Hey, guys, how do we feel about blackouts?

Well, I don't know. It's probably bad.

What if you didn't have to miss your favorite team's game in your region?

But Adam, I thought that's impossible and there's no way to do it.

Well, listen, there is NordVPN. We have to say that?

Yeah, you are. That NordVPN exists and it's awesome because you just got to watch games?

If you're a little bit annoyed with the fact that you can't access the content that you want to ask just because you chose to live in a particular geographic location, knowing full well that the internet should be available to everybody. Let me tell you about NordVPN. Particular. Particular. Did I not say particular right? I don't know. You know what? Listen, all I'm trying to say...

You guys are going to fight today.

Is that with over 5,000 server options, no show, no game is out of reach. No game show. You see? Yeah, you can watch them all. Grab your exclusive NordVPN deal by going to nordvpn. Com/dangle to get a huge discount off your NordVPN plus four additional months for free. It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. So that's four bonus months, okay? On top of the discount you're getting.

That's a third of a year. All right?

Focus. That's a Q1 plus a little bit of Q2 as well.

A little bit.

Make sure. All right? All right. Listen, and also Uber Eats vouchers, users in Canada who purchase any two-year plan will receive Uber Eats vouchers as follows. You'll get it for a standard plan, $10. For a Nord plus plan, you get $20. For a complete or ultimate plan, you get $30. What?

So when you're using Nord to definitely watch local games, you can just order some food.

It's also really great for hiding your IP and being secure on the Internet.

Yeah, that stuff, but like, out of market games, let's go.

It's just so you don't end up giving somebody 50 grand in a shoe box. You know what I'm saying? It's just a thing. Anyway, NordVPN. Okay. Nordvpn. Com/dangle. Again, it's nordVPN. Com/dangle. I got it. You did a great job.

You got there. You got there. The Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wild and Jesse Blake.

Hello, it's us and it's you. Steve has had very little sleep, so this is going to be a fun show. I'm excited. It's okay.

I'm punchy.

When he sleeps not a little bit. The Leaps probably played two of the most consequential games of the season this year, these last two nights. They were against teams the Leaps barely play. They were past everybody's bedtime, but they were a statement. And I want to start with this. I want to start with this thing. Over the Leaps winning streak, which is now to six games.

Six.

Scoring leaders for the six-game winning streak, according to Jonas Siegel of the Athletic, Austin Matthews, 13 points, Mitch Marner, 13 points. William Neylander, 10 points.

Bobby McMahon. 10 points, McMahon.

Bobby McFrickin, man. Up to 17 points on the season, tying him with Pierre Inval, you're right. Don't do that. No, no, in fairness, In fairness, Inval played 18 more games.

This is the longest winning streak or tied for the longest in the Matthews era.

Is it really?

It's either aide, and the next one breaks it, or they just broke it. I forget which one.

That sucks, actually.

They've had some streaks. Yeah, that sucks.

You got like Columbus who's got, We're going to win 15 games in a row, a couple of years ago, didn't they? It was like, Leaves were like, Well, we could do four, maybe five.

You know what? No, I'm not letting you do this.

Oh, no, listen. No, no. I'm thrilled.

I'm thrilled that they're on a winning streak. I know he's objectively right. But like, no.

Matthew has been on the team. You can't go longer than six games in a row. Yeah, come on. You get a lot of years to get that done.

He scored enough that you should be able to win 10 straight with Justin.

Kyle Dubas would be like, Listen, we got to stick with our process. We got to stick to our process.

I'm actually glad we haven't won more than six straight. You never want to get...

Yeah, you never want to get laxed days ago. Wouldn't want to get too many points.

Complacent.

Before the game, via Josh Clokey from The Athletic, the day off in Arizona allowed Matthews the chance to host his teammates at his home for games of pickle ball and multiple rounds on his golf simulator. This season, in particular, Matthews He continues to establish himself as the vital leader on the Leifs team. The effect on the hosting duties was obvious. The newly tanned faces around the makeshift NHL Visitor's Locker Room, L-O-L, Wednesday morning made for a team of Leifs who looked as relaxed and content with themselves as they have all season. You know what I think is cool about this is we talked a little bit about it over the course of the All-Star break when we were talking about... Somebody asked us a question about captancy or something like that, and I said, Jesse made That's a really good point. He said, Listen, why would you take it from John Tavares until Matthews has established himself like that? There's no rush. It's these little things. I'm not saying this makes him the captain because I think Jesse was right. I still think he should be captain, but I think Jesse was right. But that's a good start, would we not say?

I would agree. I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of photos that we see. They'll have Matthews on a graphic with McKinnon and with McDavid. Sometimes you're like, Well, that's the only guy not wearing the C.

That's not true. What? This is objectively a fact. Nathan McKinnon isn't the captain of the Colorado Avalanche. No, but he feels like it, so it counts. You guys have said this multiple times, and he literally does not have a C on his journey. Yeah, he does.

