The Steve Dangle Podcast - We Have a New Intro | September 29, 2019

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the Leafs look great this pre-season (00:00), the boys dissect the disorderly conduct charges against Auston Matthews (30:00), Mikko Rantanen signs for less than Mitch Marner (60:00) interesting storylines for the 19-20 season: the Red Wings, Leafs D, Penguins, Islanders, Blues, Canadiens, Oilers and more (1:11:00), and pre-season division and Stanley Cup predictions (1:50:00). Originally aired: September 29, 2019 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/wLGuDVrcbIY Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Panago Pizza presents S.S.D.P.P. The Steve Dangle Podcast with your hosts Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde, and Jesse Blake. Let's go! How about that? An intro with Jesse's name on it. It only took five years. Fun fact to everybody sitting here, we didn't even play it. Yeah. Because I put it in after. There you go.

I wanted to, the calls have been answered, especially the calls from Jesse, who has politely put up with the fact that we haven't changed our intro in six years, but we finally got it done. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Oh, thank you for having me. Welcome to the show. Official member of the show, Jesse Blank.

It's been a long time coming, but I'm proud to be a proud member of the show. So here it is. It's the start of the season. From now on, we're going to be doing two episodes a week. As you know, it will be Sunday and Wednesday, just so you know, so you're clear. So you get your show after the national night on Saturday to kick off the week, and then you get your show midweek, gearing up for the weekend. There might be the rare night where Jesse gets sleepy,

and you don't get it until Monday morning or something. Yeah, well, you should expect that. Okay? People have lives. Okay? And there's anger. There's so much anger when that doesn't happen. Okay, okay, man.

You all right? I'm just combating the anger with anger. Well, that's very 2019 of you. It's worked out well on Twitter. That's all Twitter is. Should we address the YouTube elephant in the room? The new camera? Yeah.

New cameras set up? New cameras. Variety. Do a bunch of stretches. We're trying to think. Right now? Just to illustrate it. Like, just be, yeah, look at all that.

That's so unnecessary. Great radio. It's on Adam camera right now. Is it? It sure is. Now it's on Steve camera. What? Steve cam.

Which one's that? That one? Where's Jesse cam? That was Jesse Kim Sexy Kim And then there's the wide angle shot I like it wide Eventually we'll get a switch man

We'll call him switch man And he'll be in charge of switching Switch man Mitch Is his name going to be Mitch? Anybody named Mitch want to switch for us? Yeah And we'll have a rival podcast With a guy named Miko

Who makes less But produces as much if not more yeah it'll be great yeah well you know we'll get to all that stuff but i think i think um we've got some exciting stuff to announce over the next week uh stuff that we beyond beyond you know the new cameras and everything uh that we're we're pretty pumped about but you're gonna start to see sort of a step forward with the show and we've got some partners that we have to announce we're pretty excited about that uh in the meantime though let's talk about actual hockey hey which is great it's been i forgot every year i forget

how much i miss it every year i forget how much i miss hockey and it's been it's been like finding 20 bucks in your jacket but eight times because i keep forgetting there's a game on yes and then it's 6 30 and i'm like oh yes like i get to watch hockey well i i find myself towards the end of the summer going oh what the hell i'm gonna have to search for something to watch like oh my god like you know when you're like i i can't do a drama i can't do a like i don't have the brain power to absorb whatever storyline it is going to be. Mind Hunter, for instance, one of my favorite shows

on Netflix, still takes me a little bit to if I'm fried at the end of the day, I can't watch it because I'm going to miss something. Whereas hockey, I'm like, turn it on, doesn't matter. I can absorb that. It wakes me up. I don't need to be awake for it. It wakes me up.

Bingo. Bingo. Even that game in Newfoundland, like second line center Jason Spezza, which a few years ago, yeah, of course he is. but no not anymore yeah i was wide awake for that game i was jacked it was awesome and it was terrible hockey oh but it was great but that's a great part about terrible hockey the friday night game was my favorite this this weekend because it was um it was literally everybody who might be on the fourth line maybe and and everybody who ended up being waived

basically um yeah and we'll talk about who who cleared uh today but you know there's some been there's been some amazing stuff that's happened in this camp and i like let's i mean we'll fast part of the game last night obviously 20 20 30 seconds in you have Matthews and Nylander and Jansen and we were saying before the show that I feel like and and tell me if I'm crazy or not I think I think Andreas Jansen is going to be the best passenger that line's ever had yeah and what I mean by that is Andreas Jansen is not a play driver but you don't need more than two play drivers on the line if you've got one play driver we as we saw with William Nylander between Connor brown and patrick marlo in the playoffs last year doesn't work out great but if you got two

it's perfect if you got three it's too much i think i mean there's a couple teams that make it work like the boston top line they're all play drivers they're amazing players it's it's well it's just an unmatchable line yes there's there's really two in the league and it's the colorado one yeah um and yeah if you have like it's it's like a joker in president or ass or whatever you call the card game right depending on which summer camp you went to i guess um like if you have the joker you play it but uh the leafs got a shitload of aces they do and and so seeing andreas johnson score that one was great because it was like you know obviously willie had a goal later on in the game that was a great willie shot absolute bullet matthews looked amazing and by the way yes we are

going to talk about some of the matthews stuff later on yeah uh but we're talking about the hockey part right now that line looks great and it's not what was funny about that line last year obviously Nylander misses the first you know two months and and is never the same yeah um but Matthew seemed to be like they seem to saddle them with it's like here's a guy that's not performing let's put him with Matthews and Nylander and see if he can get that they can all get going and they he never gave that treatment to the other line no the the Hyman Tavares Marner line I mean if he broke it up he would have been dumb in fairness but like yeah That line never got that treatment.

It was always Matthews. And they tried him with Nylander, I want to say, less than half a dozen games. And they never gave it a chance to work. And right around playoff time, it looked like, oh, he might. And then freaking Kadri gets suspended, who also looks great, by the way. Yeah. Of course he does. He's a great player.

He is a great player. But what's been great about this camp is the stuff that you, if you were walking into camp, and I told you three guys are going to blow you away in this camp, you'd be like, damn, that's a great camp. Especially with a team like the Leafs. I can understand in a Detroit situation, which we have to get to because there's a very interesting stat about their first-round picks that I want to talk about.

Interesting. If you go to a Detroit camp or an Ottawa camp or an Edmonton camp, there's open jobs and there's room for surprises. In Toronto's camp, especially on forward, there's not a lot of room for surprises. It's the worst year for this cap crunch because like i'm not even being hyperbolic saying this they have six nhl lines yes they do which is good they have six three-man lines they get ice with confidence yep honest to god absolutely

what's been interesting though five minimum when you look at the the three surprises at least for me and camp um two of them are forwards mckev yeah oh my god and mckev like because okay so we've had so here are the russian signings we've had right it's been zaitsev who in his first year was a surprise and did play well based on the role he was in a 36 uh point rookie right-handed defenseman that you only paid money for that's a great signing uh what they did after was their fault but i think they tried to make him into a into an all-around defenseman and he never was going to be that yeah i think he's a guy that needs to be on the power play and needs to be in an offensive role he might do better in ottawa i think he absolutely i think conor brown's gonna

score 20 goals i think there's lots of that going on it's a great opportunity for a lot of those guys i mean first line is a little cruel but yeah yeah but mckay is interesting because because of what so zeitz have and then that boat anchor contract last year and then they go and they signed and i mean i know they had rosen and borgman and whatever but those guys never really played for the big club in a sustained way so i'm talking about guys that stayed igor ozhiganov plus nikita zaitsev's contract it wasn't even just nikita zaitsev it was his contract as well so you have igor ozhiganov who's not very good and you got he was there he was he was he existed um and then you have zaitsev who was overpaid and then many people just started to hate him

Zaitsev made a million and a half dollars. We'd probably tolerate him just fine. Yeah. And was also played in a role where he was the sixth guy. Because that's what he should have been. It's just they didn't have any depth on the right side. So all of that combined, we look at Mikheyev. Now, I want to say this with an asterisk because everybody looks superhuman in the preseason.

Yeah, that's fair. But this Mikheyev guy is a guy that we were like, yeah, whatever. Like when Mike Babcock had a picture of him outside of that breakfast place near the Esso down in Etobicoke where they practice. Expectations? Yeah, I don't know what it is. And everybody's like, oh, my God, here we go. He's got his new toy.

He's actually, that's a player. That's a real player. He is hungry, hungry, hungry for pucks. Well, and this isn't, like, remember last year Tyratty had, like, eight goals or something like that playing with McDavid, and we're all like, oh, Tyratty's going to be sick. The Oilers also went 6-1 last preseason. Did they?

Yeah. Wow. Because of Tyratty scoring goals or whatever it was. Man, I would just love to look up NHL by Matty tweets from the Oilers preseason last year. Matty on Ratty? Matty on Ratty, yes. I would love to see it. But Mikheyev, I don't know, has like two assists maybe or something like that.

I don't think he has a goal. It's just we've been watching him play in and play out. The guy's got a friggin' motor, and he doesn't stop, and he's big, and he's fast, and he's annoying. He is, like, Babcock made him in a lab. I swear to God. And it was interesting, because, like, Danny DeKaiser at one point last night, like, I think it was Danny DeKaiser, he was fighting off one of the Detroit players for a puck. Now, this should have been a penalty.

So they're both racing into the Detroit zone for a puck that's in the corner already, and right around the face-off circle in the zone, he knocks the other guy over and the guy kind of flies over into the boards. And like Danny DeKaiser comes over and tries to cross-check him in the chin. And you know what? I think it was DeKaiser.

It doesn't really matter. The point is, it pissed him off. The other defenseman made a point to come over and go and try to cross-check him. And yes, the initial play should have been a penalty. But the fact is, yeah, for sure. But he got away with it and he came out with the puck. And when they try to hit him,

he's got the he's got a little bit of the trevor moore you can't really like you you feel like like with mitch marner when mitch marner gets squeezed you're like mitch marner probably can hang on to this puck when trevor moore gets squeezed you're still not at the point at least i'm not where you're like oh he'll get through this because you haven't seen him play enough i know that the guys like i spent i know mike stevens is going like i've mike stevens was like boy he's trevor moore he's the best he's got and and he's right trevor moore is great but you think of it, and you go, oh my god, that player can actually do that. Mikheyev's another

one of those guys. He finds a way to squeeze. He's slippery. Yeah, he squeezes through the boards. Really like him. Fun to watch. I really like that player, man. Fun to watch, yeah. And doesn't speak a whole heck of a lot of English, so it's funny to hear guys just jawing at him. I don't think he understands what they're saying. I know, he probably just smiles. Russians are weird.

They love that shit. Yeah. They love that stuff. They understand tone. I made him mad. Good. Yes. Good. And that third line, which has not, I mean, given what's happened with Matthews and with Marner's contract and everything else, hasn't had a lot of fanfare.

Kerfoot's, I don't know, Kerfoot's getting a little bit of, he's not getting criticism, it's just everyone's underwhelmed with him. And I'm just sort of like, I don't really, I don't know what you expected. But he's not Nazem Kadri. Well, no, and he's not going to be. Yeah. The expectation should have, listen, if you expected him to be Nazem Kadri, You deserve to be disappointed.

That was never going to happen. I think what's blown me away partially about Mikheyev, it's not even that he's this good. It's that he's this good this quick. Yes. And with all the hurdles put in front of him, Kerfoot might be the only guy who's actually succumbed to them a little bit. You know, brand new team, completely new line mates.

He was a winger most of last year. There's sort of... There's an adjustment. They're shoving a square peg in a round hole a little bit with him. I think with Kerfoot, too, and we won't focus too much on him. No. But Kerfoot is a 20-20 guy. He's a 20-goal, 20-assist guy.

I'd be thrilled if he was 20-20. He might even be 15-25. But you've got to— Something like that. He is a 40-point guy. You get 40 points out of Kerfoot, you have nothing to complain about. And that's what they're expecting. So just know that.

That's the expectation. But what Kerfoot does have is blazing speed, along with Trevor Moore. and with Mikheyev on that line it's going to be a lot of fun to watch dude it's a it's a great great hockey team yeah i'm really excited so the second the second guy also went forward that was a real surprise and this is a guy that i think there's been one article in his favor in the entire time i have read anything on the leafs okay and i think it was from pension plan puppets katya had yeah katya nap had the i think it's it's nappe right or not i'm not sure sorry katya my apologies i don't know how to pronounce your name i've only seen it spelled not said yeah so

She wrote an article, I think, a year and a half ago on how Korshkov might actually be good. And everybody else, and I think somewhat rightfully so, the guy broke his leg twice. Yeah, like there wasn't a ton of footage and he didn't play hockey very often because he kept getting hurt. And the other option was they could have drafted to Brincat. Could have drafted to Brincat. He kept getting hurt. He wasn't getting into hockey games. And remember, he was drafted as a 20-year-old, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, yeah, an overager. There was no real reason, unless you did a little digging like she did, to be optimistic for this player. There just wasn't. He had the one goal in his first game with the Marlies last year. Hooray. That was all he got. That was his only point. And he has come into the preseason kicking absolute ass.

