0:12

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects.

0:14

I am Sean McNew from The Athletic.

0:17

And hey folks, it's playoff time. Are

0:21

we excited? I thought this was the

0:23

WrestleMania recap show. Yeah,

0:25

you know, the one guy came out, he hit

0:27

the other guy in the balls. I

0:30

think that's about

0:32

it. Am I wrong that

0:34

that happened? Well,

0:36

there were two in one of the matches.

0:41

I didn't watch a second of it. No, thanks. Good

0:43

for you. Playoffs. The

0:46

playoffs. I feel

0:48

like last night was the first

0:50

like. Classic

0:52

playoff night. I know they started on Saturday,

0:54

but last night felt like the real. Yeah,

0:57

last. No, you're you're absolutely

1:00

right. Last night was really

1:02

sick. It's

1:04

nice to have a two screen experience for

1:07

the for the two late games. Let's just

1:09

put it that I think they ended within

1:11

like 30 seconds of each other. Yeah.

1:14

Pretty sick. But.

1:18

Why don't we why don't we

1:20

just start with with the two

1:22

series that are already somehow at

1:24

two games played? Yeah, they're

1:27

because there's one series with zero has not

1:29

started yet. And

1:31

NHL schedules, man. Who

1:33

knows what goes on? But

1:37

let's start out with

1:39

the one that's 2 -0. Let's

1:43

start out with Winnipeg and St.

1:45

Louis. Two

1:47

close ones. Yeah,

1:51

sorta. I

1:55

guess my big

1:58

take on game one

2:00

was, well, St.

2:02

Louis? You had some

2:04

kicks at the can there. You

2:06

got three pass hella buck on like

2:08

14 shots or whatever it was. Good

2:12

luck doing that again. Yeah.

2:15

This is a recurring

2:17

theme in the playoffs,

2:19

especially in the first

2:22

round early on, where

2:24

you get these games

2:26

and there's some other series

2:28

that fall into this category

2:30

where the underdog Hanks

2:33

close but loses. Yeah,

2:36

and you're left going okay

2:38

Is that a moral victory because

2:40

you hung right with them

2:42

or Did you just hang right

2:44

with them and give them

2:46

your best shot and you still

2:48

couldn't get a win in

2:51

which case If you're st. Louis

2:53

How are you gonna beat

2:55

this team four out of five

2:57

now? Yeah, given that you

2:59

just gave him two pretty good

3:01

games And you came

3:03

away down to nothing. Oh, I kind

3:05

of thought they got a little

3:07

brother in game one Yeah, um last

3:09

night was was pretty even. Mm -hmm

3:12

It's hard to it's hard to

3:14

say all the way I didn't watch

3:16

all of it because I was

3:18

flipping back and forth and you know

3:20

on and the first game I

3:22

had it had my undivided attention, right?

3:25

But everything I saw from last night

3:27

and basically all the stats just kind

3:29

of indicate Yeah, I

3:31

mean, you know shots were pretty even

3:34

shot attempts were pretty even but

3:36

st. Louis just wasn't getting to the

3:38

middle of the ice and You

3:40

know it like I saw some people

3:42

saying oh well, maybe Holloway can

3:44

come back or whatever and it's like

3:46

Yeah, okay, and maybe Nick Eilers

3:48

Rasmus Koopari and Gabe Valardi can come

3:51

back for the Jets, you know

3:53

what I mean like It just it

3:55

just feels like yeah, this is

3:57

a one versus eight matchup is kind

3:59

of what it. This

4:02

is a team that needed to win 12

4:04

games in a row or whatever it was

4:06

to get to the eight seed. Mm hmm.

4:09

But. I

4:11

don't know, like. Game

4:13

one, I just thought that was

4:15

all jets and then they got some

4:17

weird goals past, past Hellebuck, you

4:20

know. Yeah.

4:24

Yeah, which which you need to

4:26

do, right? I mean, yeah,

4:28

for sure. That's. That's what the

4:30

game plan looks like. Not

4:32

getting 14 shots, but yeah, we

4:34

got to get a few

4:36

weird ones past this guy because

4:38

there's not enough firepower on

4:40

the St. Louis team to beat

4:42

the Vesna winner through skill

4:44

alone. But I don't know,

4:46

have you seen anything that makes us

4:48

say, let's wait and

4:50

see what happens in St. Louis? Because

4:53

I don't know if you know this. I have this thing that

4:55

I made up. you're

4:57

not in trouble until you lose a

4:59

home game. Wow.

5:01

What do you think of that? I made

5:03

that up. I haven't. I'm debuting it right here.

5:06

Well, I guess my counterpoint to

5:08

that would be, like

5:10

you said, they need to win four

5:12

out of the next five, regardless of venue.

5:15

That's hard to do. Now, granted,

5:17

we've seen this blue steam win

5:20

12 in a row. But.

5:24

Don't know I just It's

5:26

hard for me to

5:28

see St. Louis like you

5:30

said having the firepower

5:32

I Guess like you know

5:34

everybody likes to say

5:37

I'll play off hella buck.

5:39

You can't win the

5:41

big games or whatever I

5:43

Don't know if they

5:45

need to what do they

5:47

have four goals it

5:49

says here on 39 shots

5:52

You think they can do that

5:55

again for the next 39 because

5:57

that feels like it's really their

5:59

only Their only path forward here.

6:01

I mean Bennington could go psycho

6:03

as well, but yes, they maybe

6:05

they could But that still is

6:07

giving you two goals a game.

6:09

Yep, and that's not necessarily not

6:11

gonna win against win a peg

6:14

team. So mm -hmm Yeah, I you

6:16

know look I think the blues

6:22

I don't know, like they just, I think they have

6:24

the personnel to be like an eight seed this

6:26

year, you know what I mean? Now

6:28

they have the coach, now they

6:30

have a bunch of guys that

6:32

they can believe in, including Holloway,

6:34

obviously, like upfront. I

6:37

just, from what

6:39

I'm saying, it's the

6:41

Blues defense, which was

6:43

always their Achilles heel,

6:45

is getting eaten alive

6:48

by the Jets best

6:50

forwards and They

6:52

don't have like you said

6:54

they don't have the firepower

6:56

to do the same thing

6:58

on the jets blue line

7:00

Which I don't I don't

7:02

think the jets blue line

7:05

is unbelievable or anything like

7:07

that, but They can they

7:09

can handle what the blues

7:11

are throwing at them That's

7:13

fair I mean Well, let's

7:15

see here yeah game one

7:17

1 .1 expected goal for the

7:19

for the blues in all

7:22

situations, and game two, 1

7:25

.67. You're

7:29

not going to win hockey games playing

7:31

like that. It's that simple. That

7:34

said, I mean, game one, they had

7:36

the lead halfway through the third. They

7:40

were tied with a minute

7:42

left or whatever it was that

7:44

Connor scored the win. They

7:46

were right there. And again, it's

7:48

like, mean we'll

7:51

have this conversation for the Montreal series

7:53

like do you take do you

7:55

look at that and go we can

7:57

hang with these guys or do

7:59

you go that that was the opportunity

8:01

right there if we're gonna win

8:03

this series if we're gonna get the

8:05

upset those are the games that

8:07

we have to win yeah I think

8:09

I think you will be really

8:12

look at game one They

8:14

just kind of ran you over at

8:16

the end. You know what I mean?

8:18

But game two you were right there,

8:20

and then you chunked it at the

8:22

very end and That will feel like

8:24

a missed opportunity, but again like you

8:27

can't they Montreal

8:29

can look at that last night's

8:31

game and say Yeah, we kind of

8:33

deserve to win that one like

8:35

we you know we force over time,

8:37

you know all that kind of

8:39

stuff This game you can't say we

8:41

played well enough to win in

8:43

game two, I feel like. You play

8:45

well enough to tie, certainly. But

8:48

again, if you're gonna

8:50

come in under two expected

8:52

goals in a game,

8:54

that's just not good enough.

8:58

They have 39 shots on

9:00

goal in 120 minutes of

9:02

hockey. That's bad. Yep,

9:08

done with you. I

9:11

mean, not over, but

9:13

hey, let's flip it around.

9:15

If I'm a Winnipeg

9:17

fan, I'm feeling pretty good.

9:19

Not just with the

9:22

two -nothing lead, but kind

9:24

ways. Offense looks really dynamic.

9:26

You know, Halibut hasn't been great,

9:29

but he hasn't looked like, you

9:31

know, he's not making you go,

9:34

uh -oh, here we go again with

9:36

this whole thing. Yeah. I'd

9:38

be very worried if it was a repeat of

9:40

game one and they won again. You know what

9:42

I mean? But the two things you want if

9:44

you're Winnipeg. Nice,

9:47

quick first round series.

9:51

Where, you know, if things, everything looks

9:53

good to great and they're on

9:55

track for that and Colorado and Dallas.

9:58

Bash each other's heads in,

10:00

which absolutely. Yeah.

10:03

So far, kind of so good

10:05

because I feel like. One

10:07

team's been clearly better in

10:09

that series, but Dallas hung on

10:11

last night. Well, let's talk

10:13

about that series Like you say

10:15

I watch I watch game

10:17

one going oh shit, this could

10:20

get this could be a

10:22

sweep I Just didn't feel like

10:24

Dallas had a lot of

10:26

answers for what Colorado was doing

10:28

Everything they did was was

10:30

the puck was in the back

10:32

of the net, but Last

10:35

night they bounced back and

10:38

they did it on the

10:40

road the stars and I

10:42

Don't know I feel like

10:44

I feel like they kind

10:46

of ran the show last

10:48

night Says here, this is

10:50

this is according to natural

10:52

stat trick 41 scoring chances

10:54

for the stars That's a

10:56

lot that feels that feels

10:59

good I would say do

11:01

that again Yeah, high dangers

11:03

were 17 to 7 I

11:09

Honestly I really kind of

11:11

thought like you'd need Jake Ottinger

11:13

to steal a game for

11:16

you to really feel like you

11:18

had a good They didn't

11:20

need him to do that they

11:22

they just They were the

11:24

team that like kind of dictated

11:27

the way the game was

11:29

played and you know It's interesting

11:31

because last night was extremely

11:33

high event And

11:37

I wonder who that suits

11:39

over the long run. I

11:42

kind of think it's not Dallas. Well,

11:46

I mean, the really

11:48

simplistic way to look

11:50

at it is that

11:52

high event hockey, if

11:54

both teams have firepower, Colorado,

11:57

you're right, probably has a

11:59

little more right now. until

12:02

Dallas gets healthy, but that it favors

12:04

the team with the better goalie. Sure.

12:07

And I'm not sure who that is,

12:10

but Ottinger certainly has the better track

12:12

record. You know, Mackenzie

12:14

Blackwood has been an interesting

12:16

story all year, but maybe

12:18

that's it. Maybe you go,

12:21

let's turn this into a

12:23

goalie battle and we'll have

12:25

our eight foot tall All -Star

12:27

be the difference. I

12:29

don't know. It just, to me, it feels like Dallas

12:32

is kind of

12:35

desperately hanging in until

12:37

if they can

12:39

get Heisken in back.

12:43

Which seems like it might be

12:45

closer than we thought, but you

12:47

never know at this time of

12:49

year. Well, especially because every other

12:51

game, they're going like, did

12:53

we say he won't be back until the second

12:55

round? We didn't mean that. We said he'd

12:57

be back in game three. Like

13:00

your game three shows up and

13:02

they go game three goes. Well,

13:05

we never said we never said he'd

13:07

be back tonight. We always said game. OK,

13:09

well, I don't I don't know that.

13:11

I don't know what to make of it.

13:13

You know, did. I

13:16

don't I don't know. I mean.

13:21

They're they're the higher seed.

