Tyson Berry in to

do score piles of points and play on the power play defense yeah he had a great attitude about it too he was great i don't have any he never really seemed bothered by the by the you know criticism chirps and all that still sucks you don't want a guy's career to be tanked because it's not a good fit yeah we were talking remember tyson barry the extension talks were gonna be like eight over eight oh yeah like there was huge money on the table for him last year and then he had a he had a bat he has a bad season in a pandemic yeah but a bad coach to start too and that's like it wasn't fair what babs tried to get him to do he's like no you're gonna play defense now tyson barrett like come on and not on the power play like imagine he throws up like

an additional let's say 10 points in that nearly two months under babcock which it's definitely conceivable then all of a sudden he's a 50 point defenseman and you're going into free agency looking entirely different asterisk maybe you're not because apparently the panthers want to trade keith freaking yandel yes healthy we're gonna talk about that yes um they do um so so basically how did he do he had 45 points last year so yes he he does but from what we understand and from what I understand anyway, they are unimpressed. Keith Yandel has never been a very mobile defenseman. No one's ever been like, wow, Keith Yandel is a real water bug, really agile and moves around. He's a big, long guy who's very offensive minded. And I believe that the Panthers

are sort of done trying to cover for the defensive works because he's not as good anymore, right? At a certain point, like in your career, you could score a pile of points. Yes, I get 45 points or whatever panthers were also awful last year somebody's got to score some points but keith yandel uh i believe he has an iron man street going and they're gonna scratch him until he until they can move it's like 800 games or something it seems like there was some sort of falling out here too there's nothing about this that seems normal no not at all and like for you're describing a lot of players in this league you know he's always not that mobile anymore and you know a bit of a defensive liability bro 45 points right in 69 games by the way

uh which means he was on pace for over 50 like okay he has weaknesses like almost anybody else that's that's enough strength to surely to make up for it right and it's like you said something something stinky there let me look at his contract can i can i put forward a real tin hat tin tin foil hat suggestion give me a tin hat tin foil hat i think the panthers wanted to wanted him to retire and he wouldn't what what he's 34 yeah or are they or they thought we'll be able to move this guy in the offseason then the pandemic hit like he's got a no move clause he's got a no move clause that doesn't stop people it just means he could choose where he's going right they paid him they paid him a three million dollar signing bonus um you know like he is i mean the one

thing i'll say for the panthers is he is a he's a great trade candidate i mean because uh he's only owed uh 2.75 for the rest of the season then whoever he goes to has to pick up the 525 for the next two years but you get keith yandel like it's not the greatest contract in the world but like for for god's sake yeah healthy scratch if frank cerebelli's tweet of he fell out of quote he fell out of favor with the panthers like that means something else you know i we don't know on the outside looking what that fell out of favor actually means and i'm i'm interested to know what that is and what other teams think that is and if it's reason enough to shy away from it right it's yes who knows maybe by like the time this podcast is uploaded we'll be like actually

never mind i don't want keith yandel either right i hear that he's just i think it's it's a defensive issue it's it's a problem and i mean when you have a 10 million dollar goaltender that you're not confident in anymore that's kind of going to be an issue yeah and and what do the panthers love more than turnover oh boy they love being a team where you can never identify outside of like huberto and barkov and akblad you never know who's playing for the panthers any i'm pretty sure olyokunin still is he might be uh maybe uh what who else was um scott mellenby scott who is there forever scott mellenby uh red head again zvitov was it zvitov yeah they still have zvitov i don't know i miss zvitov i miss pavel beret with the triangle shoulders yes what are

the panthers doing at any given moment what are the panthers doing i know i still picked in the make the playoffs i still sometimes i still think they're gonna do it i didn't say they're bad i just said they're confusing yeah something that's not getting enough press i think out of uh the panthers is that the stars had six covid cases amongst players and two amongst staff and they canceled the first two games of the season and i feel like in the other leagues when games are canceled and there's a bunch of covid cases it's all this news about ah it's dire circumstances and then the nhl just canceled the first two games of the dallas stars a season and it was just like oh okay they're just moving on did they cancel them or move them well they're

they're to be rescheduled okay okay they've been canceled so far you know it's been delayed the beginning of the season's been delayed by a week what the nba unless i missed something didn't do is completely realign the entire league uh to make this a regional issue because like uh for example like the 76ers or the celtics had an outbreak now all of a sudden you got to look at their schedule and go uh like what what do we even do whereas but because of the regional divisions like surely surely let's say the leafs had three straight games coming up against uh the jets and the jets had an outbreak surely they could find a way to either just delay those games because it's only with one team or it's between two teams i should say uh you delay those games

or you just go hey leafs on those dates instead you're going to be playing i don't know calgary or something like that like i just feel like the divisional realignment allows for less breakage uh less damage to the schedule in these sort of situations well the nba is doing uh like mini two game series you know that was their um fix for the schedule so they'll do they'll be like the raptors play two straight games versus the lakers in la you know and then they play the clippers two straight games so they're spending like four nights in la and they play four games so like that was their kind of fix for the schedule in case there's a breakout yeah and speaking of the 76ers they played uh a game the other day with eight guys that was their did they win no no