What was great was they put him on the power play last night. And he just sat his 6'7 ass in front of the net. he's just a badger yeah yeah but like a giant badger yeah he's huge the guy's huge um and so it's been that's been kind of fun to watch because obviously Mike Babcock Mikheyev and Korshkov are big boys right and I say six foot seven because when they're on skates that's how they look right but I don't actually know uh but but the point is that Mike Babcock likes those big guys I like those big guys too if those big guys can play and those big guys can play Korshkov might be exactly what they need because waivers is probably going to be a problem like i expect them to lose

a guy at least maybe even two everybody got through today uh albert gaudette which everybody was freaking out about god i like him uh ben harper and jordan schmaltz are all clear hooray yeah we'll get to that later but yeah um korshkov because you can go up and down um is super appealing to them right because like put them anywhere yeah you might lose an agostino You might lose a shore. Gaudette is apparently safe. But the fact that Korshkov looks this good and you have some control contractually, it's awesome. Oh, yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. Listen, off the ice, I have several notes. Yes. On the ice with this team, man. There's no reason to complain. They had a great preseason. The lineup looked great.

Everybody played well. No injuries. It was great. Hutchison had the one bad game. He's looked great since. Which is, who cares? It's your backup goalie in the preseason who had a bad game. Yeah, but it's preseason.

Your backup goalie had a bad game. Whatever. Henderson allowed one goal. The whole preseason. Right. The whole preseason. He allowed one goal. Was it four shutouts for the team?

Oh, for the team as a whole? I'm not sure. I think Detroit went 10 minutes in the first period between shots. They had a shot counter for Detroit. And it was like 16 to 1 in terms of shots. Now, the third surprise in camp was, and again, it's, first off, it was the player's second. It's how we pronounce his name. It's Sandin, everybody.

I don't know. Rasmus Sandin. We still don't know. It's, let's call him Sandin. And we're calling him Sandin. I'm going with Sandin because it's close to Sundin. Sundin. So if that, if Sundin, if that's how you pronounce it in Swedish, in, the I-N is in, so it's

Sandin to me, until I'm correct. It's probably like Sundun or something. Sandun. He looks like, he looks like the kind of guy that you're, that, well, I mean. He's everything they need. Everything they need. He's everything they need. The only thing that's not perfect about him, not right-handed.

That's the only thing. That's the only complaint. But you know what? If they asked him to change hands, I think he wouldn't. He'd be fine. Man, he's a good player, man. He is very, very good. They played him 31 minutes.

They played him. It's amazing watching Babcock go full jigsaw and just saying, I want to play a game. And, like, he's been doing, like, little versions of that with certain guys. Like, oh, so you want to be on the Leafs. He played Sandin 31 minutes. Sandin, as a third-pairing defenseman, is never going to play that much. He'll be lucky to hit 15 on most nights. And he more than doubled that.

Well, and it's funny because, you know, Martin Marincin, at least out of last season, And I'm like, okay, he's got to finally be done with this franchise, right? So he goes to the World Championships, plays his freaking lights out. It was great. And Babs was like, where was this? And if you watch him play in the minors, too. He's great. He's really good at that level.

Like a classic tweener, right? Yes. In the Marlies final that we watched, remember we went to game seven. And we went to a few other games as well throughout that year. He's got like dangles. Yeah. He's got a dance. He had the you shall not pass thing, though.

He just denied, you will not get into it, denial, denial, denial. What was interesting is last night, and with those two together, they seemed to, as we mentioned, complement each other so perfectly. But when Marincin took a stinger after one of the plays, I was like, oh no, he's not injured, please God, don't be injured. And I was like, not that on a personal level you don't care that any player is injured, but I had never been so worried for Marty Marincin. I've been worried.

Oh my God, I want him in the starting lineup, he's played so well, right? I've been rooting for Marincin ever since. Well, because it seemed like he never really got a fair shot in Edmonton. So right away, we're like, all right, screw it. We're going to revive this guy, and the Leafs really need him. And they keep giving him chances, and he keeps flubbing it. And you want to talk about flubbing it. Who had more of a tap-in for an NHL job than Jordan Schmaltz?

Dude, he's a right-handed defender. who they got for Andreas Borgman, they need right-handers so bad. So bad. Lilligren didn't—he was fine. I thought people were too hard on him. Oh, yeah. He's fine. He's just not Sandin.

There was no reason to rush him. Have him go down to the Marlies, do his thing, get better. His biggest thing is that he's not Sandin, and people are upset about that. He's still an incredible AHL defenseman already. And now that Sandin's not there, he's probably going to get more opportunity to kill penalties and be on the power play and stuff like that. Bring that pair up together, because the two of them play together a lot. It would have been nice, and maybe that's the plan at the end of the year.

But Schmaltz, I was waiting for him. Most guys got better as the preseason went on. He got worse. His best game was the first one. He giveaways, taking penalties, and Marty Marincin just stapled himself to the kid. Funny, eh? And it worked out great. Well, what was interesting about that is you've got a former first-round pick, so there are skills there.

But something Mike Babcock has always said about Martin Marincin that I have to admit. You're talking about Schmaltz, right? Well, yeah, I think the same. I think he's got, there's a comparison there with Martin Marincin and Schmaltz. And the reason is that the skill is there. And this is what they've always said about Marincin. The skill is there. It exists.

It's what's happening between the ears. And it seemed like Schmaltz's confidence wasn't there. It just seemed like he was fighting it a little bit. And that's what can happen. Training camp's short enough that that can happen. He might be fine. Dude, Rosen was terrible when he first arrived in the organization. And he might play games for Colorado.

Oh, yeah. Like, he looks really good. Yeah. He might have played games for the Leafs this year if they'd hung on to him. Nick Shore's another guy that they, you know, it was almost like last year going into the season, Nick Shore seemed like the perfect guy for the Leafs to pick up, and he ended up in the KHL. Yeah. So they pick him up this year.

And what are your thoughts on Nick Shore so far? I mean, advanced stats-wise, he's a darling of that community. He really is. But has he stood out? Has he earned this? Not much of a shot. No, the problem, Nick Shore's biggest problem is he's trying to make the Leafs. And, again, they have six NHL lines.

Would you be comfortable with Nick Shore in the NHL? Yes. I would be. Would you be comfortable with Kenny Agostino in the NHL? Yes, actually. He's been very good. Would you be comfortable with the Leafs signing Matt Reed? Yes.

I would be. Pontus Abberg? I'm not as... He's not a Babcock guy, that's for sure. No, I'm not as comfortable. Tyler Gaudette? Yes. I'd be confident with him.

Surprisingly, that guy, was he 25 years old? Yeah, and Garrett Wilson played, I want to say, over 50 games in the NHL with the Penguins last year. He didn't play a single game for the Leafs because he's been injured. Oh my god, what's his first name? Kasala? They got him from the Ducks? Yep. I forgot.

Kosella. Kosella, he got hurt in the first game. Like, they're so freaking deep. They're so freaking deep. It sucks for sure. So I was tweeting about this on Saturday, I believe it was, but I got the name wrong. The point I'm trying to make in this is, so I was talking about the rumored Connor Brown to Edmonton trade. Now, what we thought initially here was that it was going to be Connor Brown for Adam Larson, which in retrospect, how can anyone think that?

Evan is not just going to give up Adam Larson. How could we think that? It's the NHL. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, it wasn't Pete Chiarelli in charge, though. So apparently the deal was going to be Matt Benning, right? Was it not going to be Matt Benning? Or was it Ben Hutton? Not Ben Hutton.

It was definitely not Ben Hutton. Are you sure? Yes, because people were like, yes, someone made reference to that. It was definitely not him. I can guarantee you it was not. Because people were like, when I brought it up, people were like rolling their eyes at me. Like, just make sure that it's not Ben Hutton. Okay.

No, Matt Benning, so that's Jim Benning's either son or nephew, plays for the Oilers. Yes. Unlike Ben Hutton, who has Ben in the name, but it's not Benning. Yes, but it's not him. Played for the Canucks. Right, right. So Matt Benning. Nick Robertson's a forward, everybody.

Matt Benning's a third pair defenseman. Connor Brown was a fourth-line guy for the Leafs last year, but that doesn't mean he's a fourth-line guy in general. Fourth, third, whatever you want to call him. Jim Benning is Matt Benning's uncle. So Matt Benning's dad is Brian Benning, former NHL defenseman, and Brian Benning's brother is Jim Benning. Okay.

Can we talk about how the NHL has, like, 13 last names? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like, in a few years, is this going to be ever, like... Just family. Yeah, every roster is just going to be a family tree. They're all cousins.

The Montreal Domies. Here's what I said. Versus the— Remember that rumored Connor Brown for—and I said Brandon Manning. It's not Brandon Manning. We'll say Matt Benning. So remember the rumored Connor Brown for Matt Benning deal last year at the trade deadline. That would have been bad.

I think that would not have been good value for the Leafs, to be honest. No. Seems the Leafs—seems like the Leafs know that that would have been bad, but they were sort of in a desperate situation. And I said, and they didn't want to have to look at something like that again. The D bubble depth, the depth on D at the bubble spot, which is 7, 8, 9, 10. Yeah. Is so much deeper now than it was. So much deeper.

Gravel's fine. He's fine. But that's the thing. It's a bunch of guys. When you're trading at the trade deadline for those depth guys, because you're going to lose a couple defensemen like, you know, like Travis Dermott with a shoulder or whatever. You're going to have to bring those guys up in the playoffs. They don't want to have to worry about that come trade deadline because they don't want to piss away a fourth, a third, a second-round pick on a guy like that.

They made the signings in the summer. They're here. They slipped them through waivers. Everybody else was putting people on waivers, and nobody can really sign anyone. And they're going to play with the Marlies. The Marlies are going to be stacked this year. Well, they ought to be every year. They should be.

And then if they need those guys, they'll bring them up. And that's great because then you don't have to worry about the nibbling around the the edges at the trade deadline as much and the leafs really can't do that because they are so tight against the cap that i don't think that they could make a move well and if you're going to be if you're committed to being a cap team forever which the leafs are um you're not going to want to get rid of all those picks because you need them to be your next guys in line right rasmus and dean apart from being sick uh part of the reason he's going to make this team is he's young and affordable yeah right yeah so they're gonna need but he's let it's funny him making the

team is a bit inconvenient because he's making more than minimum if one of the vets on minimum at 775 because he's at is he not in the eight is he 894 894 yeah you know what deal with it so it's 120 grand but it's still like i think the leafs have like 40 000 like that's it they're really tight it's super tight and it was it was suggested today in the athletic that they may have a couple games this year where they don't dress a full lineup and you know what's crazy they can afford to do it sure like they'll be fine yeah like who on the fourth line sits and actually i want to speak about that because a lot of people myself included continually doubt freddie gauthier and yet here he is man and he looks really good this is the best freddie gauthier's ever looked by the

way his skating so good freddie gotye last year didn't look like this he looked there was flashes of this it was okay but he didn't look like this he became a better skater throughout the season and this is the pre-season we got to keep that in mind it's the pre-season of course but freddie gotye for sure deserves to be the fourth line center there's no question well there was i think he's gonna sort of split duties with spezza which i think is good for both of them um and he had Gauthier had one game on the wing last year and was awful. I can't even remember what game it was, but they just got fed. But that's the sort of experiment, like the Nick Patan at center thing from last year.

It's like, can you not watch this fail once and just try it again? Yeah, give it a game. Give it a couple games. Give it for the love of God. Dude, Kapanen, Matthews, Nylander. I keep going back to this. babcock gave them one period yeah he gave them one stinking period well i wonder come on i wonder if the the reason that they got fed that game too is that was that when freddie anderson was down

i can't remember because when he was injured there were a few games it was like there were a few touch and go games um it's it's interesting though to see that and what i like is that you know on their strong hands they'll take the face-offs but a lot like with patrick marlow last last year in the year before jason spezza probably doesn't necessarily always want to have the defensive responsibility it takes to be a fourth line center the energy it takes to get back defensively and that's yeah and and and mike babcock needs to have that line trustworthy in a defensive zone start well then like this whole babcock trying to make him into a penalty killer just because he's a fourth liner now uh with spezza i'm like no he's not he's not he's not that's not his skill set

His skill set isn't going side to side crazy quick. No. You know what I mean? He could just be the fourth line center. Yeah, why not? And he doesn't need to be on special teams. He's guy. And power play specialist.

He'll be on your second unit, and he'll do a good job because that's what he does. He was one of Dallas' bright spots during their playoff run where they were a double OT loss away from knocking off the Blues. People forget, man. Yeah, they were close. And he's great. He's great in the face-off. Don always has been.

Sorry, any Stars fans. So, anyway. Old wounds. Now, again, take all of this. Obviously, we're excited about the season. There have been surprises in camp that we, that genuinely are like, wow, that deserves our praise. However, we don't have the blinders on. You have to understand that it is preseason.

Tobias Reeder got two goals yesterday. Bingo. That's the point. Now, there were good surprises, which we've talked about. Now there are bad surprises, which is the Matthews situation. So this all stems from a Montreal Twitter account who, if I'm not mistaken, after the Leafs beat Montreal pretty badly, somehow this guy looked up Austin Matthews. That's the impression I got. That's what I've heard, too, is that this only came out publicly because somebody just happened to look up Scottsdale PD, Austin Matthews.

