
Microphones, History | The Steve Dangle Podcast
sdpn- 136 views
- 25 Nov 2024
Come see the SDP live in Kingston: Pre-game Skate Bundle: https://thefrontsshop.com/products/skate-package?
D the Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Arnold, and sounds.
Like a you problem.
It sounds like Steve's got an issue.
The headphones are. They're here. Where are they?
I don't know.
Well, do we have a look under the desk?
I think we should just let me. Let me sit in my mess.
You know, Steve, I know you're new at this. I know you're new at this, but you do want to do an equipment check. Oh, did Jesse have them? Did Jesse have them?
They were. I switched. We're good. We're good.
We're good. Here we go. We're good.
I'll take. You take those ones.
The great thing about it is that we can hear you.
Yep.
We're right here.
Yeah. Oh, this is way better, though.
They do.
I can hear myself loud. I love hearing myself.
Know when you're talking in the microphone.
Yeah. So a little bit later, we're going to unpack Steve in Halifax and the journey that was. But I do want to say that the he is wearing. If you can't see it, he's wearing a Mooseheads jersey right now. So you went to the team store. Yeah.
Know the facts. No, actually, this is free stuff.
Oh, they. Somebody gave you a moose.
Someone gave me a Moosehead because you.
Were telling me on like. Like before. You're like, I think I'll go down to the team store, buy a jersey and bought you one.
Someone gave me a Mooseheads jersey and two stuffies, one for each kid.
Wow.
Done and dusted. I don't have to go anywhere.
Christmas presents from listeners straight to the bar. I want to see your wife.
She doesn't want anything from Halifax.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
Did you ask?
Yeah, no, I know her like that.
If we asked Mrs. Dangle right now, hey, would you like a little trinket from Halifax? She would say, no, we've been through this.
I married Adam. She hates trinkets.
Yeah.
Hates things.
Whenever I bring things into the house, she's, like, angered by the love.
And.
I'm like, but I love love. And he's like, incorrect.
What about some, like, fresh fish?
Yeah. No, she doesn't like fish.
No, nothing. No, nothing. Nothing in the world.
Not even a cow's ice cream T shirt.
Oh, yeah. I'll just put that in my suitcase.
Oh, not cow's ice cream.
If you let him finish the sentence. He said T shirt.
Because they always, like, take cool, famous albums that they make an ice cream.
She married a guy twice her size, so she just takes all My shirts. All right, she's good.
I think we're gonna check in.
Good. She's taken care of and delirious. Cause she has two kids.
Kingston Fraud and AX. December 8th. To links in the description, or you just go to the front store, check it out. You get the pregame bundle or just the game bundle? Either way, we're gonna see you at the Caesar Company afterwards. Very excited about that live show. And all the SDPN peeps will be sitting in the same section, which I kind of like this time because last year was all spread around, but now we're all going to be together.
And we have another live show to announce. Kingston. Sorry. I just like getting at them. All on guard.
I also want to throw this out there, that I did follow through on my pledge from November. Last week, I did go and do the cold plunge this weekend.
What was that like? What does that mean?
Well, so remember, Craig was in here and he was talking about the fact that, you know, they do, like, a Movember cold plunge right at the beach near my house.
Okay.
I was like, oh, I'll go to that. And then I. And then I showed up, and I think they were like, oh, you did show up. Like, you. Like, there was, like, a hundred people there, and it was just like, me by myself and my wife videotaping it and whatever. And I ran in with a bunch of people I didn't know and that you have to stand. Spend 60 seconds there in the water up to your shoulders.
Can we play the video?
Well, I don't. I don't have it on me. It's on her phone. But, yeah, we can play the video. I'll bring it next to her. Text her. I'll text her. Good. Yeah.
Anyway, I know you're doing.
I don't think we'd want to, like, post or put it on the video on our thing, but I guess we can.
But anyway, I brought it up on the show.
Well, I just thought it was for.
The context of the show. It'd be nice if you play the video.
Yeah, you're right.
I want to see your body.
It was cold.
I want to see your wet body.
It was cold. It was cold. It wasn't. It wasn't so cold that the. The sand is frozen. You know, when you go to a beach and of course the sand is actually frozen. Yeah, it wasn't that, but it was pretty cold.
Has it grown back yet?
What?
Oh, that.
What, your mustache?
No, the mustache shrivels up in the cold.
Your mustache.
We're talking a Lot about wives here. So followup question about you going to the beach and bring your wife there. Did you tell her that this is where you lost the wedding ring?
Yes. Oh, she knows that.
Okay. And was she traumatized?
No.
Just by being there. She got shivers cuz, like, ah, the ring is here somewhere.
She's one of the first people, like, outside of YouTube that have, like, been like, well, that's just Adam. About things that are just me. Right. Like, you know, there, there. There's things that I'm. I have been extremely annoying to friends, family and partners in the past that Steve and Jesse just accept about who I am. Oh, that's Adam. So if you like the good parts, you gotta accept some of the other parts. And that's how Natalie is. She's like, well, like, she. I was more disappointed about the wedding ring than she was. She's like, we'll get another one.
Nah, that's. That's all acting. I know you were secretly like, ah, it's just another thing I don't have to have.
Yeah, I don't think you're disappointed at all.
I hate stuff.
So if we, if we know Adam, he was like, ah, yes, one less thing I have to have.
Having stuff.
I feel so free. Yeah, she was cool with it. But did she like, and like, strangely often look down and just go, no, not at all.
Not even a little bit? No. So, speaking of collecting things, we collected the full set of Nylanders this weekend.
Michael signed two.
Michael signed to. No, no, we got both Nylanders. Willie tweeted about his brother in 2016. Remember that world championship? I remember being freaked out because he played a shift, scored a goal, and then got hurt. And then, like, he got run over. I forgot how tough that hit was. And then he said, I can't wait to do this again sometime. And it took till 2024 in November for the Nylanders to play on the same team together. And they actually played a few shifts, which is pretty cool.
They did a power play.
Yeah.
Because Will, you know, William, I can't just call him. Nylander needs to double shift on the power play. And they decided to use the other ones. Alex's good shot. So I did like, on the power.
Play that they had it perfectly set up where Willie on the breakaway drops to Alex, scores. Except he skipped the drop to Alex part. He's just like, no, I'm going to do this.
I don't think he should have.
No, no, no, he did the right thing. It just would have been cool, is all.
I'm saying I thought it was interesting. James Myrtle did a little bit of a piece on. On this. And, you know, they talked about Michael Nylander being emotional about, you know, Alex being signed and, and, you know, that's cool. But he said, Incredibly, throughout the 107 year history of the league, 47 brothers have played at least one game together for an NHL team. Ten have won a championship together, which means that at least once it was three brothers. For it to be an odd number, it can't be a pair. It's got to be a third one. They have to. 47 brothers have played at least one game together for an NHL team. And I figured that's got to be the sun.
No, I think he means 47 pairs of brothers.
47 pairs of brothers.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
So it'd be like, one is Alex and Willie. You know, that's what I think.
I thought it was just like 47 people. And I was like, that is a crazy like. Because imagine.
I don't know. That's. That's how I'm reading it as. You're okay.
No, you're probably right. You're probably right.
Like, I think one instance is Saturday. Two would be another set.
Three.
That's how I'm reading it. But maybe there's more context in there.
Yeah, no, there isn't. It says 10, 10 have won a championship together. And I was.
Go back further in the sentence.
So that's fine.
It's. It's. It's just a. It says Incredibly, throughout the 107 year history of the league, 47 have played 47 before that. It's a quote.
Oh, wow. Okay.
So, yeah.
To quote the great G when I work for him. Steve, I don't care what you think. What do you know? What do you know? Well, that's okay. And, and they're going to be the 48th.
They're gonna be the 48th. I guess so. I guess so. It's gonna be very, very interesting. And I think last night it would've been nice. It would've been poetic if that backhander shot that went off the post went in for Alex. Yeah, I would have really liked that for him. But it would've been poetic for Nick Robertson if either of his posts have gone in. And Homeburg Holmberg too. Man, they had a lot of posts off the crossbar that was. That fooled Ingram and I. Or V. Excuse me. And I thought it was. It was interesting looking at the score last night because I was like, that score is not really reflective of what happened here. There was.
Utah got outplayed.
Utah Ghetto played in the first period. The Leafs got outplayed.
Yep.
But after that, I'm like, there was plenty of chances for the Leafs to make that four to one. Five to one.
They cut them. They cut them up bad in the second period. Yep. Yep. They held on a bit in the third. But yeah, no, it's, uh. Jesse made a great point because now I get to check with Leaf dad and be like, dad, what did. What did you notice about the game before I do lfr. And you're like, well, they sucked in the first period. Yeah. And it's because they hadn't played for, what was it, three or four days.
Yeah. So Tavares was the first person to come out after the game and talk to all the reporters there. And he. The first thing we went to was like, okay, what about that start? You guys really suck to start this game. And he said, yeah, it was hard to get our legs under us after having so many days in between games.
Like, yeah, practice.
They practice, obviously the practice Saturday. I think they had. Think they had day off Thursday to practice Friday. But he said, just not having actual NHL games to play. It was hard to all of a sudden, on a Sunday night to get up for this game right away. And so it took them mostly that first period. They. They were really good in the last, like, two minutes of that first. Yeah, he's like, that's how long it took us to just get back up to speed.
Bodes well for their divisional matchup against Florida on Wednesday, huh?
Yeah, well, it's a little different. Yeah.
Well, I mean, but it's like two. You know, they've had a lot of time off. I think that is a factor.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
And Matthews might come back like that. That has the potential to be just a real mess of a game, which.
Is why we're streaming it. Yeah, I'll be doing my stream Gripper Nation Wednesday night anyway.
But they find themselves currently, at very least, virtually almost damn near undefeated without Austin Matthews and first place in the Atlantic. Stupid.
Played one less game than Florida, too.
Yes. Dude. It's dumb and it's stupid and it's the best. And I don't need, you know, they don't ask how. They ask how many. I'm not asking how at all. I don't need to know.
Well, I thought. I thought the TSN panel made a really good point last night when they said impossible. When they said, listen, the fact that Martyr and Neilander are playing so well, so is Tavares. It's masking some of the issues they're having in the bottom six. And to be fair to the bottom six, they don't have all the. They don't have the right personnel there. They're missing a 3C. It's the Marley.
But.
I'm talking about guys that started on the bottom six to start the year. You guys know what I'm talking about. We're talking about your homebergs and your Robertsons and Lorenz hadn't scored in a while, although he had some chances last night. Yeah. And. And I don't think they're expecting to. And David Kampf wasn't doing well before he was on LTIR in terms of offense or whatever. Where's it going to come from? The fact is we don't have to think about it right now.
Nope.
I think it's such a non issue because one thing is when everybody's healthy is not what it's going to look like. And I think now we. That we see all the injuries, especially the comp one that came out of nowhere. And he didn't just go on IR, he went on LTIR. So he's not available for. For four weeks. Like he's not going to. Or 28 days. So he's not going to play forever. So there was definitely an injury going on there and they kind of just have one hole to fill. It's kind of just the center position. And now that Marner has been so good by himself, you can spread him out and maybe if you can spread out a spread out Willie when everybody's healthy or at least there's more bodies back, maybe it just kind of solves itself.
Marner has been a frigging animal. Like.
Yeah.
All around the ice in every situation.