oh man that's that sucks man that sucks a lot man it's you know i i feel bad because obviously it's opening night of the nhl all the energy and the juice is there but you know i've been paying close attention to the nba for a couple weeks now or uh no it's been on for more in a couple weeks now a lot of the players and maybe it's just because i'm watching the raptors and they're having a really bad start but a lot of the players don't look like they're having fun like in and so many so much of the the nba is the is from a drama standpoint the most fun league to watch but like a lot of the drama we've been seeing is just players having a bad time and like kairi irving just like i don't feel like playing and james harden like i'm literally

i'm just gonna stop trying until you trade me like vince carter all right and like i think a lot of the restrictions on the nba guys in terms of their uh when they're off the courts are really getting to their heads because they're like the rules are you're not allowed to leave when you're on the road so you go you go you play your game and then you go and you sit in your hotel like they have those are the coveted restrictions and i think a lot of them aren't taking too well to those rules and they're not too motivated to be participating this season if this is what they have to do. Well, you know, it's the reality,

and it's good they're going to have to do it for the next 60 games or whatever they got left on the schedule. That's the thing, right? Like, if you don't like it now, you're really not going to like it in April. Like, when you've been doing it for four, five months. Luckily, Dallas is, as far as I know, the only team really hit by it.

there's a few teams missing like one or two players but like dallas's they put the line combinations up today and i'm like i don't know who yeah question who are there i i got a question who the fuck is having a good time right now right like hey for two and a half hours last night i was yeah exactly two and a half hours other than that like who is out there going this is fucking great these guys are not missing out on anything i understand that they're like clubs and stuff open in the in in the united states and there's there's there's things to do in the united states right now you know because there are lots of states that have everything wide open it is it's not a surprise that the covet outbreak in the nhl happened in texas no it's not most of the things

are open in texas right i were i worry about tooting the horn too big on that one because i just i don't it's not a competition no it's a it's a it's a virus um but i i do think everybody's got to keep it christ everybody's got to keep this in perspective including nba and nhl players yeah you're not having a good time neither are the fans so give them two hours or three hours of your time yeah try to and try to enjoy the thing that you grew up doing so incredibly well and uh and then go back to your hotel room play some video games and figure it out like come on it's okay you're 100 right on that yeah yeah you know how many times i've sent an email like the past couple weeks where i've started hi hope you're w e delete delete delete

delete delete and i just i just yeah hi and i get to what i was saying because i know you're not well right well i should start with hi i know you're not well so i was wondering about this yeah like try that try that let me know how people respond this is not fun the last 12 months have not been fun we've we've had enormous social up upheaval we've had a global pandemic we've had a contentious awful election and the fallout afterwards none of this has been fun i'm glad you listed those things because i wouldn't have remembered but the reality is sometimes shit's not fun fucking suck it up and play your fucking games there's people laid off right now give me a god give me a break we're not talking about being trapped indoors and you can't go to work we're

talking about you're not allowed to go to the rippers anymore yeah you're not allowed to go to the bar and have a beer listen there's nothing that i want more than to go to a bar oh drink pints all afternoon and eat buffalo wings that's all i want to do that's all i want to i want to go to a dive bar yes so i want it and i want to drink what is like one molecule removed from antifreeze and just have wings and like i just i want to get drunk and make out that's what i'd like to do that's where that's where i'm at in the pandemic okay with one of the with you mostly you okay uh what are you gonna be doing it's not happening right now so you gotta like i think it's just

i think it's just that like it's the the the nba thing uh and if you if you ever hear nhl players i'm sure everybody's got something to bitch about but that's the thing everybody does have something to bitch about and when you're in a position like that just give it a few more months man we're gonna be there like we just we get news today that there's 20 million new vaccines i think coming to ontario in the next two months like we're gonna get there it'll happen um but when you hear headlines like one of the news organizations locally here said uh one percent of canadians are vaccinated at this rate we'll have everybody vaccinated by 2037 knowing full well that's not enough vaccines have been made yet for the actual rate to go up so that statistic

does nothing except to press the shit out of people yeah you're being a dick by saying you're being an asshole you're being a complete ignorant ass what wait he was winning when i went to bed and then when i you fucking dick you don't know how this works we got two weeks ago like come on give him a minute jesus i'll yell as much as i want jesse long story short the point is the point is um what was the point the point is so anyway the dallas stars uh yeah listen the dallas stars are gonna have their season that i i well we could talk about there's been a few people that said can you talk about that that trade the best you can the one thing i will say about that james harden trade oh james yeah that i would love to see come to the nhl as pick swaps so we have the

right to swap first rounders with you in each of these years i think that's like why can't you do that or can you and they just haven't done it yet you can um well at least okay so this is a very long time ago but i was doing a trade tree uh for rick nash and this is not officially part of the trade tree but um the panthers i think nash was first in 2002 was it the panthers had the first pick and the blue jackets had the third and uh they did a pick swap where uh next year you get uh the option to pick swap basically so because of that the panthers get the third pick they get jay bowmeister and the blue jackets get the first pick and they get rick nash the next year the panthers have the first pick so they don't want so they don't want the pick swap so they gave

the blue jackets rick nash for nothing oh the trade was for nothing that you don't do that you also get another asset right like what oh and by the way the next year the next year the panthers uh ended up trading the first pick anyway and i believe that's how the penguins got mark andre flurry that's a trade tree i need to do yeah man you definitely need to do that we've been talking about it because we talk about franchise changing oh rick nash and mark andre flurry different completely franchise altering we we've been talking about doing trade trees during the season it's very difficult because they're very time consuming and there's lots of games um but people love them enough that we kind of have to uh we don't want to wait till july to

do our next one so we'll figure it up but anyway as far as i know pick swaps are allowed but it might be because you know it's a copycat league and when one team gets burned on one thing no team ever wants to do it again and so i wonder if the nash bowmeister thing uh is why they don't do it in the nhl i don't get that because teams get burned on trades all the time yet they continue to do it and they get burned on shitty free agent signings yet they continue to do that too Like, I don't get it. I don't understand that. I didn't say it was a smart league.