I don't know how you'd do it. Well, I don't know how you would have known. Where would you start? He said on his Twitter account that he was tipped off about it. And he never revealed where or who tipped him off. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay.

There you go. So, I'll tell you what Steve and I have heard about the situation. We have heard privately that Matthews was the captain. Was going to be the captain. That's what we've heard. Now, we've also heard... That's what everyone's heard for months. But we've heard from reliable people.

Yeah. That Matthews was going to be the captain. CJ said it right there. There we go. And said Austin Matthews was going to be the captain. It's going to be him. Now, the Leafs seem to be changing the narrative, which we can get to later. The breakdown of how this all went is crazy.

So I'm going to read a little bit from Katie Strang. Yeah. Basically. A lot of you already know this. Yeah. Sit through it. It's got a point. Yeah.

And we're not going to dwell too much on, because this has been talked about and talked about and talked about again, right? Yeah. The reason I didn't tweet about any of this stuff personally was because I was like, let's see how this situation plays out. And I think finally we're at a point where all the information is basically out. There might be a video of Matthews trying to jump into the car with his friends that might come out. I'm waiting for it to come out. But I've accepted that that video is going to come out and it's going to suck.

Yeah, it will suck. But essentially, what happens is Austin Matthews and his buddies try to get into this security guard's car at his condo in Scottsdale. they think it'll be funny at 2 a.m to jump in and see how she'll react now you don't need me to tell you that's insanely stupid irresponsible any word that you want to associate terrible now on top of that what makes it worse is that it's a female security guard and these are three grown men it's 2 a.m they're smashed out of their minds and she has ptsd because she's a veteran now yeah okay go so so that so that that's a part of it it's not necessarily that's not the focus the fact is they tried to do something extremely stupid and then he pulls down his pants and

like moons are with his underwear on um which is yeah and he and so and according to the condo board he's been a problem all summer that uh was one of the many parts that uh alarmed me wasn't talked about enough yeah like he's a known quantity there that's not good ain't good so you know The thing the thing this is the quote that stood out to me because Austin Matthews dad who you've met Brian he arrives on scene. Yeah to get the to get the boys and Comes in and says you're you're full of shit. This never happened and This would have gone away. She said that I wouldn't have said a thing if it wasn't for that

She said quote the fact that you're denying it and your pompous dad is acting like you're practically Jesus And you'd never do such a thing. He had no response after they sent him the footage He didn't have nothing to say I had no intention of doing any of this but when I saw the condo manager and she said thank God they had the footage because the father was acting like my son would Never do something like that, and he's never done anything like that and everything She's saying is not true now. You're calling me a liar, and I now take offense to it now I'm pissed off now It's going to my going to be my goal to show you that no your son

did do this and if he can start doing this now and you're covering for him then what's uh then what's to say it's not going to get worse when he gets older and that's what rubbed me the wrong way like how dare you just lie and maybe if you were drunk and don't recall i'm pretty sure you remember some of it because your friends stressed to me don't tell management doesn't that quote say at all now i can understand man like listen just take your tuck yourself out of out of your own reaction to this and i think everybody's was pretty much the same what a fucking stupid situation to get yourself into like are you kidding me this is fucking stupid and we've all been 22 and stupid but that doesn't make it excusable this is insane yeah the the point

this is the problem the problem is as a dad think about yourself as a dad in this situation your son got a check for 15.3 million dollars on july 1st your instant thought by the way you have no idea what it's like to have that kind of wealth no your instant thought to even be a father like i i don't know i don't know what it would be like to burst into was it a police station or no it was at the at the at the condo i don't know what that's like what sort of instincts kick in i i mean you've only been a dad for a few months but it seems like being a parent does crazy shit to your head yes yeah it isn't just a lack of sleep yeah but you have the tendency i think and my kid's four months old so i don't really know this for sure but you have the tendency to think

the best of your child and want to think the best because you as a parent are reflected in them yeah right how they react is a direct direct um in direct proportion to how you parented them or at least it is to a point but this is a 22 year old man adult has been an adult since he was 18 can drink. Millionaire, supposed to be a leader. Yes. All that shit. And so, he probably and I have to say, I think this needs to be acknowledged. I'm not

excusing it, but I think it needs to be acknowledged. The fact that his son has come into incredible wealth recently, not that he didn't make millions before, but this, like, 15 million over 4 million is different. It's a notch. If you're Brian Matthews in this situation, my thinking is he probably thought

this person's after money. maybe and that doesn't mean that it excuses anything so save your fucking tweets for me okay stop coming for me i'm just trying to tell you that always the place everyone goes right like come on man now does that excuse what brian did no no and and this is this this is the best part about this i was talking it was funny we're talking on uh on virgin mornings um about it we talked a little bit about it on the air that's how big a story was it made it to virgin radio right i saw that yeah like we're like we're a pop music station we're not supposed to talk about that stuff but it was a big deal but it's yeah so it's a it's an enormous story in the city

and it's not really hockey related jacks who absolutely can't stand when we're talking about sports which is all the time because it's jesse and tj and i always talking about sports made a really good point and she said you know what this could be the best thing that ever happens to him because she said if he wasn't caught here it would have been something worse down the line and she said imagine this he's the captain of the leafs and this comes out yeah she said he's not ready clearly and he's not there's no question about that yeah and she said captain c aside himself and his father need to take a look at a couple of things the first thing is they need to take a look at who he's hanging out with you are by the way this and i truly believe this i believe

it's richard branson that said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with oh shit i know i'm sorry so so be careful with who you surround yourself with if there's anybody in your life right now that's poison get rid of them because they're poisoning you yeah and and then beyond that beyond that you have to look at this as a humbling experience for both of those guys too yeah pull yourself pull your heads out of your asses both of you and and no austin can make mistakes brian well and it's possible like and austin you can't pull this shit you won't skate no and and like i'm pretty haha you won't skate uh he looks pretty ashamed and a lot of people are picking apart his words i don't think there's much he can he's legally allowed to say

if you didn't like the apology sorry it's in it's before the courts he can't make an apology yet you he can't say anything so if you don't like the apology too bad i understand but too bad he can't say anything taveras uh it was either taveras or riley or both like oh yeah we're supporting our teammate well supporting your teammate doesn't mean supporting his actions no and also what did you i'm sorry what did you think they were going to say yeah well you know austin fucking them all right like what what did you what did you think yeah now i've seen a lot of tweets like uh uh what you never done anything stupid while drunk yes i have yes i have the point is now as a 31 year old man i look back on my drunken escapades when i was 22 and there

were plenty and they were really stupid and a lot of the stories i have about myself are secondhand because i don't remember them i look back on them like which with shame right i look back on them with a little bit of fear too like i'm afraid of ever being like that drunk again uh it's called learning it's called learning right so uh it sounds like he had his fun yeah it's time to knock it off this doesn't mean he can never have a drink again in his life no uh go out on the town with your friends but he overdid it yeah now the initial story people are like oh he got in a bar fight now thank goodness he didn't put his hands on anybody but you know trying to get into a car uh the the pants thing it's all it was a really stupid decision he made while drunk

a just a really stupid decision he made while sober was not to tell anybody and his agent who should absolutely know better are you actually out of your mind trying to keep this from the toronto maple leafs did you think no one would ever find out and what if it sounded like they were days away from naming him captain what if they had what if it comes out that that day and the sea is already i can almost guarantee you it would have can you imagine i can almost guarantee you it would have come out if it hadn't come out through that montreal tip off on twitter i can almost guarantee you that story comes out the night that night thank goodness the leafs played the haves before the red wings yeah i don't principle you have to suspend them right

I think so just because if you the Leafs or the Leafs if the Leafs it comes out the same day you name us captain that's just so embarrassing

oh that day oh oh oh in that scenario I'm actually surprised that they haven't like I guess it's because it's before the courts and they don't want to say

but I am really surprised that they haven't said you know what because the Leafs are socially and want to be socially very forward and want to send a message

I am surprised at how little we've heard and I think it's because it's for because it's before the courts but i wouldn't be shocked if he sat again i wouldn't be the so i have a couple thoughts there one they may because of the cap literally not be able to afford that right even the one game because we're talking they really got a nickel and dime this year so they might not be able to do that the other thought if i'm kyle dubas and brendan shanahan

and like the board of governors is you know what we're paying you 11.6 million whatever it is against the cap he's actually making 15 in his first year yeah 15 15 3 or something you over 15 million dollars to play hockey this year get out there and friggin play hockey right and don't and don't you dare give me any other like he's there's no talk back there's no nothing this year your lesson in this because okay we'd suspend you if we could we're not really in a position to do that also you're our best player like friggin you you get on the ice you score some goals and you shut up you don't say anything before the game you don't say anything after the game you lay low for a little while because you done goofed this is your penance you know what

i mean and but i mean that's hockey consequences it's pales in comparison right and he's got a cork i don't know how they thought that was never going to come out i don't know how they thought that was the right move that to me is wild and here i'll say this um or maybe maybe we're getting off topic you know what i'll save no i'll save it for the we're gonna have a martyr conversation later with the ranting and stuff yeah yeah okay i'm gonna save it because it's it's distracting from he should not audit that right and for anybody that defended the action itself including don cherry in today's toronto sun give your head a shake like if steve did that i'm not going to defend steve i'm going to support steve and be like wow that was fucking stupid i want to never

do that again we're still best friends have you ever been a drunken moron yeah yes and i'm ashamed of it dude i i one time this it was my first ever experience with a keg uh and the dangerous thing about kegs uh that i learned very early on in my drinking experience is there's no receipt when when there's no pileup of bottles right or bottles or cans or and i just i just drank my face off with like no moderation obviously didn't know and i was 19 i'm like i'm gonna get messed up and you got energy for days right when you're 19 yeah and i the my first memory the next day was at one in the afternoon like that's that's how hungover i was or still drunk and the story i i tried to fight my friend's dad what happened tell the story he i i tried to

punch him and he i luckily missed and he just put me to bed and his the friend's dad was a police officer who was just trying to get you to bed it was yep and allegedly i don't i wasn't there i don't remember i don't i don't remember any of it and like i know this guy i see him all the time and you love him and i love him and every moment i'm with him no matter what we're talking about i still want to go by the way okay hey can you pass the ketchup also sorry about that time i tried to punch you like it's it's been yeah it's been over a decade and i'm still mortified by it and I should be yeah and I should be and it's served as a lesson for the rest of my life don't freaking do that it's it's gotten it's gotten far it was I mean I I have to be honest

with you I've always laughed at that story I think it's funny but it turned out funny right funny it turned out funny it very much I connect it's not funny it's not funny bingo well maybe it is because I don't know how much power you would have had in that swing I'm sure he would He would have turned you around real quick He'd had swings at him before I think he'd have blocked it I was at his mercy though It's because he handled it like an adult

And I handled it like a friggin irresponsible child That was not a child I was a legal adult I'm not proud of it There's no defense of it What was it for you though? It was a learning experience Teachable moment

You shouldn't have to read out of a textbook Don't get so drunk that you try to fight your friend's dad the just yeah but apparently that was a lesson that i needed to learn that way the distinction here is that yes it's a teachable moment and on the scale of crimes you can commit pretty low for matthews but well yeah but i keep saying that the point here is that it's not defensible that's the part that got me is people going well boys will be boys or well you've never been stupid whatever don't defend it you don't need to defend it yeah it's it was dumb uh they're gonna have to sorted out in the courts he's gonna have to feel like shit about it for a while um and there will

probably be consequences for this and we'll see what those are that's it and like that's the story and like we're three guys sitting in a room and a lot of stuff after the fallout on twitter was a lot of women sharing their stories about dudes uh being six foot two being next to them in the middle of the night and them carrying keys in their hand just for that potential danger that they face in everyday life and from that perspective it's just it's gut-wrenching yes and i'll be honest my first thought was because the the i guess the the hook of the story for me the first time i heard it was oh we you know pulled down his pants and did the old ace ventura hello and i was just like oh what a what a goof like what what a moron and it did admittedly take me

a moment to look at it from that perspective yep yeah you know there i think there's a lot of guys who are asking questions in this saga, whatever you want to call it, without bothering to try to answer it themselves. Well, that's why I didn't tweet. That's why I didn't tweet about it. That's why I held back.