13:23

So they've already lost

13:25

on home ice and that's

13:28

not good to do

13:30

per your. Saying proprietary trademark

13:32

all that most credit

13:34

So going back to Colorado,

13:37

I feel like you're

13:39

not you're not unhappy to

13:41

be tied one -to -one

13:43

but Just you know just

13:45

because these teams are

13:48

so close in terms of

13:50

like perception I

13:53

wonder, like, did you see the

13:55

quotes after, or the quote from

13:57

Peter DeBoer after game one where

13:59

they asked him like, basically like

14:01

what went wrong or what do

14:03

you need to do to beat him

14:05

or whatever? And he

14:07

was like, yeah, they're deeper

14:09

than they were last year and they

14:11

have Blackwood now. So I don't know what

14:13

to do. It's like, yeah. Which when

14:16

you put it that way, man. And also

14:18

that's, I mean, that's not a terrible

14:20

quote, but. Coming from Pete D

14:22

'Abor, a guy who always looks like

14:24

he just... A real Willy Lohman

14:26

type sure. he just dropped his ice

14:28

cream and he's holding the empty

14:31

cone with like one drip going down

14:33

the side like... I don't know

14:35

man. No, I'm with

14:37

you. I don't know.

14:39

I think you got

14:41

to feel good if

14:44

you're Colorado and you

14:46

got the one win

14:48

on the road already,

14:50

but... You don't want

14:52

to lose an overtime, you

14:54

know, even even if it's on

14:56

home ice. You didn't have

14:58

last change and all that Acles

15:01

in two games. I think

15:03

you take that pretty much every

15:05

time No, we're no reason

15:07

to panic for for either team

15:09

at this point I Still

15:11

expect Colorado to win the series

15:13

just I think they're the

15:15

better team even when everybody's healthy

15:17

on both sides, you know,

15:20

but Robertson and

15:22

Heiskanin are just such huge

15:24

absences, you know. So we

15:26

talked about Heiskanin almost coming

15:28

back. The Gabriel Landisgog

15:30

stuff was very interesting

15:32

last night. Well, it's

15:34

all pro wrestling, Sean. I say

15:37

it all the time. You're going

15:39

to waste his return on a road

15:41

game? But

15:43

I mean, here's the thing. If you're

15:45

going to do a return, you

15:47

don't show the guy. You got

15:49

to like... You got to get

15:51

the you're not gonna get the pop

15:53

if you Well already been teasing

15:55

the guy. Yeah, I mean if it's

15:57

me and I'm like I have

15:59

him He's walking around. He's got like

16:01

a big bandage around his head

16:03

and he's walking with a with a

16:06

crutch Mm -hmm, and he's coughing a

16:08

lot You know It's like I

16:10

don't kid this guy ever play again.

16:12

He's got like he's got a

16:14

handkerchief with some blood on it, you

16:16

know It's only red

16:18

food coloring, but you think it'll

16:20

it'll look like blood You

16:22

know and it's like oh and

16:24

then You know we're starting

16:26

game. Hey, there's only there's only

16:28

18 guys or 17 guys

16:30

on the Colorado bench. What's going

16:33

on lights go out? You

16:36

know here he

16:39

comes and then

16:41

you know It's

16:44

a it's a shift where

16:47

neither team gets out of

16:49

the neutral zone, but sure

16:51

So so for people who

16:53

missed it last night he

16:55

First of all I guess

16:58

in practice he leaves early

17:00

as opposed to sticking around

17:02

to with the with the

17:04

extra skaters So people go,

17:06

okay, that's interesting then he

17:09

comes out for warm -up Not

17:13

only does he come out for warm -up, but

17:15

is it Devon Taves? Is

17:17

not wearing the a that he

17:19

normally wears right? which

17:22

is It seems like a

17:24

clear giveaway, you know, obviously that

17:26

has caused captain so you

17:28

know, he's gonna come back. That's

17:30

you somebody's got to lose

17:32

a letter and Then at the

17:34

very last second the lineups

17:37

come in and he's not in

17:39

it now I I

17:41

feel like this wasn't... I

17:43

didn't see this clearly said

17:45

anywhere. Is the

17:47

going theory that this was all

17:50

a decoy? Or is

17:52

it that he took warm

17:54

up intending to play and then

17:56

something wasn't right? Because

17:58

that's big difference. And...

18:00

Oh yeah, for sure. Like I

18:02

did see some people kind of implying

18:04

that this was all just Jared

18:06

Bender messing with Dallas and... Which, I

18:08

mean, the level of detail on

18:11

that is pretty, like,

18:13

taking certain tapes A away.

18:15

Yeah, that's right. you're just

18:17

trying to mess with guys

18:19

is A plus, so

18:21

to speak. But if, whereas

18:23

if he took the warm -up

18:25

and then either had a

18:27

setback or maybe it was

18:29

just a literal game time

18:31

decision and they decided it

18:33

was a no -go, but... Yeah,

18:37

I hope it wasn't a

18:39

setback because he like we

18:41

all want this guy to

18:43

get back in so bad

18:45

Yeah, I haven't seen any

18:47

Any reporting About like what

18:50

what the deal was there.

18:52

So all I saw was

18:54

they activated them off the

18:56

IR before the game But

18:58

like no further update and

19:00

you know if you're bednar,

19:02

why would you hey hey

19:04

Jared? What was that all

19:06

about? I, you know, let

19:08

me tell you everything about it. You know, let

19:10

me let me me let me reveal all my

19:13

secrets here. I don't think I don't

19:15

think that was ever going to happen. So no, we're

19:17

just not going to we're just not going to find

19:19

that out until again. I

19:21

wouldn't even have him take warm ups in game three.

19:23

I'd have him. Oh, who

19:25

knows? Crazy. Up in the

19:27

rafters. I think that's right.

19:29

I think that's right. OK. But

19:33

yeah, I. Don't

19:35

think there's anything to be discouraged

19:38

about for either team here. This

19:40

has been a Apart from feeling

19:42

more like a blowout than it

19:44

probably was in game one I

19:46

Still think you know Colorado

19:48

controlled that game, but it wasn't

19:51

it wasn't 5 -1 bad, you know,

19:53

maybe it was like 4 -2

19:55

bad And you still don't want

19:57

to give up four goals to

19:59

these guys, but that's that's how

20:01

it goes Um, anything

20:03

else on these on this series? Give

20:07

us seven, man. One way or

20:09

another. Hell yeah. Absolutely. Figure it out, hockey gods. Yeah.

20:12

Um, and maybe by the time they get to

20:15

seven, uh, Tampa and Florida will be a

20:17

game three. You

20:19

never know. Maybe. Um,

20:22

all right, let's move on then to the other, uh,

20:24

the early game from last night, the other early

20:26

game from last night, I should say. Montreal

20:30

versus Washington. Mm hmm. I

20:37

thought both teams looked pretty

20:39

good. Yeah.

20:45

I think neither look great is my point.

20:47

You know, they look pretty good. Yeah.

20:52

So, yeah, I mean, this

20:54

one kind of stands as

20:56

the opposite of another one

20:58

that we'll get to in

21:00

a bit, another series, another

21:03

game one. Because in this

21:05

one, I feel like both

21:07

teams come away feeling pretty

21:09

good about it. It

21:11

always feels weird to say that

21:13

because, of course, it's the

21:15

playoffs every game is so insanely

21:17

important that you never feel

21:20

bad if you win, you never

21:22

feel great if you lose.

21:24

But Montreal, this is

21:26

exactly what you were picturing when

21:28

you think about this team getting into

21:30

the playoffs, right? Suzuki leading, Caulfield.

21:32

scoring the big goal, you

21:35

know, looked, look,

21:37

hanging right there with the

21:39

one seed in the conference. Um,

21:42

and, and doing it, you know, pulling off

21:44

a comeback. So, I mean, they, I

21:46

say hanging with them there. The

21:49

first half of the game, it looked like maybe Washington

21:51

was going to pull away, but Montreal was

21:53

like, no, not going to happen.

21:55

We're, we're, you know, if, if

21:57

we're supposed to roll over in this series, we miss

21:59

the memo and we're going to, we're going to push back.

22:02

And if you're Washington, it's sort of

22:04

like, yeah, that's a tough playoff

22:06

game. We got to win those. We

22:08

got to figure out a way

22:10

to get those tough wins. We know

22:13

that, and we just put one

22:15

in the bank. Again,

22:17

took, I don't know if they took

22:19

Montreal's best shot, but took a pretty

22:21

good shot and still got the win.

22:24

Obviously, it's overtime. One bounce

22:26

goes the other way and the

22:28

entire script flips. And we're

22:30

talking about Washington blowing a lead

22:32

and home ice and all of

22:35

this stuff, but it didn't paper

22:37

tiger. We're saying yeah, yeah And

22:39

you know very cool to see

22:41

Ovechkin get the first overtime goal

22:43

That's that's obviously one of those

22:45

Stats that gets kicked around a

22:48

lot you'd hear every now and

22:50

then that he had somehow never

22:52

scored a playoff overtime goal and

22:54

Not clutch it's that simple not

22:56

clutch. There's some good names on

22:59

that not scoring overtime goal. I

23:01

gotta look that up, but I

23:03

feel like Gordie Howe definitely, Gordie

23:06

Howe, I believe, never had an

23:08

overtime goal ever, including the regular

23:10

season, which sounds crazy, but then

23:12

you remember wasn't. They didn't have

23:14

overtime. They didn't invent overtime yet.

23:16

Yeah. Well, they had it, but

23:18

they got rid of it for World

23:20

War II, for curfews, and

23:22

then for some, just forgot to

23:24

bring it back for 40 years. I

23:27

feel like Mark Messier never had an overtime goal. In

23:30

the playoffs maybe a few

23:32

other guys he was he was

23:34

so good at leading that

23:36

his team never went over time

23:38

one He just yeah, and

23:40

you know he was too busy

23:42

scoring hat tricks that included

23:44

cheap empty net goals But yeah,

23:46

I you know what watching

23:49

this game last night you again

23:51

you have to be encouraged

23:53

if you're Montreal year You played

23:55

pretty well you didn't play

23:57

like great like I said either

23:59

way Both teams kind of

24:01

probably feel like they have something

24:03

extra to give, you know. But

24:07

there's proof of concept

24:09

there. We aren't, we're not

24:11

your typical eight seed.

24:13

They're not your typical one

24:15

seed, however you want

24:17

to put it. Montreal

24:19

can feel good about that.

24:21

But in my opinion, maybe you

24:23

cover that Ovechkin guy. Yeah,

24:26

probably good. By the way, I

24:28

just looked it up. You know, it's crazy. You know

24:30

who never scored an overtime goal in the playoffs? Who?

24:33

Mario Lemieux. Yeah,

24:36

well, I guess you got to make

24:38

the playoffs a lot, or... It won

24:40

two cups, man. I guess... Well, I

24:42

was going to When

24:44

they were winning in the playoffs, it was like eight

24:46

to one. That's right. You

24:48

got to play close games in

24:50

not... I was scoring like

24:53

a goal in the game in

24:55

the playoffs, and just didn't

24:57

get the OT. Hey. Maybe if

24:59

he got off his butt

25:01

before David Volek, we'd be talking

25:03

about three Pete's. That's right. I'm

25:05

with you, man, not clutch. These guys

25:07

are just not. Doesn't have it. Should have called

25:09

up a young Carter Verhege and been like,

25:11

what do I do, buddy? How do we do

25:13

it? And he's like, I won't be born

25:15

for another six years. Or

25:21

whatever. I don't know how old Carter Verhege

25:23

is. There's no way he was born in the

25:25

90s, right? Carter for Hague

25:27

he definitely wasn't born in

25:29

like 91 or whatever. Oh,

25:32

no for sure. I'm just I'm

25:34

now I'm wondering how much that feels

25:36

like, you know, like, you know,

25:38

you know, I get his mid 20s,

25:41

isn't he? Let's let's find out.

25:43

Look it up now. Age. Carver

25:46

Hague was born in 95. Yeah,

25:48

I'm all right. But this is one

25:50

of those things where it's like when

25:53

I watched MASH as a kid. And

25:55

granted, it's depicting the Korean War. So

25:57

that maybe skews it a little bit.