No, you're right. I just said it's a copycat league. So just before we bring Dom LeCision on here in about 10 minutes, John Tortorella had some comments on 97.1 The Fan in Columbus, Ohio. It's a show called Rothman and Ice. And basically they said, they asked him about Pierre-Luc Dubois. And Tortorella said this. He wants out.

He hasn't given a reason as to why he wants to leave. He should get in front of it. That's the way I think you go about your business. and be the best you can be he needs to continue to do things to help uh his this team win and be the best teammate he can be or i'm not sure where it goes it's a situation we'll go into day to day so i've never seen a team that hasn't played a game yet so openly miserable has he really not given a reason it sounds like it there's no way you're gonna kick a line it's got to have an idea right well it's like i mean i assume you know if you go to the blue jackets

guys you go hey how come dubois wants out they're gonna they don't know they'll know and by the way uh you know the praise we gave them maybe a few weeks ago oh they nailed that pick well did they the guy wants out already like just because he's provided good returns so far what happens if Pouilly RV has an amazing season and Dubois doesn't do shit because he doesn't even want to be there we're not there just yet it's way too early in these players

careers this is terrible, terrible news for the Blue Jackets, Dubois is such a good player, I want to say he's their number one center? He is he's a great player I don't, like, is it not salvageable? Are they going to hold

him out of the lineup? No i don't think so you would i mean there's that would take wins away from you no and like there's tons of players out there who probably have active internal trade requests that you know just to keep playing because they know playing you know gets them closer to their goal of getting traded uh i don't get it i don't know what could have happened there's people there was a clip i think it was during the leafs blue jacket series of tortorella losing his mind on dubois like freaking out i want to say the blue jackets were winning at the time um but like dubois is not the first player tortorella has ever yelled at and tortorella is not the first

coach to ever yell at a player so surely that's not it well maybe it is maybe he's doing well and doesn't want to get yelled at like that because he's doing well yeah or maybe he wants to perform and have it still have a shitty relationship with your boss right getting yelled at isn't fun for no i don't it's not really effective either i don't understand yeah sorry um maybe he wants to be in winnipeg that badly i i don't know like like we talked about but i don't i just don't see it i just don't see it i'm very curious to see where he ends up and whether or not it makes any sense no it's dubois for linea you think so yeah i just want i can't wait to see patrick linea and the penalty kill can i you know it's like this is gonna drive

blue jackets fans nuts uh that's not enough that's not enough for patrick linea there's levels to this he's a center that might help even it out a little bit a bit but it's got to be it's still got to be Dubois and and I think Dubois is an amazing player and it's still got to be Dubois and like Laine for all his warts which he worked on last year by the way has the touch of death oh yeah the touch of death he just scores goals yeah scores goal and I the way I look at it now I think the Jets need Laine more than they need Dubois uh just the way that team is built yeah what would what would you put you'd put you've just gone out and got stastny and i know he's coming towards the end of his career but then you just put him on the third line and then why did you go get him

and like the and can't just be picks and because the team is built the way it is you know then maybe it needs to be a bigger deal involving more players and now you have the canada u.s border to worry about so like there's another one how how do how do you okay so you come up with a deal that's fair value and you're the and you're the jets and you go okay how do you make up for the fact that i will not get any of these players for over a week you don't yeah you say that's reality that's welcome to the pandemic so here like let me look at adam's philosophy for nba players fucking suck it up i don't know well for anybody like come on who's having a good time are we enjoying this well uncle adam no you're no you're you're not wrong at least you're not

and at least we're working come on adam how often you just put on a pair of white new balance shoes and look at the lawn and say that's a good grass it's growing good this year i did some i did some good work today golf green show off to my friends drink a beer so okay the jets have a three-day break at the end of january 27th 8th 9th and they have a four-day break february 5th 6th 7th 8th like i and i wonder just because they seem like the logical trading partners and that seems like the most glaring issue i wonder if uh there could be a deal in one of those little gaps i don't know interesting well we'll see like canada u.s trades are so hard well they're not that hard like these are long term these are long enough they're long-term moves if i'm yeah

let's say i'm either of those teams that i'm going to the playoffs and we make this the the luke pl uh pierre luke dubois a pld plus for line a trade as long as i have them by the playoffs i don't care and if i'm the columbus blue jackets i'm like i'm trying to hang on to patrick line a for that for the remainder of the prime of his career so uh i'll wait the 14 days actually him coming south probably wouldn't be the issue it's Dubois going north and and if you're if you're Winnipeg it's like yeah well who cares we've got center number one Mark Shifley and center number two Pierre-Luc Dubois forever and ever amen that's pretty sweet that is so like I shouldn't be I shouldn't be saying you don't get Dubois because you have Stastny that's stupid