I sent the one. Because I wanted to, for me, it was just my personal choice, but I felt like everybody else was throwing their opinions out there, and I was like, what's one more who cares? And I didn't want a repeat of, like,

what happened with the Morgan Rielly stuff last year. Sure, where everybody canceled Morgan Rielly, and then it came out. That's the thing. that's why you want to wait a little bit just to see but jesse makes the the most important point that is probably one of the scariest situations that person has ever been in and we're talking about a military vet yeah or just it's a scary one you know and needlessly so yeah pointless

needless stupid and you know your security it's a dangerous job and everything it shouldn't be had a high-end fucking condo though well no like that that should be i mean ideally you don't need any security ever and you don't need any police ever um you know i guess you're there for the dangerous moments right but it was you you if you're the perpetrator of the day dangerous moment there are consequences for it now there was another perspective did you have something oh i was just gonna say when you you just keep compounding the things that happen in the story and it just keeps getting worse you know you tell the initial story of okay it's him drunkenly at night then it's him knocking on the window of a woman's car at night then it's him mooning her

and then it's the dad coming in and then it's the hiding it from the from the gm and it's just every single part of the story is another thing that just makes it even worse and just so disappointing and there's no uh you know and that this is this is so many layers down in terms of Relevance in the story But if he comes out and admits it And tells the Leafs and everything They can just go Here's what happened

But like Then there's one less terrible layer It was like three or four days Where we were learning new detail And I'm just like oh my god I wanted to scream enough But like obviously the situation is what it is But it was

Evidently He couldn't have handled it worse. It was such a slow burn of bad news. Couldn't have handled it worse. Yeah. That could have been handled like you said. And evidently the agent is still indignant that that was the right course of action, which to me, I'm like, I'm going to fire my agent.

Right. Are you kidding me? That's terrible advice. No. Another perspective, and it's a relevant one. So this is Michelle Storino. She covers hockey And I don't know what else her background is

Because she's got a PI license So she tweeted this I'm a woman with a security background and a PI license If she could not tell they were drunk Then her observation skills were lacking If she truly felt in danger Why didn't she stay in her vehicle And lock the doors

Or better yet, drive away She had options So that's what she said The point is she didn't even The point that she would even have to consider that is the point. She shouldn't have to do that. The point is that she should have never been in that situation. Yeah, and also, once she got out of the car, you know, he didn't then, unless I'm completely getting the story wrong,

he didn't then try to get in the car. He tried to get in the car when she was in the car. And it was already gone. So her getting out of the car is, I don't know how relevant it is. And it's not about what you do. It's not about how she escapes the situation. It's the fact that she had to escape it all. I can appreciate someone trying to offer

hey I'm a woman and also I have some expertise in this field but I just feel like no matter what it's a bad situation so here's what it is going forward because instantaneously people are like well I can never look at them the same again and that's fine if that's your opinion whatever

I look at this as and Ashley Docking from the fan when I worked with her we were talking about far more serious situations from the NFL at that particular moment but she said i said what would it take for you to have a player who came back from x crime or whatever it was that was really stupid for you as a woman to say um because it had specifically to do with that i said for you to say okay you know what i believe that this guy genuinely has

made uh a turnaround in his life and she said receipts i want to see receipts i want to see give back no not just growth not just that it doesn't happen again because that's the bare minimum right it's are you volunteering have you done this have you done that have you gone to like and i'm not saying that matthews needs like counseling or whatever but dude go out and do something good now well and continue to do something good you've done something stupid and he does he does the people at sick kids go out of their way every time i see them to be like matthews is in here all the time sure this isn't about him being a good or bad person it's he did a bad thing yeah sometimes good people do bad things and we'll have to make up for it uh and

sometimes i don't know maybe people are good in some ways and a pain in the ass to their condo and others yeah you know like it's not there's nuance man like not everything is so black and white um i'm confident enough in this guy that he'll learn from it he'll grow from it he'll have receipts this is never happening again this is i can't i cannot i would not i would be shocked i really would i don't i think this is that he learns from this he you bet he's going to learn from it um but that's later now deal with it now he's got to deal with it right and he's got to and for everybody that's like well maybe he could still be captain he's not going to be captain guys he's not and at least you're going to change the narrative they're going to be like well he wasn't

really going to be captain anyway he was going to be captain from what we know i think so and And it's going to be Tavares or Reilly now. Either are great choices. And you know what's good about this? Clearly, he's not ready. So now we know. He's super not ready. He's not ready.

And he's going to go out there. Dude, he could win a Rocket Richard trophy this year. Sure. But in terms of the captaincy, which means something outside of hockey, now's not the time. And at a certain point, Jerome McGinley was passed over to the captaincy, and he went to the management. And Jerome McGinley, who never did anything wrong, ever, was like, when am I going to get this? And they're like, don't worry, Jerome, you will. And he will.

Austin Matthews will be captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs eventually. It's up to him. Of that, I'm sure. It's up to him. See, I believe in it. I think he will. He's a good enough player. And I think he's a good enough person.

And I think that you do something stupid. So I think a month from now, people are like, you know what? Really fucking stupid. Wish it hadn't happened. And I think he probably feels the same way. But you're going, okay. But we know Austin to be this one thing 99.9% of the time. we can we can at least think well that's i believe the 99.9 of the time and we'll see if this happens

again if it becomes a pattern then it's a problem this this could be um and this is obviously not the first priority of the situation but this could be a really transformative moment for kyle dubas i think why do you say that we've seen him frustrated before and we've seen him like throw like passive aggressive digital shade you know with liking certain things yeah like Nick Robertson's a forward that's his most recent one that's hilarious he

looked furious he looked really as he should be really as he should be him saying I found out on Twitter like everyone else and good for him for telling everybody that and being honest about it and by the way I believe him when he says that

oh yeah a lot of people are like how could the leafs not have known i'm sorry you think austin matthews austin matthews parents and austin matthews representation are gonna let the leafs tell everyone that they found out that way when it's not true it makes him look terrible yeah it makes him look terrible if it's not true why would they allow them to say that but that was a that was a dubious going this is your bed now you're gonna lay in it yeah yeah uh maybe dubious didn't run as tight of a ship as lou lamorello lou lamorello had this sort of hand of god fear about him he might have just screwed it up for everybody i think play time's over this this team has thoroughly lost its baby fat

um it's not cute anymore it's not cute anymore it was cute against washington it stopped being cute last season yeah uh kneelander to a lot of people although that's completely different marner to a lot of people although that's completely different and now matthews um you know and and that's the tip of the iceberg uh it's lost its baby fat and this is what i was going to say earlier and i'm it's i'm shoehorning it into this conversation but like with the so there's the miko ranton and signing yep right so you've got ranting in line a and connor all signing so line a got a two-year deal 6.25 or 6.75 but it's two years kyle connor has a seven-year contract uh 50 million bucks miko ranton in six year 55.5 million

yeah so ranton i couldn't find a good reason why he should make less than marner there isn't uh there isn't and people were showing me like tax stuff and whatever until that's factored into the cap i don't give a shit until it's factored into the cap which it never will be i don't care one deal is more than the other so the hot rumor so mitch just sat and he sat and he sat and i've reason to believe he consulted with uh william nylander who's his teammate right So, of course he did. You know, how do I get the most out of this? And I've always said the whole summer how embarrassing it is that the rest of the league

was waiting on Mitch Marner's contract because they thought he was going to get overpaid the most. That's the truth. They thought he was going to get overpaid the most and he was going to be everyone else's meal ticket. And that all falls on Kyle Dubas. Kyle Dubas is going to overpay him the most. So there's disrespect in that regard.

There's disrespect. Like, it's not just foolish. It's disrespect to not tell the general manager of your hockey team that you've been charged with something. Like, there's always Lou and Dubas comparisons that I think are unfair. I think it's perfectly legitimate to say Lou would have known. Lou would have known. And I think... We don't know that.

No, of course not. It's a fantasy scenario. I have a hard time believing Lou would get sandbagged by that. I just do. There was a fear. There was a fear of his authority. Yeah, there was a fear of hiding things from talking about anything. Not in terms of he had phones bugged and he could find out anything.

If something happens to Matthews, he knows. It would have been, oh, fuck, what happens if we don't tell him? Right, right. Right. Not from a, I could probably keep this from him. Yeah. Okay, okay, that makes sense. And so Dubas has been disrespected in contract talks.

He's been disrespected in this regard, however you want to word it. And I think he's done playing games. I think Dubas is done playing games and people are going to feel a little bit of wrath. Like people are, you know, does he do something as petty as, okay, you all have to shave again? you know you know what i mean like i don't know if it's that but uh best believe something about his his career as a general manager in this league is about to change or has changed i think partly because of this incident and you know what if he's any good we'll never know right now we will not see it that is you know some people are gonna go how are you talking about that no dude it's

it's layered for god's sake there's several things to all of this but that one hasn't been talked about and I think it's fascinating when you talk about the Miney, Connor, Rantanen I think the Rantanen is the best comparison because they're similar players I've

just one last thing please guys when women offer their perspective on something listen to them because you don't have that perspective shut up for a second and just fucking listen like yeah that like i don't get that yeah if at the end of it you go you know whatever

fine but at least fucking listen for a second it's one millisecond that's all you got to do i hate to tell people that was the last thing i wanted to say it's possible that you don't know everything yeah possible yeah you know what i would even go as far as to say likely you have not experienced everything you have not read every book you've not been in every situation listen yeah now with the actual dollars that ranton paid versus what marner pay or got paid obviously you know it's two million bucks more basic two and a half million bucks more that that marner's making than uh what's that one and a half well one and a half sorry random um but it might be two and a half more than what he should have made right oh is this from ian

yeah yeah and you know it it could sting them and i mean watching them this preseason i'm not i'm definitely not watching him going oh that overpaid bum no he's still disgusting yeah he's still really good but that's besides the point miko renton is also going to be disgusting for less money yeah but you can't sit there and say mitch martin's making market value because he's not making he's absolutely making a buffet yeah i would say nylander based on how he'll perform this year just to guess is making well below market value though insanely what you saved what i believe what william neil neilander will give you this year is you could say matthews is a little over value but i even then i'm like man he's pretty freaking good i was like dude he had

the most uh five on five goals in the entire nhl behind connor mcdavid and he scored them at a higher rate because he was injured he that's a superstar yes that's a superstar so one 90 point year is not a superstar it's a superstar in the making potentially but ranton had back-to-back 80 80 plus 87 or something it was crazy marner's topped 70 points once and he is not top 30 goals i think he's going to be a disgusting player i'm so stoked that he's on my team but 10.893 holy shit i think though when you look at it um what you saved on nylander you paid extra on marner that i have the car together to me is about what you should be paying hopefully it's a wash yeah hopefully you take one million from there you add it to there it's kind of that's my that's

my thinking is that like okay so you like it again i know two million dollars or a million dollars would have really helped them in this cap crunch that they're in but what does a million dollars really get you in the NHL. Well, and that rumor, Kevin LeBanc, apparently, but that rumor... Or Pat Maroon. Or, yeah.

The rumor that Marner would have taken eight times nine, but this was before he had the 94-point season. You would have said, Kyle Dubas is insane, and Nylander would have been like, well, what the fuck? I deserve that.

Yeah, so there's 18 million between the two, which is roughly what they're getting combined now. So, it's all about how you look at it, I guess. yeah that's how i choose to look at it and i think that's how the leafs have to look at it because there's you know they are paying nylander under is 6.9 million dollars is a lot less than what a guy who's i think going to get 70 points this year um would be making you know if kevin

hayes is making 7 million bucks william nylander for sure is a good deal now uh moving on to you know because i think we're you know what i'm really sick of and i told i said this last episode so sick of every rfa being compared to mitch marner but i think it's going to happen for the next three years like i just don't think it's going to stop now with all of this i mean it was leon drysaddle and then he scored 50 goals so yes and then now he's being underpaid yes yeah with all of this happening um we did we did talk about how good the leafs really could be they look really good they do look really good do they look good enough to you guys to win the athletic or the athletic the atlantic they do do you think that they could beat tampa because if they there's an

argument to be made if you win the atlantic you win the president's trophy yeah it's a really good division yeah it's a really good division like boston could win it too right like like it's it's sort of if i'm not mistaken what was it colorado made the playoffs with 90 points i want to say montreal yeah montreal missed it with like 98 didn't they 96 man like it's a really strong division buffalo got better florida got better boston's boston um just sort of in a holding pattern of being great being annoying get the hell out of here uh it's a really really really strong division and the leafs might be the best can i loop in everything we just talked about with the on ice performance sure okay what if these two back-to-back terrible pr stories

mitch marner all off season then matthew's dropping then this whole captaincy who knows Who knows what's going to go on with that? What if that affects the on-ice performance? Because we don't assume that these guys are just going to play in a vacuum. They're hearing everything. And it's preseason. It's just preseason. Like I said, Edmonton went 6-1 last year.

Didn't make the playoffs. I think they might get off to a slow start and then ramp it up to what they actually are, which might be President's Trophy's winner. But I wouldn't fault them if they got off to a slow start just because the summer has probably been so heavy on them. Especially the last two weeks. Like, I wonder if this focuses you up. By their own doing. What?

To that point. You think it focuses them up? Yeah. I actually think that's what's going on. You think they all band together and they get. Well, I think it's like, fuck, I don't want to focus on what's going on in my personal life right now because that kind of sucks. And every waking moment on the ice. I think Jeff O'Neill nailed it on the broadcast.

It was the day the news broke and Matthews was, or the day after, and Matthews was playing. and he scores that goal, and he just sort of goes, yep, thanks, dap, dap, gets off the ice. Business. It's all business. No fun and games. Stay off Instagram for a while. You know, hey, I'm in Patrick Marlowe's car.

