The Steve Dangle Podcast - Vision Decision | May 16, 2022

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the Leafs lose in Game 7, again, You Can Bet That with David Bastl, the Battle of Alberta is officially happening, the Battle of Florida is officially happening, the Canes will play the Rangers, the Avs will play the Blues, the Islanders hire a new head coach and Vegas fires Peter DeBoer, and Steve did another Red Dead live stream. Originally aired: May 16, 2022 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/C7aBY1doWDc Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Individuals must be 19 years of age or older to open a Sports Interaction account. Terms and Conditions apply. Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. To learn more, visit: https://help.sportsinteraction.com/hc/en-us/articles/216779528-Responsible-Gaming-Self-Limitation-Self-Exclusion. Or if you have concerns about a gambling problem, call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600. Sports Interaction is subject to successful AGCO registration and execution of an Operating Agreement with iGaming Ontario. The Eligible iGames conducted and managed by iGO are only available to those physically present in the Province of Ontario. Visit this episode's sponsors: Get 20% off + free shipping with the code DANGLE at manscaped.com. That’s 20% off + free shipping with the code DANGLE at manscaped.com. It’s time to get wet and clean with your new MANSCAPED™ Shower Routine." https://manscaped.com/ CODE: DANGLE https://sportsinteraction.com/sdpn https://rhoback.com/ CODE: DANGLE http://seatgeek.com/ CODE: SDP http://workable.com/ https://www.mvmt.com/ CODE: DANGLE 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

this here is a program and this program is brought to you by manscaped if you need to escape your man text dangle actually don't do that don't text dangle said you put the promo code dangling i was trying to trying to do something to get to raise steve's spirits well adam you're hiding behind the microphone there here's here's what's important is you were really close and we can take a lot of positives from that dangle uh 20 off free shipping manscape.com check it out right now let's start the show the steve dangle podcast powered by sports interaction canada's sports book the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake back at it they say i'm all ready for game eight who's ready no honestly is that your

towel i'm waving i am waving my towel from the game jesse and i were at game seven so no matter what and you can actually see there's some stains there no matter what i could say at least once i went to a game seven and because it was a leafs game seven they did not win but uh you know at the end of the day it was still a lot of fun to be there and the crowd was bananas and i really enjoyed it do you guys regret spending money on going to that game no it's unbelievable not not not a penny good good i'm glad i'm glad it'd be a shame if you had any other reaction were you expecting us to be like no we didn't like going to that hockey game that team we love support win or lose man win or lose it's i you know why i asked because at least you got to see

good product but um did you see the i think it was nba on tnt compilation of fans of the phoenix suns sitting there no oh beginning of the fourth quarter like well all of them lord knows how much those tickets cost and they're all just sitting there like well i guess i'll sit through another quarter of this shit well that's because luka donchich had as many points as the suns did in the first half dude i couldn't believe i thought i thought like uh the twitter app made a typo or something it's crazy when i saw that it was like who's up by 30 it would be it was like if calgary had scored on all the shot attempts that they actually had on dallas last oh my god you know what i mean like if that if that's what the game felt like it was crazy but i i think i don't know

jesse you back me up on this one if you want to but i i i think one of the things that i want to say before we get going really into what happened and what's next is no one's getting traded today okay number one we're not trading anyone i don't know we're not trading anyone on the show today no i don't know cj is going to join us later this week i believe wednesday in studio wednesday in the studio chris johnston annual tradition we're going to unpack what happened which is great the leafs media day is tomorrow yeah tomorrow so there'll be it'll be fresh off of that which is great and there's a cj article out today that i want to mention later on but i want to say this one real positive that we absolutely can take from this series

why is that anytime somebody and that whenever they do this they're doing this to troll toronto fans anytime somebody has anything to say about what leaf fans are like in the building it is now outdated that crowd was unbelievable it was unbelievable all series long and we were screaming right to the end and i can tell you um uh leaf fans are as passionate as they come sometimes that is bad most of the time it's good and in that building which admittedly in the past has been quiet but the team sucked for a decade so what do you expect the fan base was there everybody from the platinum section right at the front all the way back had leafs jerseys on uh there it was there wasn't a set a single person in there that was not a leaf fan that was not

standing up that was not screaming that was not waving their towels so that bullshit is over we can stop with that right now. If you make a sushi joke about a Leafs fan, then it's like, oh, you haven't been to a playoff game in 2022 in Scotiabank. Also, the sushi is pretty good. Not going to lie. It's not. I've eaten sushi at the airport. It's not bad. It's like the ones you

get at like Metro. Oh, you know when they're like frozen. Oh, this is too good for a bento box. Wow. But I would like bento boxes. I wouldn't say like, oh, you know, top notch sushi. They have good dumplings too. They got great bento box if you want that but like yeah if you're making jokes about leaf's crowd being quiet and sitting on

their hands like okay so you haven't been to a game in a while right because that's the complete opposite atmosphere we have as good an atmosphere as any other team in the league and you're gonna see that during the regular season at some point next year someone's gonna be like well the fans are quiet today not every wednesday in november is that exciting well yeah yeah we're talking about when it matters the fans show up they do and there was like 15 000 people out front too you know so you're talking like 30 000 people just within a kilometer every over 30 000 people in the watch the leaps game that doesn't count that doesn't count at all i want to i just want to give toronto uh the credit that they deserve for inventing that maple leaf square that now

which every other city now has yep every freaking in every sport they're panning to the crowd out front we did that that's ours we did it first i believe i think the raptors did it before the Leafs but they get it because the playoffs started like a week earlier yeah yeah the Raptors president of the team got up in front of the crowd and said fuck Brooklyn which you know what remains true to this day fuck Brooklyn fuck that only cost them 25 grand I know I would say any day I would sign that check but Tampa Calgary all of your little outdoor things Milwaukee Bucks I see you you're welcome from Toronto you're welcome that's right we gave it to you that's right um now uh let's let's look at the at the loss itself the leafs lose tampa