So is this the best hockey we've seen him play?
I think so. I struggle to think of a stretch where he's been better than this. There was a November a few years ago. I bring it up often, but I don't remember what year it was, where it was kind of like this year he had two goals like through a month and you're like, hey, he should shoot. And then he started to. And he can't stop scoring. He just can't stop scoring.
Yeah.
And he's still setting guys up disgustingly. He's still making like by and large great defensive plays. It's just this year he's got an edge to his game that just hasn't been there before. I love watching him play.
It's the interesting thing with Martyr, like the goals, we can talk about the goals. But for me, last night, watching him in the neutral zone strip pucks off of guys and a lot oftentimes, like there was one time where he stripped the puck and then it went to Connor Timmons and Connor Timmons didn't do much with it. So it's sort of for the. For most people, they're not. That's not going to make a highlight reel. Right. Like it's not going to be something that you go back and you think about. But I have been blown away with his board work and with his ability to strip guys and. And it's led to goals. And the other guy I've been blown away with on that is Willie who directly, because he was so hounding a guy so much on defense, was able to score his goal. And I think. But not to make it about Willie. Mitch has this. We all knew this was here and I think it's important that like you guys said it last year with Jack Campbell, like, when he's down, we got to talk about it, but when he's up, we should talk about it too.
And Mitch today and people are like, I already see people online. Well, that's all great, but what about the play? All we have is today.
Yep.
And today it's the best hockey I've seen him play personally.
You guys never listen to Rihanna Young right now.
We. We also have the past and we should.
That's not one of the words. It's not the lyric.
We have the past right now.
No.
All we have is the.
I hate this remix. Horrible. Horrible.
I know you guys have short term memory loss, but in the not too long ago past, in the 22, 23 season, Mitch Marner did go on a 23 game point streak.
Yes.
Yes.
And this thing the Leafs do every November is what they do every November. And that stretch there where he's on the 23 game point streak where you set the franchise record for the longest point streak in. In Maple Leafs history was also a stretch where the Toronto Maple leafs went from November 11 to December 15 without a regulation loss.
Damn.
It's. It's very similar every single year. So I don't know if this is the best hockey he's ever played. I probably reference that time.
Yeah.
Even though that was with Austin. So it's kind of a. It's a different context all every single time. It's different year. But that's probably the best hockey he's ever played. But the Leafs also do this Every year. Last November, it was Willie's turn to go on this crazy streak in the middle of the November during the Sweden trip. And then when they came back, and then he gets the contract in the winter. So with the Leafs, like, awesome, they're doing this again. Let's hope it continues through the winter and into the spring.
And all we have is right now, Jesse.
And do you remember my. I. When. When Marner set the record for the point streak? Do you remember my iconic call on stream?
No.
Yeah, that's because I wasn't streaming that game. I was doing Oilers Habs.
I remember that.
I remember that part.
No, I was not. And neither was the audience. Oilers and Habs fans were like, what are you doing here?
Yeah, but that was the hockey night game that weekend, the national one.
That was because they were bosses. I was. I was pissed.
The bosses that be at sports that decided, hey, that's the game you got to stream.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was pretty cool.
Marner's been electric this season, I think, obviously. And it. Now that. Now that we know he has this in him, there's no way you take him away from jt. Like, they got to stay together. John Tavares has also been incredible during this long stretch that passed.
Last night was unbelievable.
Oh, prime.
Eric Carlson.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Eric Carlson. Watch that. Be like, hey, I used to do that.
That used to be mine.
Now, like, before, like, okay, beginning of the season, he. When he was playing terrible. And there are reasons for why he was playing terrible. You know, we carved him pretty good. But I seem to recall before the season, I was like, you know, his shooting percentage was down last year. Like, just wait. Like, there could be a regression here for jt. It could be very good.
Progression.
Progression and a regression to the mean.
Regression to the progress.
You can't. You can't regress upwards, guys.
You can regress to the mean. No, upwards.
Anyway, listen, we shouldn't be giving lessons.
Pro means forward.
Yeah. English. You're aggressive.
Just because you're good at numbers doesn't mean you're good at languages.
Okay, that's true.
Regress my mean amulets.
Yeah, exactly.
Anyway, first of all, they work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Does anyone have $250? So I can buy one?
Why don't you use the Russell brand promo code?
You know, what's. What's that?
It's a promo code. He's got a promo code.
Oh, yeah. Does he?
Yeah, he does.
Anyway, moving on.
Weird guy. Um, no, he's. He's been incredible. And I just. I Do find it funny, though, that it's completely masking a preexisting issue, which is the rest of the lineup can't really score. Oh, well, like, hey, man, the core guys can't do it every night. The core guys do it every night. Ah, well, nevertheless, that is a hundred thousand percent. What the money.
Ms. Marner wants a $15 million contract or whatever. He's living up to it. Yeah. God damn.
Yeah.
The one. The only thing from him last night I didn't like was at the very end, the backhand. Well, he couldn't get the puck out, but then he was instrumental in they. And he ended up stealing the puck anyway. And what I hated was for the whole rest of the shift and during the celebration when everyone's happy because they won, he was, like, angry and beating himself up. Come on, man. Someone's got to pick him up. I. I think in that case.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? And he was also.
Was he.
He ended up getting the belt.
Was he not mad about an offside leading into that, too? That was. He thought it was offside, but the Leafs had brought it back in.
All right.
He was yapping at the refs about that.
That was ages ago. You won. Yeah, I was back before you got the two points.
I honestly didn't hate that he was upset at the end of the game because the last, like, minute and a half, like, 90 seconds of the game, the Leafs are bad. They almost allowed that goal, and thank God Joseph Wall's pad was in the way, and they couldn't get the puck out of. Out of the zone. Like, they really struggled there. And you can't leave that game being like, oh, yeah. Well, you should. You should leave it like, oh, yeah, we won, but you should also look at it and, like, we got to improve in that area.
Well, the. Brube had a little bit of Babcock in his first season with Matthews in him last night, because he literally has to where for the final 5, 4, 3 minutes of the game. All right, here's Alex Steves. Here's Nick Robertson twice. Here's, like, who else was out there? Minton. He was just throwing dudes out there and seeing what worked.
I kind of like that that he did try that.
Here you go, boys. Sink or swim.
If there's ever a time to try it and figure out, can Minton play in the situation. It's now in the middle of November.
How do you think they all guys? How do you think who did well, who didn't, who sank, who swam in that situation, you. I mean, you both listen. Like, I thought was cool at the end. You have. You have Nylander and Marner, who Babcock and Keith would have never thrown out in a defensive situation until recently. Everyone who sank, who swam in the.
Last three minutes, everyone can't be cheering for Nick Robertson hard enough. And boy, last night, I mean, that's his whole season. Like, he hit the post. That's him being nervous. I understand. Like, I think the puck is going to start going in for him and it'll be rocket fuel for him and. And he'll be able to ride that for a little bit. Oh, boy. That puck stays there for a while when he's out there sometimes, eh?
What do you mean?
Like, when the pucks in the Leafs end and he's out there, they do get hemmed, man.
If I'm honest about Nick Robertson, I like his work ethic.
He. He hustles so hard.
He's working so. And that's why he's amongst, like, the top part of the league in terms of penalties drawn.
Yes.
Guys are always taking penalties on.
Oh, no. Shut the up. Shut up. Shut.
No, Shut the.
You ruined it.
Yeah, Jesse. Now we're screwed.
Yeah.
Robertson is never drawing a penalty again.
All right, continue. Continue, Jesse.
There's. He's amongst the league leaders in penalties drawn is because he's always moving his feet, he's always working, but the skill might not be there and his hockey sense might not be there. And if I'm pie in the sky, Dream Leafs lineup. I like the kids that they've brought up in the last week more than Nick Robertson.
Okay.
Like, that's. That's just my. I'm rooting for the kid. Like, for Nick.
Oh, yeah.
I just took his.
You just completely took away his ability to draw penalties.
I'm.
Thanks.
If it's a choice between minted or Robertson, I probably have mint in there. If it's a choice between, like, if Reeves is in the lineup on the fourth line and then you want some sort of other skill in the third. Like, Nick's probably out of there. Even like Rabenkin, he doesn't have the skating to keep up, but you can see the potentials there.
Yeah. I mean, waivers, it plays a big factor. Totally as well. Ah, God. I'll always root for a player and bet on a player where the effort is there.
But Alex Steves works hard, too.
He does.
You know, So I don't know if Nick Robertson has a future on this team beyond this season.
Well, and I guess we got to find out, too. The other thing is, Alex Nylander signed that contract, and if they decide to send him down, he's got to go through waivers now.
Man, that is.
So.
He better. He better make it work.
He.
Otherwise, you're a Penguin again.
I gotta hear. Oh, shit.
I'm kidding.
I gotta hear from fans of teams where it didn't work for him. Like, I got to hear from Sabers fans, and that team is terrible. Chicago Blackhawks fans, and that team is terrible. And who else was he?
Columbus is the big one, because that's where he lit up.
Terrible.
He lit up the world last season, and. And they just decided to let him walk.
He was one of the best goal scorers in the league for about six weeks.
Yeah. Like, it's no less than that.
11 goals, 23 games.
Is it? 23.
It was 11 goals in 23 games.
That's pretty good.
It was, like, four weeks. 23.
That's a busy month.
You're right. You're right.
He. I. Because I started watching, you know, clips of him and everything. He's really, really fast. Like, there's a lot of Willie in there. Like. Like, he. He's got a good first step. He's not as smooth of a skater, but he's. He's aggressive with it and agile. There's hands there.
He had the post twice last night.
There's hands there. There's a shot there. Like, he went eighth overall for a reason. Right. Like, that wasn't just us. Last name is Nylander. Put him in the top 10. Why did it work out so well for Willie? And why hasn't it worked out for this guy? Like, why. Why did NHL scouting staffs go? There are only seven better players in this class than him, and it took until last year with the Blue Jackets for him to break out, and then he ends up signing an AHL deal with the Leafs anyway.
Yeah. In his breakout, teams didn't even want him.
Yeah, Like, I'm not.
What are we missing?
Well, he turned down deals, but how many deals and how much were they?
No, but, like, if There was a $3 million deal out there, he would have taken it. You know, like it wasn't. It wasn't good enough. What are we missing?
Well, I think that consistency is an issue, right? You look at the best seasons the guys had. The longest he's played in the league to date, like, in it for a full season is 2019, 2020 with the Hawks, and he had 26 points in 65 games. And then, of course, he had the 15 in Columbus last year. But that ignores the five games in Pittsburgh where he got nothing.
Well, like you, you look at his AHL numbers, Adam, and they're good. They're good.
They're pointing game.
Yeah, there, there isn't a season in there, though, where you're like, this guy's the, the dreaded too good for this league.
I would, I would imagine some of it comes down to unrealized potential and some of it comes down to you were in the Buffalo saber system. And they haven't graduated much outside of those big first round picks.
They've graduated half the Panthers.
Yeah, okay. All right. But I, I, I, I think that he came to Buffalo at a pretty.
Bad time, but I'd like to know, like, what's in his game that's lacking because I think the shot is there. Like, he looks wicked. The skating I think is there too.
I think it's all of Willie's deficiencies, but hyper magnified, like on the defensive end of the puck and all that. But I don't know, I don't want to be the guy who, eight years after he's drafted, he's the late bloomer. 26, here it comes.