yeah well no I don't I I think well I I was the one that said that too I think it's just more like we were talking about like well what do you how do we make up for the fact that there's you know a 14-day quarantine you don't yeah it's 10 days now so that's like saying how do we make up for the fact that there's a canadian and american dollar and they're very different you don't right you just don't yeah and you make the trade in february to win in june yeah you know that's the goal yep hey july pay attention is the trade deadline in like six weeks no no it's uh april i think that was last week of march okay it must be april hold on maybe that's a quick google the last day of the regular season is may 8th

february 24th yeah see no what no that doesn't make sense no no that was this past year oh 2021 no what year is it are we having a good time yet yeah suck it up uh april 12th april 12th so right before my birthday fantastic i love it yes right after jesse's well yeah april 12th we're going to see a lot of deals that day i think yeah i think so too it'll be fun oh my god oh my god plus uh good chance that a good chunk of us are vaccinated by then or at least starting to and that will be exciting as well hopefully in the air uh i have bad news so there's a calculator website we've already we've already looked oh none of us will be vaccinated by that no no we'll be vaccinated in july through september we're in stage three or whatever it is but none of the

three people talking into microphones right now by us i meant the listening audience there's lots of uh lots of people who are long-term care and frontline workers and that sort of thing that's what i'm talking about and listen i don't need to be personally vaccinated but i do know somebody that was last week and it gave me hope that's so good that's actually um and this is so sad as a canadian but like what's given me hope is all the friends and family i have in scotland posting that they've been vaccinated great also because i don't know anyone here also we were talking about the NHL trade deadline. Yes.

Well, I was just saying there's some hope there'll be some trades and then there'll be some vaccination. Has Dubois been vaccinated? Does vaccination no wait

does vaccination add to trade value? Oh no. It might. Who will be the first major network to have that discussion? Oh boy.

I need to know. That's a good question. Definitely Sportsnet. You know. Jesse, if you get vaccinated, are you able to block shots? That's the question. If you're vaccinated, is it on? You know what?

If you can block the protein used in COVID-19, then you can block a shot. There you go. From Shea Weber. From Shea Weber. From Shea Weber, Eddie. Because I'm stupid. All right, let's bring on Dom LeCision from The Athletic.

Dom, can you hear us? I can hear you guys. Okay, boo! dom this is like your 18th podcast appearance this week how are you holding up uh tired this is that legitimately the fifth one i have one more tomorrow but only the good ones only the good ones oh okay thank you for making time for us we appreciate it um so dom uh jesse last week said we were talking i believe we were talking about miko letman and we were talking about uh the fact that you know there are there are things out there that can maybe help you translate what

a european player is going to do in the nhl jesse your opinion of that was i have questions to how the computers can judge things that humans don't even know so i think the starting point is can you explain the models that you released like at the beginning of the season like in the last week or so that are predicting uh the results and like what the players are going to do and how that works and what it says right so i have a model that's based on game score which is a stat i stole from basketball basically you take all the box score stats that everyone knows and loves combine it with some analytics in a non-arbitrary way and you put together to get player value for every team or every player sorry and then every team you add all that value up and you get

a team rating and i use the last three years of a player's nhl career and i sort of weighed it based on recency so if someone had a down year last year but was very good two years ago something like johnny goudreau it'll sort of be like somewhere in the middle expecting a bounce back whereas if someone's been in decline for two years they'll expect a further decline because there will be some sort of age adjustment as well and from that i simulate the season 50 000 times to get playoff chances Stanley Cup chances and how many points his team should get where how did you land on 50 000 great question uh probably got a reason i i don't it seemed it seemed big enough and uh it's all uh it's all done automatically it's not like i'm it's not like i'm pressing

simulate simulate simulate like it's player yeah um so basically 10 000 was too small there was still like some deviations if you like did it 10 000 times once and then 10 000 times again there'd be differences between the two so around 50 000 was the point where the differences were small enough that i stopped caring like i know there are other modelers who do like a million or so and i think that's insane who has time for that i don't 50 000 takes like 10 minutes and that's good enough for me what should be the takeaway from the results of the model because i think that's where a lot of people's contentions with the analytics community and the eye test community that's where it comes uh to a head where it's like okay what should we be taking

away from the stats and what should we just trust with what we see and what we feel is going to happen it's a it's a complicated question it depends on the situation so for instance three years ago when i was doing this i would just show the average point projection and so i had edmonton i think at like 93 points this was the year they after they made the playoffs everyone thought they were a cup contender and if you only saw 93 points you would think i was insane i hated the oilers all this stuff you don't i don't i i like i like watching the oilers there were i think a top five team that i watch uh but what i've done since then was show the range of those projections and where things can lie because in hockey anything can happen i don't think people even

truly grasp that until they see after the fact that a team that many thought was a cup contender like the sharks last year fell to the bottom five and a model can show that and show what the chances of that happening because even a team like the leafs can have a terrible season it's just in the one percentile of potential events so let me ask you this and this is going to seem like a bit of a stupid question but probably as i'm going to ask anyway um when you when you run models like that um the the anti-analytics community uh will um will point to comments like what kyle dubas said at the end of last season when he said that cody cz was an effective player for the Leafs um can you explain to us what where you think and I know this is sort of

sort of an unfair question on the spot but can you explain to us where you think he might be coming from on that uh are there numbers to support something like that and how how is it best to use models like this in an NHL like from an NHL GM's perspective well the Cody Ceci question would be an interesting one because he's someone that models hated and then he came to the Leafs And Kyle Dubas is obviously an analytics-friendly GM, so there were questions about that. And then when he makes those comments that CeCe was effective, there are questions.

