Hey. Steve Dangle podcast.

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Steve Dangle, Adam Wild and Jesse Blake.

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There you go. Up until June first. Guys, I have some crazy stats given the weekend that the least had. The first one, obviously, is we're talking about all time points, all time goals. These things are starting to come up because Matthews and Marner and some of these guys are at a spot in their career where you're starting to see them pass a lot of leaf legends. Do you know who passed two on the all times points list last night?

No.

Jesse, any thoughts?

Was it Willy?

It was Ryan Reeves passing nick Patan on the leafs all time points list. Ryan Reeves has six points now compared to nick Patan's five at the Leifs.

When did he get a point last night?

I think it was The Comp goal.

See, when I saw it on NHL. Com, it was unassisted, which I thought was crap.

I think that's been amended. Yeah? Yes. Good. It should be. I believe that's been amended. It's funny. He set it up. The day after a game, sometimes the The sites you go to for stats have not been updated yet, so you're never sure. Maybe he's still tied with nick Matan. He could be. Maybe this is just a simulation. The race goes on.

How soon until he catches Dennis Malligan?

Before the game, a real stat that you might actually be interested in. Austin Matthews started the game with only sixth even strength goals to go before becoming the Leifs all-time leader. He's now at four even strength goals to go before becoming the Leifs all-time leader. Who is number one?

I mean...

Actually, four before it becomes the all-time, three before he ties it.

I would assume Matt Sundeen.

And you would be correct. Yeah. Do you have any idea how many even strength goals Matt Sandine had.

He had 420 as a leaf.

Blaze it.

Blaze it and all that. 369.

273. Holy It's a shit. So Matt Sandine, power play merchant. Maybe not as good as-That's a lot of power play goals. That's a lot of power play goals. Wow. Yeah, 124 power play goals as a leaf. He did that over 981 games as a leaf. That's a lot of power play.

I never would have guessed that.

Matthews has 270 even strength goals in his career in 554 games as a leaf. So it's like he's played 55% of the games that Sandine has, and he's about to pass them in even strength.

He's the best leaf ever. It's really Really not close to be the first guy to score 60 and then do it again two years later. The first player... Or no, the most multi-goal games in a single season in 30 years in the NH gel. And you look at the guys who he's on the list with. It's Lemu, it's Gretsky, it's Bernie Nichols, it's Pavel Burre.

Mike Boss, he's on there.

It's absurd. It's absolutely absurd. This is the best leaf who's ever played in a really, really, really difficult to win Stanley Cups in. Everyone is always going to have that playoff, Yeah, but what have you done for me lately? But regular season, no one's close.

Here's a stat that's useless, but still really impressive.

I want it.

You can't apply this stat, but you can appreciate it. Greg, G-Hod, 29, is his name. G-h-o-d 29. Got it. G-hod. I know how it sounds. Goals of players drafted since 2006.

2006, so 10 years before Matthews was drafted.

Stamkos, 545 goals. Cain, Patrick, 468 goals. Tavares, 451. Kessel, 413. Marshan, 399. Ben, 380. Tays, 372. Matthews, 359. And Matthews was nine years old in half of the six.

All of those guys were drafted so long before him. Oh, my God, that's ridiculous.

Yeah. And I think Matthews has the most goals since 2010. He didn't enter the lead till 2016.

That's absolutely absurd.

Yeah. It really is like you're watching history. And what was cool was the reaction by Lee fans last night or this weekend and that thing. The reaction has been just like full-blown celebration in the seats.

Every goal is history. Every goal is a franchise record. Yesterday, he posed with the two pucks. I'm like, Why is he? Oh, that's the new record.

Yeah. Each time now, he has to take over the puck because you never know where he's going to finish. So that last puck has to be the record puck. It's fun to see the fans. It's a new thing to sneak in the numbers, the bubble numbers. Both games, they did that, which was fun to see. And just on your Ryan Reeve's thing, Ryan Reeve He did not register an assist last night. The last time he registered an assist was the Washington game. Wow.

Yeah. Damn.

Your stat was correct.

I got April fooled. But does Ryan Reeves have six points this year? And this is the question. No, he's only got five. So he's tied. The nick Patan, Ryan Reeve's watch is on, though. Is that fair to say? It's on.

Has he already passed him?

No, he's got five points. He's got five points. Okay. So one more point.

nick Patan had six?

Yeah. Okay. No, nick Patan had five, so they're tied.

He almost had six, but Marc-Andre Fleury got in the way. That's right.

nick Patan is possibly one of the most consequential leafs in the entire franchise history, and five total points with them. Isn't that crazy?

I want someone to make that domino meme of nick Patan gets stopped by Marc-André Fleury, and then it's the huge domino of Austin Matthews becomes the greatest leaf of all time. It's absurd. It's absolutely ridiculous.

62, man. Leaps go into the game last night, and this is the Florida game is a test. They go into the game missing Marner, Reilly, Lilligran, Yarn Croke, and Edmondson. And if you want to be particular about it, and James Myrtle did, Klingberg, too. Which James, come I may or may not be in a group chat with James Myrtle, and we were all like, James.

Because if you go there, then- What is that? They're also missing Jake Muzzen. They're also missing Matt Murray. That doesn't make much sense. It's got to be someone else.

Keep it going. Alex Steves, he's out within the minors. Keep it going.

But those are fairly key pieces. It was really an interesting We'll talk about Buffalo later, but I want to talk about Florida because the Florida game is more important. Paul Maurice started off the press conference, his media availability. I want to give Paul Maurice a lot of credit because there's guys like Torz who will roll through town and not do it in Toronto because they're doing their grumpy coach thing. Paul Maurice- I can't wait to get to him later, though. Paul Maurice holds court, and much like John Cooper, who also does this, directs the narrative. So whatever Paul Maurice he says in Toronto before a game, you know is going to be the thing that they talk about that night pregame. He's very good at going, Here's the tone. And all he said, and he led his players completely off the hook, and I really liked this for him, was he said, And if we play these guys in two weeks, no one's going to remember this game. He's right. However, if you looked at last night's game from a Toronto, Maple East perspective, maybe Florida doesn't look at it that way. I think they do.

If you look at it as anything else other than this is a bit of a measuring stick game, I don't know what to tell you. This is a game you get up for.

I mean, there's something up for grabs here. I thought for sure, no matter what the score was, a leaf was leaving that game injured. It was a uncharacteristically...

Clean game?

Clean game. There weren't as many scrums as you'd expect. They highlighted it throughout the intermissions, the Leaps were killing the Panthers along the boards, killing them. Then the Panthers showed up in the third. I guess the one thing the Panthers could have done with the very least the fans is by the end of the game, you have at least so Bome the seeds of doubt or whatever. No, this is what we actually play like. But Home Ice is unlikely, but it's still up for grabs. If you have any aspirations of home ice in the first round, you have to beat these guys in that game.

Currently, the Leaps have a game in hand on the Panthers and are four points back. Four points seems like a lot, and it also seems like a little. You know what I mean? In the NHL terms, making up four points and passing somebody, which is really six points.

There's not a lot of runway. No.

Not a lot of runway. 75 games for the Panthers, 74 for the Leaps. Forget Home Lice because I don't know. I mean, it hasn't really been a thing for the Leaps in the past. I want to ask you guys.

They had it last year.

Yeah. I want to ask you guys, what do you think the Leaps draw from a game like this because they did beat the Florida Panthers. That is a big deal. They did outplay them for 40 of 60 minutes. That is a big deal. And not just outplay them, really ran them over.

We have depth scoring. Our penalty kill doesn't completely stink, and we're not Wimps anymore. The Leaves played for all the talk of snot, snot, snot. They played like Wimps at the beginning of the season. They did.

I'll tell the Boston game when they got chewed out by the general manager.

Yeah, No, but remember, there was a game we were at a restaurant for, and it was against the Panthers. The Panthers ran them out of the building in the first period. Samsonov actually played pretty well. He was the only reason the game was even close, and the Panthers just kicked their ass up and down the ice. And those games, they don't happen very often anymore. Now, what we're starting to see... So there's two games in recent memory where the Leaps have taken a big lead and nearly blown it. But you look at the final score and you go, whatever, they won. And they got a bunch of goals. Edmonton, they almost blew that. I mean, it was five, nothing. It was five, three then. But the Leaps were by far the more physical team. You could make at You can make the argument that the Leaps were the more physical team than Florida in this one. At very least, they kept pace with Florida, which is something after watching last year's series, I couldn't even fathom. Couldn't even fathom. But I mean, maybe that's all overthinking it. And the biggest revelation for the least this season has been depth scoring.

They have the most goals in the NHL since January first.

150 total now. Jesse, what do you think?

It's not that the games remaining are inconsequential, but they don't really mean much. I think both teams want to get healthy and get into the playoffs all healthy. You look at the schedule, you got eight games left. You're not looking at this Florida matchup being like, game one of the playoffs is tonight. We got to beat them up to get into the playoffs. No, you want to come out of that Matthews not have a wrist injury and William Neiller not to break a leg. You want to just be healthy by the time the playoffs roll around. You want to be playing good hockey for sure, because a lot of the time, good teams in the playoffs just have good momentum heading in. But I think it's just stay healthy, get everybody back in the lineup. Do your fundamentals that you've been doing all season to get you this point and just play out the rest of the games.

The points matter. It's very odd. The points matter, but the games, every game in a vacuum.

No.

You can't- Whatever. I'm getting up for a game like that.

I'm getting up for it?

Sure. You get up for every game. You got up for game one, you get up for game 82. But in terms of our destiny for the playoffs, we got to focus on that right now.

Sportsnet did a good job yesterday, pointing out that last night was almost the exact same date a year later, that the Panthers came to town, Leaps kicked their ass, And Paul Maurice chewed them out. And do you remember when... I think the Panthers were in Ottawa to play the sends, and Keith Kchuck went on the radio, and he called the Panthers Soft.

I do remember that.

Which was an outright lie.

And it was in Toronto. It was in Toronto? Yes. He called them soft the day before they were going to play in Toronto on Toronto radio.

And it was a lie. I remember saying at the time it was a lie. I'm like, this is one of the toughest teams in the league. But it was a challenge. It was a challenge to give more. And the Florida Panthers played so much harder than basically anyone, that whole playoff run, and basically all through the season. They rode that challenge for nearly a calendar year so far. So them losing that game last night, I don't think they're losing sleep over it.

Your memory is very good, Steve, because last year, the Maple East beat up the Florida Panthers at the end of the season. Did you know that they beat them up three times at the end of last season? No. They played them three times in the span of about 10 games, and each time, the Toronto Maple East beat the Florida Panthers. And what ended up happening in the playoffs. Oh, it was it.

The Leaps lost in five games.

And during that stretch, the Florida Panthers were one of the hottest teams in hockey who were fighting for their playoffs lives. And the least went in there and they beat them 6-2 on the exact date as March 23rd. And Going to the playoffs, you're like, Man, we beat this team. We got their number. It didn't matter. What matters is when you get to the playoffs, how you're playing then that day.

To Maurice's point, the Leaps beat them three times in 10 games, and nobody remembers. They remember the second one. I didn't remember that.

The Leaps have another game against them.

You're a savant for that. You remember every game. I don't remember anything else.

Maddie, if you want to bring it up here.

I've called my own daughter the wrong name.

The game '72. This recently is this past week. Game '72, the Leaps beat the Florida Panthers 6 to 2. Game '75, the Leaps beat the Florida Panthers 3 to 2 in overtime. Game 75, The Leaps beat the Florida Panthers, 3:00 to 2:00 in overtime. Game 81, The Leaps beat the Florida Panthers, 2:00 to 1:00 in overtime. That's a team who- No, they lost. This is the Florida Panthers schedule. Oh, sorry. And this was a team who in between the Toronto Maple Leaps games... Sorry, they won this game, 3:00 to 2:00 in overtime. It's two and one versus Toronto Maple Leaps. In between that, there were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, six games in a And then the Leaves come in, and they beat them in overtime. And what ended up happening didn't mean anything. The Florida Panthers went to Stanley Cup final, and the least didn't.