GMs fall for that all the time.
I know I don't want to be that guy, but I do watch him and I'm like, where are the. How come this didn't work? Now, none of us were banging the drum for him to get signed after exhibition because he was a guy out there. Cedric Pare with flash like it. He didn't do much. Right. So, I mean, it's not going to be a terribly long audition. Guys are kind of come back and.
They'Re coming back quickly.
Yeah. So let's, I don't know, let's see what happens there.
Yeah, that's, that's going to be fascinating. Now, for the first time in a long time, the Toronto Maple Leafs have a, a goaltending duo. That first w started his second in a row. I was like, please, please be careful with that man. But, but he was.
So you can get Stallers in Florida on Wednesday.
Of course, of course. But it's also, please be careful with that man. You don't want to play him too much extended break. But yeah, I, I think it's kind of cool that they have confidence in both. That is a, that is the first time in a long, long, long time.
One of the LFR questions was, this is the best Leafs goalie tandem since who? And I had a really hard time coming up with an answer. Because like someone.
Damien Rhodes. Well, like, where are we talking here?
Like someone went Joseph Schwab. And I'm like, well, Corey Schwab. That's not a tandem.
Oh, Curtis Joseph.
That's.
That's Joseph thought they. It has been that long. Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying.
Curtis Joseph, Corey Schwab. Like, that's a situation where a dude was supposed to spend play like 70 games or whatever and I think he got hurt and Corey Schwab had to play some like. Okay, tandem rhyme or Scrivens. Well, no, that was another situation where Reimer got hurt and Scrivens had to play more games. Anderson Campbell, both guys had really good.
Stints with the Leafs, but never together.
Never together at the same time. Okay, we can't really go with them. Do we go back to someone said Belfor Telquist, which. No. What if. What? No, no, like you. Yeah, you might. Literally there was a brief, very brief period. It was Joseph and Pot Van. Yeah.
That was like six games though.
It was. It was five seconds. You might earnestly like, it's not Pot van furor. So now we're starting to.
Well, that's why I said Pot Van. Damien Rhodes. Like, I liked Damien Rhodes.
So it like, it could be like the one I didn't want to say in lfr because I'm like, people are going to think I'm kidding. Or the most ridiculous human being ever. Like Bauer saw Chuck.
Wow. Like, no, no, it's not been good.
But we're talking about. We're talking about two goalies who are playing like they're putting up top 10 goalie in the league numbers.
So. So let me. Let me give you this. Damien Rhodes had a.902 save percentage in 22 games in 93, 94, backing up Felix Pod Van. And that is not dead puck era yet. Right? That is, that's.
No, that was 93, 94 was very high scoring.
Yeah. So you imagine. And I think that's. I think that year or the year after Felix Potvin saw the most shots against in the NHL. That's how bad Leafs defense regularly is. Yeah. Felix had a 907 and 66 games that year. So. And then, you know, Damien Rhodes continued to the next year. 13 games, 9, 16 save percentage. The next year after that, 11 games. 904 save percentage. So this is a guy that. I actually think it's Pod Van Rhodes.
Like you're asking from pure numbers, pure save percentage. The answer is Reimer Scrivens.
Wow.
If we're going the 13 season. Reimer, Scrivens, Rhymer was a 924. Scrivens was a 950.
Yeah. You know what? You should trade for a start of the next year. Yeah.
Rhymer, that's in 31 games started. Scrivens was in 17 games started.
There you go.
924 and 915.
That's amazing.
Pure. Pure. We. We know the context of everything that happened in 13, but if we're translating safe percentage, it's those two.
But, like, Staller's wool blows their numbers out of the water.
Yeah.
Right. So they have to keep it up in order for this to even be a conversation. Wolves played, like, seven or eight games, but, like, every night, the blood pressure is nice and low. Like, I don't. It's to the point where the only reason to care who the Leafs are starting is for fantasy. I don't give a. I don't care. Dude. I don't. Stolers is really good. I like him. Yeah, Bull's really good. I like him a lot. All right. Like, I do not care.
Yeah.
I don't care who's starting.
Yep. And that's nice.
It's been a very long time since that's been the case.
Steve. You're wondering the next season when they trade for a starting goaltender. Bernier and Reimer weren't too bad either. 9. 22 for Bernier and a 911 for James Reimer.
No one remembers that. Bernier was actually pretty good when he started.
Fantastic.
But that team fell off the. I think that was. Which was the 18 wheeler. No, the 18 wheeler was. Dude, they were so. Shit.
We don't need to.
I know.
We don't need to. They were bad. Okay, moving on. Oh, I just don't want.
I don't want.
I don't want to go back there. I don't. I can't. I simply can't.
I don't know.
I simply can't.
Yuck.
My own yum.
Yeah.
Because that's what we're doing. Why would we go back? It's like, oh, I'm in such a great relationship. I need to think about my ex.
Ma. Ma. And Anderson. Anderson was a 918. McElany was a 914.
Oh, wow.
That might great t be the answer.
That's 16 cents.
And next year, they were like, hey, you know what, Curtis? Get out of here. Why don't you go join the Lightning? What have they ever done?
How about this one? In 1718, Anderson is a 918. McElhinney is a 934.
He was.
Wow, that's probably the best one.
He was so. But that, like, again, I wouldn't call that a tandem at all. Like, that's Anderson and McElhinney starts every now and then. Like, this is.
They got 15 games.
They haven't split it like this for a long time.
Right? A true one. Two.
That's why I went back to Bowers off, because, like, they're like, okay, we have two former Vesna winners. We're going to have them split it. Also, they're old as shit. Like, they're so old. And let's win a Cup. Beliefs are weird, man.
It's a. The other thing I wanted to mention from the game last night specifically was Lawson Krauss start trying to start a fight after one of the goals and Simon Benoit jumping in and going, okay, fight me then. And Lawson Kraus backing down. And that is not. That is not the first time that's happened this year. It happened against Montreal, too. David Savard back down from a fight, and it looked pretty soft. Now, David Savard doesn't fight, but he's the body to fight. He's a. He's a tree trunk.
Now, there's. There's a little bit of context here that a lot of Leaf fans might have missed.
Okay.
And Andre Turny to Rigny. Is it Terrigny?
No, I just said.
I know it's spelled Terrigny, but every time I said it in the video yesterday, something in my brain went, nope, that's not it. But I had to override it and be like. So it's like when you still have a word underlined in red. Microsoft Word. Nope, leave it. He had that time out. And I think. I mean, it was because they were getting scored on and everything, but earlier this week, you think it was still less than a week ago. Tom Wilson, who's a great player, but every now and then reminds you he's a little psycho. Yeah, he got into, like, a grappling match with Krauss where Krauss is on the ground, and he, like, slammed that dude's head into the ice like, three times. It was bad. Like, I'm. I'm surprised. I'd be more surprised that nothing came of it if it weren't the NHL. Although we should give them their player safety video props a little.
Absolutely.
Later in this episode. So that's Krause getting smacked around and Utah not really doing anything about it. Now it's. It is Tom Wilson. It's a really Tough customer. Last night's Leafs lineup didn't have that. But I think part of the reason we saw it get so chippy and nasty is because Utah is not just struggling to put, like, wins together here. They're getting pushed around and they can't have that. So that's. That's why I think all that happened last night. But.
Well, if you're going to start a.
Fight, you should start a fight.
If you're going to start a fight, you should be ready to fight. And I understand not wanting to do it. I completely get it.
Well, and that's not a great trade either.
No, it's not.
Especially in a game.
Benoit Kraus. Yeah, no.
In a game that you're losing, that's not a great.
But. But what I liked about it, forget about the loss and Krause Angle for a second here and the history there. I liked that the Leafs stood up and it didn't have to be a star player.
They're a totally different.
It was just. It was like, oh, wait a second. And it goes back to mat Matthew Nye, saying to whoever it was, Pasternak, go me, go me. And then Pastor Knock, turning away, going. And then Matthew, nice, go to. I knew you would.
That's what I thought.
And then. And that's. That is something that never used to happen. There is an attitude with this team, and you can see the confidence and it allows.
What happened next round, by the way, what with the Poshernak?
I don't know.
He fought Matthew Kachuk and, well, I think, like, obviously the Bruins win that series. Obviously he scores the game seven overtime winner. He's feeling really good about himself, but.
He'S thinking about it.
He backed down from a fight. Yeah, he didn't back down from that one. Now, you know, you take Matthew Kachuk off the ice, it's a little different than taking Matthew Nice off the ice, especially a really young one. But I just wonder if there was a little something in the back of his head after that.
Oh, well, maybe. I think. Speaking of the Leafs, though, I just want to get to the point where, you know, you talk about Will or Mitch having an edge to his game. Well, he can now. He's allowed to. You if you know that you've got guys who are going to step in and go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no way.
And not a designated, like, bodyguard, right.
Who can't keep up with the big stars. Like, no offense to Kyle Clifford, but he was never going to get more than seven or eight minutes a night.
Dude, it was five or six years where they were like, this is. We're tough now. This one person is why we're tough. Nope. It's the whole damn lineup.
Right.
Time.
The other thing I think is worth mentioning is that obviously we know and we gave our flowers to the. The Tanv McCabe pairing. Right. But I thought this was interesting as well. Kevin Papetti tweeted, Connor Timmons has been on for less five on five goals against per minute than any other defenseman in the league this season. Benoit is second, and the McCabe Tana pair is also shutting down lines night after night. It's nice to have two pairs that are playing shutdown minutes. And listen, are those minutes the same as McCabe Tanv? No. But do they need to be?
When Hawkin paws back, Oel is the one who sits.
Yeah, yeah, Right.
No. Zero shot.
Isn't it great that, like. I think it's very. I think it's very interesting how this is all played out and there were people at the beginning of the year who already. While Benoit is clearly the guy that's got to go if Timmons is in whatever, I think he's done his role.
Right.
I just want him to take less stick penalties.
Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I mean, that's a bad thing, but it's also early in the season and they'll slowly go away and all of a sudden, oh, you know, Benoit's really upped his game. No, just change the rules. Change the rules. It's okay.
Yeah.
I couldn't be happier with how the sleeves team is playing, like, on the back end.
The only thing with that is that Yachty Hockenbaum is really good at hockey.
Yeah.
And he's got to find a way into this lineup.
And he. When people were questioning that, like, okay, the skepticism because of the injury, I totally understood. But when I saw, like, a little like a notion out there, like, do they need this player? I'm like, okay, you don't know who this guy is?
Yeah, this. He's very useful.
I think he's exclusively desired by the best defensive teams in hockey. Let's. That should be our first clue.
Connor Timmons has been the surprise, though.
Oh. Oh, my God. I'm. I. Dude, I'm shocked.
He's been great. He's been great. He's been phenomenal.
I thought if he was going to get in the lineup, all right, he's going to be scoring like a third of a point something ish per game, you know, second power play unit. And he's going to drive you nuts and he's going to cost your team a goal every game or two. And you take the good with the bad. No, that's just a straight up good defenseman. It's just a straight up all around good defenseman.
Yeah.
Like, how many times this season have you been like, connor, that was dumb?
Once or twice. Max. No, one. That penalty he took last week where he wrapped a guy at the end.
Of the game, Everyone does that.
Yeah. It was emotion.
Willie does that.
It was a stupid penalty, though. You're asking me, sure. If I yelled at the tv, I yelled at a little bit.