clogs the neutral zone for a good chunk of the game leafs can't make uh the entries they want to make you know you know what am i wrong no that's good i thought adam was trying to set up no no you go you get in get in get in get in the car let's go no because because i know you're setting up the leafs yeah yeah tell me you're setting up the leafs and i want to give uh tampa their props please dude the fact that they won game seven largely without nikita kucherov and without braden point the fact that braden point tried to play a shift after that and nick nick paul scoring two goals right and the first two of his stanley cup playoff career and and not even they weren't easy goals like especially that second one he just he said

i'm going to score it yep nick paul uh andre vasilevsky not that great of a series best game in game seven that's that's championship dna and they showed it in game seven man they absolutely did and so yeah well i know i think you're right and at no point on this show we're going to take away from tampa's performance obviously because i think the better team won and that's i just i don't know you like to get it out of the way right away yeah tampa clogged the neutral zone and that was the thing right and it made the least power place largely ineffectual when we talked about at the beginning of the series how if if toronto's penalty kill which had a great game one but really wasn't as as sturdy afterwards what did i say when the series began if you if you collapse in

as toronto's penalty kill you will lose and that's what happened they largely backed off what i saw at least from you know from being there gap control became an issue and it became an issue more and more over the series but even on five on five you could see moments where it's like you see the defense been backing off and it's allowing tampa bay more options and so unfortunately and i know it was a bit of a low event game until the third period it it really did when you do that i think there's a psyche a psyche thing too you're not feeling confident enough to close that gap and take a risk well you know what i'm saying weapons the weapons yeah the weapons kutrov on one side stamkos on the other headman at the point um they can do that um that play that i can't believe they

didn't get a goal off of where it looks like they're setting up kutra for a one-timer and then he slap passes it into the slot to point i think killorn is in front of the net dude what do you do what do you do what do you do and and i think i i have to tell you um the it was painful to be in the arena and see that Tavares goal called back oh I couldn't so you don't you don't hear the feed right no so imagine my surprise when uh like I just saw Tavares's expression I'm like why does he look upset so again I'm streaming the game there's thousands of people watching I can't hear the the crowd I can't hear the whistles I can't hear the commentators i can't hear nothing so imagine my surprise in that moment right what was it like for

you guys well we were screwed we were screwed it was probably 10 15 seconds before we even we probably knew it though before the broadcast because i watched the whole game back on sunday i like to go back and watch the game whenever i you're a sycophant you didn't hear the whistles so uh when when i watched the broadcast back on sunday they he scored the goal and then they went to commercial and that whole time no it was still a goal and when they came back from commercial is when when in the stadium they were doing the uh no goal the ref west mccauley or whoever is that the is that the ice doing the can you imagine being a fit imagine we were home watching oh yeah we knew before everybody watching on tv i'm surprised because i don't remember

right i did because i get the broadcast feed really yeah yeah that's that's how it went down They went to commercial and then they came back and they explained the whole penalty. If you were watching it, I'm so sorry. What a horrible commercial break. Yeah. Oh, well, and I lost my mind. Of course. I lost it.

I lost my mind for something that is and isn't a penalty. So and it's and it's it's. What did you think of the play? to me it's it's why hockey is unwatchable to a non-fan in a nutshell like it is a penalty like hall listen that should be a penalty okay it should it's it's interference not with a hard hit stiff hit a dangerous hit but it's interference in a way that affects puck position It's setting a pick, basically, right? Yes.

That's why I thought it shouldn't be a penalty. I don't think that's a penalty in the playoffs ever. Ever. This is the problem is, you know, because I had, you know, the producers are in my ear like, no, no, you're going to want to get another look at this. And I do. But I'm mid rant because now it's coming back to me.

I'm mid rant because I'm filling a commercial break. Do you remember now? Well, I'm starting. I had to fill time after the Leafs had a goal called back in game seven, and we're about to head to the penalty kill. Do they make you tap dance the entire commercial break? What was the other option? Run commercials.

We don't do that. We don't do that. We've never done that. Oh, be a great opportunity at more revenue. Anyway, I think. Okay. This isn't the time to solve that. Yeah, this isn't.

Oh, my God. Look at my 150 heart rate. I was coming undone. So, yeah, I had to fill that commercial break. I had only seen the replay a couple times. Yeah, there's Tavares. The big sell. And Giordano looks deflated right away.

Cameras on the crowd. Crowd's going ballistic. Tampa Bay bench looks dejected. And then this was the shot where I was like, what's happening? What's happening right now? And they know not only is this not a goal. Look at my face. Look at my face.

And that's the producer getting in my ear. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. So it's. You can see Steve, by the way, if you're listening to the audio thing, you could see Steve just grabbing his face. And then. Well, so. And then like, here's the thing.

Here's what I could tell Steve's intense. His eyebrows are halfway up his forehead. Oh, I know. And they don't move. It's a lot of forehead. And so what I've started to do, and this is a crutch now, but I'm going to have a hard time shaking it. is when i'm getting when i'm being told information i grab my headphones there's nothing wrong with that no yeah to communicate to the audience like i'm someone speaking to me

and i'm fine it's a cute and i have the timeline a little wrong so they do the call and then they go to commercial but they don't have the replay of the interview so you don't know what so what you have wes mccauley going and he makes the power play call so that happens so it was for the It was Wes McCauley, not Eric Furlough. I'm not sure which. I just assumed it was Wes McCauley. It doesn't really matter. So he makes the call here, and then they go to commercial break,

and then they come back and they explain that, hey, they're going on the penalty kill, and that was the pick. So you know the goal's waved off, and then you're kind of left in limbo, and you kind of fill there. So that's the kind of time. Just to get that straight for everybody. Yeah, and if you're a new fan looking to get into the sport, ah, not for you.