Yeah. You know, and there's nothing wrong with having a personality, but it is shut up and lay low time. All of them. Yeah, it's focus on hockey time. um it's uh i loved uh what did kyle uh kyle lowry uh in the nba final said um every time they went on the road he said it's a business trip wow that's what it is it's a business trip if they have what it takes to win then that's the perspective they're going to come from and

this will be their learning moment where they ratchet down what is the phrase you ratchet down the hatchets batten down the hatchets i like mine better you ratchet down the hatchets and you... Do that too. And then you... Batten down the hatches. Yeah. It's a Navy term.

Well, mine's an Army term. Yeah. And maybe that'll make them play better. So, yeah, hopefully that's what results from all of this. Yeah. If they stumble out of the gate, I think it'll be because they play four games in six days. Is that really the starting schedule?

Four games in six days against some really good teams. The Blues are, like, game three or four. Tampa's, I think, game five. Tampa's in there. I want to say it's Blues-Tampa back-to-back. So you've got the Stanley Cup winners and the President's Trophy winners. And I want to say they have three or four back-to-backs in October. It's a lot.

It's a trash first-month schedule. They come out of that a few games over .500. It's not bad. It's pretty good, man. It's a pretty good sign of where you are. One thing I was looking at yesterday is that I think the Leafs lost 3-4 against Ottawa last year. The Leafs finished. By the way, they kick off the season against Ottawa on Wednesday.

Boston probably played their worst game of the entire season against Ottawa. That last road game, I didn't watch the third. I had to go watch the dogs, or walk the dogs. I don't think I've ever been that mad watching a Leafs game. Really? They were, oh, we had friends over, and I was, like, embarrassing. I was embarrassing. I walked, we had company over, and I left the house.

I was so friggin' mad. The Leafs had 100 points last year. Yeah. Boston had 107 points. they win those three games which each of which they should have won and by the way people told me to calm down when they lost that first game to Ottawa I think it was the second game of the season first night hockey night in Canada I said this will sting this will come back this is the shit that matters at the end of the season people like you need to calm down that's

crazy what are you talking about one thing I really need to see the Leafs do this year is clean it up against shitty teams and that's not to say Ottawa's not on the upswing or whatever the Leafs should beat Ottawa every fucking time. The Leafs should beat Detroit every fucking time. They should beat Columbus. Yeah, they should beat Columbus. They always have a tough time against Columbus. And there's no excuse this year.

There's no Bobrovsky in that to rob things. It's different. Can you look up who their goalies are again? I still don't know. The point is that took them from seven points behind the Bruins to one point behind the Bruins. That shit matters. Dude, Detroit!

Yeah. Detroit! Every game was the there was the they were down 4-1 and made this crazy comeback loss in overtime they have another one they were down 3-1 how are you down yep you shouldn't even be should never been down in the first place and so what's interesting is that so i was reading a jonah siegel piece today and he said essentially that the leafs and tampa were right on par with each other scored the same amount of goals five on five the difference last year was power play and penalty kill tampa was number one in both because tampa had an insane seat regular season the leafs were eighth in power play which when you look at the talent on their top unit was completely unacceptable

that is not good enough 100 but on the penalty kill it's even worse 17th 17th now i'll tell you watching the leafs defense in again it's been pre-season i get it but what a fucking difference it is not to have ron hainsey on the top pairing and then nikita zaitsev on the next right like what a difference tyson berry and he doesn't barely have a great game uh yesterday he was So he was just kind of there. He's been all right. What a difference, though. He can make a pass.

Nikita Zaitsev was literally throwing 100-mile-an-hour fastballs up the ice. He could have given him a shovel. And that's the difference. It's those little things. Those guys don't even have to be great. Cody Ceci doesn't have to be great, and I don't know if he's capable of being great. I don't know. He has to be good.

He's got to be just better than that. Have you seen the bingo card? Oh, yeah, the Manny Elk one? The one where it's like, is Cody Ceci actually good? And then it's like, who said it? I don't know if he's good. We'll see. I wonder if they move on from him partway through the season, too.

Like, I wonder if they find a trading partner when Dermott comes back. Is Cody Ceci better than Ron Hainsey? Count? Is Cody Ceci actually adequate? Is he better than Zaitsev? That's all I care about. Is Cody Ceci better than the incredibly low bar he has to jump over? Yes!

Yes! And guess what happens to most okay players around really good players? Tend to get better. I mean, you're playing with Morgan Rielly. If it doesn't work here, it might not work out anywhere. 20 goals, 70 points, Morgan Rielly. 72. That's right.

What are you looking at, Jesse? I was just looking for the Manny Elk chart. Yeah, it's very funny. You're on it, by the way. Yeah, I saw it early, but I don't have the tweet in front of me. Go to his Twitter and search through media. The biggest flaw in the bingo card is we're all in the same row. Oh, that's not fair.

Come on. Come on, Manny. Come on. Here's a fun fact. I think Detroit's going to be a really fun story to watch this year because, remember, Steve Iserman's there now. And they're no longer the fumbling, we don't know what we're doing. We're going to sign Mike Green again. Detroit Red Wings.

They're now the, we have purpose and intention to every move we make. Detroit Red Wings. I think Detroit's going to suck this year. However, they're going to suck with purpose. And that's what the Leafs did. When you suck on purpose, then you see gains. And there's going to be pain, to quote Mike Babcock. Protect the young players.

So Zidane is down. Svechnikov is down. The Red Wings have one first round pick from the last five drafts on their roster right now. Larkin? No, last five? Last five. Rasmussen's down not Mantha

no who is it hang on I'm just bringing it up right now I hang on Dennis Chalosky

Chalosky he was a first round pick the only first round pick in the five past five drafts still on the on the roster I hope I spelled it

still on the roster still on the current roster doesn't mean that the rest of the guys have been put down in Grand Rapids oh by the way

Okay, okay. I think are going to win, are going to be challenging for that championship. Joe Foligno didn't make the team? Oh, so they're going full pain. That's on purpose. They're going full pain. Oh, shoot. Oh, this is like Nylander.

We had that conversation last show. Nylander was like a top five talented player in the organization. He was their number one center. And he was, yeah, he was on the Marlies. Yeah. Ooh, Red Wings fans. Well, you know what? It can only go up.

Yeah, well, and they've got a loaded draft this year. Yeah. Yeah, it is a Merrick every time I see him raves about this draft. Yeah. This upcoming one? Yeah. It's going to be a really good one. First round pick for it.

Yeah. Unless it's top 10. Unless it's top 10. Yeah, it's top 10 or 5 protected. If it's the best pick, the Leafs have got to pick it. Yeah, but we don't want them to suck that bad. Please don't suck. So it'll be interesting.

Grand Rapids will be fun to watch this year because I think they're going to be loaded with talent. Pontus Eberk for a first. who says no well uh i wonder if they can't read like i mentioned cody cc before but if he looks good right-handed shot defensemen are hard to come by in the nhl no you don't think that they can't trade him not for first i'm not saying for a first i'm you know i'm saying not at all you don't think that they can recoup assets on him maybe it's you know what for me because like if dermot comes back yeah where does he slot in exactly and why wouldn't you put dermot and Miley together, or Marincin, or whatever

it is. I don't care what the combo is. Dermott's got to play. So does Sandin. It has to... Any trade has to make the team better on ice this year. The future is great, and you should plan for the future. But I was thinking about Rasmus Sandin, and like, well, if you send him

down, his contract could slide, or whatever. No, he's sick. He belongs. Ice the best possible team. Go out there and win a cup. It ain't about tomorrow. It's about now. Yeah, it's... It can be about both, but But now it takes... Right now, the third pairing is Sandin-Marincin, right?

Yes. That's what we're going with. Yes. Well, Babs didn't... He didn't specifically say that. He said, well, we got four guys, meaning the top four guys, and we got Sandin, and then we're going to figure the rest of it out, which you would have to say is Marincin.

Like, it's not going to be Harper. It's not going to be Schmaltz. Or Hall. Or Hall. They haven't played together once, I don't think. No, it's not going to be Hall. No. And he's the only...

Hall, they should have played last year. They could have used him. This year, I don't think they need him. And what's Dermott's timeline looking like? Mid-November? Yeah, both him and Hyman are mid-November. I think one might come back before the other, but yeah. It'll be fascinating, too, what happens then,

because you have to think Korshkov maybe makes the team, but I think he can go down without waivers. Yes, so that's why I don't think he will. Well, because they can't carry spares, right? Yeah, but what I mean is he makes the team now, and then Hyman comes back, and he pops down again. Don't they need somebody? No.

No, because their fourth line could be, it could be Spezza Goat. And I'm trying to think of who's slotting in there. Shore? It could be Shore. It could be. Kenny Agostino. Agostino. I'm trying to think of who was in that slot.

Patan. Patan, yeah. Patan. There was someone else. I'm trying to remember. There's so many guys. Trevor Moore. Probably third line.

No, Trevor Moore's third. Yeah. I'm trying to remember who it was. Kaia's third. It's wild to me how good they've looked And when Hyman comes back A guy like Mikheyev or Moore Could be on the fourth line

They're so good They're so, so good up front And again, like I keep saying The top nine is locked up For at least the next two years Yeah, I know what their problems are But that's pretty freaking good By the way, the cap crunch

Gets a little bit easier next year I'm just looking at what the Leafs Have projected right now They've got about $14 million next year to play with. And the only position of real need for them is going to be defense. Because they've got CeCe, Muzzin, Barry, Marincin, Anahal coming off the books. They'll have Sandin. Obviously, you hope Lilligren's going to be ready for the big show.

Sandin, Riley. Yeah. So there's two-thirds of the left side. Dermott's got to be re-signed. Yeah. No, but I'm saying, because everyone's like, oh, Riley's the only guy. Well, once Sandin makes the team, he's automatically guy two. Right.

Who's locked up. well and that their entire left side is probably ready to go it's riley dermot sandin and then they got to figure out maybe they re-sign one of muzzin or barry um you know i would imagine that that's tomorrow yeah it's tomorrow's problem tomorrow but they've got the they've got the money to do it so i don't know if the cap crunch is as bad after this season as people are making i've seen people talking about like oh yeah they're gonna lose anderson they're gonna lose riley what what man they get enjoy what's in front of you yeah exactly like this this is the year to enjoy what's in front of you eat your meal stop setting a table eat the eat your dinner yeah

that's why my therapist said that to me actually he said your biggest problem is this is this is what he said to me recently he said your biggest problem is you continue to set the table but you never actually eat and he said you need to eat you need to sit sit still for one second and just enjoy what you've created and i was like whoa damn if you pay close enough attention to the show you'll get like after a few months you'll get like one full therapist session maybe just third hand therapy which is always really healthy

it's super good yeah no and sometimes gets published also someone who I I watched at the Nagano Olympics is now

the only female pro scout in the NHL Cammie Granato that's right with Seattle that is right Adam was at the

Nagano Olympics I was there really? yeah he covered it I had my Theo Fleury 74 jersey I still have it

you wore 74? 74 randomly I think it was who had 14? Shani? I don't know Could have been Shanahan. Really, really interesting what Seattle's doing.

I'm kind of excited. They announced their first, you know, five scouts. And, you know, they have had, there have been other scouts in the past. But we're starting to see this boys club thing break up a little bit. The Leafs have... Wickenheiser on staff. No, it's Wickenheiser. Noel.

Oh, my goodness. I forgot her name. She's an amateur scout. But Cameron Granato's the one. And she came from Twitter, right? We talked about her last year. We were like, who is this person? She's based out of North Dakota.

Noel, for the love of God. Yeah. I forget. I remember talking about you. Yeah, Cameron Garano's the first pro. Let's go. Pretty neat. Noel Neham.

That's right. Neham. Thank you. Yes. Yes. I knew it was Noel. Anyway, congratulations to her. I'm really excited because do we not have an expansion draft after this year?

We do. How come no one's talking about that? Who's protecting who? Do we even know what the protection rules are yet? Has the NHL said that yet? Because I could swear to you, we knew with Vegas by now. Also, like... We knew.

Yeah. But, remember there was that option you could protect a bunch of forwards, but you leave your defense super vulnerable? The Leafs have like, they only have one defender they need to protect. Morgan Rielly. Morgan Rielly, that's it. Dermott might be because he's going on his second contract. I think he'll be good.

I don't think he'll meet the games played at the Terrier. Yeah, I think he'll be good. See, I'd have to look at the rules again. Yeah, I'd have to look it up too. So you're basically protecting... Just protect all the forwards. Yeah. Hopefully you don't lose one.

