The Steve Dangle Podcast - Visions | May 2, 2022

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Steve thinks the Leafs will win the Stanley Cup, You Can Bet That with David Bastl, it sounds like Mark Scheifele is done with the Winnipeg Jets, and the boys give their predictions for all the major award categories! Originally aired: May 2, 2022 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/7ZsgIqipgmU 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://stathead.com/ CODE: SDP https://stance.com/ CODE: ATHLETIC https://rhoback.com/ CODE: DANGLE http://seatgeek.com/ CODE: SDP https://sportsinteraction.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

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listen all i want to know i want to know how you're feeling i just want to know how you're field especially if you're a leafs fan i want to know how you're feeling is this going to show up on camera i just want to see here what oh yeah i can do that my sweaty palms yeah it's only a little print your knees weak arms heavy it's oh man and last night mom's spaghetti really no okay that's good so are you feeling okay i had leo's penne because he didn't eat it oh that's good it's good he refused so he had churros for dinner i am uh Uh, my, my feeling heading into these Stanley Cup playoffs is so different from years past. It's so different from years past because I, listen, if you saw my Leafs series preview video

on my channel, if you saw my, uh, full bracket video on the Sportsnet channel, i didn't tell you the full story i was taking icky for a walk the other day not listening to anything i was just and you threw out your back it was just vibes no hey my back's been fine for months now it's fine i have a morning routine that involves dead bug and glute bridges it's a-okay and some band work working on that glute mead right it's all about the glute mead i don't know what that is but anyway it's well curls get the girls but there's nothing there's nothing that rhymes well with glute mead anyway uh i had a vision while i was walking iggy and they're gonna win the cup what they're gonna win the cup this

year that is not what i was expecting you to say the vision so it's not me living and dying by every game although it will be me living and dying by every game but like in years past it was a battle waking up the morning of game one and then all day thinking about game one and then experiencing game one and then breaking down game one and then the next day living in the echo of game one only to give birth to game two i don't think it's going to be like that this year because I am not trapped in the present, I have seen into the future

they're going to win the series and they're going to win the cup, it came to me in a vision I'm telling you it's going to happen from on high you're like Constantine the Great as he took on the barbaric tribes in northern Italy to reclaim the eastern Roman Empire

I think that's how it went, I'm probably not bizarre that you said that, that's exactly what I thought a battlefield convert to Christianity I also thought about Constantine Berulin or whoever you were talking about Constantine the Great Constantine the Great Is this a bit?

Do you actually feel It's a bit the truth You feel like the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to win the Stanley Cup That's your pick for the Stanley Cup Legitimately that's my pick Based on being a fan of the team or based on What you evaluate as a hockey analyst That you are

If I picked them because I was a fan of the team I would have picked them every year I've never picked them once Adam does. I never bet against the Leafs. I think that's bad juju. You can't do that. Go back to every single bracket.

Because we do them every year, the bracket challenges. Every single bracket Adam's ever put together has the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup. You cannot bet against your own team. I don't. For the Sportsnet bracket, I've had them get out of the first round once, I think. Oh, so you'd be pretty accurate. You're pretty good. Yeah.

Yeah. I was only wrong once. I bet the guess was Montreal. Oh. Anyway, no. but so in your sports net bracket you have the least winning the stanley cup yeah i do okay and i'm sure i got made fun of and everything but it's literally the first time now producer drew was very quick to point out that i have never had the cup final right once oh and oh he was celebrating he

was celebrating big time because the last two years i've had the colorado avalanche winning the stanley cup yeah in fact i think i've had the same cup final the last two years the abs versus the hurricanes and this year i did dude looking very wrong yeah yeah but if you look back at like before the season it's okay no i know they weren't they weren't crazy picks they just simply ended up being wrong you know what i mean you know what i mean no but great job i i thought so i i saw it from on high they're going to win the stanley cup no abs in the cup final this year that's what you're saying that's what i'm saying i suppose we'll go through the full bracket i don't need to do it all right now we will go for the they're gonna win the cup uh keep cool keep cool everyone

they're gonna do it jesse do you want me to send you all of our brackets so you can throw them up on screen or do you just want to go through them let's just go through okay also we're not gonna we're not gonna start at the brackets we're gonna go that later but if you do happen to hear this before the playoffs actually start please sign up for the bracket it's at sdpn.ca or you can check out the sdpn sports twitter account and i believe on our website it's not oh i thought robert told me that it was my bad okay so it's not just check out the sdpn sports uh uh twitter account link is there and if the link doesn't work the password is dangle kind of like the promo code wow isn't that crazy how we did that 20 off your free bracket that's right um there are over a

thousand people in it at last i checked and that was yesterday morning so i think that's uh probably ballooned which is awesome i'm so excited to see where everybody finishes and what i always love when we go when we do this and we haven't done it for a couple years is finding out where steve and jesse and i finished which is like you were 688 congratulations just he was like you got in the top 100 and you like yeah i think not last year but the year before i had a really good bracket yeah yeah it's all half of its luck oh like oh yeah oh man so people were getting on me about my bracket we'll get into it later but i was like guys like really oh this is a dumb stupid That's what it's all about.