So the Panthers lose their last two games. They pick up the one point. All the penguins had to do was beat the damn Chicago Blackhawks. And they flubbed it. They screwed it up. They lost, and that allowed the Panthers to get in. And they went all the way to the Cup final. They won a game in the Cup final. Three games away from a Stanley Cup. That's the closest they've ever been to it.

My bad. It was two wins the Maple leaves had one OTL against the Panthers. Two is bigger than one.

Yeah.

There you go. Well, even so, right? That's such an interesting thing because, again, Listen, I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to enjoy this because obviously, we have Matthews getting '61 and '62. By the way, only, I believe, Matthew's second empty net goal of the year.

Yes, and they've both come within his last, I think, five goals.

Which is wild. Yeah. Happy to see him get that. The second thing is I want to talk about this kid line. Sheldon Keef has put this together in an article this morning in the Athletic Josh Club. He dives a little bit deeper into it. He's talking about the fact that if you see Robertson-Nies and Holmberg out there, they're the third line right now. They won't be forever. But Keef is getting them ready for injuries in the playoffs. You guys might be playing together, and he's putting them out there in situations that they're not comfortable in, that they probably won't succeed in, and letting them work through it.

That's another reason why I wasn't totally dismayed by the Leaps giving up the lead a little bit there. Listen, Tarasenko is going to snipe on you every now and then. Sam Bennett is going to be able to tuck in a greasy one in front of the net every now.

Reinhardt is going to score.

No, but that goal can't go in.

Well, no, nobody had him. No one had him. He had his assignment, and so did McKee.

No, that wasn't when Ryan Reeves was out.

No, that was the two minutes left or whatever it was.

No, he's Everyone in the arena can see he's there. And even his own player, I don't remember who set him up, was like, he shouldn't be this far open. He shouldn't be this wide open.

The leaves are puck watching.

Yeah, but he's smacking his stick on the ice. And I'm like, you can't even hear that?

He's right there. Yeah. Well, you could see Nye's put his head up to the sky afterwards. I blew that. It's Sam Reinhardt. Yeah. But also, I want to say that McKay Brodie Macabre essentially pushed Brody over to his side. Did you see that? Yes.

He actually- Jesse's got it up on the screen.

Pushed off him, but doesn't turn around and go, is there anybody else here?

Yeah. No, I mean, Like, Jessie, yeah, put that screen cap up. That's frigging gross. It's just not good. And there weren't many times last night where you could say that's not good. Like, look at- Yeah.

All five guys.

Dude, that sucks.

So you want to describe for people listening.

So when you're looking at the audio part of this, or when you're listening to the audio part of this, I want you to imagine that there's a Florida Panthers player behind the net. There are five leaves down low, relatively in position, although I'd like to see a guy high.

Shout out nick Robertson for actually making body contact with a guy.

Yeah. Tj Brodie is trying to attack the player behind the net. Mccabe has just pushed him over, and McCabe is standing in front of Sammie for no reason at all, looking at the puck. Nye is looking at the puck. He's just a little bit higher. Robertson is in the center position, making body contact, as Steve says, looking at the puck, and Holmberg is covering nobody and doing really nothing in one hand on his stick because it's Holmberg. I guess the only thing I can think there is Holmberg is trying to take away the stick of the guy in the high slot in case the pass gets through, Broly.

Sure. Not Nye's and Mekabe. Like, dude, three on five.

And look at Mekabe reaching there. He's trying to reach.

It's three on five.

Yeah. Mekabe thought he was defending the pass that was coming around the back of the net, but he wasn't doing that at all.

I don't know. It's someone... That's one of those ones where... I mean, I'm sure Sheldon Keef and his staff know who should have had who there. But in absence of a system, I don't know, just look around you and count.

There's five of you. You have everything you need.

All of you have a stick. You have everything you need. It's like the Leaps in the Centennial Classic. They had the 401 lead. They blew it to Detroit. But that was Babcock being stubborn as well. Because he put the kids out with the final minute. It was Matthews and a very young Zack Hyman, and I can't remember who they were playing with, maybe Neilander. He put them in a situation that he wouldn't usually put them in. But he's like, All right, go out there and lock it down. Learn. And they couldn't. They ended up winning it in overtime. But better to do it now.

Yeah. It feels a lot more like practice than there's something on the line here. It feels like Sheldon He's like, Hey, you might have to be in this scenario come playoff time. Let's try it now when the game isn't that consequential.

So you have their roster up right now from Daily Face Off. Someone asked me last night. They're like, Mitch Marner comes back in the lineup. Where does he go?

Domi slot.

Yeah, but then where does Domi go?

Third line center.

Okay, well, then where does Holmberg go?

To the right wing.

Okay, so you would do Bertuzzi Matthews Marner, McMant, Tavares, Nylander, Nye, Domi, Holmberg, Duhre, Camp Reeves. Yeah.

I think Robertson is probably the odd man out.

Which is crazy because he has two goals. Two goals, twelve goals.

Robertson's breakaway was amazing last night. But again, and this is why trading him is a bad idea. He's great. It's so stupid. He's going to score 20 goals next year. That's what I think.

He's a restricted free agent. Keep him.

But I don't understand. Here's the thing, guys. It has been better since he was sent down to the Marleys. Of course. Of taking care of the buck in the neutral zone and the defensive zone. But you see it. You do see it from time to time where it's like, oh, Nicholas. I know.

Pressure makes Dimons.

And I feel like he's responding to that. I mean, he scored, Nye scored. I think, if I'm not mistaken- Camp. Yeah, camp score, but I'm just talking about the kid line here. I believe between the three of them, they had five points last night. I believe it. That's a good line in a pinch if you need it. But I do think I'm with you on that. I think the emergence of Ryan Reeves and how well he's played- As a usable player.like he's played well in non-fighting situations.

Some situations This has been instructive for me for how to handle LFR going forward, because I obviously get really jacked up. That's my gig.

It's my personality. What's the term the kids are using? You crash out?

Is that it?

That's the new term for when you go crazy. I'm just so old. I'm so old. You crash out a lot, Steve Dangle.

I crash out. See, that to me means tired.

No, no. It's like when Steve and I Smith goes on a rant, that means he crashed out. He's crashing out.

Okay. It's back in my day, sick meant you had the flu. I had a case of the measles. No, but last year, through 10 games, 15 games, Calleigh Yarn Croke sucked. He was not good. They couldn't put him in a position where it made any sense. He didn't even look good on the fourth line. And then one day, they're like, I don't know, put him on left wing. And he was good and continued to be good and has been good ever since. It took him a while to get used to being a leaf and to fit in. Ryan Reeves. Oh, my God, was he horrible. Tyler Bertuzzi. What a disappointment. Max Domi. Got some assists. You're not hit the broad side of a barn. Who else am I forgetting in there? And then the one non-new guy. I mean, Klingberg doesn't count, but the One non-new guy who is just back from the dead is Ilyas Hamzinov.

The best goal tender in international hockey. Probably.

Probably, definitely.

Last night was amazing.

You see who? I don't know. Igor, who? Which Igor am I talking to? It doesn't matter. But just when it comes to new guys, I have a new appreciation for how long it takes to get acclimated to a new team. I almost feel like it's easier to get acclimated to a new team when you get traded there at the trade deadline, because we've seen guys come in and fit in pretty well. Connor We were struggled at times.

I think looking better, though.

Looking better. But, man, some of the guys they've got in recent memory have started horribly. But, wow, wow. This team would be nowhere without any of those guys. Maybe Ryan Reeves is an exaggeration.

Domi Bertuzzi, I think, is the-Domi Bertuzzi is so huge.

But one thing I always said about the Zdeno Chara, Boston Bruins, is they had enablers. Like, yeah, you got rats and everything, but you guys who enable the rats. People always talk about, Oh, the rats are taking over the game. No, the best rats are on teams that still have goons. Zdeno Charha, obviously not a goon, but well into his 40s, no one wanted that problem. No one wanted to open that door. And behind every Domi Scrum and Bertuzzi Scrum and McCabe getting in your face a little bit and all these other guys.

Nies did something with witch defense. Nico Michela. Yeah.

Big hug. Yeah, but at the end of the day, you go after Matthew Nies or you fight Matthew Nies or you go after anyone, you might have to open the Reeves door, and no one really wants to do it. And all these potential playoff lineups where you got to take someone out and put Marner in, you got to take someone out and put Yarn Croke in. I haven't really seen anyone take Reeves out of that lineup. If they make it in the Stanley Cup final, everyone's perfectly healthy. Is he going to play? I don't know.

Well, did he play along the way? Yeah, exactly. You would stick whatever lineup got you three wins in a playoff round.

We're also way too caught up in the game one lineup.

Of these playouts? Yeah, that's going to switch so many times.

If the Leaps were to go on a run, even if they were to play a single seven-game series, Robertson very likely plays at least one game.

I think they have so many bodies that even on defense, you're going to see them try a lot of stuff. We might see 11 and seven. We might see a whole bunch of forwards coming in and out. They're going to be messing with these lines because that's what Keef does. To his fault, and he's very much like Babcock in that way, where they can't pick a lineup and stick with it. They love just trying different stuff.

So here's the incredible thing. Marner comes back, Yarn Crow comes back. You go 11, seven. You're taking out a whole forward line from last You're taking out... Who's not playing? Probably Robertson, probably Holmberg. Now you got to take someone else out.

It's probably Reeves. Unless it's Duhre, then. Then it's Connor Duhre. But it's Duhre or Reeves, right?

But you got Duhre to help you with the penalty kill, right?

Yeah. So I'd say it's probably Reeves.

Nize has had some really good moments recently, but part of me looks at the roster and I go, What if it's him? Well, dude, it's a surprisingly It was a really deep team.

Nye was-I'm pretty happy with it. For me, Nye was too effective last year in the playoffs to remove him. Yes, I agree. I think he was way too important in the playoffs. And when he went down in the playoffs-Oh, it killed him. They failed. They died.

They died. Who would have known that? The Florida Panthers targeted him.

Exactly. They had to get him out of the series. Exactly. And who knew this college guy just coming in is going to have this effect on the line? So I don't think there's a way you could scratch Nye.

Year in and year out, depth scoring has been a problem for the in the playoffs. Yeah, they had O'Reilly, yeah, they had O'Reilly. Yeah, they had Achari. But there was something about just having that kid that gave them the little extra boost. And the second you took him out of the equation, they never found an adequate replacement. No. Never. So, dude, listen, I'm a Lee fan. I have my natural reservations and defense mechanisms and all that. They've looked really good for months now.

Well, I want to talk about this because I think they have the second or third most wins since January first in the entire league, which is pretty... I think it's 25 wins. Yes. The turn of the year, which is amazing. And that's good and good for them. Again, it doesn't mean anything. Just get into the playoffs, right?

Wins since January first. Carolina Huracanes at Emerson Oilers, tied with 27. Leaps of 26. The Panthers, Stars, and Rangers are all tied with 25.

So that's good company to be in. One thing I want to mention is Ilya Labushkin. This guy has changed. They did a good job without Morgan Reilly there. There's no question. When he was suspended, everybody thought, Oh, boy, this is going to be a really tough five-game stretch for them. Undefeated. So according to Corsi HL, Ilya Labushkin has been on the ice for just four five-on-five goals in the 12 games since he was traded to the Leaps. A 50 7.9 expected goals for, a 69.2 % expected goals for percentage in that span as well.

Man, that's crazy.

What that's essentially saying is he's winning the time that he's on the ice. Dan, that's crazy. Here's what's interesting. With Simon Benoît, with Elia Labushkin, both coming from a terrible team, right?

Yeah. Which terrible team?

The Ducks. And Klingberg, too, to be fair.

Although Klingberg- Oh, Labushkin was on another... The Sabers. Anyway, Can we continue?

They had a lot of people concerned because it's like, Oh, man, their advanced statistical numbers are not great. And yet they've come in and been two of the most steady defensemen the least have. Why are you talking to me? Are you making fun of me here?