No. Like, good luck. Good luck. No, no. Listen, if you've been watching your entire life, you have a shot at understanding. If you're new, I don't know. This might be time to cut bait. It was interesting.

Morgan Riley said after the game, he's like, I'm not even sure. Look at me. I'm calling for the replay. I'm like spitting my finger. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. Morgan Riley said after the game, I'm not even really sure what the rules are. Yeah.

And that's the thing, right? Because here's how the refs had set it up. Games one to five, they called everything. everything sticks holds all that game six um they stopped you saw you know everybody fans were going ballistic about one to five in the first period okay after the first period of game five it all drives up there it is so then you know you saw matthews kind of getting pulled by one of the tampa players i forget who it was he was getting uh pulled by cologne matthews getting shoved out of the way in front of the net by ross colton there was a pick on matthews

i believe it was in game six high in the zone so yeah it's a penalty yeah it should probably be called most of the time it isn't but i could see the context right where people look at that in a vacuum and go like if you weren't watching the game you look at that you go yeah of course it's a penalty what the fuck are they complaining about in the context of what we saw though they were calling calling calling no let's stop now and that's the players asked for it we asked for it yeah call the game yeah had they continued remember game five middle of the second period to a game uh game seven that's a game or two and a half games or two games or whatever since that had changed if you set that tone you have to keep to that tone jesse i'm sorry i think that call was

a direct result of stamkos raising his arm i think stamkos got that call call on well the least fans got one right yeah the least fans go and stamkos has a huge reputation around the league there he is raising his hand right there as soon as it happens of being on top of those little things and getting the ref's attention like he's great at drawing penalties it's always talking to them and they they know like okay if something happens on there stamkos is going to be in our ear he's going to be yelling and i think him immediately raising his hand at this pick gets the ref's attention makes that call and you know it's funny uh i was talking to some people and they're like why doesn't hockey have like a a penalty challenge like a one penalty challenge per game like the

nba and and the reason you can't do that is it'll be a penalty every single time it'll be a penalty every single time because and this is why i said in my video yes it's a penalty but what does that have to do with anything because there's there's how many infractions do you think there are in any given nhl game 50 yeah probably my bet is 50 and how many get called five eight sometimes eight 10 somewhere between 10 to 15 percent yeah yeah maybe 10 to 20 percent of infractions in any given game are called so if you have a challenge and like let's say you can only use it in the third period or something like that it's going to get called every time so like if the leafs challenge that to say no it's not a penalty they'd fail the challenge absolutely by the letter of the law you

can call it a penalty yeah but like what if you're able to be like alex calorn on that last play and then tampa goes well we're going to use ours to negate that michael bunting with the interference right behind that it it's so you wouldn't be able to institute it and this is west macaulay who's done over a thousand games in the nhl and over a hundred in the stanley cup playoffs this is eric furlatt who's done over a thousand games in the nhl and over a hundred in the stanley cup playoffs this is the best we can do god help us it is what it is guys west west macaulay's revenge on steve you knew it was coming oh yeah yeah the score is currently

25 to nothing west I think okay now let me let me say this for all you fans that are not fans of the Leafs as Leaf fans we are experts in game 7 no we are connoisseurs in game 7 we are we are the Somalia version of game

seven losses and on the scale of horrendous game seven losses let me just say this okay this was the best one this was the one and i know that sounds oh this is mentality i'm gonna get that you can uh you can fly kite i don't care the reality was i finally felt like the toronto Maple Leafs lost to an opponent that truly deserved it versus the Leafs shot themselves in the foot with being too young, Washington, bad coaching, Boston and Boston, being not motivated and coming off a COVID season. And really, the team was full of holes too. Columbus, Montreal, you lose Tavares, Deneau shuts you down.

And frankly, you lose a series you never should have lost. You choked. They choked last year. That game was choked in game six. Game five, game six, game seven, choke, choke, choke. And you know what? If you're a fan of another team and you want to dunk on the Leafs for that, 100%. Game seven, the LFR, when I went off after they lost the Montreal series,

easiest video I've ever shot. Really? Yeah, you just shit on them for half an hour. They deserved it. Easiest, and they deserved every word. Yeah, right. And they deserved every word. I had 48 hours to plan for their inevitable loss.

This year's was incredibly hard. because i'm like i have no idea what to say well and and it comes down to so now instantly even on the way home we were talking about it like jesse and uh jessie's partner gabby and natalie and i were walking up the street and we're thinking like okay where do you go uh what do you even do and and steve you've said it before what would you have done differently not a thing not a thing like and here's the the thing was toronto was really great in this series and the way if i I want to say one thing, though, guys, and this isn't talent. There is something that this team has struggled with for years that I think was brought back down to a minimum this year.

But it does appear in their game is there are moments of sloppy, unfocused hockey. And when that happens, you get an errand high stick or you get a blind pass that turns into a goal. It's the sloppy on defensive zone exits that turn into goals. it's you know um you know you're not looking to see if there's an extra man back when a defenseman's pitching pinching and every single time that happened this series tampa capitalized and tampa to me are robotic it does not matter what you throw at them it does not matter that you beat them five nothing in game one they just keep coming and they don't have those moments and if they do it doesn't really matter because even if you capitalize on it they're still going to

keep coming and in the haunting what one of the things is going to haunt me the most about this series is not the not the penalty situation the the you can't blame the refs yeah at the end of the day you can't blame the refs Tavares goal called back or not calling Killorn in overtime they were healthy they were healthy and and Braden Point's leg exploded Kucherov was taking like 20 second shifts who on the Leafs was hurt now tomorrow we're gonna find out like guys playing her I wouldn't be surprised if a couple guys got like off-season surgery Muzzin's probably on a bunch of stuff just to get on the ice yeah i'm not shocked at all and i wouldn't be shocked if campbell got surgery and bunting is probably you know oh yeah bunting was it looked like he was