Jesse, how are you feeling as a Leafs fan? I want to know how you're feeling. I haven't been this excited for a playoffs in a while. It feels like it's been a couple of years. I'm excited for the playoffs in general. My next two months are blocked off every night. I got NHL hockey to watch, which is just amazing. Stay up late for those West Coast games, too.

Oh, I'm so jealous. I get to do that. In terms of this series, for me, it's more excitement than nerves. I don't know what to expect at all. Yeah, because it's such a different challenge than going up against Columbus or Montreal because in those series, you're like, okay, the Leafs are going to do it,

but they're also not going to do it because it's the Leafs, and I don't know how they're going to overcome their own hurdle of being themselves. Or Boston, at very least, you know exactly what to expect every time. Yeah, and this time, it's such a different challenge for this group because they're back-to-back Stanley Cup champions,

but we don't really know what to expect at anybody. So I'm just waiting to see what happens. I think, I think I'm along those lines too. Like I'm very Zen. I think I'm just going to have fun. You know, I think it's going to be fun. I think the Leafs had a great year this year. I think last year and the year before and the year before that, there was a significant amount of anxiety that came from other places. Like if you look at, you know, it started with when Tavares signed and then Nylander held out to December. And then we got, then we had to have the conversation about the Matthews contract and Mitch Marner's agent, you know, blasting it in the press. and then Mitch Marder holding out to like two days before the training camp and then Mike Babcock not coaching the team properly and their defense not being that strong and then COVID and, and, and, and,

and then they didn't meet Montreal. And so for me this year, it's like, this is a great team. Unfortunately, Bunting can't play game one, it looks like. It looks like. Kasha is a game time decision. And I know they're pissed off

and I know they got Montreal, like that bothered them, that drove them. They talk about that and I've got some quotes for you guys in a second. but i think what's exciting here and this might be hilarious posterity wise like if the leafs come out and lay an egg and it's like eight nothing you're gonna look at this segment tomorrow and be like this is this these three idiots i mean it's game but i do feel like super zen about it i actually feel like this team really has seen the deepest depths they started in last place really

and and i've we've seen loss after loss after loss but there's a certain kind of not comfort but it's like I've had my heart broken before I think I'd like to find out what it's like to not have that happen yeah and it's not in a negative way like I'm ready and I feel like they're ready and I'm going into the play well

I'm going into the playoffs with a true truly different feeling for the Leafs opponent than I've had before not to say I didn't respect the Montreal Canadiens or the Columbus Blue Jackets you did not respect the Montreal Canadiens

No, I disrespected them. Well, I respect the lore of the Montreal Canadiens, but the team, I was like, oh, they're not very good. I have a true reverence for the Tampa Bay Lightning and an understanding that the Leafs have the privilege, the honest-to-goodness privilege

of playing the back-to-back reigning Stanley Cup champions. it is a a unique privilege to play the reigning stanley cup champions in the first round because it is a true to test test of what you have you're starting uh you know this is the final boss on level one and you know for anyone who's listening to this in hindsight we don't know what's going to happen in game one let's say the leafs get completely killed you know who got killed in game one last year uh montreal when they took on vegas yeah they lost that game like five one and then i famously said they'll never win another game this playoffs because that's how it looked idiot that's how it looked though it did they didn't they weren't in that for a moment let me

tell can i read for you guys the quote that kyle dubas had right after the game seven loss in montreal said hi to him on friday did you yeah he said hi back oh that's right yeah we were both at the game by the way friday's game steve and i both went to game 82 for different reasons and uh there ended up being an extra seat next to us so steve came and sat with natalie and i but it was one of the most fun leaf games i've ever gone to because first off willie was like dominant and secondly it was mostly fans in the crowd and families and people were dancing and they were taking their shirts off and swinging them around very few i feel bad for natalie because very few people paid to be there right i think a lot of season seed holders gave that away

Yep. And here you go. Welcome to the dregs, peasants. And they threw away those free teams. No Matthews, Marner, Marchand, Bergeron, that sort of thing, right? That's exactly the sort of game that my neighbors would have given to me and my mom to go to. And, you know, I got to tell you, it was so much fun. So it was nice to see Scotiabank rocking like that in Game 82.