How many times do I have to teach you this lesson, old man? Dude, once again, you take a guy from of the worst team in the NHL and you put him on a pretty good team.

But that's not the same with everybody. No, it's not. That is not the same. You're right. Not everybody can do that. That's why oftentimes they're playing on the worst teams. It's like that's the place where they can get a job.

I think there's a lack of trust with Ryan Reeves. Ryan Reeves, sorry. There's a lack of trust with Brad Tra living over guys like Ryan Reeves and John Klingberg.

And also, I think people rightfully question what happened in Calgary the last couple of years. A A hundred %. Now, I think the owner's got something to do with that. It's not like Brad Tra living was even allowed to hire the coach he wanted.

But it's funny how perception changes because the perception with Brad Tra living has quickly become the bigger the better. He likes just big mean trolls with clubs and just go out there.

Just six Bam Bams on defense.

But then I look at the flames of the past few years and I'm like, Are we talking about the same Brad? The team that Noah Hanifin and Oliver Shillington went out and he got-Rasmus Anderson. Rasmus Anderson.

Mackenzie Wigar. Mackenzie Wigar.

These are all guys who can do stuff with the fuck. What are you? That That's it? We're just going to go out there and have six Elia Labushkins?

I don't think that's what they're trying to do, but I do think that he identified-Of course not. I think he identified that the Leaps have a weakness. I don't want you to look at his screen. The Leifs had a in toughness and in size on the back end. The snot thing that the true living is talking about, Benoît and Labushkin have brought that. I think that what's been amazing is how much better they... I understand if somebody's like, Okay, your advanced numbers are terrible, at least from the publicly available numbers. I know what... Jessie and I once got a snapshot of what-Oh, I've seen. Yeah, what Megan Shaker's group, especially. She ran us through some stuff.

Mine was a different look.

And holy, holy crap. What they know about these players, we are... Whatever is published publicly, just trust me, there's so much more.

That's why when you see consolidated information of public stats, it's like even that is like, eh. It's not that reliable. There's so much more depth that NHL teams actually have. And from team to team, it's also proprietary information. So the Lefs do their own in-house analytics versus the coyotes, and they have different stats that they track as well. We have no idea what these teams have data on.

I'd love to hear the story, and I know this is super niche, of how that management group came to the decision that these two guys, especially Benoît and Labushkin, were the guys. Because ultimately, it didn't cost them much to get either of them. Benoît's numbers were so bad, quote unquote, that Anaheim didn't even qualify him. All they had to do was qualify him.

See, the impression I got from Elliott Freeman's retelling of that whole saga is he was just like, Here's my number. And Anaheim went, No.

But they could have qualified him and retained his rights.

They didn't want to. Now, that I don't understand. Now, at what point At what point do you go, Oh, well, they're not very good at this? At what point do you stop trusting them?

Well, I don't blame them for the Bush deal, but I do think the Benoît one's a flub, right?

No, at what point are What point are the Ducks just not very good at this whole building a good hockey team thing?

It's not looking great.

It's not looking great. They have some good future pieces, but it's been miserable for years now. At what point do we look at that and go, Oh, that's the consistent problem here?

Yeah, the Leaps keep calling them. Hey, if you identify a bad general manager, pick up the phone and call them.

And I'm not saying Pat Verbeek is that. I'm just saying his team consistently sucks I think the jury is out. A lot.

We'll put it that way. Jesse, I want to bring this up because this was a big deal, and I think this was such a nice celebration of Austin Matthews. Steve, put those monacles on.

Pat Verbeek has only been in his job since 2022. I don't know how much you can blame Pat for being gone.

Well, the guy before him, I wasn't a big fan of, I have to be honest, but he's gone now. Matthews, the eight guys that showed up in Buffalo, bought seats, or is that seven? And then snuck in the balloons for 60 goals because these are the guys that had the 60 goal balloons.

Oh, the same guys?

Same guys. Matthew's on their T-shirts.

That's my question. Did they blow up a balloon in their seat? Yes. I love it.

Which is cool, right?

I love it. It's a little bit more wholesome than the guys I saw at the Jay's game a few years ago with the Billy Cotch. Oh, yeah. A little bit more wholesome. Dude, that's awesome. We've seen Lee fans invade Buffalo before. I don't think we've ever seen it quite like that.

No. And if it was, it has been for a long time.

This has been going on since the history of the Sabers. You go down there, you get a little cheaper tickets, you invade the arena. But now that they're bad, it's been a little bit worse.

Well, I went to a leaf Sabers game when the leaves were bad, and it was majority Sabers fans because, well, Sabers weren't very good either. But the leaves were dog-ass. They were so terrible. There was at one point, they tried to do a dueling chance thing, which I love. It's one of my favorite things.

But it was like, Let's get the saber. Go, let's go, Saber.

It wasn't close.

This isn't a new phenomenon, though. I don't know. People were shocked that this happened. I'm like, It's not a disaster for Buffalo. The Toronto fans have been doing this for decades.

No, but I was like, trying to find savers.

But it did. When the Lefs were lighting the savers up and having a really good game, which they didn't the last time, they were terrible against the savers and usually are pretty bad against the savers. In Buffalo, especially. The Lefs fans that went down and bought the tickets were rewarded, and it felt a little like a home game. And even Mike Harrington, who's a well-known Buffalo sports writer, said, and he tweeted that picture, by the way, that we just showed before warmups. That wasn't... Matthews hadn't scored 60 goals yet.

Well, I noticed the people on the bench didn't look like savers.

And he said, Frankly, it's sickening. This organization only has itself to blame Lee fans represent. He's right.

He's right. No, good on him for... A lot of people go meh, about that thing. But it's the Saber's fault. They've been bad for a very long time.

What was the last time they made the playoffs? '11?

It was over 10 years ago. I think, yeah, we talked about this recently.

2010 or 2011. You guys have the shortest memory. You did this last episode.

I know. Was it last episode?

Yeah, I remember.

That's a whole four days. I was talking about how they have the longest playoff drought streak for North American pro sports, tied with the Jets. Goes back 12 seasons now.

The New York Jets. Yeah. This is how I forget things, Jesse.

That was on Thursday.

That was a long time ago, man.

I think I look at that and I go, I feel for Saber's fans because I know what futility feels like. You know what I mean? When your ownership group is disinterested and you care so much about this team and they, for some reason, can't. It was like when the teacher's pension plan owned the Leaps. It was one of the worst... People talk about Harold Ballard being a bad owner, and he was. But the League... But he at least, was a hateable guy. The pension plan was literally just a... It's private equity coming in and going, We're buying this, and don't bother us. You can have your gripes about Rodgers and Bell, but at the very least, they want the team to win because it's good for their stock price. So this team, this era, this happens because the pension plan goes, Well, you could make some good money here, and sold their shares, thank God.

We've been talking about if the leaves have a lack of success, like, Brandon Chanahan is going to go. But I imagine what he pulls out of his bag of tricks every time is, here's a chart of how much money I made you in 2017. Okay, remember the centennial? And I actually built you a team out of nothing. Here it is. This is why you don't fire me because that's what I'm capable of.

He's been good at turning a profit for Rodgers & Bell.

Oh, yeah. Larry.

Oh, yeah.

And I know it's the least. People want to watch a winner. They'll pay more for a winner. Yeah.

A lot of the thing about pro sports is, is your owner trying to win or is your owner just trying to stay competitive so they got all the playoff dates and everybody comes to the arena every now and again? That's the gripe you have with a fan about your owners. Are they Are they just trying to win or are they just trying to hold fort for a decade and a half so that we just keep churning out a competitive team, but we might not necessarily win, but we might be in it, but we're going to the playoff. That's the disappointing part. They're just trying to do that.

The thing with the pagoulas is they've done such a great job with the bills. You wonder, you can't even accuse them of that, Jesse. You can't even accuse them of keeping the team relatively competitive so people will come. Right.

I think the pagoulas are trying.

Dude, they have three top five picks on their decor. They shouldn't still be losing.

I think just the process has been off. Whoever is in charge of the general managers that they've had over the years just haven't done a good job. But I think the owners want to win.

Who was the GM when Jack Eichel was drafted and he was still upset? Tim something. Glasses.

Tim.

You know what I'm talking?

Glasses.

Glasses guy who was just so upset to be getting Jack Eichel, not Conor McDade.

He looked a little bit like Ron Swanson if he didn't have a mustache. Yes. I forget.

That guy.

Tim.

That was bad. That was a bad era.

Well, yeah, but that's Tim. What do you expect from Tim? Tim.

Tim Murray? Tim Murray.

Is that how you're thinking of it?

I don't think it was.

Click it. I want to see.

He looked a little bit like a-No, it's Tim Murray.

What do you mean? Are you sure? Who do you want? Was it Jason Botero?

Well, that wasn't good either. Jason Botero.

But it's Tim Murray.

It goes Darcy.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's him. That's the guy.

Yeah, Tim Murray. Reguera was a bit of a legend. Tim Murray stunk.

Yeah, Darsy Reguera was the one who took the Stanley Cup final. Yeah.

And then who was the next guy? The other guy. Jason Bottero. Jason Botterwell was not a good hic for that either.

Not good. All three of those general managers, zero playoff appearances. Not even a sniff.

Hey, I just want to say this, too. To add to that-I bet it's all their fault. It's a stat. It's probably a little.

I mean, a little.

No one forced them to go on.

Who are you blaming?

People who sign their checks. Here's some money to burn. Wow. And they just set it on fire.

Somebody put them in charge and said, Hey, make right decisions. And they made poor decisions. Right.

Be better at identifying the right people to spend your money.

Kevin Adams, I think, has done really good things for the organization, but they need Tate Thompson to be healthy. They need their goal tenders to come in. Like, UPL has been good. They need Devon Levi to be also good because you need a tandem goalie because goalies are babies now from the entire city of New Jersey.

I deserve a smack.

Yeah.

I deserve a smack. Right on the peak. If this is how you smack, just wham.

No, but Seriously.

There's weird stages to the rebuild. There's we can't win any games rebuild. Let's just watch the young guys rebuild. Then there's the most frustrating part of the rebuild, which the Sabers are in. We can make the playoffs if Everything goes right.

That's also Ottawa.

That is also Ottawa. And I do genuinely believe they can make the playoffs if everything goes right. Did everything go right?

No. Does anything ever always go right?

It's so rare. It's so incredibly rare. And you know what? The devil's going to make the playoffs this year.

I don't even think the devil's needed everything to go right to make the playoffs this year.

No, but they needed to not have a significant injury to Jack Hughes when he was scoring three points game. Yeah.

And I think Jake Allen and whoever else they get to play with Jake Allen this summer, I hope it's Markstrom because that would be a fun pairing. They'd be scary. That's a good team. We all know that's a good team. And I think everybody knows that Buffalo is a good team. I'm not as convinced about the senators. In fact, I'm not convinced at all. I think that at least the Buffalo savers have shown character in the last half of this year, climbing themselves back into an outside shot of making the playoffs. The senators have done nothing. They are a wet fart right now. No. They're goal-to-next terrible.

This has nothing to do with the Ottawa senators.

I know. There's a whole thing about the Ottawa senators having the talent on their roster to make the playoffs.

August and March Stanley Cup winners.

August Cup winners. They are every year. And listen, I get it from the talent perspective, but this mix of guys, it's over. You got to make it-Oh, wow. You got to... No, no.

Wow, wow, wow.

No, you didn't. Over? Steve, you're making a big move this time. Adam. K'chuck is staying. Juru, you would expect to stay. Are you trading Getting Batherson. I think Stutzl is staying. Corpusallo is stapled to you for the next four years after this one. What are you going to do here? Chikrin wants out.

They're catching strays for no reason.

I don't understand.

They deserve it. The team has been-I don't understand.

The point I was trying to make is there comes a stage in your rebuild where you've assembled a good team and you will make the playoffs if everything goes right. Everything goes right so rarely.