That's where using multiple years helps a lot because CeCe wasn't terrible last year, but he still wasn't very good. He did have good defensive metrics, but that's mostly because he played with Morgan Riley, who's a wild card who sort of has an effect on that. And knowing what CeCe did prior and how he wasn't very strong defensively himself sort of paints that picture and allows you to balance out the answer where Kyle Dubas is not wrong that he was effective defensively for the Leafs last year. But the next team signing him shouldn't expect that from CeCe.

Okay. Okay. That makes sense. I think where the conversation began for us with your model is so that's good to know. So you'll take like a three-year range and et cetera, et cetera, all the things you just mentioned. Mikko Lettinen was a name that we brought up. For me, a guy who's such a potential wild card for his team

and for his entire division is Tim Stutzela. How do you guesstimate, I guess, how do you factor in how a player who hasn't played in the NHL yet will be effective? it's a terrific question and i i did listen to that segment last week and i i'm listening to that part and i'm like yeah he's he's not wrong it's uh oh the worst part of my model is players who have not played in the nhl yet because all i have is what they did in another league and from that i only have points basically that's it so how many points they got the only i think

league that I have time on ice for is KHL and I think the Finnish league maybe Sweden I'm not sure but that helps a little for someone like I think Berbon have played fewer minutes than someone who would get a lot I'm not even sure any KHL players but anyways I use NHL equivalency to guess how many points that player would have got in the NHL and I compare points to GSVA and see how many wins a certain point threshold gets and that's it that is the entire outside nhl model so some like kaprazov it's like based on what he did he's probably a second line player maybe a first line player i don't know maybe we'll find out lafrenier he's young so i do age adjust and he looks like he can be a high-end second line forward but last year i thought the same thing

about capo caco and he was terrible so that's where there's a lot more uncertainty so a team like ottawa is a lot younger and has those players who don't have any any initial data there's a lot more variance to their projections fair enough now one of the my favorite projection that you've made by far this year is you've kind of weighted the top 100 players you craig custance i believe right yeah and of course number one on that was not connor mcdavid it was austin matthews as it should be now and it went over well it went over extremely well i'm sure in edmonton most of all uh can you when when the model spit that out were you a little surprised no like i i look at my model every day anytime i input new data i see what it does and over the

last year it started liking mcdavid a little bit less and what that means is he's not overwhelmingly number one according to the model and the only reason for that is his defense because if his defense was just average he would be number one by like a win it wouldn't be even close he'd be in his own tier that's where he was two years ago but his defensive numbers have dropped a little to the point where it's now a conversation about who the best player in the league is and it's probably still mcdavid he has the stronger resume he is very exciting he has all the talents in the world but matthews and mckinnon they don't have those defensive question marks they aren't as good offensively but they have a more complete game right now and the entire thing with the

rankings that me and craig did were was that it wasn't a ranking it was a tier so usually when you see these top 50 rankings it's like kale mccarr number 20 quinn hughes number 32 And it's like, is there really a difference between those two players? What does 22 mean? What does 30 mean? And that's sort of why we tiered it. We've copied that idea from Seth Partnow, who did his NBA tiers as well. And it just makes more sense.

And I know Steve does his prospect rumors. And I see your face. I see your face. I don't think you invented tiers, but I'll give you credit. I invented the pyramid too I was there thousands of years ago but it's the same basic concept where you're

basically splitting hairs and if someone likes a player more in one tier than another in the same tier then you know what that's a fine argument I can see it and if it's a player from one tier compared to one below then we're fighting that's basically it

dom um i know that you hate all 31 nhl teams soon to be 32 and all of their fan bases but uh if you have a model sorry not if you have what is your model said if anybody hasn't read it yet and i know you can check it out on the athletic but um uh what is your model said about the best teams in the nhl this year who is tier one tier one for the nhl is probably colorado tampa and boston they're probably going to win their divisions it won't be it probably won't be very difficult for colorado and tampa i know colorado lost on opening night but they should be fine that's probably the top three teams and then you can make an argument for toronto only because of their division and the path should be easy if they were in the atlantic they wouldn't

be in that top tier but because there's five other teams below them that are decent but flawed and then also ottawa which is just a bad team there's gonna be i don't know if you guys heard that that was my dog is your dog a sense fan uh maybe i hope not i didn't raise her that way so so that's so it's toronto's path is a little bit easier because of the competition in their division yeah it's basically what vegas has gone through the last two years or maybe not maybe last year more so than two years because before san jose was at least good but last year vegas had the same path toronto has now where they had edmonton vancouver and calgary as their main contenders and those teams are fine but they're probably not contenders are probably just playoff