25:59

But I was like, when did this

26:01

show come out like 1951? You know

26:03

what I mean? Like that show was

26:05

on contemporaneously with when I was alive.

26:07

But it just felt like fucking ancient

26:09

history to me, you know? Yep. Not

26:15

like cheers. That felt, you

26:17

know, vibrant, exciting, you know? Exactly.

26:22

But yeah, I think I guess

26:24

I don't have a ton to

26:26

say here like But you know

26:28

what I'll say this That the

26:30

Montreal goal where they were just

26:32

like buzzing the capitals couldn't get

26:34

those guys away from their net

26:36

for 30 seconds straight It felt

26:38

like that was wild man. Those

26:41

guys look like dogs out there

26:43

and that was like an underrated

26:45

great goal by Suzuki because oh

26:47

yeah chaos like it was complete

26:49

chaos goalies out of position guys

26:51

are flying around and the puck

26:53

winds up on his stick 95 %

26:55

of NHL players just shoot you

26:57

just you just fire I mean

26:59

it's it's it's chaos mode why

27:01

you know that that's that's what

27:03

you do but instead he takes

27:05

like the half second you know

27:07

moves the puck a little bit

27:09

just waits for for the The

27:11

the jerseys depart and bear is

27:13

it but and it's one of

27:15

those goals where you look and

27:17

you go Yeah, he scored into

27:19

an empty net big deal. Well,

27:21

it actually was big deal like

27:23

that was Yeah, that's one of

27:25

those empty nets where it's like

27:27

Yeah, but there were like the

27:29

goalie wasn't there, but there were

27:31

six other bodies in front of

27:33

it, you know So yeah, I

27:35

thought that I thought that was

27:37

an awesome fucking goal. I was

27:39

having a blast watching that ship

27:43

All right, let's move on to the one other

27:45

game from last night. It's

27:47

Edmonton. It's LA.

27:49

It's chaos. So

27:52

so amazing. Holy fuck, man.

27:54

Opposite of the Montreal Washington

27:56

game. I'm terrified if I

27:58

am both teams. This

28:00

game was the worst case scenario

28:03

for both teams. That's right. Sort of

28:05

like Gary, showing up and declaring

28:07

it a forfeit and the loss for

28:09

both teams like that was. You're

28:12

watching that if you're a fan

28:14

of those teams with like your

28:16

hand over your face and like

28:18

a little crack between your fingers

28:20

that that's Well, did you

28:22

see the Drew Doughty quote? Yes.

28:25

Yeah, I I'm glad we won

28:27

because it would have sucked to

28:29

lose that one. That's right Drew.

28:31

You got it. Yeah That was

28:33

it was a crazy ass game

28:36

and again, it's it's happening at

28:38

exactly the same time as the as

28:41

the Colorado Dallas overtime.

28:44

Like the big comeback.

28:47

I'm going to say this. This is maybe going to

28:49

be a controversial statement regarding this game. Carmichael

28:52

David is pretty fucking

28:54

good. That's the

28:56

scary thing of IML. Even

28:59

more so than you

29:01

blew the lead. Yeah. They

29:03

blew a four goal

29:05

lead. Let Edmonton tie it

29:07

up late. Like

29:10

Connor McDavid just again

29:12

was like unstoppable like what

29:14

sport is this guy

29:17

playing? You've got

29:19

two of the best checking

29:21

centers in the league. Yeah,

29:23

and home ice and matchups

29:25

and all of that and

29:27

I mean he is just

29:29

Going around guys like they

29:31

don't exist literally there is

29:33

a guy between him and

29:35

the net on all three

29:37

of his primary assists Mm

29:39

-hmm Where it's just like he I

29:41

mean that first one the dry side

29:44

will go he starts it facing away

29:46

from the net and the and he's

29:48

like, oh, excuse me. Pardon me Let

29:50

me squeeze by you here. Yep The

29:52

second one like and you know, I

29:54

saw some people saying well he held

29:56

the stick and it's like yeah, you

29:58

know what? I can't be mad about

30:00

a guy scoring a fucking sick or

30:02

setting up a sick goal like that.

30:05

Sorry He

30:07

can hold the stick a little

30:09

bit on plays like that in my

30:11

opinion for treat Second one he

30:13

takes it, you know, he just you

30:15

can do that with your arm

30:18

if you're if you're the puck carrier

30:20

I don't know what to tell

30:22

you, you know Third one Yeah, he

30:24

he just made it look really

30:26

easy going to the net there and

30:28

then here's the thing though So

30:31

we're all talking about that the play

30:33

to himself off the boards for

30:35

the goal It's

30:37

crazy You can just laugh

30:40

like it's It's what can you

30:42

say what can you say

30:44

if you're LA? Yeah, you

30:46

know what here? So here's what

30:48

I'd say if I'm LA

30:50

and I'm trying to make myself

30:53

feel better a we won

30:55

the game So who gives

30:57

a shit? You know it but

30:59

B Well, surely he's not

31:01

gonna do that again The

31:04

only reason that game was close

31:06

is because he. Had

31:08

four game changing

31:11

plays, you know, and

31:13

but there is nothing like

31:15

in any other series pick any

31:17

literally any other player in

31:19

the league. Yeah. Maybe

31:22

Nathan McKinnon is is close to this

31:24

territory, but anyone else you go. All

31:26

right. Oh, well, I mean, so Austin

31:28

Matthews went crazy. and created four goals

31:30

all by himself. He's not doing that

31:33

every night. Connor

31:35

McDavid, you're like, guys,

31:37

how do we keep this from getting to five? Because

31:40

it's just... I mean,

31:42

he didn't really show up

31:44

until the third period. And

31:47

he just... He was like, OK, this

31:49

is... Well, I was just going to

31:51

say, he said, OK, this game's over.

31:53

And then the kings were like, no,

31:55

it isn't. Fuck you. Get lost. But

31:58

I mean, it's like... economy gave

32:00

it, I

32:02

mean, in general, but in the playoffs,

32:04

where everything's supposed to get tighter and

32:06

all this stuff. And like I said,

32:09

you've got Copetar and Dino, and

32:11

you've got Blast Change

32:13

and all of this. And

32:15

it's like when the

32:18

Timbits invite dad out to

32:20

like, and it's just

32:22

one versus 10. And

32:24

he's just you know putting it

32:26

through guys legs and making them

32:28

fall over and you know having

32:30

a fight like it's it's just

32:32

You could all you can do

32:35

as a fan of any other

32:37

team is laugh That's exactly right.

32:39

Yeah, but but but this is

32:41

what I'm saying though Yeah, like

32:43

if you're LA you're terrified and

32:45

if you're Edmonton if you're an

32:47

Edmonton fan It's cool as hell

32:49

to have Conor McDavid, but that

32:51

that lag game last night was

32:53

a nightmare because No defense. Well,

32:55

I'm saying though is like Stuart

32:57

Skinner giving up knuckleballs. If you're,

32:59

if you're the kings, you're saying,

33:01

okay, we can probably reasonably count

33:03

on McDavid to do that to

33:05

us again, but not to that

33:07

extent. The idea that he's going

33:09

to go nuts in the third

33:12

period and almost win the game

33:14

for them, you know,

33:16

like they needed four goal

33:18

for Connor McDavid primary points.

33:20

to get back in the

33:22

game on insane plays. Right.

33:24

And so I think you

33:27

can tell yourself we can keep

33:29

him to two and it

33:31

would still be really impressive that

33:33

he did it twice. But

33:36

as long as you know, well, I

33:38

don't know if you saw this, you

33:40

know, who you know, who who is

33:42

in trouble from the Edmonton media from

33:45

last night. Oh, Evan

33:47

Bouchard. It's all his fault.

33:49

Really? Yeah. They

33:54

were really trying to get Knoblock

33:56

to be like, so your number one

33:58

defenseman, he's dog shit, right? You

34:00

think he's the worst player in the

34:02

league, is that right? And Knoblock

34:04

was like, no. I

34:07

think, did he

34:09

play great? No. I'll see

34:11

if I can find the quotes

34:13

here really quickly. I was laughing

34:15

seeing these come in last night. They

34:19

ask him like, What

34:22

did you think of his game

34:24

tonight and he's like I saw Evan

34:26

give us an excellent opportunity to

34:28

win tonight made a lot of nice

34:30

plays was his game perfect I'm

34:32

not sure anybody's game was perfect tonight

34:34

I Think Evan's a very important

34:36

part of the team Obviously if we're

34:38

going to have success, especially when

34:40

we're missing one of our key defensemen,

34:42

especially one of our top four

34:44

defensemen Really have to step up So

34:49

they they were really Okay,

34:51

hold on. There's a different quote

34:54

that I must have missed

34:56

something about I can't comment on

34:58

that Where was this Anyway,

35:00

oh Novelok was asked about needing

35:02

better defense defense from Bouchard,

35:04

especially with that home out of

35:07

the lineup I can't comment

35:09

on that. I don't know the

35:11

breakdowns And then he goes

35:13

on to say I think Evan's

35:15

a very important part of

35:17

our team Like

35:21

I I Don't know man watching

35:23

that game last night. I wasn't sitting

35:25

there saying you know, you know

35:27

who's whose problem like the The fact

35:30

that like one out of every

35:32

five shots is going in the net.

35:34

You know whose fault that is

35:36

This is gonna be the story in

35:38

Edmonton. It has to be the

35:40

story. That's exactly right The gold I

35:42

mean and again you can't give

35:44

up six goals on 30 shots Games,

35:46

you know, all of this stuff, I'm

35:48

sure, you know, Skinner will have a shutout

35:51

in game two and will all kind

35:53

of swing over to the other side of

35:55

the seesaw. But. They

35:57

he wasn't good all year.

36:00

That's exactly that. And that's the point of

36:03

concern. He was not great. At

36:05

times in the playoffs. And

36:07

you're like, well, look, like you said, you

36:10

got to win 16 times against the

36:12

best teams in the league. Sometimes they're going

36:14

to do that to you. You can't

36:16

expect your goalie to go 950 in the

36:19

postseason. That's what you tell yourself going

36:21

into this year. How do you

36:23

do this year? 896

36:28

is how we did this year.

36:30

You know, some of us all year,

36:32

we're like, are the Oilers going

36:34

to go out and get a goalie

36:36

at some point? And they even

36:38

had a little bit of cap room,

36:40

not a lot, but they strategically

36:42

kept something for. In the

36:44

offseason. Yeah, there were there were

36:47

issues. There were there were what's

36:49

his name? I

36:51

Wanted to say Jack Campbell.

36:53

I know that's not right Guy

36:55

from the Ducks John Gibson

36:58

was there there were John Gibson

37:00

rumors and it didn't It

37:02

didn't happen and and we understand

37:04

why you know, it's but

37:06

it was sort of a okay.

37:09

This is our guy and

37:11

We're one game into what could

37:13

be a two -month stretch for

37:15

these Oilers, but not a

37:17

great game one. And

37:20

I mean, the last

37:22

goal, it was

37:24

a weird one, not

37:26

necessarily a terrible one. It's

37:28

that weird thing in hockey

37:30

where a clean shot that

37:33

beats you is somehow worse

37:35

than the knuckleball, but also,

37:38

dude. When

37:40

when coaches talk about we

37:42

need to save That's That's this

37:44

that that puck just has

37:46

to stay out of the net.

37:48

Yep Given and then that

37:50

only gets you to overtime, right?

37:53

Yeah, but you you are going

37:55

to overtime feeling like we just

37:57

We just broke their spirits Yeah,

37:59

oh, yeah Everyone's just looking at

38:01

McDavid like what's gonna happen on

38:03

the first shift there big dog.