Huge ovation for the team after, you know, once the final whistle went. But here's what Kyle Dubas said after the Game 7 loss last year. For better or worse, I believe in this group. I believe that they are going to get it done and that they are going to win. I understand that this comes with certain doubts because we have not broken through in the playoffs, but it is my belief that they will. I believe in them as players. I believe in them as people. I know that the decision lies on me and the risk is for me to go ahead that way. I am comfortable with it. I believe that we are going to see the best version in this group next season that we have seen yet i am willing to bet everything on that and as far

as the regular season goes this is the best regular season the leafs have ever had 115 points it's a similar feeling to last year where i'm like i don't know what i would have done differently i don't know what they could have done differently to be better um you know maybe shore up the backup position but i really don't know what they could have done uh differently i would have got a goal tender yeah yeah i think that's the one thing i would have got a starting goaltender yeah the trade deadline yeah sounds like something i think jack's been good yeah but they had the worst safe they had the bottom five safe percentage for three straight months i know yeah but i i look at it i've really isolated march and april uh because that's when everyone's trying to play their

best hockey and the leafs have the leafs have and they so is jack and they survived a bad save percentage which you're going to need to do in the playoffs yeah but then we're rewarded with a good one yeah and i don't think they survived with jack they survived with eric shalgram yes oh yeah jack only played what less than double digit games towards the end of the season yeah but the games he did play were very good yes and like part of that is by design right like they kept him rested he didn't play ridiculous game 82 he didn't play game 80 I don't think either here's what

Jake Muzzin said by the way I'm pulling these quotes from a Luke Fox article there's a really long read that he the long form things that Sportsnet does every once in a while he talked he painted it so well oh sums up the season beautifully doomed or do Muzzin guys were pissed off we came

into we came into camp to work it wasn't just going through the motions it was to get better there was a little anger in some guys and you know I think Tavares and Wayne Simmons talked about the meeting at the cottage and they did start they kind of sputtered

at the beginning first 10 games were I think you know they were about very ho-hum yeah but then it started to kind of take off and it was interesting to hear what Keefe had to say after game 82 he said almost to a man we've had guys having career years here

offensively and defensively I think we're feeling good and the other thing he said was i expect this series to be borderline violent now he talks about um that that he watched the florida uh tampa the all the florida cup basically uh last year and he said tampa was in scrums after every whistle see a lot of people call that gamesmanship no that's an accurate portrayal of that series it was a violent series an incredibly violent series that bled into the preseason remember

didn't they have like a line brawl in the last preseason game that's the Stanley Cup champions and the team that did the Panthers win the president's trophy this year yeah right so those are two of the best teams in the league you know potentially risking the first

few months of their season with you know busted wrists and broken hands on a preseason game yeah those are violent teams that hate each other And, I mean, is Keefe not just preparing the Leafs for something that happens every bloody year? Every single year. But this year, does it not feel like they're better prepared for it?

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. They're so much more willing to, like Tampa, Tampa was not always the aggressor. I would say less than half the time they were the aggressor in certain fighting situations. what helped them and what gave them an advantage is they were better than you skill-wise and they didn't back down from the aggression right so this year i mean who's who's going to be the aggressor simmons clifford maybe bunting there's not much else but simmons isn't afraid clifford isn't afraid bunting isn't afraid mckay of has all of a sudden gotten a b in his bonnet camp isn't

afraid engvall isn't afraid um you know i don't think matthews or tavaris are gonna fight but they'll get in there riley's not fucking afraid at all no he he jumped uh he's jumped one of the boston players on uh you know i forget what he was who it was riley's been in the leafs organization since 2012 he's looking for an excuse to kick someone's ass you know uh muzzin brody uh labushkin this and giordano's not afraid of anybody and jack campbell known as the the best fighter of them all don't get in his crease or he'll beat shit out of you no i i just they're they're a different group and it's not something that's particularly obvious it's just something that you need to see in action casho's gonna play tonight by the way he is that's confirmed

yeah wow pretty good news wow i mean that guy's not afraid either but if anyone gives him so much as a face wash you have to confetti gloves and beat the shit out of them yeah because uh you can't touch on your kasha yeah yeah and i i mean it makes the lineup decisions for uh for keith so much easier too right you get that sort of just alleviation of who do we put where is this you know because without kasha you're gonna and without bunting you're gonna have a bit of an awkward line somewhere in the lineup but with kasha in that's great so he played well against the lightning this year i'm gonna ask you guys two questions i'm gonna ask you tell me how the leafs can win this and we're gonna focus on that and then my next question will be tell me how the leafs don't win

this so we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna war game both scenarios here if the leafs are to win what needs to happen the leafs avoid chaos um because you know they're painted as this young run and gun team and no that's not what they are at all if you watch the leafs when they play their best hockey it is controlled it is slow it is methodical right it's not this fly by the seat of your pants that's the panthers the panthers play like that to an extent they're wild the panthers are wild yeah to an extent the avalanche play like that the hurricanes do it in a half chaos half robotic sort of way but the the leafs it uh are are very uh let's say creatively intentional they're creative with their intents you know so there will be a plan they'll maybe

deviate from it a bit um they have to go to the net which they've greatly improved that this season they have to always have two guys back which they've greatly improved at this season and they can't let the game get away from them in those moments so this is how they lose tampa bay is the sort of team that can score actually you know what i want you to i want you to hold on that i just want to go how they win first and we're going to go around the room and then how they lose that's how they win is is i think pretty simple like it's we we keep looking at it like there's this ridiculous secret formula that the Leafs haven't cracked the code like literally just play good hockey like it's all very simple we have uh Kerfoot Matthews Marner on the first

line Mikheyev Tavares Kasha on the second Nylander Kampf Engvall on the third good and then a pretty tough line Clifford Blackwell Simmons on the fourth and you would expect that Blackwell is going to drive most of the play on that fourth line uh with Clifford and Simmons uh just being the dust cloud with a bunch of fists coming out of it. Blackwell's job is to dump the puck into the corner, hold it there long enough for the other two to come and squish whoever he's battling with. Right, there you go.