hurting oh man really i thought he was getting better as the series went he did look better i thought he was going right he still didn't look like himself let me let me run you through some names here guys oh names and points matthews nine points marner eight points Nylander seven points Tavares six probably with the seventh with that goal if it had gone the right way Mikheyev had had four bunting Jesse had three you know

there's a pretty that's pretty solid for the forward group but I had a three point game and by the way I didn't put Morgan Riley in there not I had six not enough of those are on the power play this is the number one power play in the league and they didn't show up as the number one power play in the playoffs Tampa shut them down in that respect and if you get

a couple more power play goals the series goes completely differently and i think kelly rudy post game uh on the broadcast had the i think one of the best answers to your question adam on what happened here and what where where do you improve and what goes wrong and he said um what went wrong is game two when you have a lead game three when you have a lead game six when you can close it out and had a lead and had a lead and those opportunities is where the leaf struggled it's you had chances here to send tampa home to get a huge lead in the series and every single time they

failed to do that every single game there was lapses where they lost and they didn't show up and those opportunities where you can try just if it's about effort here you can put in a little more effort and not let Tampa get into the series I'm going to do this off the top of my head

game one against Washington blew a two nothing lead game six against Washington you were leading in the third period Game seven against Boston the next year. You're leading in the third period. Game.

Well, game six and seven. The series last year, you had a 3-1 lead. Well, you had six and seven in the second Boston series to close it out. At least we're up 3-2. Oh, shit. You're right. You had a 3-2 series lead. But you played Matthews 18 minutes.

And, oh, hmm. You had a 3-2 series lead in 2019. Glossed over that one. You're right. A Eureka comeback in game four against Columbus. none of you were interested in yeah they didn't care about that series yeah you weren't interested in being there and we weren't interested in watching you know um that might have been my my least favorite year the compass year what a miserable it was a bad year that was that was

the david airs year that was a bad terrible um and like in retrospect after watching this season with the leafs god the the 1920 season what a piece of shit what a piece well and i think i think it started if you talk about 1920 it starts with 20 games of babs and i think it's hard to shake that i think the team was done it got fun when keith was in there and they what were they like 18 and 2 15 and 5 and 20 games yeah they're like oh man we look way too good let's shed that skin yeah and immediately go back and they were too out and then the world shut down on your birthday and then yeah but they were shit well long before that right they might not have made the playoffs by the way it wasn't fun the zamboni driver video for steve passed a million views this

weekend hooray isn't that cool that's pretty cool you got a million oh yeah finally that's pretty great there's one yeah nice one first we should get balloons then you show a picture yeah i'll go to his go to david's house you should you need to you need to you need to do a video about that video with david i think um practically neighbors you're you're finishing off uh where they had the opportunity to close it out and they haven't done it they had the lead in game six in the third period and for the second straight year they go down five men to three uh in a game six where they have a chance to close out the series and then in game seven once again they never have the lead not once and this is the thing this is what i mean about you know i was really hard on

them earlier in the season because they were playing sloppy and i kept saying 10 games in guys, I know it's 10 games in. I know. But it's the same shit. But it's this sort of stuff that's going to matter come playoff time because the Leafs are in the toughest division in the sport, which means that you got to be better than the toughest division in the sport. You can bitch about reffing. You can bitch about seeding. The reality is this is the way the playoffs are seeded. So if you want to win, if you're the Leafs, and this is a results-based business, so this is where I'm going to go hard a little bit. I think this is the best Toronto Maple Leafs team I have ever seen ever bar none fuck 93 and 94 I love those guys by the way love you

Dougie but the reality is is the best Toronto Maple Leafs team we've ever seen skill wise absolutely however the gaffes are the things exactly what Jesse brought up with Kelly Rudy dial it in dial it in just that little bit longer and Tampa can do that the Leafs can't yet Willie miscalculations, Kerfoot miscalculations, Hall with that giveaway. Two of them. That's rough. Well, he had two really bad giveaways, but it was the one when they're trying to get an empty net where I wanted to reach through the screen and just like we're done here with that, right? I thought he had a good game, a really good game five.

When Justin Hall's at his best, he did. So that means he'll get 20 games before getting jettisoned. We all know the Leafs love their good game fives That's a dark joke But let's not get Let's be honest here They are still playing the Stanley Cup champions But you're probably going to have to do that

Right? And the Leafs knew that going into the season You're playing Boston You're playing Tampa How do you have this clip ready, Jesse? I come prepared Where the fuck is that pass going? It's one of the most egregious plays

I've seen an NHL player make And I've tried to defend Justin Hall consistently Throughout the season because he took too much shit for just being In the lineup when he's a great penalty killer But there were a couple plays Here in game seven that were just Like

What are you doing To the Art Ross trophy Nikita Kucherov right at your own blue line I'm going to just get up a still for the people Watching on YouTube It's just crazy It's even worse than I remember okay but but see see there are opportunities to close they don't close and this is a results-based

business there's no question about it and so when anybody says oh you guys like apologizing for the you know it's the best Leafs team you've seen and they still can't make it out of the first listen I think context is key here the reality is the playoff seating is what it is second place third we were second they were third they won the Stanley Cup the last two years it's a pretty goddamn good team and they and the idea that the leafs sort of like rolled over on the lightning is absolute bullshit which i've seen out there too that's the worst pass in human history it's it's oh my god it's gaffs like that though that will kill you especially against the lightning and the leafs still have to work that into the game so here's the problem though the problem

isn't game seven guys the problem is this summer this is where it gets murky this is because steve i asked you it's a great team if you were kyle dubas what would you have done differently and you said nothing and jesse you said might have tried to get on mark andre flurry but that's about it i thought i thought the goaltending was going to be a problem in the series and jack campbell was amazing just as good as any other goaltender in the entirety of the playoffs for the second straight year except for jake ottinger jack campbell yeah jake well yeah jack campbell faced carrie price last year and andre vasilevsky this year and was just about equal to the both of them so here's yep and that's amazing you can't you can't get better a goaltender so the problem

now is despite how good this team is results results results results so essentially you got two options you run it back you tinker which is kind of what they did last year after the montreal series and you hope to get a few extra wins next year and maybe you win the conference you know there's a few games the leafs like imagine the leafs had won all their games against buffalo or a couple more games against Ottawa. At that point, they're fighting the Panthers for number one in the conference. Not blowing a 4-1 lead against Calgary.