But like last year, like in years past with Keefe as his coach, and I'm not blaming it on Keith, but, I mean, it's obvious something has changed here. You would at least once a week get a decision from him where it's like, have you ever watched a hockey game? Like, it, like, just so mystifying. And it's like, dude, you're not a dumb player. What are you doing?
Yeah.
And now he's just a solid contributing member of society. Like, dude, he's so good.
Yeah. Makes it impossible for Peruvian to take him out.
Yeah.
I think that's what's going to be when we go back to what the Fords are going to do. And we talked about this. There's, you know, seven guys out, six with injury, one with Ryan Reeves suspension. You know, what those guys have to do to stay in the lineup is what Connor Timmons has done, which is I am going to make it physically impossible for you to remove me from this. You cannot remove me.
I want to know. I don't know enough about the blues. Like, did berube ever go 117 with them for an extended period of time? Because I. I mean, we. We talked about the bottom six and can they score. And I, like, I just wonder if 117 makes sense for this team. They have seven defensemen playing well, and.
The bottom six, it's never worked for anybody. I don't know. It's just like a fun, like, theory.
Is there something to. It's November.
Yeah, I guess you can.
I don't know.
The 117 thing just does not excite me anymore. I just. You can't get me to move for that. I'm like, oh, cool. Okay. So they're gonna. They'll dress another depth defenseman.
There's nothing wrong with throwing a thousand for, like, different forwards. Yeah. There. And, you know, Benoit and Hawk and Paw and everyone's nice and they're just Nice and rested.
Yeah, sure.
I'm on Steve's side and that. I kind of like 11, 7 with this Leafs team. Because I feel like you have seven good defensemen.
Yeah. Do you have 12 good forwards?
That's no go. Eleven.
Yeah. No, I know. No, no. Because to me, that's a big part of it is. Okay. Not only do you have seven good defensemen, but also, like, dude who genuinely. But respectively. Respectfully, who are these guys?
Oh, yeah, it's the Marlies. Like, they literally played the Marlies line last night. Like, I feel like if you have a seven good defenseman and 11 good forwards, why not? Especially because, like, the big guys, like, that's. If you want to double shift Matthews or Nylander or Marner, that's what they're there for. They have the legs for it. They're in their prime of their career. Use them the hell out.
Is this a dickhead question to ask because they're playing so well? I think they're seven and one without Matthews. Let's say Matthews comes back Wednesday.
They're gonna get shit kicked Wednesday. Yeah. I think that's a. That's a schedule loss, so that wasn't.
What I was gonna ask, but I also agree.
Sorry.
You never know.
Yeah.
Matthews goes in, who comes out? Someone has to.
Out of the Ford group.
Yeah.
One of the kids.
Sorry. You guys.
Easily.
You think.
Let's say they're gonna get killed.
That's unfortunately the answer.
Yeah. When? I don't. I don't know they're going to get killed, but I think Wednesday's. It's a prime schedule loss. Wow. Usually schedule losses are like us. I can have a back to back with travel and all that stuff, but this, this Leafs team, I think is. This is a trap game for the mentality of this team.
I really hope whether they win or lose, it's competitive because if you're the Panthers, you're like, oh, so you're in first. Cool. We're. You're. We're going to literally eat your flesh.
Yeah, well, but that's.
That's the thing that the Leafs need to prove is that you can't. And I. I'm wondering when the Leafs are going to stop being pretenders to the throne and actually go for it. And this seems to be the season where they've got the toughness to do it along with the finesse. I.
If.
If they get in there and they. And the Panthers kill them. 6:1 or something like that, or even 4:1, I'm going to be really I'm going to be really disappointed because I think that game, this game matters. This game matters a lot. This is first in the division. This is the team that won the Stanley Cup. They are the. They are standing between you and everything that you want. Are you fucking serious? You can't get up for that?
I'm tempted to take a play out of Paul Maurice's book and say, fuck the plays. Like, just like, I. I think it has real potential to be a messy, messy game.
Should be mean. Yeah, well, and I think it's like. It's like it should be one of those. It's like, oh, Sam Bennett, you looked at me wrong. Gloves are off. Like, that's gotta. It's. It's gonna be one of those.
What?
Like there's all these hungry players. Oh, you want to be in the NHL? Prove it.
Good point.
I.
Good point.
I think Greben or Steve's. They're easily the first man out if Matthew's back Wednesday.
But in a game like the one we just described. Oh, I want a secret bank.
Yeah, but it's for Matthew.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
What do you know?
But then we argue, man, why can't.
We see a guy who's at least a 60 overall?
Damn it.
Over Matthews center in the league, guy who's a 60 overall.
I want to see the shit. I want the shit.
That's what Ben was for with the Florida Panthers. Quietly, they've lost five of their last six games. They got their lunch money handed to them on Saturday by the Colorado Avalanche. 7, 4. They haven't been good lately. They play Washington tonight in Florida. So they're sitting at home. They got this game. They're going to be up and ready. They're playing a really good team. Let's see how tonight goes, but I think Wednesday. Leafs. They've played one hockey game in a week. Come that Wednesday. They've been sitting around there in Florida for a couple days. I think they fly out Tuesday tonight or Tuesday morning. So it feels like they come out and they're competitive, but they lose a close game is how I look at it.
The league is so wide open this year. Like, it's. Everyone's been through a slump. It feels like the, The Panthers. What did you say they lost five of?
Lost five of their last six games.
The Rangers just came out today. Like they're looking at making moves and they're pissed off. And the. The Predators are so disappointing. And the points that separate, like, fourth or fifth from, like, second or third last.
It's nothing.
Both conferences. It's crazy. I know it's really early in the season, but, like, other than, like, who. Who do we got? The Jets.
Did you. By the way, did you mention who's pulling away?
The Jets.
The Sabers are doing great. They're.
They're in third.
Yeah, but, yeah, I'm. I'm starting to lean towards CJ's mentality of the standings don't matter until, like, January. Like, everybody's so close. Like, what are.
Yeah, you know, what are the standings Cool about that? Nothing. Both of you are nerds. Enough of that. I care about it right now and I care about it every single day throughout. You know why? How about because that's all I have?
How about January's a month away.
You guys can.
All. You.
You and CJ can be calm and cool and collected. I choose to be extremely reactive.
I think the individual performances of the teams matter, but in terms of where they sit in the stage, I know, like, I know I'm just three points out of first or three points out of last. How do you. What do you. What do you make of that?
It just seems like. I agree. Everything I read about. Nearly every team is. Almost every team in the league is miserable. Yeah, it's true.
Nothing's going anybody's way.
It's true.
Except for the Jets.
The Jets. Except for the Jets.
They've lost three games in the last couple of weeks, guys, after they won.
400 in a row.
They have 17 wins.
And the. The Minnesota Wild, if they. If Capri off could have stayed healthy and upright. But that sucks for them. But he's only day to day, which is awesome. But they don't have a lot to complain about.
No.
The Capitals, they were riding high and then Ovechkin goes out. So that's their injury to complain about. And they're like Leafs playing really well. They got injuries, complaining about. So every team that's actually doing well also has injuries. Except for the jets, who are just happy.
I want to come back to this because I don't want you to go too far into any of that. There's some. There's some. Some scores this weekend that have created some talk. But the first thing I do, I do want to mention a couple of things on the lease.
First off, before you do that, do you want to do the big story?
Oh, yeah, I guess we should. So, guys, this is something that I have been holding back and I. The London Knights just tweeted it, but officially today, a year ago, Easton Cowan's point Streak began.
Oh, well, no, to come to an end.
It's a pretty unbelievable Spanish that he's gone through. And you know the Knights, you could just tell, they're, they're like, they're trying not to make it the only thing that they tweet about. But it's, it's, you know, and they did they put some stuff up there with other. You know, they have other players.
No, they're on a 15 game winning streak. They got lots to talk about.
Yeah.
But the Leafs, I have a very important question for you. What is it regarding this point streak? Now I just mentioned they're on a 15 winning. 15 game winning streak. That 15th win that came. Was it last night? Night before Easton Cowan didn't play?
Yes.
Does that still keep the streak? It does officially keep the point streak intact. But is there now an asterisk on the point streak in that it doesn't come in a consecutive streak of games?
I think the answer is absolutely it does. If you're the worst.
Yeah. If you suck and you're. You just suck. Yeah. Depends on what you missed. If he's injured, does it count? I don't think an injury.
He had a lower body injury.
So an injury line up.
But how does. Is that really what we're doing? Points?
Yeah.
We are truncated point streaks where you could. What if he sat out 10 games and then come back and then his point strikes still alive?
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. Why not? As long as you're not scratched, right?
I don't know. It depends. Jesse, are you the worst?
I thought I proposed the question. It didn't happen in consecutive game, you know it. That the London Knights played. It only happened in consecutive games that he played.
If we're going to, if we're going to play that game.
He.
He didn't score every game in the OHL playoffs last year and Memorial Cup.
It's a regular season streak.
It's a regular season streak.
Yeah.
No, to me that's a far bigger asterisk than he's hurt.
Right.
Really?
Okay.
Yeah.
Huh.
Yeah. So he was going to. He was going to match Doug gilmore's record from 1982. 83. It's a 55. Who's that? So he's. Yeah. Yeah. Who is that guy? So he was so sorry. He has matched it.
Okay.
55 straight games with a point. 8283.
He was on the Devils.
He was with the Cornwall Royal, who do not exist anymore. If he gets. Sorry, two points, then he passes a one point whatever. But he didn't play yesterday. So he hasn't technically passed him. And my question to you would be this. Now that we've acknowledged that it's here being Leaf fans, do you bet on Easton Cowan to match the record and do you bet on him to pass the record in the next game? Not just match, but which game? The next game.
Whatever the game he plays.
The next game he plays.
When?
Because I don't. Well, I don't know. Because he. He missed the game. So how would I know that?
I don't know. So the streak still alive?
You just gotta pay attention.
Yeah. Well, yeah, you do have to pay attention.
I would bet on it.
Thank you, Steve.
I would bet on it. But it's only a $2.
Only a $2. Now, the next next scheduled game is Friday, November 29th. That's this Friday against our friends the Frontenac in Kingston.
No way.
Slush Puppy place.
I mean, if he's hurt, you would think his first game back is not a road game, but you never know.
Next home game will be Wednesday, December 4th against Owen Sound.
That's what I got.
That's what you would bet on?
That's. Whoa.
Now is he passing it or.
You have to pay attention.
Is he getting one point of leg.
Work that Jesse doesn't feel like doing?
Is he getting a point or is he getting two A point? Jesse.
I say Montreal Canadian great Doug Gilmore has to watch out for his record.
Against his hometown Frontenac.
Easton Cowan's gonna beat it would be.
Poetic if it's against the front next. I wonder, maybe they just scratched. They're like, no, we want it to happen against Kingston.
No, Sean. No Sean, like.
So is he going to get spot start?
No.
You know, like you got.
Are they load.
Managing Easton Cowan against specific teams where he can keep the record going.
Designated hitter. He's on a line with freaking Lyle. Only play.
He only plays against lefties.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Matt. Anyways, so listen, it's. It's worth watching. Easton Cowan, history made already. Have a round of applause. It started November 25th last year. It is November 25th this year.
Jesse Streak is alive.
Why?
He didn't do anything.
Oh, wow, that was tough.