Jesse, same question. If the Leafs are going to win this series, what needs to happen? For me, it's what didn't happen last year. Because I think if Marner, Matthews, Nylander, well, Nylander showed up last year, tavarez who didn't get to play in the series if the big guys show up offensively i don't see how they have a chance i think if you if you get all of the goals that you're getting during the regular

season from austin matthews you get those in the playoffs and they get out to early leads they're very good at winning games once they are up heading into the third period despite what everybody thinks happens in their brains the leafs are good uh at front they're good closers they're they're good at front running in games when they get leads and if that happens for me it's the goal scoring If Matthew shows up, I don't see how they don't win the series in six or seven games. So for me, for the Leafs to win this, all of those things are true. I agree with all of them. To me, it's the health of Jack Campbell.

Where is Jack Campbell at? Because let's not forget, Tampa's got some serious firepower. But Jack Campbell had a spectacular, amazing start and then got hurt. Had a lot of time to sit. Had a lot of time to rest. There was many times in late February, early March. we would have loved to have Jack Campbell back, even slightly hurt. However, it's good that he took the time off that he has

because he's come back and he's been great. And really, this is, you know, with Vasilevsky staring you down on the other end, you want to make sure that you got a goalie who can lock it down, and he's looked very, very solid. He has. So, that brings me to the next question. Guys, tell me how the Leafs don't win this. If they don't win this, what happened?

Well, Campbell gets hurt. I think that's a big issue. because like even let's say Vasilevsky and Jack Hamill both go down in the first minute tonight uh then you have Brian Elliott who's had a 9-12 save percentage it's been very good four points removed from Vasilevsky he's still playing which yeah who's still playing right now he's still playing hockey and I believe re-signed for next year versus Eric Sheldon um now the the one thing I will say in Sheldon's favor is he actually had kind of a ho-hum regular season in Sweden last year and then the playoffs came around and i believe he was playoff mvp yes on route to a

victory so you know maybe the the same way that players find another level he could find another level the other is they let the game get away with uh from them yeah they allow the chaos um to get the best of them because tampa is exactly the kind of team who you can play a great game against them for 58 minutes but they score three goals against you in those two minutes that you took off right yeah so you gotta be engaged the whole time you gotta be engaged the whole time you can't take a single minute off because tampa will eat you alive and i think it's a pretty fair thing to say for both teams but i'm gonna say this for the leafs uh stay out of the box stay out of the box so the kyle clifford insertion in the lineup will be interesting you just you

gotta be careful like there's no one saying you can't hit no one's saying you can't be rough no one save even even the after the whistle stuff it's the playoffs they're gonna take one of you and one of them right just watch the sticks don't be dumb with the sticks they're gonna call trips they're gonna call hooks they're they're gonna call they're gonna call retaliation the easy ones yep yep they're gonna call the easy ones stay out of the box i really like the leafs penalty kill i think it's one of their strengths but i think tampa is a really good counter to it because they what i noticed in that 8-1 defeat anyway and you know maybe that's just the one game is they really kept the leafs bunched up and that's a problem you don't want the leafs bunched

up they're at their best when they're flying around they keep you wide they keep you to the perimeter then you're making these longer passes they pick you off they fly the other way and they get a scoring chance so they want to keep you spread they want to keep you spread i don't think they're going to be able to do that as effectively against tampa jesse if if the leafs don't win this, what will have happened? For me, it's less about the goaltending because I made the point before, they won in spite of having less than 900%

of goaltending all season long. So I'm not worried about them. Even if Campbell were to go down, I think they could hold their own with Shalgren. For me, it's if Tampa shows up. Like if Tampa just, if they play as the back-to-back defending Stanley Cup champions,

how does any team against them have a chance? Like the core that has won two straight Stanley Cups is all still there. The defense is intact, minus, like, Zach Bogosian. All the entire offense is, they've rebuilt their third line. They don't have that anymore, but they have a new third line. That's just as solid. It's very good.

Like, there's a... And Hagel added to that. Who has 20 goals from that line? I forget which one of them put up 20 goals this year. Oh, um, friggin' Ross Colton. Yeah. Colton, the 20th goal scorer on that line. Yeah, I didn't look up the stats.