teams right now vegas has st louis and colorado in their division it's sort of like toronto in years past with tampa bay and boston ahead of them where i think that tends to skew people's perception of the teams and and i guess so who do you think and this is who's going to do the san jose who's going to fall the hardest this year washington i've been saying that i i don't understand why people think this is still a contender and i don't even think it's that hot of a take i've talked to analysts with also a caps fan maybe yeah um i've talked to the old nhl data and they also aren't high on the caps either i don't know if this is the year they collapse but this is the year they're vulnerable and they have a coach who is preaching north

south hockey which is the opposite of what makes the caps function so it'll be interesting i think a lot of people missed that last year their top six wasn't very good they were all i think break even in terms of goals and shot share at five on five their power play was below average for the first time in like a decade so they're old and vulnerable and that's my san jose pick wow well dom uh it's been a pleasure having you on thanks so much for making time we know this is podcast five out of six hundred so thank you for making time for us today and i know that this is like a really busy time for the season for you but we will be checking in with you as the season goes on sounds good thanks for having me all right buddy great to finally have you on well it was

a relatively mild affair between dom and jesse but i feel like i didn't want to bring up my my point that he can't refute oh you can't just do this now shoot a man in the back i didn't i didn't want to i didn't want to embarrass him but i'll dissect it i'll dissect it right now all right here we go because over the weekend i watched jared goff with uh without a finger without a thumb i should say on his throwing hand grip a football and lead the los angeles rams with a great defense to a win over the seattle seahawks over the summer i watched the los angeles lakers win an nba championship in a bubble i watched the los angeles dodgers win a world series championship and as many if you want to run 50 000 models you

want to run a million models they can't account for la's got magic this year and i picked the kings to make the playoffs because there's something in the water in los angeles and tell me how the computers can sniff the water and taste it that there's a winning culture in the city of la and they're gonna pick the kings to make the the playoffs like you know jesse's right aren't going to do that but i am here to do that i wait i'm sure we all remember a miracle on ice when they say if we play them 50 000 times they might win 48 647 not tonight all i'm saying is i might outsmart the computers every now and again the kings are taking on the wild tonight at 10 o'clock so i guess we'll get our first look at jesse blake's

la kings a weird place to plant your flag but okay i i've seen i've seen what 2020 does to la and it's been very kind to them do you know how many dms i got about that la pick like people are like well i thought you were crazy for picking winnipeg but uh no jesse was picking the kings like that's insane what all i got was people on my side jesse did pick in 2016-17 the leaps to make the playoffs when we were all like you're out of your mind it's matthew's first year you did pick that you said they were going to make it so there you go um do we have time for a press conference gentlemen i think so yeah let's do it let's get some questions in all right i'm getting warmed up i'm excited real good ones um so david schumer on twitter pointed out that this was the

first leafs game in a number of years where clarkson and horton weren't on the roster oh since 20 since the start of this podcast no way yeah Clarkson signed before the podcast even started yeah that we've never not had one of the two on the on the roster this is a historic podcast episode this is this is really this is the first time this one so that's why they got eliminated by the Bruins in 2013 yeah and we started the show just after that yeah we started the show conference final yep and then the the leaf signed clarkson oh my god you're right yeah yeah first time the least you've been playing that's crazy banana sandwich wow wow have the leafs been paying mikhail grabovsky the entire time we've been doing the show i'm pretty sure

are they because they're still right that's still an underrated quote when they asked him when he got bought out and they asked about randy carl and he's like he's a fucking idiot oh jesus well Because, like, wasn't he at his own wedding when he got bought out? Really? What? I think he was, wasn't he? I remember they had Berkey on Sportsnet just to interview him, and they said, hey, because Berkey was still working in the league,

and said, Brian, would you have bought out for Grabowski? He's like, no, I wouldn't have bought out for Grabowski. He is – this is his last year of the compliance buyout. He's making $1,791,667. Did it have to end with 67? it did wow uh next question comes from wesley smith if freddy continues to play subpar how quickly do they pull the trigger on campbell starting continues guys guys i we're so far away from that that or he has to play especially terrible

i don't if he's playing january february 2020 freddie hockey uh i don't see it more i don't see it lasting more than about 10 15 games they don't have time to wait what no that's true they don't have time to wait but like everyone makes fun of me for my allegedly irrational love of james reimer jack campbell comes in here and plays six games has never been a starter ever and everyone's just taking the net away from Freddie? How does that make any sense? Well, I think it's more along the line. It's more or less about Jack Campbell's play,

more about Freddie's. So it's more about lighting a fire? Well, will Freddie play himself out of the spot? Like Jack Campbell had great numbers on a horrendous LA Canings team. Like a last place team. And he was like, was he in the 920s in the save percentage or something like that?