Hey, go to betmgm.com dango for more at BetMGM, official betting partner of NHL Canada. So I think it's. It's. It's important that we take a little. Well, I want to mention one thing here. Utah had to walk to the arena. We've all seen the video, right?
No, let's play.
I have not seen It?
Yeah. What are you talking about? We've all seen.
All right, let's do it. Let's play the video.
Ok, hold on.
So in case you didn't know, Toronto sucks for driving and we've made it suck for driving in many different ways. But this one in particular really didn't have to do with traffic. This was the Santa Claus parade letting out and so people making it about traffic today. I'm like, was it. It was a Santa Claus parade.
Man, it's good. Clickbait.
Yeah, it's really good.
Always fraking something though, isn't it? It is.
Well it's, you know.
Oh well today the O. Whatever let out. Like dude, it's always goddamn something.
The what?
Oh and the Martians were playing. So like.
Well yeah, because it's a city.
Yeah.
There's always something going on.
There's lots of cities. You can drive in them.
Not really, but there's a Head in.
The Martians concert and it's done.
Well if Buckhead and the Martians is Taylor Swift and her band. That was.
I was not talking about. That's a different. Yeah category. No Taylor Swift. Everyone's like, well obviously Taylor Swift but it's like a regular Tuesday in friggin April and it's in the Martians.
Also Taylor Swift didn't affect like the concert. Her coming in affected traffic because she got a motorcade from the police. But the, the concert itself didn't really affect traffic because a lot of people going to the show were out of towners who stayed in Toronto and like took transit. So like there wasn't a big traffic effect over the last week or so.
Worth mentioning that 750,000 people go to the Santa Claus parade in Toronto. So anybody that's telling you oh it's because of Trap. It's not. There's almost a million people over a six kilometer.
And you know where the parade takes place? On the street.
Yeah.
It's like you need to shut down the road. So like.
Yeah.
For one time a year. That's disaster to get Toronto.
Yeah.
Oh yeah. It's just once a year.
Yeah.
It's not.
I know what's hilarious about Steve making this argument is that like Steve doesn't go downtown like this. Our building is not downtown.
No, not. Not for the show. Whenever I do have to go. Well, I just won't do it anymore.
Well that's clear because I don't. Can't remember the last time you've been downtown.
I just want. Yeah. Because this situation. Yeah. And I took the train and then walked. Because I'm like, well, that situation's untenable. We are, like, not first world. We are not world class.
Well, actually, we are, because you took transit and you walked there. That's first world class. Yeah, I drove 15 minutes.
I drove and took me 20. Yeah.
And I live in the same neighborhood.
Violent that you said that.
Why?
Second of all, I always go back to this lovely Spanish family I encounter.
No, don't.
Outside it. No, I'm doing it.
What the fuck you talking about?
I'm doing it.
Damn story.
I'm. Oh, yeah? What story of mine? Don't you.
I don't know this story.
Yes, you do.
Jesse doesn't all hear, please tell me.
There's this family from Spain and they were talking amongst themselves and they were saying, spanish, Spanish, Spanish.
Yeah.
I hate you. I'm Italian.
Well, hey, I don't get down with that. Yeah. So they come to me and they're like, hey, yeah, is this. And they pointed our shitty, stupid little fucking you that we have for a subway system.
Yeah. Line one, and they go, hey, Line two goes across.
Oh, yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. Jesus. So they. They go. Fucking piece of. They. They go, is this it? And I tell them, yeah. And they look at each other and they go, spanish, Spanish, Spanish. And then they look back at me and they go, are you serious? That was his question. He obviously, like, English was not his first language, but he knew. Are you serious? And I just laughed and went, yeah.
Our subway system lacks fucking sucks and is a. It needs to be mockery. It needs to be a couple more lines.
But. But that isn't the problem here.
That's not what we're talking about, which is my key. We're talking about traffic.
No, but you got me going.
Which, so, to be fair to Steve, plays into it, I guess, because if we had a transit system like New York where nobody drives because their subway system, any developed city, anywhere there'd be a little bit better. But there's also a city with great transit where you can't drive anywhere.
Yes.
So they can't drive anywhere. So what are we talking about?
Yeah.
There's two sides to everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anyway, Utah walked to the rink. Isn't that crazy? Isn't that hilarious? A bunch of people in the best shape of their lives had to walk 40. 40 meters. It's crazy.
All right. Here's the video they posted on TikTok.
It is funny walking pregame to get to the ring because there's way Too much traffic.
The bus is not moving at all.
So it's just pretty much the whole.
Team walking the street. 5:15.
We're meeting is in one minute to get there. So I think that's a first for everyone.
Never saw that before. Walking.
Free game to get to the good little video.
Yeah, it's good.
So I definitely was expecting something like bigger than that. No, just someone politely being like, oh, well, they should.
I wish they had. I wish they talked to people like, is this normal?
Like, this is insane. What on. How do you live like that.
Yeah, I know. He's out there with a sandwich board. Like, the reckoning is coming.
The devil will repent.
Repent. The devil is coming for this traffic.
No, I would have been given the team shit. I'd be like, yeah, we're on a bus at like five o'clock in Toronto. What, are you on drugs? Why did you even think this would work?
Well, I, I couldn't figure out. There's a lot of hotels in that area. Why didn't they just stay at one close to the thing where they could just walk?
Anyway, that's what I would do.
Yeah.
Okay, so here's what you're going to want to do.
Stay at the hotel across from the.
Rink, leave your car outside the city limit, set it on fire and walk. That's what you're going to want to do.
So. So that happened. But. But that game for a lot of teams brought us to the. The quarter of the season mark this weekend. Most teams played their 20th or 21st games. A few teams still hovering at like 18 or 19, but we're basically 25% of the way through.
Sure.
And there are. The Athletic came up with some, a really cool article, stats to sum up each team and we're not going to go through all of them throughout the nerd for 25% of the season. And then today we have some very interesting news from Jesse's favorite team, the New York Rangers. So I want to kind of do this in conjunction. The New York Rangers. Jesse's favorite team, the Leafs is. Second favorite team is the New York Rangers. Is that fair?
Yes.
Do the Leafs have a problem with you covering your second favorite team?
Here's what the. Here's what Freed said in the aftermath of their 62 loss to Edmonton on Saturday. The Rangers have made it very clear they are interested in making moves and shaking up their roster. Okay, so they've just lost to the two best scores of the generation. But they're like, Edmonton is so bad this year. There's no excuse.
I. You know what? Catchy intro, Right? Good job.
Among the names indicated. Which name? A name. Name someone on the New York Rangers roster.
Jacob Truba.
Okay. That was the. That was the free square name the other one. This one blew me away.
Igor Sturkin.
No.
One. I am assuming one of their vets.
Yes.
Make his a Banajad.
No. Jesse. Name one.
Chris Kreider.
Chris Kreider. To me, that's like Mr. New York.
I tried to make it interesting.
Oh.
You know, I don't understand how trading Chris Kreider makes you a better hockey team.
Depends on what you get back.
Yeah.
What if you get back Connor McDavid?
Yeah. Well, what if you call the Oilers and go, do you want our guy?
No, no.
But like, I'm just saying you can make a hockey trade that maybe you're. You think you're upgrading in. In the position. Right. And for the New York Rangers, it's not just about. Well, it's all about the season in that they're trying to win now because this is win now mode. But they also have to think about the Giant cap crunch that's coming this off season.
Yes.
So it's. It's Stanley cup or bust. And I'm actually gonna commend them for doing stuff to win. I live. I live in a market where complacency is okay. And no matter what happens, we're going to stick with the course. And here's a team that is. Has had Stanley cup aspirations for the last few seasons because everything is peaking at the same time. And right now in November, they don't feel like they're good enough. So they're thinking about how do we get good enough?
I want to. I want to give you guys a statue. And this is a blanket stat. It's. It's an easy stat. Two stats. First off, the team that is first in the Metropolitan Division by ports percentage is actually fourth. And that's the New Jersey Devils because they played a couple extra games than everybody else because of the series in Czechia. Or is it Finland? Check.
Yeah, I don't know.
Anyway, what was the question?
The goal series they played earlier. Remember they played earlier so they got a couple extra games.
Sure.
Let's look at goal differential in the Atlantic Division. There is only one team in the Atlantic with a more than plus, like a double digit plus.
Got it.
And that's the Leafs. They're plus 12.
Oh, wow.
Isn't that great? Differential in the Atlantic Division. It's. It's a have. Have not Division.
Yes.
But there are four teams with double digit digit goal differential in the positive. And what's crazy is the amount. So The Rangers are plus 15 already. That would put them tops of the very good, the Atlantic Division.
And they're mad.
And they're mad. The first place Devils, fourth by points percentage, plus 19. The Washington Capitals have a plus 26 and they can't even score on the power play already. And the Carolina Hurricanes, who the hell plays for them, are plus 27. And so I look at this and I go, okay, the New York Rangers are 6, 4, 0 in their last 10, which for the Leafs is like a regular 10 games over the past, you know, half decade. And the Rangers are going, no, screw this, we're done.
Yep.
And to back up Jesse's point, good for you.
Yep.
Here's my question. If Kreider or Truba are going to go, why didn't Truba go this summer? And the thing about him not going this summer, I'll answer my own question, is he had trade protection. How would you now move him?
Maybe he's open to it. Maybe like things you're not open to.
It in the summer, but you're down in the middle of the fall and you have a brand new baby at home.
Well, you wanted me, you wanted to trade me a few months ago, but it was warm then. Now it's cold.
Now it's cold and it's cold in this dressing room.
This delays the inevitable Trade of Florida.
8 million this year, 8 million next year. Yeah. Truba would fit in Florida. Not an easy contract to move. No trade protection. Both of them. 15. 15 team modified no trade list. The reason the Detroit thing didn't go.
Through, obviously it's not, it's not a full no trade. Like that's the thing about Truba is they can move them. There's half the league that they can move them to. And if, if they want to find a partner, I'm sure they can look through that list of whether that be. Because you got to 16. Yeah. And find a team.
17. If it's a 15 team, no trade.
Now we got to take out the Rangers too.
Oh yeah.
Can't trade yourself.
Ah, it's a good point.
Yeah, you could try.
That's sort of what they did.
Damn, I've been had. Summer.
They got Jacob Truba for future.
Own rental. Own rental.
Own rental.
So. So Chris Kreider really surprised me because I just feel like he's like an identity piece on that team, but maybe no longer.
He's also Got. The Rangers have two really weird stat lines. Adam Fox is second on their team in scoring. He does not have a goal.
Wow.
17 assists, zero goals. And that's because Chris Crowder took them all. Nine goals in 19 games. Zero assists. Not one. Nearly 20 games, nearly a quarter of the season. Wow. Hasn't even picked up like an accidental secondary assist on nothing. Wow. Yeah, he, but like that's. We know who Chris Kreider is. He's a gamer. Come playoff time, he's a goal scorer. Like not a, I mean, Panarin's playing out of his mind, but other than that, the roster is turning over. It's Panarin. Fox is second in scoring. He's just setting everybody up. Lafreniere is third. He's not quite having the breakout that I thought he would, but he's still playing very well and he's putting up points. Fourth in scoring is Will Cooley. 15 points in 19 games. Then you get to Zabanajad, who, I'm sorry, he makes too much to be getting 14 points in 19 games. And it's Riley Smith and Capo Caco. And then you get down to Philip or Vincent Trocheck, Sorry, Philip, he hasn't even played all the games. And then you get to Kreider. Ooh, it might be time to turn things over a bit.