Can I give you guys a stat? Give me a second. Yeah. A little Jessie find. Since 2013, 2014, no team, besides the two expansion teams, has won less games than the Buffalo savers. They have 324 wins. That is 30th in the NHL since 2013, 2014. The fun part about this stat, the Vegas Golden Nights are 17 wins away from passing them.

Oh my God!

Wow. So that means they got to have 450, 500 losses in that.

They are 324 and 431. The Vegas Golden Nights are 308 and 172 and 49. So if The Vegas Golden Nights pick up whenever they're plus 17 in the win column versus the Buffalo Sabers, they will pass them in the wins total since the '13, '14 season.

Hey, Matty, can you bring that back up again that quick? How about Detroit has not been good either?

I have Detroit.

Detroit has just a few more wins than the Arizona Coyotes in that same time frame. That's rough. You know what? Because I grew up in the nick Lindstrom era, it's hard for me to believe that Detroit could ever be bad, but they've been bad for a while.

Boy, there is a gap between the Sabers, Coyotes, and everybody else.

Yeah.

Wow. That is a crazy stat, Jossy.

I feel for Buffalo Sabre's fan base because no fan base has experienced this much losing in, I don't know, a long time in the NHL. I don't remember a team having this bad of a 12-year stretch of futility. Twelve years? Yeah. No one had more losses than them since '13, '14.

I'm just thinking maybe who are some really bad expansion teams that came in in the late '60s or the late '70s? You think about the WHA teams came in and actually held their own. The oilers were good, the whalers weren't bad, the jets weren't California Seals. Yeah, but who lasted? 12 years. The Pittsburgh Penguins are the one that come to mind. Their first 25 years are horrific. Really long time. What I would like to ask today's media and fans is, how would you feel about a guy like Mario Lemu coming into the league in a 32-team league and not making the playoffs for six years? You'd be questioning something.

No one's going to want to watch Conor Bidart do that.

Right. But in a '21 team league, Mario still didn't make the playoffs his first six years. That's how bad the Penguins were. And did anyone blame Mario?

They were bad. What's that? Did anyone blame Mario?

Is what I wanted to know. What about his compete level? Maybe he just didn't want it. Maybe you learned to want it in year seven.

Maybe he needs to be a student of the game.

That was a great Dave Poulain story he told on TSN one time. Someone scouted Mario Lemu when he was playing in the queue. And I didn't like this about his game. I didn't like that about his game. And Poulain goes, Well, how many points you have? Oh, six.

In a game? In a game. And this is the Flyer Scout, by the way. Yeah. Because Pullin was the captain of the Flyers.

Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, I remember that. I didn't like his game. How many points you have? Six.

The Steve Dangle podcast is sponsored by Betterhelp. And listen, if you're feeling a little bit angsty these days, it's because the playoffs are on the horizon. Is that why? Yeah. Well, listen.

It's not that it's always raining.

What if I It's just listening to My Chemical Romance. Could be that.

While it's raining. Some would see that as an outlet, you see. But I would say that if you're feeling angsty, it has to be playoffs because you're worried about your team and will they succeed or will they not succeed? Because the playoffs are a painful combination of, I'm enjoying this, but I also am in pain until this game is over. You know what I mean?

The organ music is nice, though. It is.

It seems like that. It brings you around. Here's the deal. If you're feeling a little bit angsty, check out Better Help. Here's the thing about it is you're able to hook up with a therapist very, very quickly. And if that doesn't work out, you're not feeling the vibe between the two of you, you can switch. You can talk to them via text. You can talk to them via FaceTime. You can talk to them just on the phone. Actually, that's how I get my therapy. I do it over the phone. So much easier. It's one of those things that is easy, it's convenient, it's quick, and it's a lot cheaper than the average cost of therapy. And usually, especially where we are, it's very, very difficult to get a therapist in under 6 to 8 weeks. That's usually the lag time. So if you want to give therapy a try, we've all done it. I still do it. I don't know about you guys, but it's very valuable. So if you want to give it a shot, you should go to betterhelp. Com/stp today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/sdp. Hey, so along the lines of the Sabers, Jeff Skinner will play his 1,000th game tonight against the Washington Capitals.

He has yet to play a playoff game.

That's so sad, man. And I really- There's a good player. Yeah, I feel like it's not his fault.

Oh, no. I mean, the late or sorry, the early 2010s, Carolina Hurricanes weren't good. Remember the Carmanos family were literally suing each other, like sons suing father. And then they sold to Tom Dunn and then right Around that time, that's when he ended up in Buffalo.

Dysfunction to dysfunction. We got to stop with this, if playoffs mean absolutely everything to a player's legacy thing. Did Jay Bowmeister stink right up until the point he went to the St. Louis Blues won a cup, and then it's all forgiven and forgotten.

I forgot he won with the Blues.

Yeah.

It was like his last year.

But this dude-People were saying that he did stink.

They were like, Yeah, he plays a lot, but he's not actually good.

He was a minute merchant for a long time. And, Oh, yeah, he's a minute muncher. He eats all those minutes. Okay, what's he doing in those minutes? And it was a whole big old bunch of losing games. And then he goes to the Blues and they win. And oh, he's good now. He's good now. It's great. That's not That's not how it works. Ron Haynesy, bad, bad, bad, bad, Hey, you know how you guys had Dave Bolen and Chris Versteeg on affordable contracts? All right, let's triple their salary and we'll take them.

Yeah. And Dave Bolen will play seven games.

Oh, don't get me started.

Steve, Jeff Skinner, Trivia for you. What number skater will he become that skated their thousandth game in his career? What number is he?

I'm pretty sure it's in the 300s. I'm going to say 369.

393. Very close.

I always look at it like this. If you were to tell a general manager on draft day, if you pick this player, they will be in the top 400 players all time in games played.

Go play a thousand games.

That GM is picking them.

A hundred %.

Then you'll get nick Letty. He skated in his 1,000th game this year. Yes, he did. You could also draft nick Letty.

There are a bunch of players who have played a thousand where you're like, Yeah?

Who is second part of the trivia. Who's next closest? Who will be Jeff Skinner, what did I say, 3,30,93. So who is going to become 3-94?

So who was drafted in 2010?

Out of every NHL. And you asked for Jeff Skinner's goal total, 357 in his career, 669 points. 1,000 games come.

It's pretty nice. He's literally one of the best goal scores in the league over that span in a terrible era for goal scoring.

Oh, yeah. So who is 394 out of the entire NHL? Adam, you can also submit and answer.

I'm going to go with Jeff Skinner's Team Canada teammate. I don't know if he's had 1,000 yet. Braden Shin.

That's a good guess. That is a good guess. I like that.

I'm trying to think of guys he was on that Team Canada team with. Cassian, but no.

Has Dautie hit a thousand? Yeah.

Must have, right?

Dautie was drafted before Skinner. Yeah. Because Skinner was what? 2009?

Skinner was drafted 2010, seventh overall. Dauety is at 11:69. Oh, God.

Okay. I want to say Tyler Sagan, but he's missed a ton of time. What about Jamie Ben? He was around that draft, wasn't he? When was he drafted? Jamie Ben? I don't know. I can't look it up.

Sagan's 2010 draft pick.

Ben's got to be 2012, right?

Hall is also 2010. He missed a ton of time.

Is Nuj on there?

Nuj is 2011.

So could it be Nuj? It could be Nuj. It could be Nuj. Go with Nuj. Or even Jordan, Eberle.

Who's your each answer?

I'll say Nuj.

Adam wants Nuj.

Jordan, Eberle, to be difficult and steal it from Adam. I like that.

All right. So I'm going to tell For you right now, both of you are incorrect. Okay, that's fine. It's neither of those guys. Nuj is at 873. Not a bad guess. Not a bad guess. And then Steve, who's your answer? That's two seasons off. Is that Eberle?

I said Eberle. He was drafted in 2008.

Eberle was 1,010. Damn it, I missed it. He just had his 10 games. I remember that. I think we mentioned it on the show.

You see how short our memories are?

Some of the other guests you threw out, Jamie Benz at 1105. Oh, not even. Sagan's at 964. And the correct... Braden Chen, by the way, 933. So you were like a ballpark. This was really impressive, actually, because I give you the whole league to guess from. But the correct answer is Eric Carlson. He is coming up on his 1,000th game. D'artanian. He has currently 994 career games. That tracks. He will get to 1,000 very soon.

He was drafted two He's two years ahead of Skinner, but has missed a lot of time. Yeah.

The injuries push him back there. So, yeah. 2008, 15th overall pick. Wow. There you go. Fun games played stats.

That's pretty neat. One of the worst trades in NHL history. I'm not talking about the one to Pittsburgh, by the way. No. No, it was... Why didn't the Blues trade the draft pick to Ottawa in exchange for David Runblad? I'm pretty sure.

How much stock do you put into, They traded the draft pick, and then you selected somebody? Because I forgive the team that traded the pick because you don't know what pick that team would have made.

Except if it's the top three pick. One place I will not give the Leifs credit is the Kessel Trade because they didn't understand how shitty their team was. They didn't understand how little Kessel was going to do to fix that. And they didn't understand-Oh, acquiring Kessel? Yeah, acquiring Kessel and trading that pick, which ended up being said again. Because I think if you're in the top three to five, even though you don't know, you have a pretty good idea. And the Leifs didn't expect to be that bad. But that team, barring Kessel missing the first month, that was a shit team even when he was back.

Well, they knew he was going to miss the first month, too. So this guy is a significant enough part of your roster that you'd give up two first and a second for him, and he's going to miss the first month, and it's no big deal. That's flawed thinking. I'd say time matters. So the least trading a first-round pick with Patrick Marlowe, and that turns into Seth Jarvis. Well, the least didn't draft Seth Jarvis. The Carolina Hurricanes did. The Carlson Runblad one is so bad.

So you don't have it correct? I don't have it correct. You don't have the player. What is it? It's Nashville acquired in exchange for the 2008 first round pick. That's true. They acquired Chet Pickard and Taylor Beck.

Oh, for Burley.

What am I thinking of?

Yeah, so you have it a little off, but yeah, it's Predators traded away the Eric Carlson pick for Chet Pickard and Taylor Beck. Chet Pickard, I've never heard of. Taylor Beck, we know him from the least days.

Well, Chet Pickard is, I believe, the brother of Calvin Pickard. They're both goalies. Oh, is he? Yeah.

Oh, there you go. A goalie taken in the first round, 18th overall, and a bus.

Back then, you don't see it anymore because every time... It happened for a while that other than Cary Price, first round goalies were always bad.

Okay, so this is a problem with your amateur scouting because you're like, you know what? No one's going to take this goalie, probably. We're the first team to take a goalie. So we're going to acquire a third round pick next year to move back three spots. From 15th to 18th. That's tidy business. But the sends were like, the right-handed Nicolas Lindstrom is waiting for us at 15th overall, and they got him.

The Do you think the sends even new, though? Because 14 teams back then Eric Carlson.

I think at this time, I would be praising the Nashville Predators for this. Oh, 100%.

I'd be like, Oh, yeah. No, it's tidy. Can you please look up David Runblood so we can figure out what the hell I'm talking about?

Sure. I also want to throw this out there for trades like that. I thought the Vancouver Knucks were crazy to trade Cory Schneider when they did, and they ended up getting Bo Horvatt out of it with that ninth overall pick.

The ninth overall pick. Yeah.

But I'm like, Cory Schneider, you have to remember how good Cory Schneider was.

He was probably well above average starting goal tender.

And 55, 60 games a year guy. At the time, the ninth overall pick did not feel like enough. No, but Bo Horvatt ended up being spectacular for the Knucks for a long time.

They rode him for a long time, and then they traded him and got a return on investment.

And there are plenty of guys who are drafted in the ninth spot that you don't know. So here's where I'm with you, Jesse. I think if it's like anything beyond the top five, it's like, yeah, the team scouting staff deserves the lion's share of the credit for getting that right. But when we're talking about a top five pick, and where I get pissed off with the Leaps at that era, the Phil Kessel era, is they screwed up so bad. They had no idea how bad their roster was. They had no idea how amazing that pick was going to be. I think the Leaps were expected to make the playoffs that year.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you don't trade those picks unless you're thinking that. Jesse has found the trade that was thinking him.