But, like, they're just as good as they were last year. and going into the playoffs uh the the theme is oh tampa's struggling going in they've struggled the last two years going into the playoffs they if you look at their records they've had terrible records heading into each in the at the shutdown of the pandemic they had a terrible record at the end of the regular season there i think it was they lost seven out of their last 10 games going in there and then last season um they were like 500 heading into the playoffs and then when the playoffs happen victor headman's like okay it's the playoff i'm victor headman i'm gonna show up and play 59 minutes tonight and this is going to be my game it's and that that the left side of

the fence they're all still there headman mcdonough surrogate chef they're gonna they're gonna if they want to shut down the leafs they can and they will and that's how they're gonna win is tampa just plays their game and when tampa's playing the game there's not a single hockey team on earth that you can beat tampa so you gotta get off their game yeah you have to get out early you gotta hopefully cross your fingers that they don't play to their level that they're capable of or you play a different game where you can shut them down and you do something that no team has done in the last two years. When it comes to the shenanigans

it's almost like the Leafs have to be the aggressor and you got to go at Kucherov every single shift and one of you is going to have to be the sacrificial lamb unfortunately because you can get him off the game, off his game and he's going to respond by doing

something genuinely reprehensible to you and getting suspended because playoff suspensions and playoff fines or or uh he is no stranger to that he is a i i fiery fiery greasy as shit like i'm not saying it out of disrespect like he's one of the best players in the world he gets targeted all the time we talk about you know matthews why doesn't he stick up for himself and mcdavid became captain elbow uh kucherov will just try to remove a limb from your body no say it kucherov's low-key dirty in the playoff low key there's no low highest key on the piano blatantly in in high definition

no yeah you seem like you didn't want to say it no he's he's a dirty player who and like listen i'm not pretending like the leafs are all saints but you can get him off his game you can get him off his game you can get him off his game absolutely now you could also engage him and he goes into god mode but you can't be in god mode when you're suspended for the next game i don't think we're talking about cadre here yeah oh he's got a little bit of a little red mist he's got that red mist so so for me and i think it i'm gonna jump on what jesse's point was i think it comes down to confidence here and and what what happens is that tampa gets into a style and then it's almost impossible to remove them from it and and jesse said it right it was

sort of like they get the they play their tampa hockey and it comes down to there's a swagger to it but it's like it's not like overconfident it's like no we're just going to steam it's like watching a steamroller come at you and i think conversely when when we've seen in the past with the leafs with their inexperience sometimes uh with i think frankly poor coaching uh in the playoffs with babcock i don't think he coached that great in in the in the boston series when they get on their heels and then they start throwing blending lines and it's like oh they start when they are desperate or at least in the past when they have been desperate they look desperate their body language screams desperate the way they play scheme seems desperate there's

they're they're i was saying it about joey anderson the first period uh in game 82 um he looked like he was holding the stick too tight because somebody passed the puck and i swear it went off his stick and then went to eye level and then back down again you know what i mean like they they they they have in the past become frigid now they've seen it all like the thing is is that in the past they were worried about losing well they've lost now yeah so now you know what losing is i i do think that the leafs have a better shot than ever to to get into the second round this year but i think if you get if you let tampa get into that game and the leafs conversely play on their heels a little bit that's what happened if this is what happened the psyche i

think is so much better heading into this one yes but if the leafs are gonna lose the montreal how's going to happen no no no how do you beat tampa and all the all the off-ice shit the how are they going to resign blank and blank and blue and blue i've heard a fraction of that this year starting goaltenders and unrestricted free agent and i've heard a fraction of it everyone from the organization to the fans seem to have their eyes singularly focused on winning yes instead of losing yes instead of how can this go wrong and i do think the players do kind of feed on that yep absolutely so if the leafs lose here it's gonna be a disaster is it a disaster no the fans last year there was so much apathy to the leafs after they lost to

montreal do you remember that how down everybody was on the leaf during the summer where there's like and yes when we came back to training camp and people were like ah you guys fucking lost again oh even the the the game one the home opener oh here's the leafs and we're all like yeah imagine they do it again i i have to be honest i can't because it's not gonna happen i think there was a couple of things that played into last year at least were our only hope last year especially in ontario we were locked down for like another two months after they were out and i'm and i was like well if it's gonna suck ass here and i can't get my vaccine meanwhile the americans are like Oh, we've got 14 of them.

I just went to the drugstore and bought one. And we're all out and we're all having a good time. I felt like, you know, it was the beginning of May last year. It sucked to sit at home for another two months before they actually, like, lifted everything. And, you know, and that gave me the opportunity. Well, I know, but that gave me the opportunity to hyper focus. And that's why I don't know that necessarily this will be. Because I still feel like you lose to Tampa Bay.

You still feel like, well, fuck, they were the defending Stanley Cup champions. and the Leafs did 115 points. This is a good team. But on the other side, you're supposed to say, ah, come back next year. I hate it. I don't love it.

It sucks. But is it going to feel like last year? I don't think so. I'm not there. I'm not there. You guys are talking about fantasy land. No, but you're game one. It's still a possibility.