And if you do, well, you have 14,000 others. You might get some cap relief out of it. Yep. Interesting stuff. Really, really interesting. I'm shocked that nobody's done an article on that yet But I'm pretty excited We still don't even know what they're called

No, we don't They have a bunch of people working for them What do they call themselves? A couple years ago, I vaguely remember Adam Wilde Coming up with a great name for them Which I won't repeat on this podcast I was saying that's not the thing you should do I was saying that's not the thing you should do

That's the point I was trying to make at the time Anyway the not thing you should do of course it's become a meme um penguins are reportedly right now very close to trading jack johnson which i think is such a shame the penguins are four hundred thousand dollars over the cap right now there's a few teams that are over the cap yeah and you can be except you get penalized for it next year so you don't want to be over the cap the leafs have been over the cap before it's happened they're currently spending like 94 million yeah yeah because you can you can go over the cap in retrospect yes like your bonuses or your ltir they can default

you to over the cap previously in in the past but i don't believe these guys are over the cap in that way i think they're just over just straight up over yes and so that's sort of the issue um um and jack johnson's contract which is surprising that in that it was that they ever traded for him that they ever signed him that it ever became a thing and why it had to be five years 3.25 million dollars and after one year he's been he's he's going to be traded now he it's because the the depth of what the penguins have coming up is better than they thought it would be but he slid to seven he split to seventh on their depth chart and jim rutherford after the end of last year was I was like, I don't know why everybody hates on Jack Johnson so much.

It was like he was hateable. No, Jim, we knew that you were making a bad deal at the time. Now, he doubled down on that and acquired Eric Goodbranson. And I'm just so upset that we don't get to see that pairing together. I wanted 82 games of Goodbranson and Jack Johnson and then Sidney Crosby on the same team. Well, on Sidney Crosby's day-to-day right now, by the way. Took a puck off the speed. Yeah, that didn't look good.

Penguins fans, I seem to remember being like, oh, Goodbranson's actually not that bad. Jack Johnson, dude. Never. good yeah i've said this story before jack johnson was my introduction to analytics he was the first guy and i want to say it was dello i'm not sure who they were like by the way uh here's the numbers that we're fiddling with and they all say jack johnson's not good and this was like a decade ago what was he a fourth pick overall there's uh i want to say he was picked third overall because there was a lot of hype around him it was either kings or hurricanes third overall by the

Carolina Hurricanes in 2005. I'm looking at the Penguins cap-friendly here, and all of their defensemen who make over a million dollars are aged 27 to 32. It's good. Branson, Dumoulin, Schultz, Letang, Johnson. Like, Schultz is crazy. Letang's worth it.

Yeah, but even Letang's like one of those hard miles guys. Oh, yeah, he's had a lot of injuries. But when that deal was signed eons ago, it was worth it. Yeah, like, poor guy. He's wild, man. And he's out of time. The Goodbranson and the Johnson deals, that's $7.25 million for replacement-level NHL players. You could have got guy one and guy two and got the same results.

Who signed those deals? Rutherford. That was him? All of them? And he's the guy that— Goodbranson was a trade. Yeah. So that was a Jim Benning contract.

Right. But I can't remember who he was traded for. Tanner Pearson? Tanner Pearson. Man. Like, why? Man. And that's the thing is that, like, Jim Rutherford, he gave him shit,

and then they went and won two cups in a row. Yeah. But, I mean, it seems again like you're like, what the hell are you doing? What are you doing, man? And here's what's so frustrating, though, for the rest of the league, in particular the Metro. What if Jim Rutherford nails it? What if he nails it and the Penguins just go right back to being great?

They're the sleeper pick to miss the playoffs here. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. If you're betting on a good team who made the playoffs to miss it, it's them. They need Bukestad and Galich to have good seasons. Because Galich was the guy that came over in the Kessel deal.

He's got a year left. And he's making almost $5 million a year. Kessel's coming off like, didn't he get like 90 plus the year before and 80 plus last year? How are you going to replace that? That's so many points. Oh, my God. And, like, that whole division is ripe for the taking. If you look at the teams in the Metro who made the playoffs last year,

it's Washington, New York, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Columbus. So you think the Columbus lot is ripe for the taking. Yeah. I can't see how they make it. You look at New Jersey, who adds P.K., Wayne Simmons. Wayne Simmons. Yeah. Taylor Hall is probably going to have it.

Jack Hughes looks so good. Jack Hughes looks incredible. So you think they're going to take one of the slots. In a generational wealth contract. And then you look at how good the Atlantic is, you assume that one or both of the wild cards are going to come from there. It's a fair bet. And let's not forget what the Rangers have done.

The Rangers are a player again. I don't think people realize. The Rangers are going to be probably pretty good. Kako looks really good. I'm not sold on the Islanders, and I'm definitely not sold on the Pens. the one thing that's the x factor for both of them and this is why i give the pens on the edge over the islanders is goaltending if matt murray shows up and is not injured the penguins are in the playoffs no problem it can be a huge swing between the two because murray didn't have that

grade of year islanders on the other hand have to replace leonard being a vesna nominee and thomas grace having the best season of hockey season of his entire life with simeon verlamov verlamov Yeah, and that's who they're betting on, which is... 31-year-old Simeon Ballard. By the way, at the head of a four-year contract that pays him $5 million a year. They are a likely groin tweak away from Thomas Grice just being the full-time starter. And I say likely just because that guy always gets hurt for a lot of money. Listen, I'm not dumping on the Islanders.

They proved a lot of people wrong last year. Barzal, I don't think, would have to try too hard to have a better season than he did last year. You have to know, there's a reason why Lou Lamorello was like, sorry, Robin Leonard, we're going after Bobrovsky. That was a really, really, really weird saga. I don't understand that. Because I don't think Lou believes that that was more than a one-year thing. And I don't blame him.

I don't blame him. And let's not forget the 9-27 that Gray sat in 43 games. Yeah. That's not too bad. That's not too bad. It's wild that he had. What was the season before? It's still.

It's wild. It pays $8.92 in 27 games. $8.92. What's his career save percentage, like average? I don't have it in front of me. Oh, okay. Let's have a look at Semyon Varlamov in Colorado last year. 49 games played.

20 wins, 19 losses. Nine OT losses. So this guy was 20 and 28. What's the percentage? What do you mean? Save percentage. Save percentage is a 9.09. Yeah, man.

The year before it was a 9.20. The year before that, 8-9-8. The year before that, 9-14. Who's up here? Greco? The goalie coach that they got from the Marlies? I don't know. Trying to remember?

Yeah. Maybe he's that much of a miracle worker? I don't know at 31. I just don't know. Buddy, I don't know. I don't know. That's a tough one. That division is right for the taking.

The Capitals are going to be really good. Carolina, so I have a video coming out on the Sportsnet channel. where i was asked to predict the whole season i know on july 1st i predicted that the panthers would win the cup and my reasons are did you do i did my reasons were my reasons were one i think they're a really really good team goaltending was a huge issue for them and they replace it with sergey freaking bobrovsky who has good years in bat yes that's very true but assuming he has a good one they're right there uh the other was take your top five picks and throw them in the garbage because that's how the nhl works yes true right so i thought of okay who do

i think are going to be cup contenders uh okay we got the tampa bay lighting all right i'm throwing them away right away hey you know we got you know calgary flames they won the division last year okay throw them away you know the sharks the gold knights throw them in the garbage and i was like okay you know what florida um a lot has happened since then i think the carolina hurricanes have a legitimate shot at winning the stanley cup this year that joel edmondson pickup wasn't bad eh i don't think that trade was bad i like what they've done all off season um everyone's like oh do you think they can do it with morazic and reimer uh they did it with friggin morazic and mcculaney yeah come on man i think they can well in moran's never been a bad goalie he was on a

bad team he's always been a pretty good goalie he just he was inconsistent little streaky Reimer had the worst season of his career yep and I don't know if he's a 920 guy still but he's not he's not what he was last year yeah pretty confident in that pretty confident he can approve let's I want to look at this too so you have and this is where Carolina blew me away the last week justin falk doesn't have the best like that carolina i think if there was a trophy for trades made in the last 12 months carolina would win it yeah man um and so if if carolina is calling you don't pick up yeah stop picking up the phone with carolina donald's voice it's and you hear like a little in the background it's eric tulsky hang up the phone yes don't don't pick it up so

What I don't understand about the Blues, Stanley Cup winner in the Blues. Yes. Why did they go out and trade for a right-handed guy when they have Pareko and Petrangelo? And Petrangelo is a UFA at the end of this season. Are they worried he's not going to re-sign? Or are they trying to use... He wants to re-sign. Are they trying to use Falk as leverage?

Or are they going to trade Pareko? I have no idea. Like, it doesn't make sense. And here's the thing. Pareko for CeCe. Make it happen. Of those three guys. Can you fucking imagine?

Oh, it'd be great. Of the three guys I just mentioned, Petrangelo, Pareko, Falk, who's the worst of them? The guy you just locked up to a massive seven-year deal. I don't understand that deal at all. I don't know what St. Louis was doing.

It's not that he's a bad player. Objectively, he is the least good right-handed shot D on that team. Can I do a slight aside about the worst thing about St. Louis? Adam, I mentioned this earlier. I think I mentioned to you last week. But they revealed that they have nothing up in the dressing room, in the locker room, about their Stanley Cup win from this past season.

Why? Because it's about this year. It's move forward. Just keep your head down next day. Dude, why don't you remind yourselves of what you've done and what it took to get there? That's not bullshit. That's bullshit. Dude.

They're going to have the banner, obviously, and they're going to have the cup. But there's nothing in the actual dressing room that's like, you won the frickin' championship. That's terrible. It made me so upset. Dude, they've waited, what was it, over half a century for this moment? And it finally came? And now we're just going to ignore it. It didn't happen.

That's shit. Well, let me bring this up. And I talked to Jesse, but when we talked about this earlier this week. And the team's basically intact, too. Yeah. Oh, my God. What are you doing? So when you read, the score takes care of itself, which everybody, I think, at this

point has read. Like, every hockey manager has read. And I think you should read it. It's very entertaining. or just audiobook I don't like books unless they're Harry Potter and what they talk about

the San Francisco head coach who's referenced in it talks about the fact that he got so hard on himself at a certain point that winning the championship became zero meaning that to break even he had to win the championship

everything else was underneath that and he said it was the unhealthiest mindset he could have been in what's the point of winning? bingo what's the point the point of winning is to celebrate it and they should celebrate it and this and jesse made it jesse's like i hate hockey culture and he's right like it's like this is so stupid listen do what you want but and everybody knows that it's about this season not putting that in the dressing room isn't going to change that you got to win some fucking games this year

and you're going to try to try to repeat however you did accomplish that it should be celebrated get your head on straight are you crazy yeah like if you really want like it doesn't have to be a picture of Alex Petrangelo hoisting the cup and sparklers in the background. But why not? Maybe, I don't know, did someone take like a puck or a stick to the teeth and they were bleeding and everything? Put that picture up. Like, anything, like, remind

them of, remind the team of what they did. What time was acknowledging that you won? And what it takes to win. Yes. When you look at that picture, you go, oh yeah, that's the kind of sacrifice. Because sometimes, everybody does this, when you're focused on a goal that's a long-term goal, you can fall a little off track and go,

eh, I'm feeling a little lazy today. But you look at that picture of Petrangelo holding the cup and go, that's what we're here for. When you do something, you know how to do it after you've done it. Right. So you need to remind yourself of what it takes to do it. And since you've done it, you know what it takes. So why don't you constantly remind yourself of what you did? Raptors are never going to win another championship.

Okay, but they won, though. They won. Okay, yeah, but no, no, they won. They are the champions. Cry. Please cry. Cry, put it in a thermos Put it in one of these little

You know, nature-friendly Starbucks cups Metal container And allow me to drink your tears They won, cry And the Blues can say that this year It's the greatest It's the greatest thing ever Cheering for a champion

I can't imagine what it's like to actually be one Enjoy the thing Enjoy the championship, I don't get it I don't get it Oh, hockey culture, you're right, it sucks It really does suck I'm sure we'll have somebody defending it You know what they should do

You know what the Leafs should do Take down all the pictures of their past cup wins Because they're so old And they should just hang pictures Of like Petrangelo with the cup And like Ovi with the cup To be like this is what it takes The whole locker room should just be

Pictures of Brad Marchand Yeah the guy who beat you Just to remind you man shut your fucking face yeah oh my god um montreal is already talking about traits because montreal is montreal i think this has been the plan the whole time to talk about traits well they've been offer sheeting guys they offer sheeted aho supposedly they offer sheeted uh point and point just chose not to sign it like marner with columbus uh they offered jake gardner more money per year than the

Hurricanes did, what other avenues do they have to explore? People have been talking about the Toronto tax. Like, oh, you've got to pay players more because the market's a pain in the ass. Dude, they won't even sign there. They won't even sign in Montreal.

So, Mark Bergevin's got a job ahead of him. What are the Montreal Canadiens doing with cap room? Stop that. You're the Montreal Canadiens. You have a lot of money. They haven't weaponized it in the past the way they should have. Like last year, what did they have, $10 million free or something? Or $8 million the whole season?

It was ridiculous. They should have taken a bad contract on it or something. All year, I thought that's what was going to happen with the Canadians. I thought they were going to add this huge piece of the deadline and they were going to go for it. If they had been smart, they would have taken the Marlowe deal. Sorry? If they had been smart, they would have taken Toronto's first in the Marlowe

and Marlowe's contract. I think if you're the Leafs, you call every other team in the league. Yeah. But you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, that's the kind of stuff that you're looking for. And they could have done it. Sure.