Steve's barely listening.

I know. And I was looking at a good No, I know.

Listen, I heard and I answered.

Let me just explain the trade. Give me David Runblatt. I got the team's rate.

Give me Runblatt. I got the team's run.

I got the team's run. It sends Blues.

I got the team's rate. In 2009, 17th overall, the St. Louis Blues drafted David Runblatt. So he's their pick from the previous year. The next season, they trade Runblatt, their previous first round pick, to the Ottawa senators for a first-round pick in 2010, 16th overall. They then used that pick, the St. Louis Blues do, to draft Vladimir Tarasenko.

And what's crazy is Runblad was later traded for Kyle Turris.

Dude, the Sens traded Runblad and a second round pick that turned into Anthony Stollars, and the Coyotes fumbled both of them.

Dude, they've had a tough run of it. Even in this scenario, where the Sens acquired a first round pick from 2009 for a middle of the round first round pick in 2010, which turns out to be Vladimir Tarasenko. I don't really fault the Sens there. The Sens? Yeah, no. For this Tarasenko, the draft- You're getting a known quantity for...

No, but again, Your scouting staff needs to be like, actually, you can't make this trade because there's a kid Vladimir Tarasenko available.

You don't know that. Fifteen teams didn't want Tarasenko in the 2010 draft. Why scouted?

Here's the thing, though, guys. Runblad was supposed to be a surefire defenseman in the NHL. He hadn't played a game yet, but he was supposed to be the next very good defenseman for the Ottawa senators.

Every team who traded for him lost. I'm just looking at this thing because even Chicago got him and Matthew Briesbois, they traded a 2014 second round pick to the Coyotes. It's freaking Christian Dvorak.

But if you're asking, he's still playing in the Swedish Hockey League for moto. To add his point, the Sets sit there ahead of the 2010 draft, and they say, We want a first round pick of a defenseman. We want a high upside defenseman. Why don't we just trade our first round pick this year, acquire somebody who's already drafted who we know, and we'll just take that and develop him? What happened was it didn't work out. Counterpoint.

What do you need him for? You just picked Eric Carlson.

That's true, but you need more than one product.

I guess you're right.

Look at the sabers.

I guess you're right.

Bowen Byron, Rasmus Dalleen, and Owen Power and still bad.

It's still bad.

It's weird. The leaves kicked their ass the other night, but every time- Everybody would take the sabers deal. Every time they sent a new pair over the board, I'm like, Oh, come on. Jesus.

Owen Power has it now.

Oh, jeez.

Scouting is such an inexact science. I got a hard time blaming scouts for these situations. If they knew, they would get it right.

No, blame the hardest workers.

Do you give scouts a baseball report? It's like, If you get three of 10, you You got to think like, if you're batting 300, you're one of the best.

Yeah.

And then you look at teams who just consistently do it, like the lightning who just threw their hair.

So you haven't been great at drafting. You're like, How?

How did you do that? Detroit, man. Detroit in the late '90s, early 2000s. How do you get Zetterberg in the ninth round?

I think it was six or seven. Oh, okay.

Huge difference. There is a huge difference. When was Datsun drafted?

Six or seven.

Yeah, right?

That's my point. Some of that's got to be luck, but some of that's also got to be you You got really good scouts.

I mean, you passed on the player.

Six or seven times. Right.

Okay, forget the whole league passing on them. I want to see who the Red Wings picked with all the picks ahead of Zetterberg and ahead of Datsun. And were they even a fraction as good?

The people they thought would be better.

Did they play a quarter of the games that those guys did, combined? I don't know.

Let me talk about Ryan Hartman, who got a three-game suspension for throwing his stick towards the officials on Saturday night from the bench, and also, quote, inappropriately verbally berating them, according to a tweet from Frank Cervales. Okay, now we remember. We remember that Peron got six, I think, reduced to five for the cross check on the Artem's Zoop. We remember that Morgan Reilly got five for-Cross check and Ridley Greg in the head. Ridley Greg in the head. We know that Jake Truba tried to lumberjack, ax, Trent Frederick's head off, but then they said, Oops, it was an accident, and got a $5,000 fine. Where on the level of ridiculousness does this fine or this suspension fall for you? Obviously, the league can't put up with him throwing a stick on the ice. Well, it's automatic.

Yeah, that's the thing.

The only incident I can remember there was anything like this is actually nearly identical to it. Nick Antropow, when he was with the Leifs, and Paul Maurice was his coach, in Carolina, the Leifs lose in overtime. Antropow took a penalty that I think put the Leifs down five on three. They were dead. They lose. And he threw a stick in the direction of the officials. Doesn't touch anyone, doesn't hurt anyone. Three games. He got suspended. All these years later, I think that was in 2009, Ryan Hartman does the same thing. And you might look at that and go, Ryan Hartman's paying the Ryan Hartman tax.

Yes, because he's sat a lot.

He's at the center of a lot of nonsense. But it's not like underratedly, unless you're a Winnipeg Jets fan, then you hate his guts. But it's automatic. You can't do that. Now, we talk about the consistency with the NHL. Lots of things are supposed to be automatic, and they don't even stick to those all the time. Right. So remember, there was a... I don't know. Maybe you could look this up. It'd be really difficult to find, though. What is the penalty for leaving the bench for a fight?Leevan.

Should know this.Ten games, immediate.

Yeah, Leefman should know this. David Clarkson left the bench for a fight. He didn't even fight.

It was a preseason game.

Didn't even fight.

But he broke the rules.

He broke the rules. Automatic 10 games. He lost probably a million dollars doing that, or hundreds of thousands of dollars doing that. There was another guy the next year or two years later who left the bench for a fight, and they reduced it to three. What? Why? I thought it was automatic. Yeah, but he didn't even really...

Well, David Clarkson didn't even really. And it was a preseason game. What do you mean?

Do you remember anything about the incident? Because then we could look it up. Which one? The one where it was reduced.

I think it involved the coyotes. It might have even been Paul Wasn't it?

It was Paul Bissenet. Okay.

It was him or there was another guy. I can't remember his name.

We can do some digging.

Yeah, we can do some digging.

If anybody wants to know the Ryan Hartman suspension, it is Rule 40.4 out of the NHL rulebook. I've pulled up the 2023, 2024 NHL rulebook. Rule 40.4 reads, Any player who, by his actions, physically demeans an official or physically threatens an official by, but not limited to, throwing a stick or any other piece of equipment or object at or in the general direction of an official shooting the fuck, or in the general direction of an official spitting or in the general direction of an official who deliberately applies physical force to an official, blah, blah, blah. Following an altercation, Sal be suspended for not less than three games.

Something I refuse to ever get over because I have a long memory, especially when it comes to trauma, regarding my hockey team. Before the overtime of Game 7 in 2013, Brad Marshan threw a water bottle at a ref to get his attention.

Should be automatic. No, it's all good. Should be automatic.

He was on the ice for the goal.

Throwing a stick- I'll never get over it. Or any other piece of equipment or object. Steve, what is a water bottle?

It's an object.

I think it's an object.

Yeah, but it's game seven. Okay, well, then fuck the rule book then. No, there's no reason they even have one. 234 pages of nothing but bullshit. Anyway, I'll never get over it.

The Florida Panthers signed somebody this morning who could be the new tallest goal tender in the NHL, in the NHL's total history. His name is- The head of Ivan Fediton. Yeah.

Who did not break the record because they only listed him at 6'7.

Yeah. Who's 6'8? Cooper Black, who just signed with the Florida Panthers on a two-year entry-level contract commencing next season. That's so big. If he plays, which he's got a bit of a road to play, the Panthers have good goal-tending, he is 6'8 and will be the tallest goal tender in NHL history.

What does he weigh?

I don't know.

Damn.

Yeah.

Dude, Fedyov looks like Like the green giant.

By the way, Cooper Black is a font as well. So I just thought. I just looked at my... I didn't know that.

They should spell, sell special edition jerseys.

In Cooper Black, yeah.

Where the name plaint is in that font.

That'd be funny.

How much does a goalie that is 6'8 or 202 centimeters, that's 2 meters tall, this goalie, 2 meters tall, how much would he weigh?

I mean, please tell me the number is above 2:10.

It's above 2:10.

Probably like 2:30.

Okay, what's your guess?

Goalies are usually sveltes, but maybe he's of the Frederick Anderson build. I'm going to say 2:30. Wait, 2:31. 2:31. That was good.

2:40 is the number. Damn. Or 109 kilograms.

All right. I'm going to say 2:30.

You should say 2:30. You know what, Jesse?

I have to give Steve credit. He sold it better than you did. He did.

I just said the number. Steve told a story.

I said it better.

No, you went for a long drink of water before getting that one. He's tied with... Ivan Fedotow tied Ben Bishop for the tallest goal tender in the NHL history. They are both 6'7. So if Cooper Black comes in and they measure him at 6'8, he'll own the record. But right now, it's 6'7 for Fedytov and Bishop. By the way, I just- Cooper Black, still an inch off of the record, which is Chara.

Yeah.

For all players. That's crazy.

Crazy tall guy. There are rumors, and I'm not sure how substantial they are. It's difficult because this story came out yesterday. April first is the time of you're an asshole and you have asshole a lot of your things. But I can't stand April first for news. It's like, Okay, guys, we get it. You're hilarious. It's a funny story, but we actually need to know what's going on here. The April first cutoff is noon, and some people don't get that, the April Fool's cutoff, and then they keep posting all day, and you're literally fucking the people's day.

We should end April Fool's day. I think it's useless at this point.

Well, none of it's funny. Show me one April Fool's prank where you're like, Damn, you know what? Good.

I read yesterday that Joe Biden is ending April Fool's Day.

You get it.

It's an American institution. He can't take this from us.

The news or outlets just use it for clicks nowadays, and it's just annoying.

Yeah. So I don't know how... Yeah, so this is not April Fool's, according to the author. Did they say that? Yes, they did. Rogers, apparently, Roger's owner of Sportsnet's hockey rights nationally, is talking to Amazon, apparently about selling Monday night hockey games to Amazon. Essentially, how this would work behind the scenes is Amazon, they've purchased Bally Sports in the United States. Bally was on its way out. It was losing a ton of money. And the reason Amazon bought it is because Amazon, although they produce a lot of television programs like Lord of the Rings or whatever, they don't actually have in-house live technical teams. And so when they purchased Bally, they got a bunch of producers, a bunch of camera operators, a bunch of people that do live TV and live sports, which is very specific. Ask Maddie, she does it. That's her other job.

It's not unlike what Rogers did with CBC.

Totally. Honestly. You buy all the technical expertise and the equipment. And so Evidently, the idea here is that Rogers would sell Amazon that night. You would be watching the Monday night national games on Amazon Prime, and then they would still be running commercials. So it wouldn't be like what Apple TV does, which is like you just have a bizarre shot of the field every time there's a commercial break, but there's no commercials in it. Have you seen a baseball game on Apple TV? No. It's so weird because they'll just stop talking and it'll be like a, quote, unquote, commercial break, and they just pan the field with a shot. And you're like, What is happening? I hate that stuff. Run a promo, do something. Or just keep the announcers talking. It's what you pay them for. Well, they need a break, too. No, dude, we talk for two and a half hours straight. Come on, you could talk a little more. It's baseball.

Sometimes I'm like, I wish it could be.

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. So Rogers is apparently going to sell this. And what this does for Rogers is, I don't know if they're hemorrhaging money on the deal, but most people assume that they are. Essentially what this does is this guarantees them, Amazon is paying us X, so we get this much money already on our deal for the last two years. We have guaranteed money, which Rogers likes. And then Rogers would go in and sell the commercial inventory, which they already do for themselves, but they would do it on behalf of Amazon and take a revenue share of all commercial dollars through the door. So Amazon makes money through driving subscriptions and through some of the commercial dollars. Rogers would have the chance to obviously make their upfront money plus commercial dollars as well.