38:05

What do you got planned for

38:07

us? That's exactly right It's

38:12

tough man. I don't know. I

38:14

don't know like like you said

38:16

Skinner goes out and stops 31

38:18

of 32 in in game 2

38:20

and everybody's like, okay Maybe that

38:22

maybe that was a one -night

38:24

thing and because this is the

38:26

other thing You know also had

38:28

an 800 safe percentage in this

38:30

game is the guy everybody's like

38:33

there are geniuses for going out

38:35

and getting this guy to Darcy

38:37

Kemper Stopped 20 of 25. That's

38:39

not good enough either. You know but

38:46

It's just the heat he didn't

38:48

give up the last goal and so

38:50

it's actually fine Mm -hmm I'm not

38:52

feeling great about that if I'm

38:54

the Kings. I'll tell you that game

38:56

was just I I know a

38:58

lot of us like kind of looked

39:00

at that series like hi here

39:02

we go again Kind of tired to

39:04

see these but like that series

39:06

now immediately moves to the top of

39:08

the entertainment rankings. Yeah, and they

39:10

and like they don't like each other

39:13

Which is like the whole point of

39:15

having having the playoffs set up this

39:17

way is That you know familiarity breeds

39:19

contempt. I don't know if you've ever

39:21

heard that. That's when I made up.

39:23

Okay. That's a good one. You should

39:26

thanks So like these guys don't like

39:28

each other awesome great. I

39:30

think game two like I Don't

39:32

care of your team the team

39:34

you like is playing at the

39:36

exact same time Yeah, you have

39:38

to be watching it in LA

39:44

You drop everything to watch Edmonton LA

39:46

in my opinion at this point.

39:48

This is what it's all about I

39:50

don't have a ton else to

39:52

say about this one Frankly, I was

39:54

more a little more because this

39:57

was such a blowout for a huge

39:59

percentage of it. Yeah, that I

40:01

I Was not paying much attention to

40:03

To most of it when when

40:05

Colorado and as soon as they got

40:07

the late gold to make it

40:09

for it was for nothing LA As

40:12

soon as when it was for for

40:14

one you're like Well, who gives a shit

40:16

fuck all right if they get the

40:18

next one if they get to four two

40:20

all right Yeah, no four two was

40:22

when I was like, okay I gotta I

40:24

gotta shift my you know I gotta

40:27

start splitting my attention again basically So I

40:29

don't I don't have a ton to

40:31

say about the early proceedings But again, you

40:33

don't my opinion you don't want to

40:35

spot the the the higher seed of four

40:37

goal lead in any game It's not

40:39

gonna work out for you generally speaking All

40:42

right, let's move on to

40:44

some of the series that

40:46

didn't happen last night and

40:48

we'll start with Sean, how

40:50

you feeling about your beloved

40:53

Ottawa Senators? So

40:57

far so good for the

40:59

Leafs in that series. I

41:01

think we saw Ottawa's worst

41:03

game. They look very much

41:05

like a Youngish team that

41:07

they did their playoff debut.

41:09

Yep running around Bad

41:12

I mean that I know people are

41:14

gonna point at the penalty the power play

41:16

discrepancy and you know, we're we're trained

41:19

to think that Those numbers have to be

41:21

equal and there's a problem if they're

41:23

not there there was a problem The problem

41:25

was Otto was running around like crazy

41:27

and doing a bunch of stupid stuff. Yeah,

41:29

that's exactly right. So I Know people

41:31

were mad about that stutzel penalty, but it's

41:33

like I look if you want to

41:36

say that's not a major Yeah, I agree

41:38

with you But you can't show

41:40

a guy to the boards from behind. Yeah

41:42

You just you at the very least

41:44

when you do that you're you're handing

41:46

a coin to the ref and saying

41:48

flip this and yeah, you can't be

41:50

mad when it when it comes up

41:52

the wrong way and yeah, I mean

41:54

were there Things the Leafs did that

41:56

could have been penalties and yes, of

41:58

course And they're there we can always

42:00

play this game with anything but that

42:02

that was a very If you're in

42:05

running around game by Ottawa If you're

42:07

bitching about the refs in a 6

42:09

-2 game, I just don't know what

42:11

to say to that. Yeah. In

42:13

a game where a 6 -2

42:15

game where you score on a

42:18

delayed penalty and you also have

42:20

a major get reviewed down to

42:22

a minor, there's things that are

42:24

happening for both sides. But

42:26

they should get that

42:28

figured out. Travis

42:30

Green will get that

42:32

through to them, and

42:35

then they've got to figure out how to play. How

42:37

to play there a game

42:39

that that works for them without

42:41

taking a bunch of dumb

42:43

penalties latest all mark. Yeah, that

42:45

is the thing to to

42:47

bring up here is That that

42:49

eight million dollars is what

42:51

got them into the playoffs that

42:53

contract You know or I

42:55

guess the trade and the kind

42:57

of however you want to

42:59

like the promise of the contract

43:01

is what got him to

43:03

go there and That's

43:06

why they're in the playoffs. Keep

43:09

playing like this. That's why they're out of the

43:11

playoffs, too. You

43:14

just need them to be better. What

43:17

was it? Five goals

43:19

on 32 shots? No,

43:23

five on 23. And

43:25

it's not like he was awful. It's

43:27

not like any of the goals were obviously

43:29

bad ones. But I mean, at one

43:32

point, I think early on, the Senators were

43:34

out shooting the Leafs like 10 to

43:36

three, and they were down to nothing. Yeah,

43:38

shots in the game were 33 -24 for

43:40

Ottawa. Now, the shots by Ottawa were

43:42

a lot of them were perimeter. This was

43:44

the shot quality game. Like, if you

43:47

ever want to say that the shot clock

43:49

lies, you look at where those shots

43:51

were coming from. They were all from the

43:53

outside. But still, you need

43:55

a few saves. And it's, you

43:58

know, I pointed this out on

44:00

the other show a week or

44:02

two ago. The

44:05

Leafs could not score against the Bruins last

44:07

year other than the one game that Almerk started.

44:10

Right. They faced him last year in the playoffs and

44:12

they scored. I mean, they won that game like

44:14

three to two. It wasn't like he was awful, but

44:16

that was the one game where the offense clicked

44:18

even a little bit. And

44:20

his record in the playoffs

44:23

is not good. Nope. Overall.

44:25

Remember, you know, famously two years

44:27

ago, Boston

44:29

has the best regular season

44:31

ever. He wins the Vesna.

44:35

goes in against Florida, doesn't

44:37

look great, and gets

44:39

benched for Game 7. Almost

44:42

unheard of to bench a

44:44

Vesna winner for a Game 7.

44:46

But a lot of people saying they

44:49

did it too late. That's

44:52

my read on that, not to re -litigate

44:54

it too much or whatever. was fatigue

44:56

and was he just worn out and that

44:59

sort of thing. And that's why they

45:01

kind of started. Doing the alternating thing last

45:03

year and then and then abandoned it

45:05

immediately because Swamin was so much better than

45:07

than he was in the playoffs again.

45:09

So again, these sort of things, we all

45:11

love a narrative. We've all seen, you

45:14

know, goalies go out and have a few

45:16

bad games in the playoffs. And we

45:18

just, you know, we just talked about Halibuck

45:20

as a guy who's who's had this

45:22

hung on him to. And

45:25

again, it can change can

45:27

change real quick. That

45:29

that game to shut out. that

45:31

we talked about in the other series

45:33

that could happen in this one

45:35

and then we're all you know right

45:37

back to you feel like you

45:40

need it almost like he needs to

45:42

not just like be fine in

45:44

game in game two you want him

45:46

kicking ass in game two you

45:48

want him looking like a Vesna winner

45:50

in game two because otherwise you're

45:52

just like did we did we fuck

45:54

up with this contract you know

45:56

just like although I want to say

45:58

this though this is Everybody makes

46:00

the jokes about the leaf of the leaves. I get

46:02

it. You know, they they lose in the first round

46:04

a lot. That's fine. You can't

46:06

say they don't have experience in the first

46:08

round. And this is this

46:10

is our house, baby. That's

46:13

exactly right. Like the senators,

46:15

I say this. You see

46:17

this a lot in in

46:19

the NCAA tournament is like

46:21

you can just sometimes you

46:23

can tell vibe wise. There's

46:26

a there's one team that's happy to be there

46:28

and there's one team that's Actually

46:30

planning to play the game, you

46:32

know, yeah, and Those kind of

46:34

games can get out of hand

46:36

a little bit and I Certainly

46:38

the way they were being covered

46:41

locally I was like do the

46:43

senators have happy to be here?

46:45

I guess and but the thing

46:47

is I don't think that's a

46:49

concern because If they were playing

46:51

the capitals like if that you

46:53

flip them with Montreal, then yeah,

46:56

maybe You can't have that against

46:58

Toronto like this is that the

47:00

level of how that rivalry, and

47:02

you can call it a one -sided rivalry if you want,

47:05

but the way that that permeates

47:07

everything in Ottawa from the owner

47:09

on down, right? I mean, the

47:12

owner was talking crap last week. It's

47:15

like this is

47:17

the matchup. It's

47:19

Toronto, then

47:21

a gap, then Montreal, then

47:24

a huge gap, and then

47:26

whoever happens to... be bubbling

47:28

to the surface at any

47:30

given time in Ottawa. They

47:33

can't just be happy to be there because they

47:35

know if they lose this series, the

47:37

season itself is still a

47:39

success, but it's also like guys.

47:43

We'll see. Tonight feels

47:45

like the early turning

47:48

point. I think losing

47:50

a game one, first

47:52

playoff game for a lot of these guys, you

47:54

live with it. Now

47:57

you want to show that that

47:59

you You can take that punch and

48:01

keep going and you you don't

48:03

You don't want to come back home

48:06

down to nothing not even knowing

48:08

how much of a home ice advantage

48:10

you're gonna have so I don't

48:12

you know must win. No, I don't

48:14

think so for Ottawa, but they've

48:16

they've got a show better than Than

48:18

they did and I think they

48:20

will I think and and the other

48:23

thing is From a Toronto perspective

48:25

This is the story with this team,

48:27

always. Always, always, always

48:29

for nine straight years. I've

48:32

said it a million times. It's

48:34

not when the going gets tough, they quit, they

48:36

fold. When the going gets tough, this

48:38

Leafs team can surprise you. It's when

48:40

the going is good. They

48:43

pat themselves on the back and

48:45

they break out the lounge chair

48:47

and all of that stuff. So,

48:50

I don't know. how much smoke they've

48:53

had blown up their behinds after one

48:55

good game, but it would not shock

48:57

anyone for them to come out and

48:59

lay an egg tonight. But

49:02

we'll see. Yeah,

49:04

I think that's exactly right. Hey,

49:06

speaking of laying an egg, the New

49:09

Jersey Devils versus the Carolina Hurricanes. Woof,

49:12

man. Yeah. Well,

49:16

I'll tell you this, I was watching that game

49:18

and then they cut to the New Jersey bench

49:20

and I saw Sheldon Keefe there and I was

49:22

like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I remember. Sure.

49:24

Yeah, definitely. Shots

49:28

in game one,

49:30

45 to 24. Expected

49:35

goals in game one,

49:37

4 .6 to 2 .6.

49:40

You ever hear of score effects? Carolina

49:43

has it, I'll tell you. Unblock

49:48

shot 6542 this was a

49:50

fucking bloodbath man, and I get

49:52

it All these guys are hurt

49:54

on the devils. I don't think

49:56

anybody I don't know how many

49:58

people like I wish there

50:00

was a way to look at

50:02

like The stats on the NHL

50:04

bracket challenge thing like when

50:06

everybody fills out their bracket I

50:09

would love to know what percentage

50:11

of people had the devils winning

50:13

this series. And then if

50:15

you could get in touch with them

50:17

individually to go like, yeah, but you're

50:19

just doing that because you think Carolina

50:21

kind of sucks. You

50:23

know, like, I don't know who believes in

50:25

these devils. Certainly not

50:27

me, you know. Yeah,

50:29

it really just feels

50:32

like without Hughes, it's

50:34

like this just

50:37

doesn't seem to count.

50:40

And maybe, maybe we're all

50:42

like, maybe this is the thing where

50:44

we're all counting a team out and getting

50:46

over our skis on this. And then

50:48

they turn around and make it a series.