Right? Might, might just be a shock to the system, type of move.
It might be.
I mean even, even them putting that report out there tells me they're warning them.
To Jesse's point, this is inevitable. This is happening eventually. And the Rangers maybe more than any team past few years have been so good at finding the moment to pull the trigger and doing it.
Yep. Yeah. Okay, that's, it's interesting.
I look trade though.
I, I, well then I look at the teams that maybe that they would go to. I wonder if I would assume that all the Canadian teams are on the list. So I'm going to take all of them off.
I was going to suggest Ottawa should want him.
They should want him. Yeah, but, yeah, but he might not want Ottawa. And it's not, no offense to Ottawa, but like there's a lot of American, American players that just want to play here. And we saw that with Truba in Winnipeg. He didn't want to be in Canada.
All right, let's get, let's get insane. Let's go absolutely out of our minds.
Uh huh.
Eric Carlson as a New York Ranger.
You think of Penguins.
No, let's lose our minds. Let's do it.
That doesn't Help them because like the thing they're struggling with is being hard on the forecheck and being hard on their back check and, and playing a good, good style of hockey. You know, playing too easy.
My new pet project is trying to find a landing spot for Eric Carlson that.
It's a project Stars but not the stars. It's in the stars. Oh, oh. It's probably going to happen. But the New York Rangers don't need a puck moving defenseman.
Like here's something interesting. Just a thought. I'm looking at numbers here.
You're very right.
What team could benefit from having a defenseman? Well, the Utah. Utah has about 8 million in cap space. They could benefit from a warm body and you probably could get Truba for like if New York really wants to move the cap hit, the full cap hit. You take that whole thing, maybe you don't have to pay that much.
Oh, that's interesting. Adam.
Here's another one. The Calgary Flames have 25 million in cap space and that's a team that blew their Canada.
Yeah.
But they have a shot at the playoffs and Truba would be a big role on that team.
Yep.
The other team that kind of sticks out that he could make a big impact on, but they're definitely not going to make the playoffs this year is Chicago Blackhawks and they could use a guy like that.
They. The Chicago got loud real quick like.
Well, like Bedard's play has not been like he's not winning face offs. He struggled a little bit. He's frustrated. But I. Taylor Hall's getting scratched.
I can't turn on Taylor.
Hall's making 6 million bucks.
Dude.
I know what I, I can't turn on an app without seeing how pissed off Conor Bedard is. He's upset. What if, what if the trade involves Truba for Hall?
Oh, I thought you meant Truba for Bedard. Yeah, Truba for Hall. Be interesting. But how does that make the Rangers better? Saves you 2 million bucks?
Like there's the question. I mean I was going to say it could help add offense, but like this is, this is the problem and I don't know if everyone's going to like this, but there's more recent evidence that Truba is good at defense than there is that Taylor hall is good at offense.
Absolutely.
So. But the problem, if you're moving off an 8 million dollar player, it's not because that player is playing like an $8 million player. You see what I'm saying?
They might be playing like a $5 million player.
Yes, so that's why these deals are a mess. Kreider's, I think, much easier. It's. It's just a real long.
He makes six and a half.
Yeah. It's a real long playoff rental. It's a more palatable cap hit. You know who he is. He's probably better than this. You know, you don't get him. If you get him. If you need secondary scoring, I think at this point. Right. What?
I know a team that needs secondary scoring. I don't think so.
Oh, don't get me hot and. Yeah, that would be unreal. Yeah. Hall. Yeah. It's finding a trade partner. It is a minefield. Right. Like the half the league. No trade is difficult.
If you could get them interested in what the program is, though, like, a lot of players never would waive their no trades to go to Edmonton. But then all of a sudden, maybe I would. What if you're like. Like Kasperi Kapanen is playing with Connor McDavid. What about Chris Kreider and Conor McDavid?
I mean, that would be much better.
Wouldn't that be cool? Zach Hyman, Chris Crider, Connor McDavid.
What about Jake Jacob Truba on the Oilers? Man.
Well, okay, if that happens, it'd be kind of nuts. But, like, how would Edmonton fit that?
What are they.
What are they sending back?
I don't.
It's out to be like guys that haven't worked out for them. So the Jeff Skinners of the world, which might give not enough. Well, he's got 3 million bucks on his cap. I'm just trying to figure out, like, start there.
It'd be the second time he played for the Rangers. Shadow Kitchener. It's. It's a really complex, fun exercise. The boring and therefore most likely answer is Utah.
But can I. Can I give you one that is a wild card, but probably couldn't happen. But I still want to bring it up.
Islanders. No, that'd be crazy.
Islanders would be crazy.
Yeah. Sorry.
It would be just like Lou to take on some old money too. Old money, Lou. But a team that's picking up steam, starting to look like themselves. Oh, but could still really.
Don't you do it.
And they're missing a right winger for a long time.
Oh, I might not. I might not know where you're going.
Here about the Vancouver Canucks.
Oh, that's not where I thought you were going at all. I thought you were going to say the Buffalo Sabers.
Well, they could too, but I think you can sell. I don't know if you can sell them on. The Buffalo Sabers actually look good. So if you could sell them on this month of the Sabers being the real deal. But the Vancouver Canucks went to the second round and took Edmonton to seven games. Could you sell a Chris Kreider if he. Assuming he has them on the. On the. No trade. And we're assuming all Canadian teams could do. Does Vancouver have the assets to do it? Bester's out for a while.
Vancouver does, I think. Yeah. And they have itchy feet.
Yeah. They're bold.
It's Jim Rutherford, Patrick of Alvine. They're willing to do stuff.
Maybe they want another center. I don't know what they. You know, but it just. He would. He seems to fit in with the super intense guys that used to play with New York, like J.T. miller.
I think what we're getting here is. It's not easy, but it's. There's def. It's definitely doable. And I think. I think there's a market, albeit a very different market for both those players.
Yeah. And then watch some team comes in and gets them both.
Yeah. Minnesota. I love when the Rangers are in the mix. It's just. It's just better drama. It's better drama when New York is involved in basically anything sports.
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Do style, baby.
And now we're hearing, well, Edmonton would really love to get their hands on John Gibson. And he's been good.
But the other one, like. I mean, yeah, but again, like, everything with the Oilers comes back to how the hell do they afford it?
Yeah. Yep. And also John Gibson. What are we talking about? What are we talking about?
I think he could be good there. I do. The problem with Gibson and I feel like we do this every few months is it's been so long since he's played for a team worth watching. I say that with every bit of disrespect I can muster.
Gibson also hasn't played this year. I think he's gotten like four games.
Yeah, but that. But there's still those rumors circulating. I. I saw some evidence, like the.
Idea that Gibson's been good.
He hasn't played nine, 15 in four games.
Yes.
Three, three zero and one.
Yeah, but if you're gonna take a risk on a contract, I know you need a double retention to make that.
Backup goalie for what is 6 million. Something.
Lucas Do Stall has played. So Reimer played two games, but he's not even there anymore. Lucas do Stall it. This is so criminal. The Duck should be arrested. He's five, six and two. So he's won five games, lost eight of them. 924. Oh, in the year of our Lord 2024.
Yep.
To put up a. 924 save percentage and lose most of your games is criminal. Go to jail and prison immediately.
$6.4 million. The low rich for John Gibson. Unless Anaheim can find a way to retain for that. And it's also for not just this season, but two seasons after this one. So I don't know. I don't. I don't know what you're getting in John. John Gibson, if you're. If you're Edmonton now.
Wait.
But you also know that Stuart Skinner is Kind of garbage.
Yes. Now wait though. Wait though. I made a rule last year where we don't acknowledge Leafs Flames rumors.
Oh yeah, I'm going to get to. Yeah, I was going to.
We do it. No, we don't acknowledge them. They don't happen. They don't do that. No, we don't acknowledge them.
So when someone says, hey, the Leafs talk to the Flames about. Just ignore.
They didn't. And even if they did, it didn't count. Every phone call the Leafs and Flames have is a waste of time because the door of was such a great.
Leaf in Lynn home tan up Tana was going to be.
Yeah, they nailed it. Had to wait until they took the Flames out of the equation, but they nailed it. The Flames are not grown up enough to do that if we're to believe the rumors. They don't want to play in the sandbox with Brad for living because they're mad and got their feelings hurt and they're not your best friend anymore and you can't come to my birthday so they're kicking tires on Kadri. Meh.
I'm gona be honest. I'm gona be honest. It's probably not the best for the audience to just pivot in the middle of talking about Edmonton acquiring John Gibson to a Leafs Flames topic that you won't even describe is happening.
It's probably, probably not best for the audience to cut off your co host in the middle.
You didn't. You didn't even describe. But you started. Started this whole thing about. I won't even tell you what we're talking about. What do you.
Here.
And then now you're going to turn and then now you can explain.
It's. It's okay. Since. Since you were all listening to me. The, the Flames leaf stuff. We ignore. Adding to that list John Gibson rumors. We ignore those. Those don't. Those aren't a thing. Yeah. How many years of this are we going to? 6. Yeah. 5. Six years of John Gibson rumors.
Sure.
Still a Duck. Have we all noticed he's still a Duck? Oh, well, you know John Gibson. No. No, he isn't.
He's going to stay a Duck.
I think the biggest irony is he ends up on the Leafs or Flames maybe. But no, he's. We ignore Leafs Flames rumors and we ignore Gibson rumors.
Okay. All right.
They do. We ignore things that don't happen for half a decade. Enough.
That's fair. Okay. All right.
Can you.
I have no idea. I had no idea what Lee flames thing. Doug McLean here very confused so Doug.
McLean got on some show and I'm not sure if it's one of the 590 shows or something like that. And he basically said the Leafs had kicked tires on Kadri, which sent Leafs Twitter into a tizzy. And I understand that Cadre's beloved here. He's a monster when he's not suspended and he hasn't been suspended in a long time. And it would be an amazing homecoming and we all want him to come back and that would be great. But we also understand that, you know, this is the same Flames team that six weeks ago was looking to add forward help because of their hot start. Right. So any rumors coming out of Calgary generally are fart into a balloon.
They don't send it to Alberta.
They really don't mean a whole lot, to be honest. And I, and I got that from last year. This, this admin they have fires out a ton of shit to the media. It's pretty. Pretty obvious it's coming from the team and I just think it's. It's crap. But, yeah, listen, we'd all like to see Kadri back. I think that's the whole thing, Jesse. That's what. That's why Steve's like, we ignore them. And I think, you know, you can allow yourself to fantasize for a little bit, but, you know, Kadri's now 34. He's still very effective. Lot of years left on that deal. Team already has a lot of deals that are long. I don't think Kadri actually is the fit that we all hope he would be. The Nick Buickstad thing, the more I look into that, the more I go that. That might.
He's one of those guys. Who does he play for?
Utah.
Oh, it is Utah, dude. He's played for everybody.
He played for everybody. He was Edmund. But hey, here's the deal, man. Center, third liner, scores. Six foot six every time he takes the ice.
Great cadre signed till 2028 for $7 million, which is going to be a.
Steal next year based on where the cab is going. Well, I.
For the. Your, like, third most important center, I. I think.
Yeah. I mean, third line setter still. That was. That would be a lot. That'd be a lot. But you're expecting a elite third liner also.