So in theory, there could be a hockey game on Amazon, produced by Rogers, airing on CBC.

Not necessarily Produced by Rogers.

No, not airing on CBC.

No, I would imagine the only reason Amazon would pick it up is to- They're just selling the rights. They're just selling the rights. So Amazon takes it. They want to drive subscription. Obviously, they'd make a little money off the commercial revenue, too, because if you thought paying subscription meant you weren't going to see commercials unless you're subscribing to SDPN. Sorry. Essentially, what we're going to have here, it looks like if this deal goes through, and again, rumors at this point, is Monday night, you can expect a game, but you'll be watching on Amazon. And not necessarily produced by Sportsnet. Amazon could do the production themselves. But what I think in the bigger picture here is this is finally one of the streamers in Canada saying, We're going into live sports in Canada.

I mean, we called this months ago. Sure.

I just didn't know who it was going to be.

No, I think a lot of us thought it could be Apple, but Amazon was sniffing around. And they were in the news recently with the NHL and the documentary. And now it's a little more obvious. All right, why might Amazon want to get in a little tighter with this product and promote this product and the personalities within it? Well, because they're getting into business with them in more ways than just, Here's a funny little documentary. I mean, this doesn't It's going to really affect most people a ton. It's going to piss you off if you don't have Amazon Prime. For me, when it comes to the sports media business, I just hope it means more jobs, not less. It so rarely means that, but that's what I hope it means.

Yeah, that's what I think, too. I think that there's a chance here that Amazon picks this up because the streaming wars are real. And while companies are competitive in that space, you will see them spend money to try to drive subscriptions.

Here's what I hope happens. Rogers is a big pain in the ass when it comes to working for multiple companies. You need to be in a unique situation, like me, where I had a thing, got a job at Rogers, and they're like, Okay, well, while you work here, you can keep the thing you were already doing, which I'm pretty sure they're never going to It's not going to happen ever again. But if they're going to get rid of properties like Monday Night Hockey, they need to allow people to do multiple things. They need to If I'm Amazon, I'm going to be like, Okay, so I'm purchasing this off you. Can I use your talent?

Well, they probably will. Yeah, I'm going to add- At probably zero cost. I bet- Maybe it's part of the deal. Well, I think that probably is. And Rogers is like, You guys are under contract to us, so you're going to be working with Amazon on Mondays. So good luck. It doesn't mean more money for people, unfortunately.

I don't want to speak for anyone, and I don't know what anyone's contract situation is. But if I'm working on Monday nights, I'm looking at that report from yesterday and I'm going, because I don't know what it means for me. They need to let... A lot of contractors can work wherever they want. They need to let full-time employees have a little bit of freedom here. Right.

And important to note that that port is unsustantiated, YYZ Sports Media with the call on that one.

His info is usually pretty good.

Yeah, he knows pretty quickly.

He had me quitting Sportsnet before I told my coworkers. I don't know where he got it from, so his info is pretty good.

Did you guys read the article about how the Jaeger bobbleheads got back to the penguins?

No.

Okay. I just want to run you through this quick story. The Athletic did a story on this. Here's what they thought happened, because they were designed by a Pittsburgh artist. They were made in Hong Kong. The Athletic article on this goes into way more detail, but I just thought you guys would find this as funny. So they come in from Hong Kong to California, right? And there's 18,000 of them or whatever.

And then the ship hit a bridge.

The ship did not hit a bridge. No, it did not hit a bridge. Jesus Christ. It happened. So what they thought happened was as soon as it left Los Angeles, they were like... They lost track of it. And they thought that the truck that it left on had engine trouble. The bobbleheads, though, they soon found out that the truck had not had engine troubles, that the bobbleheads had been stolen. They said, according to... The trucking company told the Pittsburgh Penguins this. They said, Well, we don't know the details, but apparently the trucking company is in touch with the extortionists. So the Thiefs stole it and then got in touch with the Trucking Company because they're like, We can't sell this shit, but if you want it back, you're going to have to pay us. And to verify the group had the goods and to determine whether or not to negotiate. They were figuring that out. On March 11th, the date that the Jagr bobbleheads were originally supposed to be delivered to Pittsburgh, a different trucking company had gone to the warehouse holding the merchandise. The Thiefs apparently provided false paperwork and made off with the bobbleheads.

That's how they did it. They just gave them a false piece of paperwork. The trucking company then called again and said the bobbleheads were located in Ontario. And they're like, How did they get to Canada? And the trucking company said, No, Ontario, California. Or the Ontario Rainplay. There you go. And then there was a... So now, obviously, they got them. They said it's a six-figure investment for a team to do something like that. It's over $100,000 in bobbleheads. And there is a special task force investigating. Not clear if the thief had targeted the bobbleheads or just stumbled into a heist that generated national headlines. I'm reading directly from the article. What is clear is that the moment that they were gone, The next, they were in a warehouse in California, and then they were back on their original course heading for Pittsburgh.

So they are-It feels like we skipped a part of the story.

Well, I'm not going to read the athletic article, but they did not tell us. What's What's frustrating about the story is they don't tell us how things were found, where things were found, when they were found. That's the part of the story I'm looking for. I look for it, too, and they don't actually have that because I think it's a part of the investigation, and they can't release that publicly.

This is more like that episode of the Sopranos and people even realize.

Yeah. It's just a...

Yeah. Where they find all the suits.

Who was the person in charge of checking the paperwork of the people who showed up to take the truck with the bobblehead?

Well, I would imagine- Officer Christopher Malteson. No, it's obviously a clerk at the trucking company, whoever that is, and they're not going to release their name. But they only have this from the Pittsburgh Penguin's perspective, which is the GPS tracking device was disabled 2 hours after it arrived somewhere in LA County.

He goes by Big... I don't think I can say his name. No. It starts with a P. I don't think I can say his name.

No. By the way- I can't say that here. Adriana was an informant on this, I believe.

There was a 15-person task force that included the FBI FBI and LA County sheriffs. They put the FBI on the bobblehead case.

As they should. No, if somebody's stealing $100,000, that's a part of the government should be investigating that.

Well, that's a massive robbery.

Yes. That's why I have so many questions.

I know.

Then I don't know you provided enough answers.

Well, I don't know that there is... It's a funny story like it is.

I'm fascinated in the stupid little minutiae. Okay, the cops, who found them?

Did they all get a free Did they all give him a bobblehead? Yeah, they should. Sorry, it was 19,000 total bobbleheads, so I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. I don't know if you guys saw this, but Chris Kreider's 300th goal was called back this weekend on a- Did he break the goalie's knee? No, it was an offside. I don't know if you've seen the clip, but he has the fuck in his hand, and as soon as he's called back, he throws it back up.

That's good.

He came to suspension, actually. Yeah, he came to suspension. Actually.

Oh, yeah.

You know what?

You know what? By what you read, yes.

It's an automatic suspension.

He's putting the buck back on the ice.

He did end up scoring. I know.

I am definitely not suggesting Chris Kreider be suspended for that.

He did end up scoring later in the game and got his 300 goal then.

He broke the goalie's other knee.

There you go. Stop it, Chris. What?

You got a problem with Chris Kreider?

Yeah, what's the issue? No, no, no.

What's your problem? I was talking to a certain Habs fan who works for... Or a former Habs fan who works for our network. It's amazing how often Chris Kreider's name gets brought up in conversation. I'll put it that way.

Really?

Yeah. Interesting. He's got beef.

Listen, you ever just need to kill time?

Yeah. And you know- Well, not as much anymore, but I used to know what that was like.

No, but if you don't know where a conversation is going to go, but you're like, I can say two words, and this person is going to go off for 20 minutes. Yes. Any Habs fan just be like, Chris Kreider is having a great year. That's your next 20 minutes. Okay. All right.

Guaranteed. Now, I want to throw this last one at you, and then we're going to go to the press conference. Aaron Portsline talked about a player named Cameron Butler being recalled from the Cleveland Monsters when it became apparent parent that Boon Jenner could not play against the Penguins on March 30th. The call came at 4:30.

In the morning?

4:30 in the afternoon. The game was at 7:00, and he's in Cleveland. According to Portsey, warmups had started. Butler was not there yet. He had to drive himself from Cleveland to Pittsburgh, and he made it-Oh, to Pittsburgh? Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. Sorry. Cleveland to Columbus. Apologies. Okay. But even so, it's 145 miles, which is about 2 hours and 15 minutes. So 4:30. He's probably expecting to be there at 6:45, 7:00. Just barely making it. And how much ice time did Cam Butler get versus the Pittsburgh Penguins? Four minutes.

4:39.

54 seconds. It's his first game in the NHL. He got 54 seconds.

You should have played them. Did him?

Let me see. Did they win?

That team sucks.

That coach sucks. Isn't that the shittiest thing you've ever seen in your life?

I have a leaking suspicion based on the things I heard. He's gone.

They did win. They did win. Four, three, and a shootout.

Wow. Yeah. And it's because... What's his name? Cameron Butler. Cameron Butler played 54.

So they made him drive. What the fuck is that? They made him drive.

How bad was that shift? That's what I want to know.

Well, I don't even know if it matters. You're the Blue Jackets.

I assume he was there for a warm body. It's just in case, break him in case of an emergency. But if he's there, you might as well use him.

He is a tough guy. Last year with the Ottawa Generals. Oh, now I'm even more mad. He got 119 penalty minutes in 63 games. He has 63 penalty minutes in 46 games and only eight points with the Monsters, but drives two and a half hours, gets one shift. That's it.

Yeah, Columbus really needed those two points.

And you said that's his first career NHL game? Yes.

Now, I'm thrilled for him that he's getting the paycheck. But if you're the interim general manager there, are you not asking, Hey, dude, why did you bring me up? Why did you make me dry? What was the point of that? Yeah.

And did they send him back down?

I don't know yet. Yeah.

It says he's no longer on the active roster on DB.

I'm assuming he fights a lot.

Boon Jenner was day to day. So that's why they brought him up.

What the hell is the point of that?

He's got a black eye.

Just play with a man down.

But the Columbus Blue Jackets and Portsey, I don't know. We didn't go through it last week. I can bring it up a little bit tomorrow when we do the show. But Porty He just torches them in his article last week about the Columbus Blue Jackets, which the team that Parody forgot. That's what he called it. That's the title of the article.

I know. It's just so dry. What a joke.

Give You have the guy two or three shifts. I understand he's a tough guy. Maybe he's like a Matt Rempey light. Like he's not there to do it. You can't find more than 54 seconds for this guy in his first game?

That's so shit. That he made it on time for it? If you're one of the leaders on the team, are you not looking down the bench? Kids had one shift.

What are you doing here?

Jesse, can you look up? I need to know. We could do a second by second breakdown of his NHL career.

Do you want that?

How bad was the shift? That's what I want to know. I didn't see a minus.

Right. I can pull up video if you want, but I don't know if we need that.

Now, the only little bit of defense I'll throw in there is usually players with eight points in the AHL don't get called up in April or March. But I don't know. That's shit. That's trash.

Yeah, I I don't think this Paul Vincent guy is what he was billed. No. I think there's a reason he was waiting for a long, long time to get that job. I think it's because people didn't think he could do it. And maybe they're right. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of how... I know there's been a lot of noise in Columbus this year, but talk about... You know how Torts always got the most out of the Blue Jackets? This guy, it seems to me, has gotten the least. He is a far more talented roster than Torts ever had. And they're what? They're bottom three on the east. They might be bottom five in the league.

Hardnose style has really led to better results. I mentioned Mark Hunter, joining the Blue Jackets when the season ends. And Elliott Friedmann said the same thing on the same day. I think Mark's bringing his brother. Yeah? I think Dale is going to come and coach that team.

Well, that would be a hardnose team. Sure would be. If you ever watch the Hunters play hockey in the early '90s and late '80s, holy shit.

Dude, you go from, what would it be? Torts to frigging Babs to frigging Paul Vincent to Dale Hunter.