I forget what it was, but it was very, very good. at the beginning of last season i want to say he was a 900 but like quick was like an 860 or something like he was before when they were still also bad yes no he was very good so that's very good so the thing is is that there there obviously is something there you know at least as a backup goaltender i don't think to be to answer the question i don't think that's going to happen i think freddie will figure it out you gotta remember too this is a contract year for freddie in a depressed market so um he's got to play well he's got to play well there's a lot of money riding on this he expected to get a raise from the five million dollars that he was making and

i i think we were asked at the beginning of uh the 2019 2020 season which was last season which is unbelievable we did a live broadcast and did a not a live broadcast but like a um an in person with the beer company we were working with at the time and somebody asked you know what are they going to extend freddie for and i said they're not yeah they're not going to extend them and i still don't think that they will um i think that they're you know you i guess you could and probably the timelines on everything has changed uh but the the reality is freddie is getting older and he wants a markstrom like deal that's the kind of deal freddie anderson is after he's got to perform big this year if he doesn't he'll end up with a less than bray brayden holby

type deal he can get it because like if he let's let's say he let's say he's got like a 950 somewhere between 915 and 920 then he can point it last year as the anomaly which 100 because he's been great there have been moments we've never been great in the playoffs never no never been on the greatest team in the playoffs but very true but come on i mean he's been beaten every playoffs put it that way yes he's not been the best goalie in any series he's played and i say that as a fan of freddie who loves freddie and wants freddie to win a stanley cup here that's yeah just there was i can't remember if it was 2019 or 2018 that rask was for the first part of the series terrible and i'm just watching going this is it this is your shot and they

couldn't do it they couldn't do it now interestingly too the the narrative around freddie anderson is going to change throughout the year because here's the here's here's what's happening Now, how long will we have Freddie's bad play before we'll switch him out for Jack Campbell? If the Leafs go beyond the first round, do you think for a second that the only conversation there's not going to be any conversation other than Freddie Anderson's a UFA? So even if they win the cup, oh, they're screwed. That's so we could literally go from talking about Freddie Anderson being replaced to Freddie Anderson cup contending team. And oh, my God, he's going to leave next year. What are they going to do?

that's where we're at and that's how quickly narratives can change i think that both are possible this year uh i think chances are you see a little bit more of freddie going getting back to what freddie's done and going after a big contract which he should next question yes oh sorry next steve yeah next question uh it's for adam specifically but steve i think you can weigh in if you want your names on the show okay uh why does leafs mainstream media treat every game like it's not being watched in the Leafs' region. It's from Brian Murphy. That was a little interesting.

Okay, so your mic's starting to sound a little muffled, Jess. Just a heads up. I don't understand the question. So Brian asks, why does Leafs' mainstream media treat every game like it's not being watched in the Leafs' region? I guess Brian's complaint is a little with their expectations of the fans

is that they or they're appealing more to the Leafs fans outside of the market, like the other teams and the rest of the rest of the country, as opposed to, hey, this is on the Leafs regional network, like everybody watching the damn Leafs fan, like appeal to us. I can answer that. OK, yeah. And it's for you, Adam, specifically. Well, I can I can answer that.

So from a broadcasting perspective, and Steve, please weigh in on this. Most Leaf games are national games, so you can't treat them. And I know he said specifically regional, But most Leaf games are national games. They are playing usually to a national audience. They play every Saturday night. They played almost every Wednesday night last season until the pandemic. There's a reason.

And that's because the ratings are sky high in comparison to other teams because the population here is just flat out bigger. And love Leaf fans or hate them. And I'm sure most people who are not Leaf fans hate them. The reality is the passion for the Toronto Maple Leafs is enormous. It's just an enormous brand recognition within the market. it everybody i knew was watching the game last night everybody every insta story i clicked on even people that are not necessarily hockey fans were still watching the game because a we're stuck

inside and there's nothing else to do and b it's the toronto maple leafs and it's a big deal and i think uh the reason that they just so so that would be on a national level you can't be like a leafs homer um for that reason and i think the other thing is is that um if you're talking in terms of content and i think that might be where what you're hinting at as well like are we are we you know are we appealing to new market are we appealing to burlington are we appealing to niagara are we appealing to is that is that is that the sense you guys got of that question because i'm not 100 sure on that part of it um what i am getting from it basically like i i think is it brian you said yeah it's brian the question asker brian feels like leaf

games don't ever seem catered towards leaf fans is that what he's that's the that's the sentiment of the tweet i got well i think so yeah i think that's a fair point well i i'm willing to bet brian is one of the people asking us to sign the joe bowen petition and i'm like i like listening to joe bowen games i when i'm in the car uh i listen to him on the radio i like it because i'm a leafs fan fans who are people who are not fans of the leafs would not be able to physically stomach that like that's why he'd only be on a regional broadcast right yeah it's like imagine jack edwards was a national broadcaster for bruins games you'd throw up into your lap if you were a fan of the flyers or penguins or whatever um i i will say this like you know i

can't talk about the broadcasts really because i'm not on them except for the commercial that you saw 30 000 times but um the like trade trees for example or stuff that i do on the uh on the sportsnet youtube channel like i know anytime i mention the leafs at all even if it's totally relevant i'm gonna get roasted for it and then i'm gonna say a bunch of stuff about the flames and i'm gonna say a bunch of stuff about the habs and i'm gonna say a bunch of stuff about the canucks and oilers and then i'm gonna have to say something about the leafs again and it's going to completely reset and it's leafs net and toronto sports network and just uh-huh it's from you got to think of it like this brian um so you're you're on a national broadcaster one of

the sports guys you're your tsn your sports net and you um you you can like tim and sid take shots especially Sid takes shots at the Leafs. I'm willing to bet Sid grew up a Leaf fan, a big Leaf fan. Sid's not an unpassionate person. But all the shots that he takes at them are legitimate, A, because they deserve it. They haven't achieved anything. And B, the reality is on a show like that, if you're trying,

you have Toronto. Toronto's already watching. You're trying to get the rest of the country, right? And so, like, that's the thing is that, you know, And when we talk about gearing towards Leaf fans, dude, you could put almost anything on at intermission. Leaf fans are going to watch it because Leaf fans show up for the games.