So you have a really good team. So it's conceivable, I think, that the Leafs could win the conference next year if they tighten some of this stuff up. The run it back thing doesn't work because the salary cap doesn't allow the Leafs to run it back. There aren't enough dollars to bring back the players. Hold on.

Before we get into that, I want to just give you the other option and then we'll examine the both. Is that cool? Sure. Just give me one more thing. Here's the other thing. You make a bigger move. Don't forget the Masayu Jiri effect on MLSC in general, not just the Raptors. Remember, after four or five runs, Masayu Jiri finally said, okay, I've had enough of this. We're second, third round out every single season. By the way, if the NHL was seeded the way the NBA is, it's likely the Leafs have at least have hit the second round by now, but probably the same result. if you know now and i don't know if there's a kawaii trade available for dubas this summer i

don't think there is uh but messiah was unwilling to do the same thing again and lose so he put his career on the line and was rewarded and it sounds nice in theory we'll have to get into what that looks like but jesse talk about the the cap situation with the leafs at least the way you see it yeah so ilya mikhayev is gonna want more than 1.6 million he's gone you can't do that he's gone he's not gonna peter marazic still is under contract for two more years at 3.8 million dollars you have to do something with that deal or you're stuck with this this contract which i don't know what you're gonna do so you can buy them out and that's gonna cost you about one point something on the cap which is decent you could do that or you pay a price to get rid of them jack campbell

needs a new deal that's gonna cost you a lot if you want to keep them if the ideas of trading john tavarez full no move it's it's not you can't do it it's people are saying trade jake muslin can't do it full full no trade you can send them to the miners and like threaten them and all that stuff but that's not happening they're not going to do that um the the geo deal is geo gonna take a million dollars yes he is but then yes but then that's a left shot defense right then you have four guys on the left side who are all in your starting lineup and how who plays rasmus sandin and timothy lilligren cannot spend a single game in the press box next year right so you have yeah they're full timers now you have too many left shot defensemen so where does geo fit in you know

and then um you okay spezza we all assume is gonna take his 750 and come back if he wants to who knows and then it's like okay that might be it is is wayne simmons on the marley i think wayne's gonna retire if he does my bet okay my bet is he retires but then he'd be leaving money on the table yeah he has another year at nine hundred thousand dollars yeah that's a lot of money how does how does his deal uh break down in terms of actual money cash uh cash he's making yeah no way million dollars yeah it's a million he made 700 this year and it's a million next no way and so then maybe robbie dial and then he could he could that's something and we know what the competitor that wayne is he wants to play he wants a million dollars he wants to go out there

he wishes he was in the playoffs it's a long regular season man like even if you don't want him steve he was he was he was not good enough no i agree he was not good enough at any point this year he wasn't bad but he was not good enough he did not earn those minutes he did not and i love wayne simmons i grew up down the street from the man yeah but the reality was when when he was on the ice nothing happened nothing i uh you know we're talking about how on earth to fix the leafs and i think it was harnish on game over toronto made a great point what do you say they squandered so many draft picks between i think it was well seth jarvis and well no those are just the ones they gave away oh uh we're talking about i think it was between 2014

and 18 when mark hunter was running the draft yeah and listen you get willie marner matthews out of that but what harnish said was like okay you have the eighth fourth and first overall pick like you should hit congrats congrats it's like i'm looking at tampa right so we look at the the big money and they have all these stars and they all left money on the table go look at the money they're making not really not braden point didn't not really nine and a half mil you know Stamkos left money he's still getting paid Vasilevsky left money he's getting paid

Hedman left money he's getting paid but I look at them 2012 would you believe me if I told you Vasilevsky wasn't even Tampa's first pick in that draft they had two first rounders the first one 10th overall with Slater Cuckoo 19th Vasilevsky

13 they get Drouin 3rd overall that pick didn't work out but they traded him for Mikhail Sergeyev that pick did 2014 Tony D'Angelo in the first round. Oof, Maroon, but it's easier to swallow because in the third round, you get Brayden Point. 2015, you don't have a first rounder.

You draft some guy in the second. Another guy in the second. Some guy 64th in the third. Doesn't matter because you get Anthony Sorelli out of it, 72nd overall. 2016, Brett Howden, gone. Lieber Hayek, gone. Kachouk, I am not sure if he's still in the system. Radish, gone.

Ingram, gone. They squandered that. Guess what? Ross Colton in the fourth round scored a Stanley Cup winning goal last year. Cal Foote in 2017 and a few other guys who they were able to send off for picks. Tampa has consistently drafted well. It's allowed them to trade their first round picks because they have the stars that they need already. It's the depth guy.