Who was the guy in between? Yeah, I know. I definitely forgot the one. Blue Jackets fans, as soon as he was hired, they were like, This is going to be bad. Brad Larson. Brad Larson. Anyway, just thought that was an interesting... Yeah, it's a sucky story, but maybe they call him up next year and he gets more than a shift.

Yeah.

It'd be great. Let's do the press conference.

The Presser. S-d-p. The Steve Dangle Press Conference. Here, wait. I got Ken Reid's next book, One Shift Only. Yeah. Guys who only played one shift in the NHL.

Honestly, he should.

We got two stories out of Toronto sports teams to hit first. One is the Toronto Raptors, who have announced that Prime is now the official sports drink of the Toronto Raptors. Logan Paul and KSI are teaming up with MLSE.

Justin Fish is going to be thrilled.

What do you guys think of that?

Justin said, Down the hall. I mean, good for them. I don't know, man. I can't help but it be happy for people that are doing it for themselves.

There's no way this drink is profitable by the sheer amount of flights these guys take. Just the flights alone.

They're everywhere. I also-Get a body double. I think that that's what you do in a marketing cycle for something like this. You're trying to break into a business that's essentially owned by Pepsi or Coke. They own all the brands. And you're trying to... I bet the idea here is to establish this thing and then sell it to one of those two companies.

But I don't know if he still holds it. But like, Logan Paul this year held a WWE belt. Like, dude, you can't do everything. He apparently can. I guess he can. He fought Floyd Mayweather like a year A year ago. Yeah. Those two fought each other twice. He's everywhere, man. City TV. I don't know. Drink tastes fine.

It's good for him. And you know what? I'll tell you this. I was walking outside of a circle K, and their poster was up in the window. There was three or four kids that walked by. They had to be 10, 11, 12, whatever. All they wanted their parents to do was to go in and buy that drink. They have that market on... I don't think that that drink is for children, Because especially the caffeine one.

Well, definitely not the caffeine.

But yeah, it's the cool thing to drink with the teens, preteens, whatever. The youths. The youths.

And next up out of Toronto team's Sports News, we have the Toronto Blue Jay's new menu of foods. So check out some of our new food and beverage offerings at Roger's Center this year. So first up, we got stuffed Jamaican patties.

That looks incredible.

Looks That's really good.

Put that straight into my fat mouth.

Warning, when they do these marketing images, they don't always look like this at the bottom.

Oh, no. Jessie, there's no way they're putting that much meat in it. It's going to be like, Here's one piece of tough beef and a few of the... What is that? Is that coleslaw? A few of those things.

Just wait until Blue Jay's games start to look just more and more yellow as the year goes on on TV. You know how crusty that's going to be? That's going to get frigging everywhere.

A little flaky. All right, next up, we got the Hot Maple and Bacon Hot dog.

I'm all the way in on that. It looks really good. Yeah, that's the death.

The Canoli, which you can find in Section 103. Are those pistachios? Yeah, they are. Those pistachios and the canole. I'm not a Canoli guy. I'm going to be honest.

The Blue Jays are killing it.

What is this? Crush ice cream floats at the TD Park Social. You can find it there. This is not a advertisement for Roger's Sports & Media, but they're doing a fantastic job with these beverages and foods this year. And the Poké Ball. You can find that at the stop. This looks like a Metro. No, let's go back to the Poké Ball. It looks like a grocery store Poké Ball, to be honest.

Yeah. I've seen that in Metro.

Matty, you agree? Yeah. I'm not impressed with the Poké Ball. Mid. Touch them all, Joe. Spirits. I'm all over that.

Spritz.

Spritz, sorry.

But it looks good.

It does look-I like the collectible cup.

Is it Is it just an Aperal Spritz in a cup?

No, it's a touch them all, Joe.

I hope it comes in that little hat thing. That's pretty cool. I'm sure it does. I would take that home. Loaded mac and cheese. The portion is probably so small.

It looks small. That's pulled pork.

That's pulled pork, yeah. I assume there's different toppings, I guess, because they just call it loaded, not specifically pulled pork. And the Tierra Masu.

Is that a medicine cup?

That's a shot glass of Tierra Moussa.

No, you need a Canadian quarter next to all these things for scale.

Yeah. Also, you know what's suspiciously lacking in all of these posts? The price.

Yep, that's a very good point.

The stuff Jamaican had at the maybe. Hey, listen, if the Js aren't going to hit, at least eat some good food.

The touch them all, Joe, has got to be $14.For.

That cup alone. Minimum. Absolutely. With the booze, $20. I'm saying $20 to $25 for that Touch-a-Mole Joe.

I'm going to drool all over this desk like Pavlov's dog. Oh, my God.

The Canolis are probably like $9 for three. These are probably outrageous.

You might be low. You might be on shooting it, Jessie. Food at the Roger Center is outrageous. It's $25 for a beer. It's crazy. It's crazy. And I love it there. But it's just like, who are these normal people that can afford this? You have to understand, baseball everywhere is not like a premium sport like the leafs are.

It's an every man sport because there's 50,000 seats. It's like that trade meme. You get two Jays tickets, you trade being able to have utilities this month.

Yeah. Like a few calls from the utility company going, You haven't paid your bill.

Yeah, I saw the Jays lose 9-3 to the Padres. Oh, okay. Never mind. San Diego, by the way. Home of the Padres.

That's right. And your favorite place. Yes, I've never been to. Listen, I don't want to pour cold water on it. I did want to ask Jesse, what did you think of the Jays getting no hit last night?

So embarrassing.

Why is it embarrassing? Because sometimes that does happen. I was there when Paxton no hit the Jays.

The Canadian James Paxton. That's right. The Seattle Marinas did that in, I want to say, June of 2018.

People were leaving early because they didn't realize that it was a no hitter, which is super embarrassing. I was like, We're watching a no hitter. Where are you going?

One of my biggest pet peeves in sports is any broadcaster who thinks that they affect the outcome of a game by not saying shut out or no hitter. Your job as a play-by-playouncer or a color commentator is to let the people know what's going on. If I turn on a Blue Jay's game and Burrios is on the mound and he has a perfect game going and it's the ninth thinning and the fucking play of Dan Showman doesn't tell me that a no hit is happening, you're You're not doing your job correctly.

I agree. Well, he's got a no hitter going and swung on Castillanos deep to left field. Sorry.

No, Buck or Dan need to say that. They did it because it was the other team, obviously, in this situation with the Houston Astros. But that's one of my biggest pet peeves is the superstition of a broadcaster thinking that they hold the weight to affect this game by saying that into the universe. It's ridiculous.

I think Steve would be that guy, by the way. Yeah, I would start doing the weight. No, I I don't want to watch the Leaps' playoff game with you, Adam and Jesse. I need to sit at home on my good luck couch.

That was six years ago.

I'm not letting that go.

You need to let that go.

No, Jesse, you can't let that go.

Yeah, I was six years ago. No.

You have any first-round losses ago? Yeah, I know.

You've watched plenty of games with us. But to your question, it's embarrassing because their whole issue last season was they had no offense, and then you go into this season, you add a 40-year-old to your lineup in Justin Turner, and that's the big upgrade to your offense.

You also added the slowest base runner in baseball. Who? Vovablock.

He's literally the slowest base runner in baseball.

And IKF, too.

Yeah. Who, like Clement, can do the same stuff out in the field. So what are you doing? So When you're... Was it five games? Because they had four games with the Rays, and so that'd be game five. You get no hit and you get zero hits. That's just a sign here. You should have fixed the offense. That's the early signs. Did they also blow up the Rays one game, though? They did. They did on... There was a lot of runs.

And they've lost three straight.

Oh, good.

No, they went on... Oh, it was a split. That was a Sunday game. They split, yeah. It was two-two.

The Jays are going to be 10 and 12 before people realize the season's begun. There are so many damn games.

And This was this guy's eighth career start in the majors. It's not like you're getting-Are you serious? It's not like you're getting no hit by Justin Verlander, which this happened twice to this franchise. But it's the guy's eighth career start. He throws a no hit. It's not like he's a high prospect. He's been around for a long time, and you can't get your bats together this early. It's a little concerning. Like you said, there's so many games in baseball that you got to look at week-to-week trends and month-to-month trends to really analyze the baseball team. But if you're micro analyzing five games, you never want to be no hit this early.

Jesse, there was a story about, I think it was ESPN, has John Schneider to be most likely to be fired by the CEO. Good. Do you think he's a bad manager?

I question his decision-making Obviously, what happened last year in the playoffs. He's a mouthpiece for the front office. I truly believe that he doesn't make a lot of decisions, that it's a groupthink that happens in the Blue Jay's locker room, which is probably a good thing that you base a lot of stuff It's all analytics and the numbers and all that stuff. But I don't know, as a motivator, if he's just the groupthink piece, I don't think he's doing spectacular of a job. If you're trusting all of your numbers, you're the front office, you're the GM and the President, and you trust all your numbers, and the players aren't getting it done, you think you did a good job with the players, then last person to blame is the manager.

Barrios pitching 47 pitches really well and then getting pulled, and then the manager doesn't get fired until tells you everything you need to know. It was an organizational decision.

But Ross Atkins said that was the coach's decision.

Yeah, he tried to throw him under the bus. He threw him right under the bus.

And what is he still doing there?

And then he had to come back and walk it back. And said, Well, we make a lot of these decisions, and blah, blah, blah, because he completely threw him under the bus.

Okay, so what do you think about Ross Atkins?

I think Ross Atkins, the first year when Atkins and Shapiro signed on, that was really AA's team. I don't think they've done much since because they've won zero playoff games in their tenure since that first season. I think if you have a team that's supposed to be contending for a World Series and the results all out of that are zero playoff wins, Leifs, that's a failure. I don't know how to put it more plainly than that. If your job is to win playoff games and you have done it zero times since your first season, that's a failure.

Of all the Toronto sports groups right now, I think the most agitated and jumpy and pissed off are Jay's fans.

Yeah.

Because Lee fans seem to be like, Okay, I'm good with some of the changes here. It was time for it. In retrospect, I like the way the Lefs play a lot better. I don't know what the result is going to be in the playoffs, but I'm less worried about it because the Leifs aren't putting their back in with who was the guy that they acquired from Seattle two years ago who was 5'9 as a part of that Giordano deal. Colin Blackwell. Yeah. They're not putting Colin Blackwell out there. It's like, Colin, what do you do? What exactly- I like Colin Blackwell. Other than being a little water bug. You're not going to do anything against the Bruins.

How dare. He scored a goal against the Bruins.

But you know now there are guys with roles. So you let the scorer score and the tough guys be tough. And hey, some of the tough guys can score, too. How crazy is that?

The BWHL is launched at the perfect time.

Oh, yeah. The Raptors are bad.

The Raptors blow.

Jesse, you were at the worst raptor?

I was at the worst raptor's loss in the history of the franchise. Home loss. Home loss. Yes, they have lost road games worse, but they had never lost a game by 44 points ever in the history of their franchise.

Who was the highest scoring raptor that game? Do you remember?

Probably Grady Dick.

How do you feel about him?

You can't evaluate anybody on the team right now. Their starters aren't starters. I saw Grady Dick earlier this year not play for the 905 because he was injured, but he was at the 905 game because that's the team he was on, right?

You went to a 905 game and...

Grady Dick wasn't even there because he was injured. But he showed up. He was near the bench at halftime because he's a part of that team. And then now he's starting on the Raptors, and he shouldn't be at all.

At one point, he was the longest tenured starter for the Raptors. What? He got drafted last June, and he was the longest tenured raptor on the floor.

For a game this season, yeah. They're a complete tank. It's a shame that they didn't do this last year. They should have done it last year. That's unforgivable that when Wemby was there, you don't do this at this point. Now you have one of the worst draughts ever, and they're going into it with a chance at top three pick.

Cool. I can't wait for the next Bargnani.