50:50

It could happen. But not

50:52

if they play like this. gotta happen quick. Cause

50:54

there was no evidence in game one. Like

50:57

I don't, we've talked in the other series

50:59

about, ah, even when you lose, you know, do

51:01

you feel good about, like there was nothing

51:03

there to feel good about as a devil's fan.

51:05

I don't know. And if, in fact, other

51:08

than that, I don't. Yeah, in

51:10

fact, it's not just Hughes. Obviously, Segan

51:12

Thaller is also hurt as well. And

51:15

then, oh, yeah, Brendan

51:18

Dillon and Cody Glass get hurt in

51:20

this game. And

51:22

briefly, Luke Hughes gets

51:24

hurt in this game. That

51:27

didn't look too good for a minute there.

51:30

Like he went down the tunnel holding

51:32

his shoulder or whatever. I don't

51:34

know. This

51:36

is... This

51:38

has potential to be like Humiliate

51:41

like again, you would just say

51:43

well, you know, but I'm just

51:45

saying on the ice This has

51:47

the potential to be humiliating for

51:49

the devils Yeah Now if and

51:51

with the obvious caveat we're getting

51:54

way ahead of ourselves Let's say

51:56

the devils get pumped in this

51:58

or they lose in four or

52:00

five games. Sure. Do do you

52:02

walk away from this? if

52:05

you're if you're the devil saying Like

52:09

that was a disaster or do

52:12

you are you just kind of

52:14

giving yourself a passing? We didn't

52:16

have Jack Hughes regroup No Hughes.

52:18

No Siegenthaler. Yeah, I Dougie Hamilton,

52:20

you know shaking off rust and

52:22

right is it just not is

52:24

this just not the year you

52:26

never want to say that because

52:28

I mean you never know what

52:30

the future is gonna hold but

52:32

Sometimes it's just not your year.

52:34

Yeah, and it was obviously

52:36

not your year well before the

52:38

playoffs started. With

52:42

the Hamilton injury and then the Hughes

52:44

injury and then this, you know, just

52:47

like three of your

52:49

five, six, seven best

52:51

players, just like long

52:53

term, not available to

52:55

you. I

52:59

would be. Now

53:01

I'm not the devil's like I'm

53:03

not involved with the organization. I

53:05

don't care whether they win or

53:07

lose any games ever So I

53:09

I have no problem saying hey,

53:12

it's just not our year. I

53:14

to your point Are you concerned

53:16

about like the the long -term

53:18

effects of? You know

53:20

it wasn't so long ago where we were

53:22

like, oh, they need to change a lot

53:24

about this roster We thought this roster was

53:26

set up for for something and then

53:28

they had to go and change over their goalies

53:30

and bring in some new defensemen and all this kind

53:32

of stuff. I

53:35

don't want to say this is like, you don't

53:37

need to have an existential crisis, I guess is

53:39

my point, if you're the devils. Regardless

53:42

of outcome, but the fact that

53:44

we're talking about it in those terms

53:46

now, one game into the

53:48

series, that's bad. And

53:51

also because you're like, okay, how

53:53

many games can we count on?

53:56

uh, Jack, he was like being in the

53:58

lineup for the rest of his career.

54:00

You know what I mean? Like how many

54:02

times is he going to miss 10,

54:04

15, 20 games in a given, in a

54:06

given season for the rest of his

54:08

career? That's, that's

54:11

the concern you have to have, I think. Well,

54:15

got good news. We

54:17

don't have to worry about him being in New

54:19

Jersey too much longer. Well, we'll talk about, we'll

54:22

talk about that down the line. Um,

54:24

anything else you want to say about that?

54:26

We didn't really talk about Carolina at all. I

54:28

just, I guess I don't know what there

54:30

is to say. Hey, Logan, Stankoven looks pretty Freddy

54:32

Anderson back, yeah. Stankoven look good. Uh,

54:36

yeah. Not bad for, uh,

54:39

I'm sure the guy I got traded for is probably lighting

54:41

it up in the other series, so that's fine. Did

54:44

you see Lazarus's headline? Yes.

54:47

Oh my god, it was, uh, uh.

54:49

I don't have it in front of

54:51

me, but it was something like his

54:54

struggles are understandable, but they're also unacceptable.

54:56

And it's like, you don't want

54:58

two games into a series. You don't

55:00

want a guy that you just gave a

55:02

shitload of money to and and and

55:04

everything. You don't want

55:06

that guy where it's like his his

55:08

performance thus far has been unacceptable. That's

55:11

a bad headline to see about your guy. Purely

55:14

as a fan and a team chaos guy, don't

55:16

you kind of wish he hadn't signed the contract and

55:18

he was going in a free agency? Like

55:20

that would be the tracker, right? As

55:22

a guy who run the numbers after

55:24

every playoff game. Oh, he just dropped

55:26

another half million. Yep. No, as a

55:28

guy whose job on July 1 is

55:30

to just sit in front of a computer

55:33

and like type in what I think

55:35

about like various trades or whatever or

55:37

signings. I would love it if that guy

55:39

got to July 1. That would really

55:41

help lighten up the day for me,

55:43

you know, or brighten up the day. But

55:47

yeah, we are talking

55:50

about the Carolina Hurricanes,

55:52

of course. So

55:55

yeah, like you said, Freddie Anderson, you're

55:57

not that they were really testing him

55:59

that much, but he only gave up

56:01

the one goal. That's all you can

56:03

ask for, really. For

56:06

many goalie let alone one

56:08

who has a bit of

56:10

a reputation as being a

56:12

playoff stinky guy, you know

56:15

Yeah, I

56:17

just think there there's there's literally

56:19

nothing in that game that you're looking

56:21

at like they They didn't just

56:23

go up and then like coast they

56:25

went up and stood on the

56:27

devil's throats. You know what I mean?

56:31

And that's what you want to see that

56:33

that's the I

56:37

don't know. I don't know what

56:39

was in the water among NCAA coaches

56:41

this year, but multiple times they

56:43

talked about like how hard it is

56:45

explicitly in the terms of how

56:47

hard it is to end another team

56:49

season. Because those teams are

56:51

fighting for their lives and you

56:53

expect the best game out of them

56:55

and that kind of thing. And

56:57

Carolina was like, yeah, but

56:59

like you're a fly fighting for

57:02

your life against us, an elephant. You

57:04

know what I mean? And that's

57:06

what you want. You want them

57:08

to show that killer instinct, like

57:11

I said. And I hate to

57:13

be the embittered Leaf fan here,

57:15

but for Devils fans, if you...

57:17

You do not hate that, by

57:19

the way. If you're waiting, I

57:21

don't. It's my whole personality. If

57:24

you're waiting for Sheldon Keefe to

57:26

make the adjustments... That's right, brother.

57:29

This is not an area

57:31

of strength, let's just say. Or

57:33

it was not in the

57:36

past There there's a there's

57:38

a reason there are multiple

57:40

Images of him making a

57:42

pained face on the bench

57:44

in the playoffs on the

57:46

puck soup discord that get

57:48

that get posted anytime anything

57:50

bad happens to a Sheldon

57:52

Keefe coach team and the

57:54

reason is There are so

57:56

many options to choose from

57:58

of him making such faces

58:00

Anyway The

58:03

one other series that has actually

58:05

happened so far, Minnesota and Vegas, you

58:08

know, Minnesota I thought looked

58:10

pretty good, but

58:12

Vegas looked great. Yeah,

58:15

that's, I think that's about it.

58:18

And I, you know, a wild team that

58:20

not a lot of people have a ton

58:22

of expectations for. And

58:25

a Vegas team that everyone always

58:27

has expectations for. One

58:29

game in, it's played out about right. Yep,

58:33

I don't um I don't think

58:35

like Vegas How do I

58:37

want to say this they're happy

58:40

they won they I think

58:42

they had the better game overall

58:44

But if they want to

58:46

say ooh, we let the wild

58:48

kind of hang around a

58:50

little bit You know like we

58:52

maybe should have Done more

58:54

to put them to the sword

58:56

as they as they say Think

59:00

I think Vegas you could talk

59:02

me into they they shouldn't be

59:04

like elated with their game one

59:06

performance nice to get the win

59:09

of course and they did have

59:11

the better the better 60 minutes,

59:13

but they They didn't look as

59:15

good as you would hope Vegas

59:17

could look against a wild team

59:19

that Yeah, they're good, but like

59:22

you said very few people are

59:24

gonna be picking them to win

59:26

this series I Yeah, I don't

59:28

know that think in

59:30

our athletic thing we had

59:32

like three people out of

59:34

dozens and dozens like it

59:36

was it was close to

59:39

90 % picking Vegas and

59:41

that's in a world where

59:43

you want to go contrarian

59:45

if you can so that

59:47

you stand out and it

59:49

was still like now yeah

59:51

there's just it sucks that

59:54

the the The

59:57

NHL's website doesn't like let

59:59

you see who Like who's getting

1:00:01

picked, you know Mm -hmm. It

1:00:03

would be it would be

1:00:06

so interesting to see 85 %

1:00:08

of people picked Vegas to win

1:00:10

this series Whatever whatever's the

1:00:12

numbers are I would be so

1:00:14

interested to see presumably like

1:00:16

tens of thousands of people are

1:00:18

signing up for this That

1:00:21

would be fun. That would be a

1:00:24

fun data point. We could talk about

1:00:26

it on our stupid podcast people would

1:00:28

like people would love to share that

1:00:30

shit Maybe they do because I feel

1:00:32

like there's a late deadline on that

1:00:34

there is Maybe it hasn't passed yet

1:00:36

and they'd like they let you get

1:00:38

a game in before they yeah, I'm

1:00:41

uh You can go through 6 p

1:00:43

.m. Tonight. It says here 6 p .m.

1:00:45

Eastern. Oh Because

1:00:47

that's when the the final

1:00:49

series starts Basically

1:00:52

That makes it well it doesn't make

1:00:54

sense that this is when the final

1:00:57

series is starting the playoffs started four

1:00:59

fucking days ago Yeah, like let's get

1:01:01

on it here. I but I can't

1:01:03

give you one little bit of insight.

1:01:05

We have okay the the playoff contest

1:01:07

that that I do where it's just

1:01:09

as simple as List as many or

1:01:12

as few teams as you want in

1:01:14

order of how many wins they'll have

1:01:16

in the playoffs. Yep The mic who

1:01:18

scrapes the data always

1:01:20

pulls, like, which teams were mentioned first

1:01:22

the most times and which teams were mentioned

1:01:24

last most times. Being mentioned first does

1:01:26

not mean people are necessarily picking you to

1:01:28

win the cup, because you

1:01:30

could pick only a couple of teams. But,

1:01:33

you know, it shows the confidence and

1:01:35

then being picked last means they think

1:01:37

you're going to lose the most games,

1:01:39

which means, or sorry, that you're going

1:01:41

to win the fewest games, which is

1:01:43

to say, you're not just losing the

1:01:45

first round, but lose quickly. Montreal

1:01:50

and New Jersey neck and

1:01:52

neck for the most for

1:01:54

being picked last, Minnesota not

1:01:56

far behind them. Yeah,

1:01:59

I think that's right. I'm

1:02:01

frankly a little surprised on

1:02:03

Montreal being picked. I

1:02:06

feel like that's kind of a fun and

1:02:08

sexy upset pick. In fact, I picked it.

1:02:14

My stance

1:02:17

on The question of

1:02:19

how good are the capitals

1:02:21

is pretty well established on this

1:02:23

point at this point So

1:02:26

I I believe I had Montreal

1:02:28

in seven Hell I'm on

1:02:30

the I'm on the bracket whip

1:02:32

challenge website right now. I

1:02:34

can look Let's see here. I

1:02:36

indeed had Montreal in seven

1:02:39

and I had Keynes in five

1:02:41

so That feels

1:02:43

like I'm being a little generous. Do

1:02:45

you know your picks off the top of your

1:02:47

head or do you have them in front of you?