Yeah. I don't know. Tad played his. His way out of here, like.
Yeah. And I understood. I understood the reaction though. It was when it came out, Jesse. It was also against the backdrop of the Ryan O'Reilly stuff that James Myrtle had talked about on national trading, Ryan O'Reilly. Well, I guess he doesn't have trade protection and Berube.
And why would they want to make that move?
Because they're bad and they might want to get.
But you don't. You don't get good by moving a guy like Ryan O'Reilly.
This is my point.
No, but you get assets.
Chicken parlay. I don't know.
I think. I don't know.
So, anyway, long story short, that, that is, I think that's interesting that some of these trade rumors are coming up as stupid as they are. As stupid as some of them are. And watch. What? Watch. I swear to God, we'll post this episode and God, you'll get traded.
Oh, yeah. They're not stupid in and of themselves.
No. And your reaction to them isn't stupid. That's not my point.
They're stupid because of the teams involved. The Ducks aren't trading that player.
Can't trade that player.
And the Flames might trade that player. Ain't going to be the Leafs.
You know what? You know where John Gibson would make a lot of sense? Pittsburgh. Oh, give him Tristan Jarry. I heard salaries basically match.
I heard Dubas kicked tires on him years ago.
Yeah, he did.
It was a long time ago, though.
He did. He did. And they need to, they need to start scoring some goals. So we'll fast forward a little bit through some of the other stuff I had. I think we got to talk about. We got to talk about the. This is way back, but the NHL Play Department of Player Safety actually put out a video explaining why the hit on Matthew Nyes, which happened on Wednesday night last week, was not, in fact, illegal. And. And that's by the NHL rules.
Yes.
And I just think it's interesting that they also made an appearance on Amazon's Canadian coverage. Not in the States, Canadian coverage on Thursday night. That show with Andrew Petrello that goes in and outs like red zone. Right. Goes in and out, in and out. I think it's interesting because it seems as though somebody, some buddies were tired of the media criticism and they wanted to answer. And not just the media criticism. I'm talking about social media criticism. I'm talking about not us on this show or any other.
I am.
I'm talking about people who are losing their minds who have, hey, my Twitter account name is John 56378. And I think you guys are idiots. And I think they kind of got tired of it.
I am absolutely conceited enough to think we had something to do.
I think I don't think we did. I think it was fan. Around the league. Fans have been on these guys.
Yes. There was a little bit of language though, in the video where I'm like, ah, you watched. Someone watched.
What was it?
Let's. We should play it.
We should play it.
Yeah.
Obviously we can't show them.
Yeah, just the sound here. Department of Player Safety. The title of the video is Player Safety examines Rule 48, illegal check to the head. And I honestly think Steve's right about us having an effect on this or Steve having an effect on this.
Really?
We were pretty adamant against it, you and I. Adam, let's.
Over the last two weeks, was there.
A line in the video that made you think it was us?
No, no line stood out. Just the whole idea and concept.
I'll flag it when we hear it.
Sure.
Over the last two weeks, the Department of Player Safety has reviewed dozens of plays for potential supplementary discipline. During that time, we have issued two suspensions for violations of Rule 48, the illegal check to the head rule. On November 7th, Tanner Genot delivered this illegal check to the head of Canucks forward Brock Besser.
It's bad.
Then on November 16, Ryan Reeves delivered this illegal check to the head of Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse.
It's worse.
On November 20, Vegas defenseman Zach White Cloud delivered a hit on Toronto forward Matthew Nies that was reviewed by NHL hockey operations and the on ice officials in game for a major penalty and was reduced to no penalty. In light of the similarities and differences among these three players, relatively high profile nature.
Who did the audio?
They were. They definitely call us for that at least. So one thing I knew for certain.
Yeah.
Is if we ever got a video like this, they were going to hack and slash the hell out of it and guaranteed this is this like at least the second draft.
Oh, my God.
They made it. And they said, not good enough. You got to rerecord this part. And that's why some of it sounds like it's in a studio and some of it sounds like someone kneeled over a couch into their iPhone, which I have done.
It's just the immediate switch. You can hear. It's. It's disgusting.
It's okay. It's okay. It's.
They did the video. They did it.
It's your first time. It's fine. It's fine.
And was reduced to no penalty. In light of the similarities and differences among these three plays and their relatively high profile nature, I want to take this opportunity to demonstrate some of the nuances that our department Examines when we are reviewing hits that involve what's wrong.
That was the word. Their high profile nature. Because what I have said is because people go, well, what are they going to do? A video for every hit?
We've said that, yeah.
Oh yeah, we said that, yeah.
Well, what are they going to do? And I go, no, just the ones everyone's talking about.
The Leafs ones.
Yeah. I mean, yeah. Not to be an asshole about it.
But there's, there's, there's three hits they're talking about here. Two of them are from Leaf skin.
Two of them.
And the other one only comes into play because you're comparing, comparing it with the Leafs hits.
But this is a golden. I think we were going to get a video for this incident or we were never ever going to get one ever. Because Reeves got suspended. Hit to the head. Was it the next game this happens? Hit to the head, no suspension, no penalty, even clean hit. Right. And people were like, k, there's obviously a difference here. Walk us through though. Like, because they're similar enough that we're like, oh shit. One guy got five games, this guy got zero minutes. What happened here? And it just so happened to be the Leafs. If this was Utah or friggin, I don't know, whoever. We probably don't get it.
No, but I agree. Yeah, this happened. The first one happened Saturday night. Like Hockey night in Canada.
Yes. And everyone was talking about it. And then the next game happens. Everyone's talking about it. Like it or hate it. Leaf fans make up a big swath of your fan base. Hate it and talk to us like we're grown ups. This is when this happened in the LFR video. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to yell and scream that the NHL stupid. They made the wrong call here and they're stupid. I'm not going to do that. Help me.
You do do that a lot.
I do do that and people expected me to do it and I didn't do it because I'm like, listen, okay, like, you've been around the game for a long time. Here's, here's what I hated. Oh, it's obvious that the reason it wasn't called and the reason they don't have to explain themselves is it's obvious. Meanwhile, you go on social media, Mike Johnston, former Leaf TSN employee, goes, that's not a penalty. And then Carla Koliakovo, former Leaf TSN employee, goes, how is that nothing? There are two former NHL players and two former guys who played for the team in question who have wildly different opinions on the matter. So. No, actually it's not obvious.
Yeah, it's.
And it's. And it's arrogant and insulting to think that it's obvious.
There's a lot of people when these things happen, they take a clear side of it. This is illegal. This is usually. And it's never like that. It's usually muddied because we don't. Nobody really knows the rule.
And it's obvious to you. But it's obvious. It's obvious that there's thousands of people who believe it's not obvious to. So let's talk about it.
Have you ever heard.
No.
Have you ever heard this?
The.
The way this is.
I've never heard anything. My own voice.
But. And it's going to sound far fetched and it is. But I. There's a saying that in history where it's how you feel about the French Revolution is how you vote. Adam and I find it funny that a lot of the times the way people feel about this stuff, it comes down to like, there's. There's that sort of feel. What's team are you on? Not. Not how you vote, but like, what team are you on? Are you on the. The woke wimpy team?
Oh, you're getting rid of all hits. Yeah.
Yeah. Or it's. Yeah. You. I've been watching since the 70s and I smoked cigarettes out of my butt with my dad in the garage. Like, you know, like I.
That's not how you smoke them.
Well, that. No. That's what the bot told me. So. So my point is this. It. It got to a level that was so polarizing with fans.
Yeah.
That the NHL player safety said we gotta. We gotta bring some safety to the masses and we gotta explain ourselves. And I think.
Please do.
It's a good thing.
Yes, it is.
But I also think it shows how little consistency they've had to this point. And now while we're.
We're not there yet. We're not there yet.
And now we have something to hold them to which is a dangerous. Sorry. I'll shut up.
You're absolutely right here. Let's keep going.
Okay. Let's play the video. Let me go back a little.
I want to talk a little bit about the Flames.
Go ahead.
But I'm not gonna tell you what I'm talking about because context isn't good for a show.
No, we.
It's not.
In light of the similarities and differences among these three plays and their relatively high profile nature, we want to take this opportunity to Demonstrate some of the nuances that our department examines when we are reviewing hits that involve contact with the head.
Here's how the sausage is made.
To begin, let's review Rule 48, which reads in part, yep, a hit resulting in contact with an opponent's head where the head was the main point of contact and such contact to the head was avoidable is not permitted. This means there are two aspects to an illegal check.
No, no.
What?
So people keep going. Here's the rule. Thanks. I can read. Walk me through the rule, though.
Yeah, I think they have to set up the rule first.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah. No, no.
I'm not insulting them. I'm insulting the people who go here. And I'm like, no, it's not that simple. Actually, it helps to have video. And here's the NHL going, here's an oasis in the desert where the head.
Was the main point of contact, and such contact to the head was avoidable is not permitted. This means there are two aspects to an illegal check to the head, both of which must be present for the hit to be illegal. First, the head must be the main point of contact of the hit. While the term principal point of contact used to appear in the rule, the wording of the rule was changed in 2013 to main point of contact to better reflect the intention of the rule and the way the players understood it.
Huh?
There was a change.
This means it does not matter what part of the player was impacted first. What matters is what part of the player absorbed the majority of the impact of the hit. Let's look at the video examples on this hit by Jeanneau. While contact is made simultaneously with the head and body, it is clear to us that Besser's head absorbs the majority of the impact of this hit. Jeanneau's arm does contact Besser's body, but jnod's shoulder cap is driven directly into the chin of Besser with force. On this hit by Reeves on Nurse, Reeves makes minimal contact with Nurse's body and the head absorbs the brunt of the impact. Note the way Nurse's head moves independently of his body in absorbing the force of this hit.
You can't help it.
On the hit by White Cloud, White Cloud hits through the body of Knives. While there is inarguably head contact, here we see Knives entire body stopped in its tracks and driven backwards simultaneously with his head in a way that indicates the body absorbed the force of this check. If we determine the head is not the main point of contact, the review ends there. And the hit is considered legal within the framework of the rule. If the hit is determined to make the head the main point of contact, we must then contemplate whether the head was avoidable or not. The text of the rule explains multiple reasons why head contact might be considered unavoidable on a play, as both the Jeannot and Reeves hits were deemed illegal for the same reason, having poor timing or poor angle of approach. This video will focus predominantly on this aspect of the rule, but remember that head contact can be unavoidable for other reasons, including movements made immediately prior to contact. For a more complete analysis of unavoidable head contact, please Refer to our 2018 video on NHL.com Player safety examines unavailable.
Avoidable Headcount the rules don't change that.
I know, but update it. No no no no. But let's look at some examples for a sec.
So one of the main things this eliminates this video helps eliminate so many tired and exhausting and now because of this video, irrelevant arguments that we see with hits. Oh he hit the shoulder first and it rode up. Doesn't fucking matter if the main point of contact is the head, it doesn't matter if you hit him in the friggin knee first. Yep, the main point of contact was the head. Beginning, middle, end. Yep there it is.