No, I'm not game one. I'm not focused on what's going to go wrong because it won't. There you go. Steve Dangle from on high. Leafs will be Stanley Cup champions now. Two in five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar raised matters on september 19th join thousands

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um now one more thing before we get into winnipeg because there's a couple of things to talk about there uh jesse has a big question for the show where's my donuts shit it's a good point they are here wait i have a vision i'm having another vision they're gonna be you made such a big deal about getting me to do this stupid bet when I was like, okay, I'm going to be right. And then you lost. And then you never brought it up that you lost. And you didn't even

buy the donuts and you forgot the bet happened. You forced me into this bet. This is a very sweet one. What happened? What happened is I forgot, but it's okay. I'm having a vision of Wednesday. Nostradangle. They're going to be here. Nostradangle says

the donuts will be here Wednesday. Wow. Okay, that's awesome. all right all right because we made we led us led the show with oh we'll make this bet and then i was right and we don't bring it up um i i i'm sorry i'm not used to losing these uh i wanted to say a quick congratulations to dennis bayak who's winnipeg announcer uh who uh 43 years is retiring and he's gonna spend more time with his wife but i was just like man that is so heartwarming and lovely so congratulations to dennis on 43 incredible years in the game we should all be so lucky uh so i just thought that was really really cool some

some other winnipeg headlines from today the jets have extended kevin shovel day off according to report um three years three more years of chevy so um that's not really the interesting part uh though no offense chevy congrats on your extension but um let's talk about what listening uh i don't know sometimes sometimes i hear stuff and i'm like okay so uh uh let's talk about the three three of the biggest names for the jets and what they said after game 82 which they played sunday afternoon oh yeah i saw but like people are tweeting about a game and i'm like what what is this it was a makeup game right the jets are playing the kraken it was the blizzard game so like did anyone take a slap shot like did anyone block shots didn't watch it shouldn't have

So Blake Wheeler, we'll start with Blake. He said, you know, we can no longer call ourselves contenders. I think we're one of those teams that's sort of a fringe playoff team now. It's up to everyone involved to look at the mirror and say, why? Why did we get to where we're at? Like I said, first and foremost, it's our responsibility as players to bring that type, that quality of play to the ice that we have a chance to contend and compete for a championship. And to be fair to Blake, they have been contenders very recently.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, absolutely. And, you know, got into the second round last year. I definitely think that those maybe would have been somewhat special circumstances. I don't know in a full league if that would have been the way it went. However, they still have Connor Hellebuck, who won a Vesna two years ago, and these other great players. They might have done better against Montreal if Mark Shifley hadn't got

friggin' suspended for no good reason in game one. Paul Stasny. We've got to be held accountable, whether it's player on player. and we've got to have more respect for each other. Thought this was interesting, this quote. I know Shifley and Wheeler

made all the headlines, but I thought this was interesting. When you don't have that, when you don't care about the teammate next to you, potentially, and you just care about what you're doing

on certain individual things, that starts bleeding into the game. Play defense. And then the one that obviously made the most noise, and I think rightfully so,

is Mark Scheifele. Now, he talks a little bit about how bad the year was with COVID and missing the Olympics and how he'd actually forgotten about that and some other things. He's like, I'd like to forget this year. And he said about his future,

I'd love to be in Winnipeg, but I also have to see where this is all going and what direction this team is going in. And I guess we'll see this summer. I'm in the prime of my career. I still have so much to improve on too. And I like where my game is at.

I like the physical nature of where my body is at. I'm only improving. I'm only getting better. and I'm only going to be a better player next year than I was this year. I just have to know where this team is going and what direction, what the direction is

and what changes there are going to be, if any. I have to think about my career and what's going to be best for me. Those are going to be talks with my agent and everyone in my family and stuff like that and figure out what I really want to do. So tomorrow, and he's referring to his meeting with Kevin Shevelday off today,

which you do at the end of the year. So tomorrow will be a tough talk. sorry so it will be a tough talk tomorrow and i wanted to just point this out before we get into this compare and contrast that to paul stasny yeah a hundred percent and and again we we shouldn't you know lambaste a player for being honest with their thoughts but you have to understand like dude leaf fans have been you know clowning on shifley at every opportunity because of the hey is there anything better than beating the Leafs the most harsh criticism of Mark Seifle that I've read comes from Jets fans yes and they're well aware yeah they're well aware and like can you

imagine one of the Leafs saying that heading into the offseason how we would react no Jets fan wants to hear this shit no Jets fan on planet earth wants to hear well you know is it like things got slightly bad and i'm gonna leave now yeah god bless alan but no one if a player ever brings up their agent no one wants to hear that shit no one wants oh great cool this is going to be the story that dominates the summer for my team great the marsha cannot wait the quote makes me laugh so much because marsha we should never play another game as a winnipeg jet what he's done he's done he's done marsha i really couldn't he couldn't lead a dog to a tennis ball you know he couldn't to fish to water you want more animal references yeah please give me one more dog to a tennis ball

wow all right he's not he's not a leader for this team and like that's no what what makes you say that why is he not a leader for this team i i've never i've never seen a situation in all his all his years in winnipeg where it's been like mark shifley stood up for this team and he won this game it's his 10 years over like i think what are you saying here i think they've run their course With this core Through this season, I think this is the tipping point And they all kind of know it And Mark Scheifele's done