They do. So you almost don't even need to. You're trying to reach out for, especially if it's an all-Canadian matchup, the fans of the other team who may feel disenfranchised because the Leafs, believe it or not, suck up a ton of oxygen and you have to be fair to the other markets.

And especially, you're going to see a lot of that in the Canadian division this year. you're going to see a lot of focus on the other team because i could tell you that tsn and sports net go out of their way bend over backwards to not overdo it on the lease and i know it feels like to other fans that they do and that you're going to call me crazy but they are absolutely trying to keep this as balanced as possible but the reality is the populations aren't balanced there are more leaf fans there just are i wrote an article about the oilers making the playoffs in 2017 and all their fans in the comments told me to fuck off how you were happy for them as a leaf

it was literally about how you know what you've suffered for a long time and you deserve this and it was go fuck yourself and i'm like okay well and then the next article i write is leaves and the same people commenting on that one go why the fuck are you talking about the leaves yeah it's complicated and would you like me to just go and die then like i guess i just can't write about anything what i would there's at the moment there are a few things that i'd like to model go to therapy at the moment there are a few things that i would want to model after the americans but one thing i will do is we'll say is when america talks about la and new york everybody just accepts that they're bigger and i know that there's a there's a bit of a rivalry between

chicago and new york but there is not a rivalry rivalry between new york and chicago if you know what i'm saying it's like is there a vocal it's not a it's people are not like people in iowa are not going i'm so tired of hearing about the los angeles lakers why can't you talk about the buckeyes or you know what i mean it's not in the middle of of may when there's no football you'll turn on espn and the first thing they'll start with on a new show is hey the dallas cowboys threw a football into a trash can yeah that's the biggest thing in america the nfl and then the dallas cowboys and they will talk about it 365 days of the year because they know that's their biggest audience and what about dac's contract which right a year of dac prescott's

fucking contract and hammer that nail until it's into the wood you know but jesse skip skip always apologizes for it though what do you mean what no he's always like sorry i talk about the cowboys all the time oh wait no he doesn't he just fucking does it because it pays the bills right exactly It pays the bills. Bingo. There you go. I wrote an article about Tobias Lindbergh that was top five of the entire website.

I've seen the numbers. You haven't. Also, underrated thing in this market is Blue Jays. Like, you can talk about the Blue Jays sometimes, and it just spikes numbers. People are really passionate about that team, and there are a lot more fans than you would think. And it's a Canada-wide thing with the Blue Jays.

So that, that, the Blue Jays and the Raptors are interesting because from a sports perspective, they're all we have. And so it's very interesting. If we had a Grizzlies, if we had an Expos, you'd start to see more pot shots at the Raptors and Jays. You would just, because, because they're, because I think broadcasters recognize there's a huge population differential and we got to even it out somehow. I would do the same thing. Listen, I've taken shots at the Leafs on this show specifically because they deserve it. What have they accomplished? so if you're worried about you know gearing things towards a leaf fan i mean there's this great show i like called lfr uh definitely geared towards leaf fans check it out sometime that's what i would say it's not you know unfortunately in toronto as much as we want everything to be about us not every broadcast is going to be about the leafs and even when even when the leafs are playing they're going to make an effort not to talk about the leafs because there are other things going on that's why yeah do you want to talk about uh victory baby and the fact that you won't do it because the people are i love this idea why won't you do this

because my child is not a prop yeah people are like like i can't throw a treat at my six month old and have him catch it in his mouth like what if he's asleep like come on man no my kid is not a problem there's a reason why you're the best producer in the world you're the best producer in the world because we know victory baby would outstrip victory puppies all day all day and victory toddler victory child victory uh uh teen who's a bit awkward and then victory angry teenager victory teenager who hates his father well because he's been objectified for a decade and a half victory drug problem we might get to that point i don't know you know what steve your your kid's gonna hate you when he's a teenager anyway so like we might as well use him

uh you know you sold me sign up for as a parent no one likes their parents when they're teen years come on you know you know you sold me yeah leo get down here you know what here's the thing leave a comment all right and in jesse actually can you make a comment on this video and just say who's down for victory babies who's down for victory babies like this comment for victory babies okay we're gonna make victory babies a thing no we're not but but the people want it steve well you know why you know we gotta cater to those people we do we do so victory babies let's uh let's see it in the comments everybody uh hit us up all right well listen that's it for us today we love you we will be back and into our new schedule on monday we've got a couple

uh leaf games to talk about this weekend the sends and leaves twice friday saturday and obviously all the other stuff going on in the nhl um and uh yeah like guys we're rolling now we're gonna be like this till the summer this is crazy i'm ready i'm excited we talked about a game like yes how great is that several and babies and we had dom on too it's cool and ian it's good good episode anyway we will see you on monday mondays and thursdays from now on we love you see you later the steve dangle podcast follow the guys on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake connection complete