You want to hang on to the stars. The depth guys that you can come in, they can play and they move on. You know, they weren't afraid to throw a first for Blake Coleman and a first for who's the guy that went to New York. Barkley-Goudreau. Barkley-Goudreau. They were not afraid. And then lose another one in the expansion draft. But here's the problem with the Leafs when it comes to the draft is once you,

like when it comes to your hydration levels, once you're thirsty, it's already too late. And the Leafs are thirsty. I think they've got some good players coming in. I think that's, I think you've seen Lilligren develop. You've seen Sandin come in. It's not too late. It's not too late. Those two as well need new contracts.

yeah and they're gonna come in at like short term at like 2 million like oh i i look at their system right now kirvanen nimala nice holmberg nice abergese robertson abergese steves um dangles like do you do you count sandin as part of that no no he's a full-timer they uh uh all the goalies one of them is gonna hit for god's sake they have we're not these guys coming um i'm confident i believe yeah they have all these guys they're gonna hit they're gonna hit on a few of them but they have to somehow keep this core together yeah for at least another couple years none of those dudes i just mentioned are gonna be anthony sorelli tomorrow no and like or or brayden point or even some of those but some of those guys can be bought blake coleman barclay

goudreau they can be bought but the money's not there you saying uh they need two million dollar raises low we're gonna sandy they're making eight hundred thousand dollars this year how about they're starting goalie right so yeah there's even less money because you need to pay i think the cap i don't think the cap's as bad as you guys think it will because you got mckay of spets a blackwell geo and bush off right those are good players just show guys let me finish let me finish Let me finish. Kasha is an RFA. Engvall is an RFA.

Sandin and Lilligren. Ideally, you'd like to have all of the RFAs back, I think, if Kasha is healthy, right? So, well, I think the biggest problem here, Adam, is who the hell is going to be the one responsible for signing those deals? Dubas is going to be back. Look, I'm going to read you. I'm not sure, man. I think you're absolutely wrong on that.

i think you could not be after the season this team had i wouldn't do it you think that they're you think the Leafs are going to move on from Dubas after the season they just had there's no i think they're seriously considering no way do you have a source on that or is it just i think you have a source on that that says that yeah really i think i think Brendan Shanahan uh is riding with Dubas because that's who that's who he went with after Lou right he he was Lou or Dubas and he sided with Dubas and he let Lou go so it would be a strange move if Shani lets Dubas go, then the next person to leave is Shanahan. And then who? 100%.

Right. No, I agree. Yeah, that's the timeline we're looking at. I agree. Is Brendan Shanahan willing to stake his reputation on whoever he brings in to replace Dubas? Because what you would need... That's exactly what he'd be doing. If you're firing Kyle Dubas, it's not to promote Lawrence Gilman. If you're firing Kyle Dubas,

it's to change the entire idea of where this team is going. Because all those guys that are assistant GMs are um are people that are dubious people they're dubious disciples they believe in this process i have to tell you whoever that source is they might they for sure know more than i do but i can tell you i think that's fucking crazy i think this this team has been pretty damn good i don't know how you fire a second place general manager i don't know how that's possible and i look at

this too look at this okay so friedman freedom was on 590 this morning said they'll be looking for more tenacity in their top six i'm assuming that's a jt miller type player right that's what they would love um questions about where Tavares might play in the lineup whether he's center or wing next year I could see a switch I think that makes sense he couldn't drive play in the Tampa series in the way that I think he wanted to imagine how potentially dominant he could be as a winger now do or uh Freach does say that he thinks Dubas will be back next season uh wonders if there's an extension in the cards or not and then lastly he does think that this has to be his summer of kawaii though like you have to he said the leafs have to consider a major move he does think

giordano will be back at a lower number nice um and that again short-term deals for sandy and lilligren the two million dollar range but the one thing he did say and i'm actually happy to hear this uh because i have a source on what campbell's initial ask was for his contract extension five and a half uh no seven and the leafs offered their opening offer was two seven five now you got to remember and i told you this earlier we're close we're getting this done when was this this is like january was it not which the the initial when they've been talking all season right the initial ask was when was when uh campbell was playing better yeah yeah okay it's like january right if you're kurt overhart who's his agent kurt overcharge known in the

industry if you're kurt overhart you look at it you go okay well he had a bad month and a half But he was also injured But he was also an all-star And he was also great Yeah That's how you frame it Right? If you're the agent

For the player I think he's gonna get At least what Allmark got Right Because like Four and a half Four seven five Which is how much

For people who don't know Can you pull it up Please It was like It was like five or less It was really It was four and a half But it was

I think it was four and a half But it was for five years Allmark His current deal Is five million dollars On the cap For four years Never mind

It's a good deal So he gets he gets good money he gets good term not wild you know what i mean you know you look at jack's track record of success it's rather recent same with all mark like i don't think he's able to ask for what markstrom got which is six times six i agree so i mean i've been saying this for months haven't i i still think that's the benchmark right there all mark five million the problem i have Excuse me for coughing guys The problem I have is with

Jack Campbell and value and coughing Is that you know If you're picking up Jack Campbell you have to have another goalie Because Jack Campbell is not going to play A full season He will get injured at some point I don't think anybody Is building their goaltending

They're expecting anybody to play 70 games anymore We need We need 50 games out of a starting goaltender In 2020 And Jack cannot get to 2023 three i think that's the new philosophy of goalies let's let's look for some good news you got more than you probably thought you had in eric shalgren so that's good i think i think shalgren and campbell could go 50 uh 40 whatever that is shalgren could even remain

the third have them go up and down you know wall it's better than hudgenson wet his whistle yeah hudge is gone you know we keep saying that carter hudgens we've been saying that a long No, why can't Hutch play for the Marlies? What's wrong with that? Because that's enough. No, let him play. I am inevitable. Let him play for the Marlies.

That's enough. Nah, let him play. So I think here's what's going to happen here. And I'm not trading players, but I am going to say that it's hard to see contracts like Justin Hall's back. It's hard to see contracts like Peter Morazic's back. Engvall was on a discount. Who'd have thunk it?