If you're Kevin Sheveldayoff, it's time to move on If Mark Scheifele's name was Patrick Laine He'd be gone already He'd be gone already All the negative portrayals of Patrick Laine Are exactly Mark Scheifele as a player They're exactly

Oh man, he's got a wicked shot He can throw up the points Man, this guy doesn't play a lick of defense Which one of them am I talking about? i am talking about both but i'm talking about both but uh like that's exactly shifley but he's there right so he's there and he's a part of the core and he's a part of the uh the the leadership and he does is he not wearing an a on his jersey pretty sure he is yeah because the guy with the seat also does the same shit yeah blake wheeler doesn't play defense neither they're the those

two are the the biggest problems for the jets frankly it's a lot of money wrapped up in a lot of offense but not a lot of defense behind yeah that's not a lot of strides beyond their own red line we sat here for the last two months of the season pretending like oh you know strifeley is great for this organization he's a good player and everything's gonna play out the string no it's over like we saw it this is it this is what they are now and if you're a good gm you'd move on because you can read the tea leaves and it's done i hope they had their great conversation today because this quote from yesterday so the talk would have been today and i hope he told kevin shovel day off i know what i am here now and it's time done you know what gets me about this one too

is like i know he's on he's got two more years left on his deal but you chose to sign a long-term deal here with this no wait a second wait a second he's got two years left yeah yeah he's calling it quits 22 23 and 23 24 oh my god that's so much worse he's calling it quits and he's got by the way he's gone in the last four years of his deal it's an eight-year deal he has modified no trade so he actually gets to decide partially who he goes to oh wow this summer is gonna be holy shit if you're the winnipeg jets you gotta hope for a miracle in the draft lottery because if if you don't get that and the hard thing would be a nightmare the hard thing because of the way winnipeg signed this contract and i listen winnipeg's ownership is fabulously wealthy

so i don't think that they but i don't i don't see them doing what the leafs have done which is pay a bunch of money up front in bonuses and then if you need to jettison the guy later on in his contract there's like a one million dollar base salary so that you know the coyotes can take him later on you know Shifley doesn't have that you know this year his real money was

six seven five zero next year it's five and a half and the year after that it's six million now the NHL has recovered largely in terms of money so they're fine but the reality is that it does make it a little bit there's a little bit of a hitch with that and and I

I do have to wonder like when you have Stastny coming on Stastny's towards the end of his career saying when you don't care about the team next teammate next to you potentially and you just care about what you're doing or certain individual things that starts bleeding into the game

does that not sound pointed and then here's what I still have I'm in the prime of my career I like where my body is at I'm only improving I'm only getting better and I'm only going to be a better player next year than I was this year I need to know where the team is

going in what direction Mark you are the direction of the team where you and Blake Wheeler go so go the Jets and I'll include Connor Hellebuck in that because duh yeah but the

three of you are the Winnipeg Jets you're the core if you check or Russian or Swedish and saying this in the media he'd be getting lit up like the 4th of July but he's a Canada boy Mark

Shifley I had a real question, and I'm not trying to denigrate here, but because of the liability defensively, Canada has offense. Is Mark Scheifele an Olympian? Fuck, Snow! I can't believe we ever talked about him potentially making Team Canada. Cannot believe it. Like, the way the season evolved?

Jesus, no! No! No. Could they win with him? Absolutely. it's team canada should he no absolutely not no not even close you a friend what fringe player doesn't play d i would easily take uh andrew mangiapane or someone like that over him someone who actually kills penalties and gives a fuck gives a shit every time they hit the ice no matter

what part of the ice they're on the part where they skate or the part where they glide no to To make the Olympic team for any country, let alone Canada, you've got to play a full 200-foot game, and he absolutely doesn't. Now, this isn't to say he's going to be a failure the rest of his career. No, he's still a point-of-game player, still a weapon. The Leafs made the mistake of not acquiring Phil Kessel, building around Phil Kessel. This is our guy.

We're going to build the team around him. That was a mistake. Then he goes to Pittsburgh, and he's third, fourth, or fifth fiddle, and they win back-to-back cups. And he was spectacular in both runs. And he was spectacular. I think that's exactly, Mark Scheifele could be that for somebody.

Yeah, Mark Scheifele is a very talented hockey player. And I'm not saying he's guaranteed to be traded next year, but if you're the Winnipeg Jets, you've built a system here where you're building around Mark Scheifele and that's not the way you can run a hockey team. He's a very selfish hockey player in the way he plays. He doesn't play a team game.

And if he's in a different role, like Steve said, it's a very successful, it can be a very successful team, but that's not what it is right now. and everything Mark Scheifele's done in his career has backed up that point, and I think if you're a good GM, you move on, but Mark Scheifele might as well.