And they got some really exciting—it looks like Nick Suzuki is going to make the team, and they're going to be really good. What's interesting is Bergevin brought up Caden Premo's name, and Caden Premo is the hot goaltending prospect. I saw that. And he said, well, we're not going to trade him, which is what we heard with PK, unless we get that from top line center. Yeah. If Bergevin said he's not going to trade you, well, and hey, I'm just some guy in Toronto in my basement. Yeah, I don't think that was—was that referencing Darren Drager? Who was that?

Who is he referencing? I assume it wasn't Darren Dreger. I don't think it's part of his reputation that he does his work from his basement. So was it you? I don't think so. I never said anything about Jonathan Drouin getting traded, so I don't know. Well, weirdly, Drouin last year was the guy that he always has been. A lot of guys had career years, and he was just sort of there.

He's just him. And I think that Drouin is a very good player. But I don't think that he's the guy that they made him be. It was like McKinnon, Drouin, neck and neck. Yeah, yeah. But I think that Montreal traded for him. French-Canadian guy. And don't tell me that that doesn't matter.

It was a giant factor. Come on, guys. And they wanted to turn him into a top-tier centerman. This guy is not a centerman. Never has been. And they tried to do it. Doesn't work. He's not responsible enough defensively.

It's just not what he's good at. Like, imagine the Leafs told Alexander Kerfoot... Okay, now you're going to be a top-line center. You're a top-line center. Now, Drouin's better than Kerfoot. What? I can maybe be third. Yeah. Right, yes.

But it's a lot of pressure to put on a young guy coming home to the team he grew up loving and never having done it at the NHL level. It's ridiculous. Yeah. So, it's interesting to see people in Montreal turn on Drouin because Drouin's always been what he is. This is what he is.

It's unfortunate that they brought him in under different circumstances, I mean, they set these expectations that were sky high on this guy. Well, he could be our number one center. Well, he could be a guy that gets 100 points. Well, he could, he could, he could, he could. Instead of going, we just brought him in because he's really talented. I know you're sort of in the hype business, but sometimes there's a time for, what is it, Adam? Under promise, over deliver?

Yes. Always. And, yeah, he's going to score 100 points. It's going to be our top line center. Yeah, this guy's going to be, he's going to fill the skates of Saku Koibu. Like, dude, what the fuck? Yeah, Vinnie Donfus. Yeah, like, it's ridiculous.

Drouin, so Bergevin did call Drouin out and said he's not the only one who's not up to par right now. Say that again? He said that they asked him about Drouin's plan. He said he's not the only one who's not up to par. So there's a few guys that he's looking. Now, interestingly, on the waivers, we knew Carl Alsner was going to go back down. We knew that. Matthew Pekka, who played all year last year with Charles Houdon,

who is also—Charles Houdon is on waivers now, too. He's going to get claimed. You think so? I'd be shocked if he didn't. Yeah, I think he's good depth scoring for a team that's on the RIs. If you're Ottawa or you're Phoenix or whatever— Dude, the Oilers. Phoenix? Why did I say Phoenix?

Arizona. Yeah, the Oilers. Why not the Oilers? Dude, is there a fast winger on waivers? Oilers should claim him. The one I thought was interesting was Dale Weiss. oh they put him on waivers yeah and I almost as soon as Sandin

did you see the stick lift Dale Weiss was skating as hard as he can at Sandin, Sandin lifts his stick and just takes the puck away from him and I thought yo there's Dale Weiss's entire camp right there yeah well and he took that penalty against the Leafs and just the look on his face

like really really frustrated dude Sandin is not a child by the way yeah no dude that guy is a pesky asshole yeah i know that's not the conversation we're having right now he is oh i'm so excited for him he's everything the leaf but montreal's big thing is like we're gonna have jordan wheel fix our power play yeah this is what i'm saying about uh you know with with their cap room and dude enough of this go out there and make a huge trade you really

got to be bold here you really gotta hey the patch ready deal worked out great it did you got another one of those in you you know you got rid of your your top goal scorer and your team's captain thomas tatar has like the season of his freaking life and you get nick suzuki out of it who is going to be on your team which is unreal and i think they got a pick out of it too like okay keep going keep going you in most seasons you would have made the playoffs last year i think what's next i think they've got to yeah and that's the thing is that the question mark for me is where's the step forward this year like maybe nick suzuki is the step forward But who else?

Brian Poehling. Yeah. Although he's, last I checked, in concussion protocol. And Kakeniemi, you would think, is going to have a step forward. So you think the players are going to get better. That's fine. But I think they need to add to this group still. I really don't think that that group is, they might make the playoffs, but how much damage are they going to do?

That's the question. And it can't just be, at Carey Price's age, he's, what, 32 now? It can't just be about just making the playoffs. Well, he's had, like, the beginning of his contract. Yeah, right? Yeah. Uh, the Oilers, uh, the reason the Oilers didn't make the playoffs last year, scored against them last night.

Twice. Twice. Tobias Reeder. So I read that. The one guy who was the reason. I read that last night on Twitter. I thought it was a joke. I thought people were kidding.

And Lucci scored too. And Lucci scored too. I thought people were honest to God kidding. And I watched the highlights this morning and I went, oh my God, really? Yeah. Oh, and it was on Koskinen. And, uh. Gloves side on Koskinen, which apparently is a major problem.

well that's what they say i mean is the book out on cost yeah i feel like most goalies glove side is a little bit of their weakness but um yeah listen i know it's pre-season it is funny you will not talk me into believing this is not hilarious it is really really funny i think calgary's loving it oh my god of course of course but what i think the one thing we're not talking about maybe in edmonton they are but i haven't seen a lot on it even from the edmonton media Which is usually pretty intense We are not talking enough about Connor McDavid's knee Supposedly he looks okay

Sure, he looks okay, sure He's been playing Yeah But he rehabbed the shit out of that all summer And it's not fully healthy yet Was it his knee or his Because we all thought his leg was broken From what I understand it's his knee

Interesting I mean according to what I read It was a pretty rough summer with his knee just rehabbing it so yeah that's fine that he looks good now in the preseason and conor mcdavid will always look good even injured conor mcdavid is better than most players ever 80 of conor mcdavid still gets 100 points yeah it was a torn left pcl torn anything with a knee yeah not good not great so let's say is it fair to say that the oilers entire season rests on conor mcdavid uh yes it's fair to say that every year is it fair to say then that the oilers entire season

sort of rests on connor mcdavid's knee well and even if it's a hundred percent it might not be enough exactly that's the point so that knee pretend like you can tell me that it's fully healthy it's not and you know it's not and they and they they talked about going into camp like it's not healthy yet guys it's not there dude and they haven't done anything to add and what's amazing is are they not doing the same thing to him uh that they did last year last year ty ratty looked great and he got the dream job this year uh i've been seeing like is thomas yurcho gonna be on mcdavid's wing i think start the season yeah are you kidding like are you kidding it's not good enough no it's not good enough no and god bless thomas yurcho um

I got to interview him when he was with the St. John Seadogs. They won the Memorial Cup. So they have it listed as Drysaddle McDavid because Drysaddle, like, I know he scored a lot of goals. Who's guy three? Zach Kassian. Okay. That's how they have it listed. That doesn't mean that, and then Nygaard, Nugent Hopkins, and Neal.

And I thought Neal was the guy who was supposed to play with Conor McDavid. That's why they got him. Well, he's a European free agent. Oh, Nygaard, not Nygaard, Neal. I thought Neil was the guy that was supposed to play with the team. On the right side, anyway. Gagne, Granlin, Chason, Keira, Sheehan,

Archibald. The team's just not deep enough. No, it's not. But it's not any different than last year's team. Like, Ken Holland came in and people shut up, I guess. Unless their European free agents really hit. And they might have

a similar season to what we're expecting out of Eisenman and Detroit. You know? no they can't Ken Holland's got to make moves yes no they can't have that season Eisenman has the benefit of yeah sorry I don't mean like they tank on purpose

I mean they just need to make wholesale changes yes and none of this deck chairs shit the Brandon Manning contract I don't even remember who he was traded for just do anything of consequence the the part for me that I keep

talking about is that McDavid clock is ticking guys and you know you can Edmonton fans can say oh it doesn't exist he'll stay no matter what I don't know would you even if that clock does not exist and he's going to stay forever like it's clear he alone is one man and he's not enough like go out it shouldn't be this hard to go out and find someone for the best player in the league Connor Brown would have been a real cheap pickup for you you could have got him and he would have been great he would not have been enough and still would have been a far superior option to anything they got man ken holland's got

some work to do it's it sounds like he's trying you know and it's you know you can't force people to play for your team like we've seen with montreal and everything yeah uh you got to go out there and do something man you got to do trades you got to do i don't care what it is you know be a vulture on the waiver wire there's some good players on waivers this time of year david had 116 points last year and it wasn't enough come on they had weren't they the first i want to say they were the first team since like 1990 to have 200 plus point players and miss the playoffs oh wow that's crazy yeah some sort of style yeah because him and dry saddle both had 100 plus scored 50 goals no one cared 50 and 55 yeah it was 50 goals 55 assists it's crazy how's that dude you no one

not named Alexander Ovechkin does that. Alex, he doesn't count. He's a cheat code. Leon Dreisaitl scored 50 goals. And, like, they weren't even, like, they weren't in arm's reach. No. No. They weren't close.

No. They kept saying they were, but they were not. The standard to make the playoffs in the West was 90. Yeah, they got 79 points. And the final, see, Colorado got 90. Yeah, so missed by 11. seventh in the pacific and they played some sad hockey games man like uh i didn't get to see a ton of them uh on ice surfing nights because i'd be in the car or whatever but uh they were

uh often when i got to fill in on um uh hockey central saturdays they'd play the day game get murdered murdered like while we were prepping for the show and then the first bit of the show It was just so the Oilers got demolished again. Yeah, here are some highlights we have. And if I remember correctly, it was almost always the Sharks. But, like, just... I just, I don't know. They got to do something different.

They got to do something different. Well, and the problem is, is that some, for some reason, to me, the most damaging thing is they let Shirely negotiate the Koskinen deal. Which they would have done anyway, supposedly. No, I don't, yeah. I don't believe it. Exactly, exactly. I don't believe that shit either.

That deal could turn out, and there are Oiler fans who are like, well he could be good sure he could but from how it looks right now and i'd love to see 40 games from now maybe maybe we're singing a different tune but from how it looks right now of all the deals they've done that to me is the most damaging because that's the position they're they don't have the cap room to go out and change it and that's the problem charlie lindgren is on waivers right now and louis deming was on waivers and i think either might have been a better option and cheaper than mike smith yeah why mike why mike smith and that and for two million dollars yeah like why that's a decision well and mike smith is he's one of the weirdest goalies in the nhl though

is he the new is he kind of like the cam ward like he was good once and and he hasn't been good for several years but they're still paying him like he is well that's like yeah if cam ward was uh like an 875 goalie for three weeks of the month and got three consecutive shutouts after that. That's the kind of goalie Mike Smith is? Yeah. Yeah, streaky, except the bias towards the bad. Not good.

Ken Holland's got a job to do, man. It shouldn't be this hard to surround Connor McDavid with talent. Nope. It just shouldn't be. Nope. Lastly, this is just a quick thing for Leaf fans. Guess who was a lot to make the Bruins this year, guys? Parlin Holm.

That's right. Oh, fun Holm. You can laugh, but the Bruins are still really good. And he's going to be killing penalties for them. And he's going to be playing with Bacchus. I had no problem with him killing penalties last year. Shit, it could have come in handy in the playoffs. Yeah.

Maybe Parlin Holm was, I mean, they didn't use Nick Patan, did they? Yeah, they were using Parlin Holm, at least. Anyway, so it is time for your way-too-early predictions. Okay? Way-too-early predictions. I want to do real quick on this one. Okay, guys? You ready?

You ready? Way-too-early predictions on your division winners for each division, okay? So we're going to start with the Central Division in the Western Conference. Blackhawks, Avs, Stars, Wild, Preds, Blues, Jets. Who wins the division? I'm trying to remember who I said yesterday. Give me all the teams again. Blackhawks, Avs, Stars, Wild, Preds, Blues, Jets.

Avs. Really? Colorado. Jesse? You took my pick. Colorado. I'm going to go with St. Louis. I'm reigning Stanley Cup champions, yeah.

Good pick. Good pick. Pacific Division. Ducks, Coyotes, Flames, Oilers, Kings, Sharks, Canucks, Golden Knights, and I believe the Flames won it last year. They did. I want to say with 107 points. The Golden Knights are good.

The Sharks are always good. The Flames are going to be good. And it seems like feast or famine in that division. You're either great or you're not. A full season of Mark Stone. Vegas. Vegas. Interesting.

Jesse. The Vancouver Canucks. Are going to win the Pacific. You're out of your mind. Why not? Nikolai Goldolbin, 50 goals. Let's go. I mean, maybe.

Brock Besser, 35 and 70. Dude, do you see that dog shit hit that he took? Oh, yeah. No. Chris Tierney? No, no. Hit him from behind. He went into concussion protocol.

I think he's already had one in his career. It was a terrible hit. Not going to stop him from 35 and 70. Yeah, maybe you're right. You know what I think? What? I think Martin Jones rebounds this year. If he does, they win the Cup.