Yeah, I did a bad thing there by linking Atkins and Shapiro together. Mark Shapiro has done a good job as his role in the Blue Jays.Business.Business side of things. Oh, yeah. That's more his role. The Roger Center upgrades are fantastic and everything with the team. They're still a hot ticket in this town. People still love the Blue Jays, and I think the business side of it for Roger has been a giant moneymaker, and Shapiro deserves credit for that. So I think he's done a job. The blame for the roster side of it should just fall on Atkins.

But Shapiro is the one that keeps Atkins there. Yes.

People love the Blue Jays?

People do love the passion. They love the Blue Jays.

Is it the fans?

What do you mean?

That's why they're losing.

The fans are the reason they're losing.

Because it's a tough market. There's a lot of people that like them. It's a tough market.

I think it's the If they're the leaves, that's what they'd be saying.

I know the leaves won in Buffalo the other day, but I had a lot of fans there. They almost didn't.

It's a dark time for Rapters fans. It's a miserable time for Jay's fans. Tfc is in a miserable time. Pwhl Toronto is in the best time ever.

Yeah, they're doing great.

The Raptors are great. If you like getting dressed up to watch your team lose 40.

If you want a cheap raptor's ticket, this is the time. This is it.

You can get that. Honestly, and lock in on your season tickets, too. When they were bad the last time, season tickets were $4,000 or something, which is a lot from other franchises, but in Toronto, that's nothing. If you had locked in, oh, my God.

My father-in-law is to San Antonio for a business trip. How much? And I just grabbed him by the shirt. I'm like, You have to go see a Spurs game, and he's not. And I'm like, Dude, you're blowing it.

You're really blowing it. I mean, they're terrible, but Wembe and Yamma is-I don't give a shit.

Wembe is my self-think to watch. I would go to a Blackhawks game just to watch Bedard.

Yeah, of course.

Who has more championships at the end of their career, Wemby or Bedard?

Well, listen, you know the NHL is rebuilding the Chicago Blackhawks brand, right? They're giving them everything that they can. Outdoor games, next superstar, everything the NHL can do without tampering. They're going to do because they need to rebuild the Blackhawks brand. The Spurs brand, as successful as it's been with Duncan and Robinson, and then there was Kauai. And then is the Spurs brand as important to the NBA as the Blackhawks brand is to the NHL?

The NBA definitely looks at the Spurs and has looked at the Spurs over the last quarter century and has gone, Can you stop?

Yeah. Can you please Can you beat New Orleans or something? You beat shit for a bit.

That's how you know the draft isn't rigged. They would not have had Wembe N'Yama going to San Jose. Yeah. No, that was their McDavid. Yeah. Remember, we went, Well, all right, the debate's over. And then the next year, the least one.

You guys didn't answer my question at all.

I think-30... One.

I think Webman Yamma is going to have more. And the reason I say that is that it's a superstar sport. Hockey is a superstar sport, by the way. Anybody that tells you it is ridiculous. But you can, in the NBA, get away with playing six guys most of the playoffs, right? And whereas in hockey, you do need... There's that extended roster. There's more people playing. So by virtue of the fact that there are more people, the stars take up less of a percentage of importance. And I think Wembe Yam is just going to be an unbelievable player. You're betting that San Antonio surrounds him a little a bit quicker with some pieces than the Black Ops do? I think they're going to have what a top three pick again this year, right? Yeah. So they have Wemby and. So Jordan and Pippin. You know what I mean? Those are the things that I would expect. Maybe they do the Twin Towers' Redux.

Will the Black Ops, though. What if they get Celabrini?

Oh, man.

Then we're at Gino and Crosby. Then I'm full 10 for a hack.

He's going to Pittsburgh. I keep telling you.

Yeah.

Celabrini?

Oh, yeah. And he's going to live in Crosby's basement, and Crosby still lives in Lemu's basement. It's crazy. I don't know how it's all going to work.

I think it'd be a little fishy if he goes to Chicago.

Oh, dude. Just a bit. Okay, but think about this. How crazy was it that Edmondson got it three out of four years, the first overall pick?

Well, I mean, the Blackhawks got to pay for that other lawsuit they're about to lose.

Right.

What's the next one?

John Doe. John Doe 2. Another player from the Kyle Beach case. Yeah.

It's crazy.

All right. Sorry to bring the whole mood down. No, it's what's happening. It feels like one was a national story and the other we're just not talking about, and it's a pretty similar story.

All right, let's end on this one. I can bring it back up because we got a Stump the Steve from a something that you inquired about last week when we were talking about John Torterella and scratching his captain. So this is from Julian 1124. On an earlier episode, Steve pondered about who the last captain to be scratched was. Well, in 1718, this team scratched their captain seven times. Which team and which player? Adam and Steve.

17, 18.

You got to guess.

Who was Torterella scratching or who was Torterella coaching in 17, 18. And who was the captain of the Blue Jackets?

That was the year they knocked off the lightning, right?

18? I'm pretty sure.

Did they? No, no, no. Was that year?

18 or 19? Steve? 19.

Wait, what? What year the lightning lose the blue jackets?

2019, I believe.

All right. 17, 18. This captain was scratch seven times. Do you want a hint?

Well, I guessed Andrew Farence, but 17, 18 would be way too late. Yeah, sure. Give me a hint.

This player played the fourth line and averaged only 11 minutes and 18 seconds of time on ice. They were a short term vibes captain, two seasons, and not a declining star. Thanks for the hint, Studio. I like that.

It's very nice. I still don't know. Okay.

It doesn't help.

I'm trying to think of names that were captain in recent memory that just weren't big names in the league.

Was Andrew Ladd still a captain in Winnipeg? Because that's the one I think of, right?

Paul Maurice, Prison Rules Paul? You think?

Because he wasn't great towards the end, right?

Because I'm thinking, I forget. I think I think his first name is Curtis. Curtis McKenzie? Who is the guy in Florida? They had a guy named McKenzie as their captain. Exactly. That's the face most people would make. I have no idea. And then there was also Bryce Salvador in New Jersey. I like Adam's answer. Andrew Lad.

Andrew Lad is the official guess? Andrew Lad would be incorrect. If I give you the team, could you give me the captain?

Probably you can figure that out.

Maybe not. Florida Panther. Derek McKenzie.

Derek McKenzie is it. Not Curtis. Derek McKenzie. Mckenzie. Yes. Scratched seven times in the 17-18 season. Yeah.

Not comparable because it's Sean Coutourier, but still-Oh, yeah.

No, that's the whole point.

It's unprecedented.

He played 11 minutes at Tom on Ice. He was a fourth-line player. Derek McKenzie, captain of the floor of Panthers.

Things have turned around fast.

Where does Derek McKenzie rank on the list of great captains in NHL history?

Probably number three.

Behind what? How and Gretzky? Deon Fanaff. Deon.

Oh, man. Deon.

And Randy Carlyle, captain of the Toronto Maple Leaps, I believe, at one point. No. He won a Norris Trophy, too. You know that?

He won a Norris with Pittsburgh.

Was Randy Carlyle not captain?

Also upset at a toaster.

Here, we're going to find out on the next episode if Randy Carlyle was a captain. Joining us now is an old friend of the show, Harrison Brown. We have Harrison back. Harrison, you're here to talk about a kickstarter that you have going on called Pink Light: A Trans Positive Film. And what I love about this is that one of the last times we spoke to you, I remember you saying, I think I might... Because you're asking what's next for you. And you're like, I think I might... I don't know. I feel like I need to write something. I want to write a screenplay or something. And here we are.

Cool. Yeah, what a full circle moment. I love that.

It's very cool. So tell us about this.

Yeah. I think obviously, hockey is such a big part of my life. But I turned 30 last year, and I was thinking back to the hockey days. It's been six years since I played hockey since I retired. And I was just thinking back to that younger version of myself, especially in college and thinking, I don't know if you all feel ick about what you were like in college or something like that. I didn't really give that version of myself a lot of slack. I was playing Division One hockey. I was dealing I was dealing with coming out as trans. I was dealing with dating, growing up in a religious household. I just thought back to that version and was thinking, that little dude was really strong, and I'm really happy that he got me to 30, and I'm really happy where I am right now. And writing and acting and visual media has always been so important to me. I just thought, what better way to pay tribute to this little guy than by having him be in a little movie? So, yeah, I made this for him.

I really like you referring to yourself as a little guy in this little movie. I like that you have the confidence to look back on yourself like that, because I don't look back on my college days with that reverence at all. But you've seen me skate.

All right. Yeah. It's you just pretend it never happened and you move on. But the fact that you're able to look back with introspection, that's very impressive.

Well, that's therapy.

This was a therapeutic exercise that turned into now a full-blown kickstarter. Well, so yeah. Listen, there's 10 days left on this kickstarter, and you're about three quarters of the way there, but we still need a little bit more support. You're looking for 35 grand. You know what? The support has been really great so far. What would be as soon as this project is funded, Harrison, what's the first step? I have no idea what it takes to make a movie. What do you do now?

That's the question that I've been asking myself. This is my first movie. This is the first thing that I'm directing, but I have a really great team behind me that has done this before that I can lean on, which is amazing. But the next step is Now that the money is coming in and people are supporting it, we have like, 270 people that have donated so far, and it's just climbing. Really? Yeah, it's crazy. We've raised almost $25,000 already, and the hockey community has really come in, and lots of people have shared it, lots of people have supported. But now I'm like, Oh, shit. I've got to make something good. And so the next thing, we're really revamping the script. We're making sure that it's tight. Then the next thing is just figuring out the locations and what it looks like, visual media, like grabbing inspiration from other TV shows, what you want it to look like or other movies, and just seeing what you want it to be. It's on the paper, but figuring out what that looks like in real life, it's exciting, but it's also really quite daunting as well, too.

Yeah, I think what's daunting, from my perspective anyway, is it took us years to get this podcast looking and feeling and being in a room like this where we could have a good studio of our own, where the equipment actually worked. You're going to have to turn that around in a matter of months. It took us 11 years to get to this spot. I've always been blown away by the by the filmmaking process. You got some great talent lined up for this, too. Do you not?

Yeah. We have a stellar DP that I'm really looking forward to just learning from. Their name is Jay Stevens. We have a lot of our cast set. We have a good set in a frat party. We have a really great frat boy with Donald McLean Jr. That's really exciting. But then I'm going to be playing the older version. This movie centers around a a 30-year-old trans guy looking back on a college experience. We have to cast this younger version of me. That is really interesting to find because now we've added a hockey scene, so we want them to be able to skate and to look like me. That's tough, but it's exciting to see who will come out of the woodwork for that.

My biggest pet peeve in any sports show or movie is when the actor can't do the thing. If it's a baseball movie and they can't throw a pitch, that bothers me as a sports fan because I'm sitting there watching this. I'm supposed to be immersed in the visual experience. If Zac Efron can't really shoot a basketball high school musical, you drop a couple of rankings.

Your head's no longer in the game.If.

My head's not in the game. So please just make sure when you're filming the hockey scenes, they can play hockey, or at least you get the stunt double. If it's you-I think Harrison knows.you can get in there. You can make sure the hockey is real for us fans.

When they got to do crossovers, you just close He goes in on the feet.

Look at that. By the way, I just want to say, Harrison, that's a really tall order because every time you've come out to shitting, it's so embarrassing to play hockey with you. We're just a bunch of just ankle-biting losers out there. It's so funny. Now this actor has got to be good at acting and also extremely good at skating.

I got an assist once, and I realized after the goal went in, I looked up and my line mates were Harrison Brown and Eric Lentras.

Big apple for you.

The only reason I got it.

If you want to find it, go to kickstarter. Com/projects/pinklight, or you can just search Pink light on kickstarter.

Hit the description of this episode. You'll find the link right there.

There you go. Harrison Brown, congratulations on everything. I'm so proud of you, and it's so nice to have you back on the show.

Yeah. No, thanks, guys. It's great to see you again. It's great to be back. And thank you so much for amplifying this for me and all the support. It really means a lot.

The Steve Dangle podcast.

Follow the guys on Twitter at steve_dangle@adamwylde and at Jessie Blake. Connection complete.