1:02:49

I'm pretty sure I picked Washington. Okay.

1:02:52

I definitely picked Carolina. I

1:02:54

picked Ottawa and Florida. And

1:02:57

that's an interesting one. The

1:02:59

late push for Tampa Bay

1:03:01

being everyone's favorite is very

1:03:03

interesting. Tampa Bay was the

1:03:06

least picked team in my

1:03:08

contest to show up last

1:03:10

on a list. And

1:03:12

again a little like it's

1:03:14

it's a bit weird you can't

1:03:16

draw a completely straight line

1:03:18

to saying like But it that

1:03:21

is the team that the

1:03:23

fewest people looked at and thought

1:03:25

they're going out quick Yeah,

1:03:27

and I think that's pretty reasonable

1:03:29

Yeah You just but they're

1:03:31

playing the two -time defending Conference

1:03:34

champs that's yeah for sure Like

1:03:36

when you compare them, their

1:03:38

people have more confidence in... Well,

1:03:40

I mean, it's actually like

1:03:42

two... Florida and Tampa are two

1:03:44

of the least picked teams.

1:03:47

So maybe it's more of a

1:03:49

case of just people staying

1:03:51

away from that series. Saying like,

1:03:53

oh, I don't... don't know

1:03:55

what to do with that. Vegas

1:03:57

was in between the two

1:03:59

of them. Yeah, you could tell

1:04:02

me that's like 60, 40,

1:04:04

55, 45. That would make perfect

1:04:06

sense to me. Just real,

1:04:08

real quick, the teams that were

1:04:10

listed first the most, Winnipeg

1:04:12

just ahead of Colorado. So

1:04:15

a bit of a surprise, it

1:04:18

felt like Winnipeg was kind of one of

1:04:20

those teams that there was still a lot of

1:04:22

doubts about, but it feels like there was

1:04:24

a late shift to people actually buying them as

1:04:26

central favorites. and not just

1:04:28

the team that's gonna win

1:04:30

in round one and then be

1:04:32

fodder for whoever comes out

1:04:35

of Colorado Dallas. Yeah, I think

1:04:37

that's people banking on the

1:04:39

war of attrition in Colorado Dallas,

1:04:41

if I had to guess.

1:04:43

But I'll just read my picks.

1:04:46

I had Toronto in seven,

1:04:48

Tampa in six. I

1:04:51

already said the other two East ones.

1:04:53

Kings in seven. Nights

1:04:55

in six abs in

1:04:57

five jets in six

1:04:59

and For the record

1:05:01

my my cup final

1:05:03

is abs over Carolina

1:05:05

Okay, I've got win

1:05:07

a peg over Carolina

1:05:09

I did Carolina beating

1:05:11

Florida in the conference

1:05:13

final. I had I

1:05:15

had them over Tampa.

1:05:17

Yeah jets Dallas nights

1:05:20

and Oilers Jets over

1:05:22

Dallas Oilers over nights So

1:05:26

the all can I had

1:05:28

quite a few people point

1:05:30

out that my final four

1:05:32

of Edmonton versus Winnipeg and

1:05:34

Florida versus Carolina would probably

1:05:36

Result in some TV executives

1:05:38

jumping out of buildings. Yeah

1:05:40

Do you have anything to

1:05:42

say about Florida and Tampa

1:05:44

before before we can't wait

1:05:46

can't wait Yeah, it's gonna

1:05:48

be awesome. Feel free to

1:05:50

get started anytime boys, but

1:05:52

that one could be That's

1:05:55

another one of those that just

1:05:57

on paper looks It's like such

1:05:59

an long Nasty series that you

1:06:02

just really really two teams that

1:06:04

don't like each other. That's so

1:06:06

that's all you're looking for. Yeah,

1:06:08

they definitely don't Like this is

1:06:10

the sort of thing I In

1:06:12

all the same ways that Edmonton

1:06:15

LA kind of feels like the

1:06:17

playoff format force feeding us a

1:06:19

matchup We don't really want over

1:06:21

and over again If

1:06:23

the playoff format means Tampa, Florida

1:06:25

year after year, yeah, sign

1:06:28

me up. Let's go. Let's

1:06:30

go. That's exactly right. I'm

1:06:33

surprised at how again, like how

1:06:35

many things I've seen where Tampa

1:06:37

is emerging as people's cup pick

1:06:39

in a lot of cases. And

1:06:41

again, it's when you're picking the

1:06:43

playoffs, you're not just picking like,

1:06:46

Hey, this is who I bet my life

1:06:48

savings on. There's a little bit of that.

1:06:50

Like, you know, I want to I want

1:06:52

to pick someone that no one else picks

1:06:55

and sometimes everyone's surprise pick ends up being

1:06:57

the same pick. It just feels like

1:06:59

that's kind of happening with Tampa. I agree.

1:07:02

All right, let's move

1:07:04

on then to, gosh,

1:07:07

it was a pretty busy week

1:07:09

even beyond just the playoffs, which

1:07:11

I don't, can you, I'm sure

1:07:14

you can, I'm sure there are

1:07:16

instances of this, but can you

1:07:18

remember like, two three -day period

1:07:20

where four coaches got fired. I

1:07:23

mean, yes, but the

1:07:25

weird thing was usually you

1:07:27

get the kind of Black

1:07:29

Monday idea where it's right

1:07:31

after and it feels like

1:07:33

everyone waited a few extra

1:07:35

days. Yeah. This time around,

1:07:37

but yeah. Which

1:07:41

team do you want to start? I

1:07:43

have written down here Vancouver first. I

1:07:45

think they're the... Let's start there because

1:07:47

we... The most fun one to talk

1:07:49

about for sure. Because it's not even

1:07:51

a firing, but... Well, the whole thing

1:07:53

is a mess. Let's just... I

1:07:55

don't even know where you start. Good

1:07:58

Lord. Pick a point to talk about.

1:08:00

Let's start with the press conference. Okay,

1:08:03

I think Patrick Alvin was

1:08:05

there for the press conference

1:08:07

the actual GM, but man

1:08:09

he said it is No,

1:08:11

I literally just saw like

1:08:13

a point where Patrick Alvin

1:08:15

just kind of like laughed

1:08:17

and the camera panned over

1:08:19

to him for a second

1:08:21

and then you know old

1:08:23

old JR was holding court,

1:08:25

let's just say and It

1:08:27

was it was a wild

1:08:29

press conference basically he Well,

1:08:32

we'll start we'll start with the

1:08:34

Quinn Hughes thing because that's the funniest

1:08:36

thing for sure They ask him

1:08:38

about like hey, you know Quinn Hughes

1:08:40

like this guy's gonna need a

1:08:42

contract next summer Like what do you

1:08:44

what do you got to say

1:08:46

about that basically and his and his

1:08:48

answer was well he wants to

1:08:50

play with his brothers and What we

1:08:52

got to do is an organization

1:08:54

which to be clear I agree with

1:08:56

him saying that that he should

1:08:58

think this What we gotta do is

1:09:00

we gotta find a way to

1:09:02

get his brothers here. Yeah.

1:09:05

Because otherwise we're in a lot

1:09:07

of fucking trouble, basically. And

1:09:12

I don't know if people are aware of

1:09:14

this, but you're not allowed to say that.

1:09:17

You're not allowed to say, I

1:09:19

want to go and get

1:09:21

these other these other guys. Well,

1:09:24

he did he did then say, but

1:09:26

we got to be careful about tampering stuff.

1:09:28

So it's all good. Yeah,

1:09:30

as long as you say, you know,

1:09:32

it's - To be clear, I'm not tampering.

1:09:34

Okay, well, there you go. Tampering

1:09:36

is like racism. As long as

1:09:38

you preface your obvious tampering by

1:09:40

saying, look, I

1:09:42

don't want to sound like a tamperer

1:09:44

here, but those huge brothers, am I

1:09:47

right? They

1:09:49

all love fresh salmon.

1:09:52

Yeah, that's right. It's,

1:09:56

yeah. His his

1:09:58

point was a he wants to

1:10:00

play with his brothers Some of it

1:10:03

may be out of our control,

1:10:05

but not if we go and get

1:10:07

that to me It's the some

1:10:09

of it's out of our control part

1:10:11

that is the real news here.

1:10:13

Mm -hmm. Not the tampering. It's the

1:10:15

fact that he's even acknowledging that Hey,

1:10:17

man, we might be in a

1:10:19

situation where it doesn't matter what we

1:10:21

do if this guy really Has

1:10:23

his heart set on playing with his

1:10:25

brothers Who knows You

1:10:27

know we get off from Lord knows

1:10:30

what and Maybe he doesn't take

1:10:32

it which terrifies me if I'm bankrupt

1:10:34

because mm -hmm If I'm a conucks

1:10:36

fan this season was such a

1:10:38

design such a mess and all but

1:10:40

I mean you you just the

1:10:43

thing that keeps you going is what

1:10:45

we've got Quinn use We've got

1:10:47

a guy that if you if you

1:10:49

redrafted the whole league he'd be

1:10:51

a top five or ten pick to

1:10:53

build around so we're Okay If

1:10:58

there's any doubt about that

1:11:00

I don't even know where you

1:11:02

go, but let's let's also

1:11:04

talk about Rick talk it because

1:11:07

Well, yeah, that's the we're

1:11:09

talking about coaching chase. They want

1:11:11

Rick talk it So the

1:11:13

reason we're lumping this in if

1:11:15

people are like I didn't

1:11:18

think Rick talk it got fired

1:11:20

he didn't Kind of sort

1:11:22

of he His contract

1:11:24

is expiring. He has

1:11:26

a team option for next

1:11:28

year. That's right. So they could

1:11:30

just say, yeah, you're the coach next year.

1:11:32

Boom. We're exercising the option. You now have a

1:11:34

contract with one year left to go. They

1:11:37

announced that they're not doing that. Instead,

1:11:41

they're going to try to negotiate

1:11:43

a new deal with him, but

1:11:45

he will essentially be a free

1:11:47

agent. So in

1:11:50

a way it's kind I mean it

1:11:52

makes sense in that it's sort of

1:11:54

like If he wants to be here

1:11:56

we want him here But if he

1:11:58

really doesn't want to be here then

1:12:00

we're not gonna drag this out for

1:12:02

another year and Lord knows the conucks

1:12:05

have had enough coaching side shows over

1:12:07

the years I kind of get that

1:12:09

but yeah, I just think if they're

1:12:11

saying we want to we want to

1:12:13

extend them blah blah blah like was

1:12:15

it Elliot was saying like it

1:12:17

would take the biggest coaching contract in

1:12:19

Vancouver Canucks history to keep him? Well,

1:12:24

probably. I mean,

1:12:27

where's that bar set? No,

1:12:30

for sure. But my thing

1:12:32

is, and I said this before,

1:12:36

I'd kind of let him

1:12:38

be someone else's problem. Maybe.

1:12:44

I mean if this is a

1:12:46

sunkist orange zero by the

1:12:49

way, all right if if You

1:12:51

know a lot of people

1:12:53

have connected the dots between him

1:12:55

and Philadelphia obviously. Yeah, I

1:12:57

don't think there's Yeah, including

1:12:59

the Philadelphia Flyers. Yeah, like let's

1:13:02

be let's be serious here,

1:13:04

but I Don't know I mean

1:13:06

I Guess I guess that

1:13:08

is that the worst case is

1:13:10

that you You exercise the

1:13:13

option you keep him for

1:13:15

a year and then you He

1:13:17

doesn't want to be there

1:13:19

and you've got this whole mess

1:13:21

of a situation. Well, you

1:13:23

exercise the option and you

1:13:25

like and you go You know

1:13:28

not even a year you

1:13:30

just start the negotiations now.

1:13:32

Well, that's it like this roll

1:13:34

it into there's nothing about

1:13:36

extending him or exercising the option

1:13:38

that Impairs your ability to

1:13:41

sign a long -term deal. And

1:13:43

to my mind, it's at least

1:13:45

some degree of leverage, right?