I think it's the damn Sharks who just will not die. Like, they're the oldest bloody team in the NHL. But if Martin Jones is Martin Jones, average, regular Martin Jones, the Sharks win that division. They almost went to the Stanley Cup final with the worst starting goaltender in the NHL. Yes. Yes. Last year. He was.

He was the worst starting goalie in the NHL. He was an 898, I think, wasn't he? Crazy. And Aaron Dell was behind him and worse. potentially the most interesting and fun division in the league this year the metropolitan hurricanes blue jackets devils islanders rangers flyers penguins and capitals of the eight teams that i just mentioned i would say six of them have gone through major renovations some good some not right the capitals are basically the same the flyers sort of did their renovations

last year they're basically the same as how they ended last year isn't it carter hart and make a difference. Kevin Hayes. Did you see, so there was a gif going around of Elaine Vigneault supposedly. Say, we can't win with goaltending like this. Yeah. It was the Brian Elliott clip. Yeah.

Ain't good. Ain't good. There's another guy whose clock is ticking. Philadelphia, where you can never get a goalie. My Flyer fans are like pulling their hair out. And they had Bobrovsky, and they traded him. For like nothing. Yep.

Yeah. Well, they had Brzgalov. You got the Canes. You got the Jackets. You got the Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Flyers, Penguins, Capitals. Who wins the division? Caps are going to be really good. I say the Canes.

Canes? Hurricanes. Okay. The New Jersey Devils are going to go from last place to first place. Who's their goalie? That's not, by the way, the last time. Cory Schneider. Cory Schneider is not their starter.

Oh, yeah. Is he really? Well, they don't have Keith Kincaid anymore. I think it's Schneider and Blackwood. Mackenzie Blackwood. Yeah, yeah. They're going to be good. You're relying on Schneider having a big bounce back, for sure.

Hey, why not? You know what? Lost in last season. Like, they weren't great on paper, but they were also injured a lot. So you have a healthy season. You're revamped. Hopefully you don't have one of the worst tandems in the entire NHL. Yeah, it could happen.

What do you think? You say Canes, right? I say Hurricanes, yeah. Okay. I'm going to go with the Capitals. Because not just because it's the safe pick. It's they are the best team in that division. And the Capitals are another perfect example.

of what can happen like the penguins were and still might be when you have a few superstars that you're able to hang on to for 10 years and you're just able to cycle in new players and you draft well and you all we can't hang on to uh we can't hang on to this guy we've got to trade him can't hang on to this guy can't hang on to grubauer anymore i gotta trade him uh we lost um uh golden knights who did they lose in the draft a really good defenseman uh who was really good nate schmidt You know, you lose that guy. But they continue to be great because Alexander Ovechkin and Backstrom and all the other guys that they've hung on to. Now, lastly, we're going to go with the Atlantic Division on this one.

Bruins, Sabres, Red Wings, Panthers, Canadians, Senators, Lightning, Maple Leafs. Who wins the division? It's still insane to go against the Lightning. They're just so good. Jesse. Especially with Shattenkirk added on that. Like, fuck off. I couldn't believe they didn't.

It's the Tampa Bay Lightning. This is regular season, by the way. Regular season. That's all I'm asking. I don't know what's going to happen in the playoffs. I am going to go off board. And pick someone from the Central. Thanks to Boston Bruins.

That'd be really off the board. You think the Boston Bruins? I think they're going to win. Why not? The entire Atlantic. I do. And here's why. With 42-year-old Zdeno Shara.

Yeah, I do. I think so because they just made the finals and lost, and it was a real heartbreaker. And I think it's one of those things that they're going to come out on fire. Now, I don't know if Boston will sustain being on fire all year, but I think they're pretty pissed that they lost that final last year, which they should have really won, I think. And all you have to do is win a lot in the first couple months and then play 500 hockey the rest of the way and you can do it. And I think that the Boston Bruins are going to come out on fire. Watch out for the Bruins this year. I think they're a little bit of the opposite of what the Blue Jackets were for a long time and the Hurricanes were for a long time.

Where we're like, this is their year where they make it. They don't make it. This is their year. And we did that until we stopped doing it and then they made it. I keep going, this can't sustain. The Chara is old. Bergeron is not that old, but his body's older. Yeah.

Hard miles. Marchand's 31. And he's in his prime and playing his best hockey. but after that it goes down is Tuukka Rask going to be as good as he was last year

yeah I know they got some young parts every team's got them you know what I mean not every team has Torrey Crew I think that they're looking at this too

like this is Zdeno's last year they have to look at it like it's Zdeno's last year they got a full year of Charlie Kolo yep

which is a good really good pickup for them low key hopefully Jake DeBrusque is healthy because he basically played two months

unhealthy during the playoffs yep uh there's i can see it but there's going to come a time and it might not be this season when patrice bertrand can't do it anymore surely there is unless there isn't i mean a lot of hall of fame players uh they just are amazing and then retire i'm i'm a little wonky on tampa and can i tell you why because you saw them fail well yeah i think they saw them fail this is what I've been saying for months it's not the skill on Tampa

that I'd be worried about, it's the between the ears stuff that four game series might have been the most damaging thing I thought it was bold of Patrick Maroon to do the ring kissing thing, like buddy have a look down at your jersey, it ain't the blues anymore

no on paper it should be better it should be better than the blues I think that there's a chance that tampa's in their own heads i i that's why i'm going with the bruins something in you has to break when you lose like that right there's i can't imagine the lightning are looking around that locker room and they feel the same way they did before the playoffs began last year i agree can't be i agree unless they're like super mentally tough and they really believe in each

other and everything but man okay that's a factor pick one team in the entire nhl that did not make the playoffs last year that will this year. Can I just say, if you're going to say that about Tampa, you can say the same thing about the Leafs. Yeah, but it wasn't a four-game sweep, and it was a better series. They could have wrapped it up in game six. Well, and the Leafs had a ridiculous amount of turnover, though.

Yeah. They had a shitload of turnover. So, like, it's a new year for them. That was heartbreaking, but it wasn't embarrassing. Yeah. The last game was a little embarrassing. Also, the way they played down the stretch, I wasn't like, they're going to win the Cup for sure.

Sure. Like, the Lightning, for God's sake, the Blue Jackets barely made the playoffs. But the Blue Jackets who were in the playoffs weren't the Blue Jackets who were in game, like, 40. It was a completely different team. It was a team that, like, ramped up to go for it. But, like, after they ramped up, they sucked. Yeah, but then they got it together. Yeah, at the end.

Guys, pick a team that did not make the playoffs last year that will make it this year. I think I know what Jesse's going to say so I won't say them I would assume that you're the Devils I assume you're going to say New Jersey because you think they're going to win the friggin' division Oh yeah, by default I guess I can go with that Unless you've got someone else you want to pick No, that's good

Arizona Every friggin' year Every friggin' year I was going to say Vancouver I don't think so. The Pacific? Vancouver, I don't know contractually how smart they were, but they're better than they were last year on paper anyway.

Remember, it's the Pacific. Sharks are real, real good. Golden Knights are real, real good. And then? And Flames. But after that, the wild card is there. It's definitely there. People are talking about how strong the Central is.

Well, yeah, the Central has to play against the Central. they'll beat each other up you picked my pick i pick i've been picking like year for years i picked the canes and the coyotes i am still sticking with the coyotes and i'll tell you why i'll say vancouver then over there to be different okay over the the fact over the canucks for me is the fact that it's the phil kessel factor it's the fact that they have a guy who is a bona fide 35 goal scorer and he is getting older and he's money in the bank for 70 plus points yes They have never had that. They couldn't finish, couldn't finish, couldn't finish.

They got the finisher. Yeah. And I think Antti Rantz is a good goalie. He's going to miss the start of the season. Because he's always freaking injured. Dude, Darcy Kemper was unbelievable last year. Yep. One of the most underrated players in the league.

Who makes the biggest fall this year? Got to be the Blue Jackets, right? Like, they geared up so hard. I guess, sorry. Does that count? Surprise fall. Surprise fall. We expect the Blue Jackets to fall.

Does it count if I pick Dallas? Yeah. I don't think they're going to make the playoffs. I think it'll trail off a little bit. Interesting. Ben Bishop was really good last year to drag them in. So you think they'll be horse shit again? Plucking first spit.

I'll tell you mine. Okay. New York Islanders. See, I don't know if that's a surprise. I think it will absolutely be a shock to their fans. It was a surprise that they were great. And then they lost a giant component of what made them great. So, to me, I'm like, well, yeah, they lost Robin Leonard.

It would be surprising to me if they repeated it. Really? Yeah. I think there's a lot of people who think they're... I don't think they're going to be dog shit, but... No, I just don't... I think they're going to be fighting for a playoff spot all year, but I don't think they have the goaltending to bring them over the top.

That's just my opinion. Hmm. surprising fall and you don't think that's a surprise eh because they did win the division that's surprising no they were second but I mean they were real close

I mean you lose how many teams can afford to lose a Vesna nominee that's tough that's tough man biggest surprise fall what why not the blues really why not well they were last place going into yeah they're capable of last and first evidently um i mean and also the standard is they won the cup i'm actually

surprised nobody picked uh jesse did you say one dallas dallas nobody picked the pens interesting That won't be surprising to me. Really? No. Dude. All right. They got swept in the first round. Like, did not look like a strong playoff team at all.

Sidney Crosby dragged them into a playoff spot. Sidney Crosby had an unreal, like, final quarter of the season last year. Yeah. Like, what does he got to do? What does the guy got to do? Okay. So here it is. I'm surprised none of you picked the Blackhawks as a surprise playoff team.

That's like the sexy pick. Everyone's picking the Blackhawks. I don't. I haven't seen. I'm not sold on what they have yet. Not sold. Not yet. Not yet.

I'd like to see them play. Who wins the Cup? Way too early Cup prediction for September. Hurricanes. Jesse. Just let me take a look at these standings again. Who wins the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals? I think if I'm going to go out on a limb and pick a team who nobody thinks can do it.

Well, you don't have to do that. You can just pick whatever. I'm going to pick the Tampa Bay Lightning. Wow. Bold. Somebody's got to stick their neck out every once in a while, you know? Bold pick. This is why I picked the stupid Panthers, because it would be a surprise if the best team in the sport wins.

Yeah, it would be. It would be. Is anyone denying the Lightning are the best team in the sport? No. No. On paper, they're the best team in the sport. Mm-hmm. Got swept.

First round. Like, it's wild. My pick is it's finally their goddamn year. All right? This is the last year they have to do it. Oh, here it is. It's the San Jose Sharks, kids. Martin Jones just has to be Martin Jones.

Mm. And the San Jose Sharks can win the cup. If he is a 9-10 goalie, they win the cup. Yes. Yes. He can still be below the average. Now, they don't have Pavelski anymore. No.

Which is big. And you know who does? And that's why the Blackhawks look good. Dallas. Oh, Dallas. Wait, no. Why do I see Chicago has them? No, yeah, Dallas has them.

Well, because he was rumored to be going to Chicago. Right. For like a long time. That's going to be so weird seeing him in Dallas. Weird. But I think. They got Pofelski. They got Corey Perry is a Dallas star now.

I think the Sharks also pick up Patrick Marleau at the trade deadline on like a quick thing and just dress him for a game. No way. Dress him for a game. Like Mike Fisher? Yeah. Just fresh Patrick Marleau. I think the Sharks finally are like, this is it.

This really is it for a lot of these guys. Thornton's done after this year. I'm very surprised Marleau doesn't have a team. I think it's because he wants two teams. And those two teams don't want him. The Canes wanted him to play for them. They tried to convince him to stay. And it cost him money.

Anyway, interesting. Can I do a parlay and also pick the Leafs? Is that allowed? To win? Yeah. You think they're going to win? Why not? Yeah.

Why not is a good question. Any team could win any year. The NHL is so random recently. Yeah, so don't screw your face up when I say the Panthers. Except for the Panthers. If the Panthers make the playoffs this year, I'll be pretty shocked. No, I won't be, man. They're a really good team.

They could not stop a beach ball. That was the problem. Yeah, we'll see if the Rothschilds can still. What Bobrovsky are we getting? Right. Yeah. The Bobrovsky that got Todd Richards fired or the Bobrovsky that's kept John Tortorella employed?

Man, he sucked for like a week and a half and got a guy fired. Yeah. Like seven games in. Yeah. Telling you. It matters. So, you know what?

We're not going to do a press conference today. No. Because we haven't started the season yet. That was it. Yeah, and we're two hours and ten minutes in. Are we? 2.07-ish. So, listen.

Thank you so much for listening. We are back Wednesday. Whoa. Wednesday afternoon. And that night, the Tirana Maple Leafs will play their first game. It's going to be very exciting. So we'll do a little bit of a season preview. We'll get into a little bit more in depth of what we think the Leafs are going to be able to do.

Obviously, there will be more developments around the league and that sort of thing. So we'll talk about all that then. But again, we are back, baby. And we are back to two a week. Sundays and Wednesdays are when we record. Just so you know, that doesn't necessarily mean we'll post immediately after the show. it takes some time to edit

so sometimes it'll be up the next morning obviously just a heads up we love you let's do this hockey that's not even

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