Yeah, he played great. 1.25. I don't think Mikheyev's back. I think he's gone. Yeah, it's too much money. Spezza is a UFA. I think, you know, ideally he'd be a nice depth option.

I think he's the option that they'd they'd rather have rather than Wayne Simmons currently. For the guys, for the guys like Spezza, Clifford, Simmons, I still say it's a really long regular season.

Like, you need you need guys to just get in and play. Fill out the roster. You know what I mean? And like, Clifford will be back. Drag you into the fight?

Maybe. Yeah. Well, he's under contract for two more years at 762. oh remember he signed that extension so it's gonna be on the t he's on the marley i gotta put my glasses on because i forgot i've been i've been so laser focused on these playoffs the leafs actually made a bunch of signings that i've completely forgotten about so well okay abrazizi we know was under contract clifford oh my god that's so weird yeah they

locked them up for two more years i totally forgot about that funding's got another year which i love Bunting's out another year, which is awesome. Kampf has another year, which is awesome. There's a lot of good news when it comes to this team. All this to avoid the uncomfortable conversation that I think

the big move is Willie. How do you get better? I don't think you do. This is not me endorsing that trade. You firing Dubas with your source that's that that's the pathway to moving one of the big pieces right you bring in the new guy who's not attached and you say okay the new guy came in and he shaked everything up with a

big willie trade or whatever it is because if you project it uh two years down the line you're like okay we're not going to be able to do the ufa deal that willie wants he's going to go somewhere else so we're not going to have him so why don't we get pieces for that you know so if if you're right about them contemplating moving dubious that seems a natural fit to move willie look what buffalo got for eichel and look how long that took now granted there was a lot involved there um you know with the with the surgery and everything but these double digit deals are hard to move so you know marner star in this league best year of his career 35 goals 97 points scored it over a 100 point pace that's how do you move that you know who's just got 11 mil

who's who has both the 11 million in cap room and assets to acquire mitch marner well we're not doing that we're not gonna be the two best players not even no no no put it out there no because people are like it's gonna be one of the big three well it's not matthews you can't do Tavares so logically it's Marner well no not so logically first of all the team is going to be so much worse without him my opinion has changed dramatically since last year um but to even get that deal done that's going to take months and months and months and it probably doesn't even make you better in the definitely not in the short term and possibly not in the long term 24 he's getting better yes and he's been unbelievable in the playoffs there have been some has there

been some issues like, you know, him not racing out that icing? Sure. Wait, are you talking about Marner? Not Nylander. Oh, I was still talking about Marner. Willie? He makes a hair under seven? It's an attractive deal. It's a tradable contract. It's a

super tradable contract. Oh, I don't like this. And, listen, what, Steve, are you saying? No, I'm not saying. I'm not saying do this. I'm not saying this makes sense. I'm not saying it's going to make the team better. I'm saying it is easily easily the easiest move the leafs can make you're all you're you're all looking at

kerfoot you know all you know i kerfoot and kerfoot and hall and kerfoot and hall it's not going to move the needle guys that's 5.5 million dollars yeah but you still have to fill those spots how about you do willie and kerfoot and hall if there's gonna be a move this off season it's that one oh i hate that and it's going to hurt why don't we just like reunite jt and marner and willie and matthews and then we call it a day that'll fix the whole situation we'll never get split up again i can guarantee you those guys but and here's the other thing so so cj cj said this summer is a big deal for a different reason and it's easy he wrote it in his article in the on the star you know people forget matthew's contract is up in two years

after this and his no trade kicks in next summer sorry there's no move and part of the problem with that is that you know if they can't if they continually don't get over the hump i'm not saying he's going to arizona uh because he's not going to arizona but you know you look at teams like la new york uh the panthers the rangers are cool you know that that's what i mean right He'll sell high after a 60-goal season. They're not talking about trading. They're talking about Matthews could, because it's his right, walk right to free agency and do whatever he wants.

No, no, Steve, explore that. I'm kidding, by the way. And I want to ask Chris about this, because I have heard that the Leafs are pretty hard on their players. And they don't really... Really? there's certain players that you would expect to get not treated differently but it's like there's just a leadership group on this team and they should be i guess a little more vaunted

a session now the Leafs are very afraid of doing that because what happened in the late 90s and early 2000s was they had a string of success and then you had a bit of a culture supposedly i don't know if this is true blue and white the blue and white disease the entitlement thing you got to toronto you made it smoke a cigarette you're done where i think the leafs are like have they've over corrected to the point where it's like sorry 10 million 11 million dollar player you're just the same as blackwell and you're not is that a holdover from lou yes yeah yeah that was a and that needed to happen that cultural reset needed to happen it was the right thing and it helped them but at a certain point you know i think the golden state warriors are pretty good

to Steph Curry probably right and you have the you have the Toronto version of Steph Curry and Austin Matthews I think Austin Matthews based on how he's played this season and how he played in the playoffs it's time for him to be captain it's time um and that's not to say Tavares has been bad because I've been his biggest defender all year it's time to hand the torch over Austin Matthews should be needs to be the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs because in fact he is and beyond that it's better it's more than just being the best player right people do lead when he starts throwing bodies out there against tampa bay don't doesn't the leafs play start to pick up don't the fans start to cheer a little bit harder did he not lead the team in hits i pretty sure he might have

like he was he was an animal i think that's that's a guy now i'm not saying making him the captain keeps him here uh and i don't also want to pretend like the leafs are like the little brother like we are in every other sport where it's like well i could play in canada that one city or i can play at home in the United States. I think that he wants to be here, but I think they got to make some moves with that in mind. And I think CJ's

banging the money. And when he comes in, I want to ask him for a little more clarity on that because I've heard that from several people and I want to know what his thoughts are.

He could be named captain when he signs his extension next summer. I wouldn't wait. I wouldn't wait. I wouldn't wait. You got to talk it into it. It feels like we just...