Both of the hits by Jano and Reeves are excellent examples of players who took a poor angle of approach causing them to pick the head. Both players cut along the front of their opponent's core rather than hitting directly through their opponent's shoulder or chest, which causes the contact to be directly and forcefully with their opponent's head. Conversely, White Cloud takes a good angle of approach stepping up directly through knives core. And while White Cloud does come up off the ice due to the force of the contact of the hit, he does not elevate up excessively or unnecessarily to pick the head as he delivers the check. This means that the head contact on this play is considered unavoidable Head contact on a play where the hitter is throwing an otherwise legal full body check. To summarize, remember that both elements of the illegal check to the head rule must be met in order for a play to be deemed illegal. When analyzing an illegal check to the head, first determine if the head absorbed the brunt of the impact of the check. Then consider if the head contact was avoidable or unavoidable. If the head was the main point of contact and the head contact is deemed avoidable, it is an illegal check to the head.
At this point, the Department of Player safety will weigh other factors such as the force of the hit, the predatory nature of the hit, any injury that might be suffered on the play, and the hitter's disciplinary history in assessing the length of a possible suspension.
No high sticking, though.
No high sticking.
Not in this instance.
That video, that helped a lot. Audio transitions aside, is so well done. Yeah, it helped so much. And like, did it change my mind on the hit? Yeah, like, it changed my mind on the call that was made, or rather not made or. No, they made a call, they reviewed, it said no penalty. Now if you still don't like that hit, I get it, because. Nice. It wasn't. His head. Wasn't the main point of contact. Holy shit. It took a lot of contact. And if you would like to see that sort of hit taken out of the game, I totally understand that point of view.
However, it's still here and that is a different conversation.
Yes.
If you don't like that hit, then you're. You don't like the rule and how it's laid out. But this, what they've explained is. I love the video because they explain this is the first thing we look at the main point of contact and then there's a process from there. It's kind of like a trickle down effect. It's like, okay, was the main contact the head? Yes. Then we go from there and we look at, okay, where was it delivered, was it predatory? Blah, blah, blah. And that's how they come up with their decisions. It's very well done.
They need to give a raise to whoever was like, you know, what put in the genome Besser hit too, so that it's not just about the Leafs.
Yeah, well, I. The other thing I want to say is that this is the NHL doing something that I haven't seen them do in a while, which is engaging their hardcore fans on their own terms. Like, this is. You're explaining the rules of a team of a sport that is extremely nuanced to a group of people who are so hardcore and they don't even get it.
They don't.
And that.
And it didn't kill them.
It didn't kill.
It didn't kill.
It might in the future. Might in the future. Because we can always refer to this now. And that's why they never did this before. Don't put it on tape.
I don't know.
Oh, no. They have a standard to be held.
To know the thing that this whole thing needs to be like, to put a cap on it. Is that what we need to do is say, Steve was right. Steve, this was a very, this is a very good idea. And it made me think about the NBA's two minute report that, that they released at the end of. If you're not familiar, at the end of every game, the last two minutes, the NBA publishes an official recount of any missed calls. And they do that for every single game. There was a game the other night where the Raptors lost on the last shot of the game and Jayson Tatum traveled before he made the game winning shot. Therefore, the Raptors should have won that game. But after every game, the NBA has to review every single call there. And if there's a wrong call, they have to say it. So they had to say in their report, we missed this travel call on the final shot of the game. And from there they admit we screwed up the final score of a game. But they are showing accountability to their fans. They're engaging the hardcore fans who look at that play and they're like, you know what?
I think he did take an extra step. He traveled. And they're saying, yeah, you're right, you're right that we got this wrong here. And the NHL has never done something like this.
The better approach is to go, Wayne.
That'S what you've been asking for out of the league that we love. You've been asking for that level of transparency that the NBA already has, you know, with their fans. They treat them like grownups and that the officials are held accountable here. And you've been asking that for the NHL. So kudos to you for fighting for that. And we finally got, we finally got one thing.
One, one thing.
No, but I'd love if they did this more now. Great, great, great thinking.
Well, and like, this is so good for the broadcasters too, because they were showing the sportsman panel and it's Sam Constantino and it's Colby Armstrong and it's Luke Asdic. And ultimately they're giving their opinions. And you know, Gazdick and Colby Armstrong laid NHL hits in their career, but it's ultimately just them going, well, here's what I think. One time I was sitting in a room at sportsnet and Armstrong goes, what'd you think of that play? Like, he turned to me and I went, what are you asking me for? Is it like you're Colby Armstrong? Right? But like, we're all just shooting the shit. It's, it's, it's our opinion now. Broadcasters, fans, players, coaches can refer to this video. And the next time there's a hit, they can bring up this video, how it's broken down and go, here is the league, the league's official stance on this hit and here's how it can inform their official stance on this one. That hasn't happened yet in real life. It's good. This is a good thing. And it also, I think it helps with the discussion. We can now look at this and go, did they enforce the rule properly?
I think they did. The one thing where, you know, they say white cloud. He didn't go excessively upward. I'm like, boy, he got up though. Like so. But that, that amount of upward force is allowed. Okay, okay. Now we can have the discussion. Do we want that? Like, do we want him?
Which is a different conversation.
Yeah. And I'm not like, no, no.
And we don't need to do that now.
Right, right.
But oh my God, Like, I feel heard, I feel valued. Like, I feel spoken, spoken with and not at. Like, this is, this is. It's. It's not just educating your audience. It's not talking to them like they're grown ups. It's treating your audience with respect. That's all I ever wanted.
All right, so now the podcast is going to change to a different room. That's how the NHL wants us to do.
I need to record it from my car.
As you can see here, the light of Gotham informed his path on the way.
Hit him really hard. And Ryan Reeves hit Nurse really hard.
We're gonna blow people's speakers out.
Now all you fucking Leaf fans can leave me alone.
Hey, guys. Are you going on vacation this holiday season?
No, I'm not. But Adam, I know you because you've worked in radio all over the country.
Yes.
So you've experienced this where you've got to like, go home for the holidays and that sort of stuff.
Oh, yes.
How was that?
Did you quit your big city job to work at a donut shop?
No. No. But if you have to go home for Christmas, first off, it's never relaxing. It's not making people come back and they're like, oh, do you feel nice, relaxed after the holidays? You're like, no, I feel wound up and I just got off a plane and I smell and I'm tired. But one thing we can stop from happening is roaming fees. We can help you with that. Sally with NordVPN S A I L Y. Basically it's an ESIM and it works in 160 countries. Now if you're not from. If you're from country 161. I'm sorry we can't help you. But if you're from the other 160 countries, we can. And here's the deal, you won't run out of data at the worst moment. They'll actually notify you when you're at 80% of your data. So you can kind of save yourself. And also with NORDVPN security, which is unmatchable, you're protected when you're using free public wifi, that sort of thing. So if you could buy a plan, like I said, Multiple plans in 160 countries, eight regions available, and the rates are online. You should check it out and use our promo code too.
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We. We're running out of time here.
I know, I know. I think you're gonna have to save this for the.
Yeah, I gotta do that one.
I think we gotta.
We gotta do that.
Wednesday, Jim Montgomery, four days unemployed. And apparently Doug Armstrong said to him, well, when somebody drops a delicious meal in my lap, I eat. And that's how he hired him. Five year contract. So he got a raise and five more years just because the Bruins fired him.
You know what no one cared about in the discourse around, well, when Jim Montgomery's available, you gotta hire him. Do you see how good Drew Bannister's record with the Blues was last year?
It was pretty good.
Dude, he was like, he was like 30 and 11 or something. Yeah, he was so good.
Where's he gonna go? I feel bad for him.
I don't think he'll be unemployed long.
I hope not.
He shouldn't be. And this year was ho hum. The team's been ho hum.
Yeah, but how much of it, how much of that falls on him?
How much of that falls on him?
I don't know.
All of it, apparently.
Yeah. Score goals, like there is impossible for them to score goals. And, And Hofer and Bennington haven't been that great.
No.
You know, so, like, I don't know how much it falls on him, but I was, I was reading some of the press conference quotes. They had them in the Athletic, they did some great coverage on it. And Armstrong was talking a lot about how we have a rookie. He was a rookie coach, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
Interim, you know, last season comes in first full year. And there's a learning curve with somebody like Drew Banister.
Sure.
You know, there's. He, he said explicitly there are some mistakes he's. He's going to make and he's, he's made them already. And there's a, there's a long learning curve to the point where he gets to be an established head coach like Jim Montgomery.
Right.
And he looked at this and he's like, I can skip all of that. I can get a guy right now who has that experience with the players.
Who I already know and trust and.
Who I already love and who has a St. Louis connection to, I believe, with his family.
Yeah.
So I get to pass through. Even though Drew, Drew Banister one day might be miles ahead of Jim Montgomery as a head coach. Ultimate goal, you know, right now he leaves the blues to the Sailing Cup. But he said, right now I can just go get that thing that I hope Banister lives up to same day shipping. It's like trading away a great first round pick for somebody who's a star right now is essentially what he did, except from a coaching side of things. So I understood his mentality with it. It's just so ruthless.
It is pretty ruthless.
Yep.
That's the, It's a copycat league.
Yeah.
And they are not the reigning Stanley cup champions anymore. But like Vegas screwed it up for everyone. They did all sorts of horrible. We don't give a damn about you or your legacy or your family stuff. And then immediately won the Cup.
They took the Boston Bruins head coach who just got fired, his name was Bruce Cassidy. And then he took them to the Stanley cup final and they won.
And every team. Why are we sitting around here being nice to our players? And that goes for coaches as well. Drew, thank you for all your service. Take care. And. Oh, well.
And the thing about firing the head coach and bringing in a head coach that, you know, isn't learning on the job and has all the experience in the world is now, you know, it's on the players. If something goes wrong on the ice, you know, it's not a coaching issue. And with Drew Banister, there's a little bit of like, okay, how much of this is on. He's new to this and how much of it is the players. But now there's no excuses with the players.
And let's also not forget what's, you know, Doug Armstrong's Been a GM for a long time. What's the greatest move of his career?
Firing. Bringing in Craig Berube midseason.
Fired? Who even was it? What was his name?
It was Mike.
Yo, Mike, Yo.
Yeah, fired him right around now. I'd love to know the date he was fired. It like, could have been, like, to the day they fired him. They brought in Craig Berube and they won a cup. Like, it might. I mean, that.
No, it was January when he. When they did it because they were last place.
No, Adam, you could not be more wrong. And Steve could not be more right. You're fucking November 20th.
Wow.
2018.
So there's. Are the St. Louis Blues gonna win the cup now?
That's how it works. They already have Jordan Biddington. They don't even have to call him up.
Damn.
Yeah.
All right, man.
There. It's the greatest. How is that not the greatest movies ever made?
Oh, they literally won the Stanley Cup.
It is. It is.
Okay? And this team is the worst in hockey. This one's the best, right? In two months. Like, how is that not the best movies ever made?
It's incredible.
There it is.
Okay.
You're welcome.
All right. All right. Well, we'll wrap it there. We're gonna wrap it up there. It's a long show.
No stuff I got from Halifax.
And we'll talk about it Wednesday.
You son of a gun.
Jersey.
Yeah. And you'll. You can find out what leaf jersey it is on Wednesday, apparently.
Yeah, you can.
Adam is a piece of crap. You're a piece of crap.
My piece of crap.
I love you, though.
Love you too, man.
Would you rather a piece of crap or a turd sandwich?
I thought it was a giant deuce or turn San.
I got the south park reference wrong, idiot.
The Steve Dangle podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter @SteveDangle, @.
Adam W, Y L, D E and at Jesse Blake.
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