1:13:47

You're sitting down to negotiate

1:13:49

with him. And if the numbers

1:13:52

get too high or whatever, you

1:13:54

go, I mean, look, man, we're going to have

1:13:56

you back next year. And

1:13:59

coaches, unlike

1:14:02

players, my understanding

1:14:04

is you can do things like tear

1:14:06

up a year of a deal. It's

1:14:09

not like a player where a player's got

1:14:11

another year. That's it. Your extension

1:14:13

starts after that. You could sit down

1:14:16

and say, we're going to bring you

1:14:18

back, but here's the terms of next

1:14:20

year based on the option you agree

1:14:22

to. But we'll scratch that off and

1:14:24

give you more money for next year

1:14:26

as part of a longer term deal,

1:14:28

and you use that as leverage. The

1:14:30

fact that they're not doing that is

1:14:32

interesting to me. Well, right. So my

1:14:34

thing with it is very simple. Remember

1:14:36

when they traded for Brandon Sutter that

1:14:38

time? And they

1:14:40

needed to extend him and they immediately

1:14:42

did so. But even before they

1:14:45

did that, they gave him a

1:14:47

retroactive no movement clause that applied to

1:14:49

like the next year or something.

1:14:51

Do you remember this? Yeah,

1:14:56

that's basically what happened was they

1:14:58

were like not only will we give

1:15:00

you a new contract But we're

1:15:02

also gonna act like you have a

1:15:04

no -movement clause now even though you

1:15:06

don't because no movement clauses are

1:15:08

weird and can sort of be I

1:15:10

Don't know. Yeah, they're strange. Yeah

1:15:14

So

1:15:19

I don't know. Why not

1:15:21

just do that? Unless you're like, we're

1:15:23

not really convinced that he's our coach

1:15:25

for the long term or like we're

1:15:27

not. Kind of feels that way, right?

1:15:29

Yeah. So like why be like, yeah,

1:15:31

but we'll try to negotiate an extension.

1:15:33

Like I just feel like if you

1:15:35

got one foot out the door, you

1:15:37

might as well. Like what is it?

1:15:39

Like you don't want to, you don't

1:15:41

want to like. Take

1:15:44

your foot off first without

1:15:46

taking a foot toward second

1:15:48

or a step toward second

1:15:50

or whatever that saying is

1:15:52

you know what I'm saying

1:15:55

like Make the make the

1:15:57

move like just just fucking

1:15:59

Just commit one way or

1:16:01

the other This is but

1:16:03

this is my whole thing

1:16:05

with the Vancouver Canucks is

1:16:07

the vibe seem insanely fucking

1:16:10

bad and I don't

1:16:12

know that I think Rick Tauket

1:16:14

is the guy to fix it

1:16:16

because Rick Tauket when they were

1:16:18

talking the did you see these

1:16:20

quotes the other day about like

1:16:22

the Miller Pettersen thing from from

1:16:25

the clean out day? No,

1:16:28

where he was basically like, look,

1:16:30

I really like JT Miller. I'm a

1:16:33

huge JT Miller fan. JT Miller

1:16:35

kicks out like he's going. Yes.

1:16:38

And. Maybe it was just

1:16:40

the clips I saw. I didn't see a ton

1:16:42

of praise for Alias Patterson in there. A

1:16:46

lot of praise for JT Miller. Because

1:16:48

that's the other piece of this is

1:16:50

Rutherford had some really pointed comments about

1:16:52

Patterson. That's what I'm saying. Between

1:16:55

what they're openly saying

1:16:57

and also some of the

1:16:59

messaging that's just being

1:17:01

pushed out through indirect ways

1:17:04

is this guy doesn't

1:17:06

work hard enough. There's a

1:17:08

lot of talk about what he does in the summer.

1:17:11

You know, like basically like he's got

1:17:13

to work in the summer. He's got

1:17:15

to work like an 11 million dollar

1:17:17

player now. I don't know what he

1:17:19

was doing in the summers before, but

1:17:21

obviously it wasn't enough or it wasn't

1:17:23

the right things and there are kind

1:17:25

of going in on them and not, they

1:17:28

certainly don't seem like they

1:17:30

are trying to protect their franchise

1:17:33

player or at least their

1:17:35

highest paid player from criticism.

1:17:38

They feel like they're more in the phase

1:17:40

where they're like, you know what? This guy

1:17:42

needs to hear this a few times, but

1:17:44

he's certainly heard it. And

1:17:47

I don't know, for a guy

1:17:49

who looked miserable the entire season, I

1:17:52

don't know. It's

1:17:54

tough. Yep. I

1:17:58

wrote about this last week, and I think that

1:18:00

we might have talked about it on the show a

1:18:03

little bit, but like... Don't we

1:18:05

just why do we need to

1:18:07

keep this this iteration of the

1:18:09

Canucks together at this point? Don't

1:18:11

we all like doesn't it seem

1:18:13

like everyone agrees? It's fucked up

1:18:15

and not working doesn't seem like

1:18:17

every single person there It's just

1:18:19

like I don't know man. This

1:18:21

is crazy. Nope. Nobody seems to

1:18:23

to like being there Unbelievable including

1:18:25

Quinn Hughes your

1:18:28

devil really like mention, but you know like

1:18:30

It's a bit of a man like and

1:18:32

I don't know what it is Usually

1:18:34

you can point to somebody and

1:18:36

be like everyone hates the coach

1:18:38

everyone hates this player that like

1:18:40

I don't know I Do not

1:18:42

know let's Let's shift to the

1:18:44

Rangers because that is a case

1:18:46

where we kind of do know

1:18:48

who the problem is as far

1:18:50

as why everyone hates it there

1:18:52

and it's Chris Dury And that

1:18:54

doesn't mean he's a problem in

1:18:56

the sense that he's wrong and

1:18:58

everyone else is right, but He's

1:19:01

the problem and that everyone's

1:19:03

mad at him. Yeah, there

1:19:05

seems to be a lot

1:19:07

of. Feeling

1:19:09

coming out of New York that

1:19:11

that whole organization is a

1:19:13

mess. Nobody likes it there, including

1:19:16

the players, but not limited

1:19:18

to the players. Right. So it

1:19:20

was Mika Zabanajad yesterday who

1:19:22

had some quotes about like the

1:19:24

bark like good row trade

1:19:26

is what. kind of made everyone

1:19:28

hate Christopher free and then

1:19:30

it wasn't helped with like the

1:19:32

true betrayed and all this

1:19:34

kind of stuff and I don't

1:19:36

remember who said this but

1:19:38

it's like this is the funniest

1:19:40

sport in the world because

1:19:42

it's like when you have a

1:19:44

guy who objectively is like

1:19:46

hurting your team both in terms

1:19:48

of his contract and he's

1:19:51

not particularly good that guy is

1:19:53

untradable if guys on the

1:19:55

team like him You

1:19:57

are not allowed to

1:19:59

move that guy or

1:20:01

the whole team will

1:20:03

sulk for an entire

1:20:05

82 game season in

1:20:07

the middle of what's

1:20:09

supposed to be their

1:20:12

their only competitive window

1:20:14

Yep, that's the message

1:20:16

here and That isn't

1:20:18

gonna play well in

1:20:20

most markets definitely not

1:20:22

New York definitely not

1:20:26

when you have a season like they just had. I

1:20:30

guess the news is that the coach is out,

1:20:32

but Drew is staying. That's

1:20:35

a minor surprise to me. Yeah,

1:20:38

I get

1:20:40

it in so

1:20:43

far as

1:20:45

like, you don't feel

1:20:47

like ownership has the best, like

1:20:49

just kind of whatever happens with the

1:20:51

Rangers at somebody else's business. I'll

1:20:53

just sign the, like we always

1:20:55

say, I'll just sign the checks

1:20:57

and I'll stay out of their

1:20:59

way to a certain extent. The

1:21:01

last time he inserted himself into

1:21:03

these discussions was or into Rangers

1:21:05

discussions was when the vibes were

1:21:07

really bad around the team because

1:21:10

Tom Wilson ragged all the Artemis

1:21:12

Panarin and we'll talk about the

1:21:14

Artemis Panarin thing in a second.

1:21:19

And he was like, we got to get tougher.

1:21:21

What are we fucking doing here? And then

1:21:23

they go out and they get worse, which is

1:21:25

how teams get tougher as a general rule.

1:21:27

Include. Am I wrong that that's when they signed

1:21:29

the Barclay good drill deal? I

1:21:32

don't remember. Me neither.

1:21:34

Anyway, they intentionally

1:21:36

got worse. And

1:21:38

then that was the last time

1:21:40

we really heard from the owner. But

1:21:42

apparently the owner has been sitting

1:21:44

in on these these exit meetings. And.

1:21:50

So now what what happened

1:21:52

with Chris Drury is

1:21:54

he has really gotten himself

1:21:56

under under the microscope

1:21:59

a little bit. And

1:22:01

I don't know if the Rangers start

1:22:03

out slow next year. I don't know

1:22:05

how much longer he's keeping this job.

1:22:07

But if the ownership wants to let

1:22:09

him fire the coach, I think everybody

1:22:11

kind of came into the offseason with

1:22:13

the understanding that the coach was getting

1:22:15

fired. So, you know, what's the difference

1:22:17

at the end of the day? Third

1:22:20

time he's fired a coach

1:22:22

in four years to be

1:22:24

fair Everybody knew the David

1:22:26

and why am I being

1:22:28

fair to Chris Druby? but

1:22:30

Everybody knew the David Quinn

1:22:32

thing was never gonna last

1:22:34

and he didn't hire him

1:22:36

So my question my question

1:22:38

is this and And we

1:22:40

didn't talk about this with

1:22:42

Vancouver as well. But so

1:22:44

yeah, let's let's let's do

1:22:46

the Rangers first. Who do

1:22:48

you? Who do you think

1:22:50

like not like don't give me a

1:22:52

name necessarily, but like who do you

1:22:54

think they should hire in terms of

1:22:56

like archetype for? because

1:22:58

they basically Cycled through all the big

1:23:01

ones the new up -and -coming guy

1:23:03

who everybody agrees as a future NHL

1:23:05

head coach They tried that it

1:23:07

didn't work that maybe they tried it

1:23:09

at the wrong time in their

1:23:11

competitive cycle But then they were like,

1:23:13

okay, let's bring in the hard

1:23:15

ass Drargalant

1:23:18

lasted two seasons. Mm -hmm Now

1:23:20

let's bring in the guy who's

1:23:22

a little more player friendly a

1:23:24

lot of success in his career

1:23:26

and that's for your lavalette That

1:23:29

didn't work either Yep So who

1:23:31

who who do they hire like

1:23:33

what where is there to go

1:23:35

from here? Well, so I'm

1:23:37

looking at an email.

1:23:39

I one of those emails

1:23:41

from the odds maker

1:23:44

folks. Mm -hmm I

1:23:46

don't know if you got this same

1:23:48

one. I probably did. I don't usually

1:23:50

use next head coach. The number one

1:23:52

on the list name on the list

1:23:54

is very weird to me. Okay. I'm

1:23:56

listening. Mike Sullivan. Right.

1:23:59

Okay. Here's the problem with that. Yeah.

1:24:03

Mike Sullivan is currently employed by a

1:24:05

different team. Not only

1:24:07

that, a team in their division

1:24:09

and a team that. seems

1:24:12

to be shadow GM'd by

1:24:14

a player who really likes Mike

1:24:16

Sullivan. Yeah. And

1:24:18

generally speaking, coaches

1:24:20

coaching two teams at the same time

1:24:22

is frowned upon. Just

1:24:24

a lot of work. You can do it,

1:24:27

Zoom and multitasking and that sort of thing,

1:24:29

but it's tough. Next on

1:24:31

the list is Jade Leach. The third on

1:24:33

the list is the interesting one, which is

1:24:35

David Karl. Right.

1:24:38

And you've talked about this.