Jesse, I have a vision. It feels like we just had the Austin Matthews negotiations for this contract. I know. You know, it feels like that was just yesterday. Because it never ended.

it was Nylander it was Tavares side Nylander forever Matthews quickly Marner for 18 months even though it was really six I don't know guys

I think that there's an issue there now the one thing I will ask don't forget the Morgan Rielly extension oh that kicks in it's 2.5 more

Lilligren had a has a performance bonus that's going to eat into the he got it on the last day of the season did he

I think it was a plus minus it's a plus minus bonus how does that get in there how much is he going to eat

how much is gonna eat i think it's 212 it's two something on the cap but that's a fourth liners left left arm who cares how did we sneak in a plus minus bonus that hits on last that's over like half the league wasn't it joel farabee didn't he he got uh he got he got a plus minus bonus because he was top three on the flyers and plus minus and he was minus 11 just the flyers are so bad god see this is why i'm saying don't chuck this is why i feel like you you run this back and you tinker because the reason because listen uh yeah okay they didn't make it past the first round there's a lot of teams who would fucking die for this roster this is a great roster of players i think that you can absolutely change this around i don't think if i were to

look back into last summer i don't think peter morazic was the plan uh you should never read history backwards but i don't think they went in december went peter's our guy there i don't think three years was gonna go better than they give him three that's what i mean that's why i don't think it i think that whoever they were going after maybe it was lenis allmark i i think it didn't work out they were like well we got to call peter now and the agent was like three years i know but i think all mark was signed too i think you feel like they mailed on something i think they had something else or a trade in the works that didn't work out i can't imagine that any team was like i gotta throw three years on peter marazic i think buddy and almost four

million dollars yeah i i liked well okay you didn't like the cap hit you did like the deal i didn't like the deal because i was like oh that actually kind of makes perfect sense because well he can't he like he can't start the majority of games but neither can jack they're kind of so this is the least hitching this is by getting marazic they're actually hitching their wagon to jack potentially keeping his price down then he becomes an all-star because mrazek's injured lol um and these guys can be a tandem and it's worked out in the worst way possible do you have alan's tweet about the top 16 teams in the league and how hard it is because i think this goes to your point about philly and them sucking in the leafs being like okay we have

something here because of how hard it is to get into this vaunted top eight second round you know it's not it's fucking hard it's not an easy thing it's really fucking hard to finish in the nhl as a top 80 can you read alan okay the hardest thing for any team in the playoffs is getting over that first round hump you go from 16 teams top 50 to 8 teams top 25 with four wins many nhl coaches and players have shared that with me over the years and you know i mean he's right but the reality is you still have to do it so they will have to do something and that's why this summer is so murky right it's just you just like you talked you could talk to five different people and they will give you five completely different answers on what the leafs quote-unquote should do

the reality is none of our jobs it's kyle dubas if he's there right if he's there it's it's uh it's it's kyle dubas it's sheldon keith if he's there i think sheldon will be back brandon shanahan if he's there i think shanny will be back i mean we'll see but i mean mlsc mlsc cannot cannot be happy about this they are an organization from like they're the they're a different mlsc than the one that we were used to in our 20s when it was kind of laissez-faire and laugh we don't win whatever we made a pile of money look at all this money um it's a little less money than we would have liked but it's still a lot of money they are now committed to winning in every sport all the time raptors uh are never not in it uh despite the fact that stars

just regularly leave town uh tfc are back um the like i mean obviously they want to bring the marlies up to support the leafs but no but adam the media does better when the leafs lose it doesn't we don't i know do you know how i get told that so often can i tell you something like dude i literally just i spent the last 48 hours looking at my youtube analytics and just openly weeping Like, just, I, I, I cannot, oh, the, once, once. Yeah. Sport, listen, I'll tell you this. Here's how important the Leafs are.

When the Jays were doing well, Rogers stock went through the roof. Rogers as part owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and rights holder nationally of the Toronto Maple Leafs. If the Toronto Maple Leafs got another round in, if the Jays did that, can you imagine what happened to Rogers stock? If they got to the second round There is so much money On the line here So so much money And here's the problem

For a company like Sportsnet That bought all the Canadian rights They got two teams And they're playing each other So they don't get the other night And it's ratings Right Now you do get a guarantee

Into the third round That's awesome But you also get a guarantee The one of them's out That's right And it's a western night So it starts At like nine or ten o'clock

At night for easterners too And so most And the way that Canada's works Is that most of the population Is in the east It's tough so listen you're just explaining how the business i'm just telling you the business the reality is they'd really like an eastern team to stay in it like like what happened last year with montreal

that was great you ideally like at least one on the east and one on the west that's exactly what you want that would be perfect well it was like when ottawa was good and vancouver was good and it was at the same time and they'd rise together hey this is fine yeah we like this yeah if it was leafs flames or leafs oilers hey this is montreal senators even the jets jets are they come on at a palatable hour for Easterners palatable yeah so I'm just listen the reality is we don't do better we do way worse when the Leafs lose and

it's a bummer and you know I think at the end of the day there is one thing that Leafs nation we can't agree on one thing Dubas is getting fired no Steve Thangle source the Leafs must change the Leafs must change their goal song it's time I didn't mind it at the beginning I haven't said anything about it for years but five years of holla notes followed by game seven losses

has has made me has made that song unlistable for me i i must request man please toronto maple leafs event staff please change the goal song it really is a poo um playoff goal song boo boo it is i want to see custom goal songs like some other teams do i like that a lot better yes let them choose i think what they were trying to go for is what a st louis had with gloria right boo but that's like a you know a special thing you can't force that just happens like what do the oilers have labamba i think so is it gloria and we have this so it's time right yes jesse is it time oh yeah yeah i uh i was on that a long time okay it's not a fan