He could come back as a Winnipeg Jet next year, and that's a mistake if you're still building around him. But if he doesn't come back as a Winnipeg Jet, where is he going, and why is it Pittsburgh? Yeah, really. It's true. No kidding. We're all thinking the same thing.

Oh, yeah. Now, as soon as you brought up Castle, I'm like, oh, that might be a good fit. Now, the reason I want to bring this up, too, is he wants to know about the direction of the team, and I think that's fair. If you're a core member of a team, Of course you want to know where the direction of the team is,

especially if the team's come down a little bit. Absolutely. So let's look at the makeup of the 17 Winnipeg Jets that went toe-to-toe with Vegas for the, or was it the 18? 18. 2018 Winnipeg Jets that went toe-to-toe with Vegas to go to the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, Vegas didn't exist in 2017.

That's right. So they were 2017, 2018. Yeah. That team was probably the best Jets team we've seen. Oh, Marc-Andre Fleury ruined their window. Right. And that should have been that way for like three more years. Marc-Andre Fleury and COVID and everything else.

It was the most lopsided five-game victory ever in favor of the team that lost. Yeah. Yeah. It's just Marc-Andre Fleury and his merry men. Now, what's different about that Jets team? What's different about the Jets team now to the Jets team then? What changed? Bufflin.

And? Bufflin. And Trouba. Oh, yes, yes, yes. i mean myers was a part of it but i think it was bufflin truba oh they had a formidable right side they were myers didn't have to do everything because he can't there was bufflin who is like legitimately freight train like there's two there's two players in the league who stand out physically and it's zidane ochara and dustin bufflin one because they're the tallest player

ever one because they're the heaviest player ever yeah and and they were they were ridiculous and then truba a young truba back there as well and the jets lost them all in one fell swoop they did one summer that's which that's wild how do you recover from that and and still connor hellebuck i think a couple years later or one year later is able to put in a vesna caliber performance and drag the team up but i think i think the thing about the jets at that point and the reason that you know some of those warts that would have come into blake wheeler and mark shifley's game defensively at that time is that when you have defense like that you don't have to play it as much that's fair and those guys those those were I mean I know Blake Wheeler's a bit older but

those were they're sort of like formidable coming into my prime years and you know I I wonder if they've taken a step back and realize like Blake Wheeler said we got to look ourselves in the mirror have they taken a step back and looked how has the team changed around me and how do I the core of this team change to help the team move forward i just don't believe it um with him and shifley because there are players who are defensively inept right like i love they're just not good at it they're just not good at it because they make the wrong decisions like i love taking a screenshot you know the leafs get scored on i go okay they're not moving anyone from in front of the net all five guys are on this side of the ice and they're all puck watching that is not

laziness that's not sloth that's just they were inept not not great systems and and and maybe not focused systems fine what coach tells them to do that all five that's not the system all of you all right one two three timbits like no one says to do that one two three all you follow the puck like you're fine adherence to the system i suppose is what i meant yes I don't see that with Shifley and Wheeler. I would argue the best hockey in the world happens in between the NHL game when the little kids come out. Oh, it's the most entertaining.

My boy's going to play in the big league. Yeah, yeah. That is inept when NHL teams play the way that the teams at intermission do. What I see with Shifley and Wheeler when I see their low lights, it's not, oh, they're out of position. oh matthews lost his man oh this oh that it's it's okay here's the play going back to the offensive zone here's shifley's last stride at the red line here's the puck going in right and we saw it even when they beat the leafs yeah that was the highlight of their year and he skated

after he skated on the defensive side of the red line once and he got suspended for it last year so oh you know what i'm gonna clobber that guy after he scores like uh absolutely ridiculous so you know oh man as a team we gotta look in the mirror and we gotta we gotta we gotta you know what a little bit of catholic guilt a little bit of shame i would like to see but i i also believe they call that accountability i'd like to see some accountability there because uh Listen, are the Jets a wonderfully constructed team? I thought they were going to be better than this. Yeah, I think they're in flux.

I think they're in flux. I think they're the sort of team that can fight their way into the playoffs and then overachieve. But their best players have flaws that are too big to overcome. Unless you have all-star caliber defense. Which you don't. Right. So what will be interesting to see is,

obviously you want to hang on to Connor Hellebuck, But if you do move on from a guy like Mark Shifley, that could bring in some really young, great talent to this organization, which has traditionally thrived on developing it. I think there's a hockey trade to be had there, too. Absolutely. They don't need to rebuild. They need to retool. Yeah. There's a lot of pieces there.

They're fine. And like, man, has there been a real roadblock for their young guys getting in the lineup and staying there? I think they got to really build around them. Oh, my God. Vinny Heinola. I keep forgetting his full name. And Cole Perfetti. Cole Perfetti.

You know, you're going to look at Shifley and be like, oh, God, who's going to score our goals for us now? That young man.