1:24:40

We, yeah, so the David

1:24:42

Carl, let's just put it this way. David

1:24:44

Carl is not the guy who is being,

1:24:46

or New York is not the team that

1:24:48

is being talked about the most in connection

1:24:50

with David Carl. Let's just, let's just put

1:24:52

that out there right now. That

1:24:55

Chicago will get to them later. The

1:24:59

name that I kind of think

1:25:01

feels like a slam dunk although

1:25:03

again with the Panarin thing maybe

1:25:05

not so much now Okay, let's

1:25:07

quickly talk about the Panarin thing

1:25:09

now. So I came out last

1:25:11

week in the athletic I'll just

1:25:13

I'll just quote from the Katie

1:25:15

Strang article here. New

1:25:17

York Rangers forward Artemis Panarin in Madison

1:25:19

Square Garden Sports, the company that

1:25:21

owns the team, paid financial settlements to

1:25:23

a Rangers employee last year after

1:25:26

she alleged that Panarin sexually assaulted her,

1:25:28

according to an NHL source who

1:25:30

reviewed the settlements and three others briefed

1:25:32

about them. So

1:25:35

not a lot of, well, there's details

1:25:37

in the story and I don't really want

1:25:39

to. talk about them because they're not

1:25:41

very good. They're a huge bummer to read

1:25:43

about. But

1:25:45

it was a situation where

1:25:47

they paid the settlements.

1:25:49

It's very clear that some

1:25:51

NDAs were signed because

1:25:53

they both said both the

1:25:55

MSG spokesperson and the

1:25:57

woman who was not identified

1:25:59

in the article, as

1:26:01

is often the case in

1:26:03

these situations, they

1:26:05

both said, quote, the matter has been

1:26:07

resolved. So that says to me,

1:26:09

that's NDA territory. There

1:26:12

are some really nasty details in

1:26:14

the article. Again, if you want

1:26:16

to read those, you know. And

1:26:20

then they're, you know, the

1:26:22

details are allegations. You

1:26:25

know, as settlement does not, is

1:26:27

not the same as being found

1:26:29

guilty, et cetera, et cetera. Draw

1:26:32

your own conclusions, but they.

1:26:36

There was a settlement. Yes.

1:26:40

And again, both the

1:26:42

player and the team paid

1:26:44

the settlement. So that's

1:26:47

how much of a

1:26:49

thing this was for

1:26:51

all involved. And again,

1:26:53

this was last year.

1:26:55

The woman left the organization

1:26:57

in August 2024. you

1:27:05

know, part of, in addition to

1:27:07

just the, all

1:27:10

the other reasons why this

1:27:12

feels meaningful to tie it back

1:27:14

to what we were saying

1:27:16

with Chris Drury and the feeling

1:27:18

in the organization that, you

1:27:21

know, they're ruthlessly shedding

1:27:23

players for all sorts of

1:27:25

reasons and yet this

1:27:27

had been known for a

1:27:29

year and a half

1:27:32

and You know,

1:27:34

not only was Artemis Panarin clearly

1:27:36

still on the team, but this

1:27:38

had not been made public. This

1:27:40

had not been addressed, etc.

1:27:42

Yeah, it says in the article,

1:27:44

the alleged assault occurred in December

1:27:46

2023 during a Rangers road

1:27:48

trip. So,

1:27:53

yeah, like, I

1:27:56

would have said this was

1:27:58

a slam dunk Joel Quinville

1:28:00

hire. For

1:28:02

like it just seemed like

1:28:04

such an obvious connection to

1:28:06

draw like a coach with

1:28:08

with a legendary track record

1:28:10

and all that now I

1:28:12

don't know PR wise if

1:28:14

you can have this news

1:28:16

come out and then also

1:28:18

hire the guy from the

1:28:20

Chicago Blackhawks in 2010 Who

1:28:22

hasn't been in the league

1:28:24

in what four or five

1:28:26

years now Has been that

1:28:28

long yeah, I guess it

1:28:30

has yeah So,

1:28:34

yeah, I mean, I

1:28:36

don't know. The thing with

1:28:39

a lot of coaches is

1:28:41

you're looking at this going,

1:28:44

do I want to go to, do I

1:28:46

want this opportunity? And

1:28:48

clearly, as we always say, there's

1:28:50

32 jobs, somebody's gonna want

1:28:52

it. Yeah. But if you're somebody

1:28:54

with options, like a David

1:28:56

Carl. Like a David Carl, right. Like some of

1:28:58

these other guys, you're kind of looking at this going,

1:29:00

okay. The GM

1:29:03

is on You would have

1:29:05

to think very shaky ground

1:29:07

do I want to go

1:29:09

somewhere where if we have

1:29:11

one bad season the GM's

1:29:13

getting fired In which case

1:29:15

I am maybe my job

1:29:18

immediately becomes I have no

1:29:20

job security or If the

1:29:22

GM doesn't get fired We've

1:29:24

seen this guy shelf life

1:29:26

for a coach two years

1:29:28

and then he moves on

1:29:31

right so I even under

1:29:33

those circumstances, I probably maybe

1:29:35

don't get two years. Now,

1:29:37

of course, as a

1:29:39

coach, you can sit down and say,

1:29:41

I want a five -year contract to

1:29:43

mitigate some of that concern. But

1:29:46

it's tough. And

1:29:50

the Rangers are a marquee franchise, and

1:29:52

I'm sure there's lots of people who would

1:29:54

love to be in New York and

1:29:56

all of that stuff. And

1:29:58

presumably they pay really well. You

1:30:01

would have to assume yeah, but

1:30:03

I don't know that's if I'm

1:30:05

somebody who's got multiple options and

1:30:07

all these jobs are opening up

1:30:09

I don't know the Rangers are

1:30:11

at the top of my list.

1:30:13

Yeah, and again The vibe is

1:30:15

just seen insanely bad like you're

1:30:18

potentially walking into a job where

1:30:20

it's like oh, yeah, everybody on

1:30:22

the team is pissed off at

1:30:24

somebody else on the team or

1:30:26

in the organization and You got

1:30:28

to manage some like Weirdly

1:30:30

high expectations despite the fact that

1:30:33

it seems like maybe the team's

1:30:35

not very good, you know like

1:30:37

I'm not I'm not exactly psyched

1:30:39

to be taking the Rangers job

1:30:41

if like you say you have

1:30:43

other options available so and and

1:30:45

and We talked about it with

1:30:48

Vancouver, but it's the same. It's

1:30:50

the same idea. It's like you

1:30:52

want to take over the Vancouver

1:30:54

Canucks now you do okay? I

1:30:56

mean, like you say, there's only

1:30:58

32 of these jobs. So like

1:31:00

that certainly plays into it. But

1:31:03

I don't I don't know like

1:31:05

that you're getting the best and

1:31:07

brightest options, you know. Another

1:31:12

another coach that I that I think

1:31:14

might kind of work with the Rangers

1:31:16

and maybe a couple other teams, but

1:31:19

one that obviously it would be a

1:31:21

bit of a retread. If

1:31:23

we're trying to ring some points out of

1:31:25

a roster and make the goalie look good

1:31:27

and all that kind of thing John Tortorella,

1:31:30

are we thinking about it? Is

1:31:32

he on the odds list

1:31:34

that you got he was he

1:31:36

was down Yeah, he was

1:31:38

he he was far down Joe

1:31:40

quenvo, by the way was

1:31:42

on the list. Yep The

1:31:46

Tortorella is there as is Gerard

1:31:48

Galant, which I think is just sometimes

1:31:50

they throw these names in there

1:31:52

just to take your free money. But

1:31:54

the other one that Mike Peca

1:31:56

is on there, Jay Woodcroft, we've

1:31:58

kind of forgotten. And Bruce Boudreau, again, that

1:32:00

just sort of feels like, hey, we know that

1:32:02

name. So. Yeah,

1:32:05

Woodcroft is like kind of

1:32:07

the one coach that they

1:32:09

haven't tried the archetype, you

1:32:11

know what I mean? Where

1:32:13

it's. This is a young

1:32:15

guy, seems good, maybe

1:32:17

fired a little unfairly, but

1:32:19

not a ton of NHL

1:32:21

head coaching experience otherwise. That's

1:32:23

like the one archetype they

1:32:25

haven't tried. So maybe that's, and

1:32:27

I don't think that would be a bad choice for

1:32:29

them. I think he's a good coach. Although,

1:32:32

you know, it is easy to look like good

1:32:34

coach. Yeah, that he

1:32:36

hasn't been totally again after

1:32:38

I agree. And

1:32:40

again, Philadelphia. If

1:32:43

it's not talk it, you

1:32:45

wonder about Woodcroft maybe there. Yeah.

1:32:48

Well, okay. So let's just

1:32:50

go to Philadelphia then. Obviously,

1:32:53

this has been a longer

1:32:55

term coaching change. We've known

1:32:57

about this for a little

1:32:59

while now. And

1:33:02

with the news

1:33:04

that talk it, is

1:33:08

probably becoming a

1:33:10

free agent, certainly not

1:33:12

having his option

1:33:14

picked up. We're

1:33:17

just all sitting there going, okay, just

1:33:19

tell us when the press conferences will

1:33:21

be there. With

1:33:26

that having been

1:33:28

said, there's an NCAA

1:33:31

coach in the mix here,

1:33:33

but it's not necessarily David

1:33:35

Carl. Danny Brier

1:33:37

had said the other day, I'd

1:33:39

consider him an NCAA coach. Do

1:33:41

you know who the other NCAA coaches that don't

1:33:44

know any NCAA coaches. Well, you

1:33:46

know one. It's David Carl. I

1:33:49

kind of only fake that. Okay,

1:33:51

fair enough. The other

1:33:53

coach is this guy, Pat Ferschweiler,

1:33:55

who is the coach of

1:33:57

Western Michigan University, who you will

1:34:00

perhaps recall, perhaps not, that they just

1:34:02

won the national championship for the first

1:34:04

time in program history. And

1:34:06

the thing about Pat Ferschweiler

1:34:09

is he is only a first

1:34:11

year or like this is

1:34:13

his first time with an NCAA

1:34:15

head coaching gig. He's in

1:34:17

his mid 50s, I want to

1:34:19

say. And

1:34:22

he's coaching at Western, which is

1:34:24

his alma mater. And he had

1:34:26

previously, I want to

1:34:28

say, He was with

1:34:30

Derek Lalonde in Detroit,

1:34:32

maybe, as an assistant,

1:34:35

if I'm remembering right. But this

1:34:37

is the crucial part. Do

1:34:39

you know where Keith Jones went to college? I

1:34:41

was going to say, what's the connection? How

1:34:45

does Danny Birrier know this guy? When were

1:34:47

they roommates? Okay,

1:34:49

he and Keith Jones and

1:34:51

Pat Ferschweiler. I don't know if

1:34:53

I said his name. I

1:34:55

forget already but Pat Ferschweiler is

1:34:58

the coach's name and he

1:35:00

and Keith Jones were on Western

1:35:02

Michigan together in this in

1:35:04

the 80s Or 90s, I guess

1:35:06

it would have been right. Mm

1:35:09

-hmm. Well, whatever a long

1:35:11

time ago. They were on

1:35:13

Western together and Keith Jones

1:35:15

in fact Keith

1:35:17

Jones, um Was at the

1:35:19

national championship game Presumably partly

1:35:22

in his role as the

1:35:24

GM of the or the

1:35:26

president of the Flyers, but

1:35:28

Perhaps more pointedly because he

1:35:30

went to Western and was

1:35:32

really happy to see his

1:35:34

alma mater win a national

1:35:37

championship they also For people

1:35:39

who are not keeping up

1:35:41

with this sort of thing

1:35:43

They also just signed a

1:35:45

guy from the from Western,

1:35:47

Michigan to play for the

1:35:49

Flyers So further connections And

1:35:52

so I I kind of

1:35:54

love the opinion if it's

1:35:56

not Rick talk it it

1:35:58

will be Pat first whiler

1:36:00

and not David Carl. Okay

1:36:02

But I think we all

1:36:04

agree that it's most likely