What's that fruit of the loom thing?

It's in my head that he is the captain, so he is. Sorry, Justin. That's how it works.

I just want to point that out.

I said it into a microphone.

So the Leaps beat the Vegas Golden Knight 7-3 last night. They beat the Coyote 6-3 the night before. Let's start with the Coyote's game. It's Morgan Reilly's last game suspended, but the defense without him has been great, specifically, Timothy Jimathy. Because it's not just Timothy Lilligran and TJ Brody, it's Timothy Jimathy now. T and TJ.

He does not look like Waver Wirefodder.

But you said at the beginning of the year, Steve, that he would be Waver Wirefodder forever, didn't you? I did. No, you said-with no chance of redemption. What you said at the beginning of the year was he's got to establish himself or he becomes Waver Wirefodder. Yes.

This is like, okay, when we went into this stretch where we know is going to be out for five games. You're looking at the decor and you're like, All right, who needs to step up? And the answer I came up with was no one because I didn't have faith in anyone to step up. There have been opportunities this season where every game is a great game to step up. Every game is a great game to do your best. Every game is a great game to separate yourself from the pack, elevate your own stock with your own team. I didn't expect this. And I got to say, TJ Brodie as well.

Oh, man. This is the worst I've seen TJ Brodie play as a leaf because he's been spectacular for the other three years. On the season. No, no, no. What I'm saying is this year is the worst I've seen T. J. Brody play as a leaf. Yes. But now this is the best I've seen him play this year.

Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, 100 %.

Regular T. J. Brody is back.

What made me feel really good last night, William Laggison, his birthday, he's Morgan Reilly's D partner.

We're not talking about last night's game. We're talking about the coyotes. Give me a fucking...

I'm going to... What I am thinking is the... Okay, fine. I'll save that.

That's what I'm saying.

Listen, we'll get to it. The Brody-Lillegren pair, really, really good. Benwa and McCabe. Benwa and McCabe, really, really good. And they were together in those two games, and they were together the next night that we're not talking about yet.

Now, the least defense is far more detailed. Over the last two... Sorry, the last games without Morgan Reilly, this is the five games without Morgan Reilly, they scored 27 goals and only allowed 11.

Is that good?

You're going to win a lot of games if you do that. I don't know. Maybe not more than six.

Maybe not.

But you are going to win a lot more games. Now, here's the thing that was really interesting, and we'll get to the Matthew stuff because we have to. But it was the debut of new lines for the Leaps. And two pretty consequential lines. So on the third line, I'll start there. Sorry, on the second line, I'll start there. Bertuzzi maintains his second-line spot. Who would have thought? The number doesn't matter. Bertuzzi, Domi, Nylander, Oh, yeah. Mcmahon, Tavares, Robertson. And look at that, all of a sudden, there's depth scoring again over the last two games. But specifically, you can see it, obviously starting with McMahon. You see the way Tavares, Robertson, McMahon work together? Wow.

Really good. We just talked about the eventual transition of Tavares being the leader to Matthews. That's tremendous leadership. Tremendous leadership to take a demotion in a way. Whether you consider the Domi line, the second line, or the Tavares line, the second line, Tavares is playing with two rookies. You know what I mean? He's playing with Robertson and McMahon, two guys who have been healthy scratches this season, except for McMahon is shit hot right now. He's absolutely unreal. Still, but he accepted it. Even post-game, he's like, Well, I played with Robbie a little bit. And I'm like, Yeah? How much have you ever played with nick Robertson? And he goes, But Bobby, I've I've never played with, Robbie and Bobby, who doesn't love hockey players? He gets his first two even strength goals since frigging December. You can pout, you can feel bad for yourself, you can give less effort. No, no. You know what? I'm going to be the best third-liner in the league. How about that? Instead of complaining that I'm on the third-line, how about we just wreck shop?

And Domi Bertuzzi, alongside Neilander, puts two dicks on the same line.

Two dicks. And it made... That's the first time that game against Arizona, I think I've ever seen William Neilander play that mad. Can Sean Dersy be on every team that the Leaps play?

Of all the guys to get mad at, too. Sean's not the guy.

He's decided, I hate this frigging team that traded me, and he's good. He's good. He would immediately make this team better if he was on it. He's certainly not, though, on account of he hates the leaves and they hate him. And when Willy was getting into it, do you see the difference that having two dickheads on the same line makes? It's not every line needs a dedicated babysitter. These teams, these tough teams that we talk about, the Bruins every playoff, the Panthers now, they send waves of this shit at you. Waves of it. And they send it to you in their top six. I feel like the days of the shutdown line are gone. Like the shutdown third line. No, our shutdown line is our very good players we send out against your very good players. Right? So that's what makes them so formidable is your top two lines or whatever, both teams' top sixes are going head to head. You got to have some shitheads in there to be on the ice. Ryan Reeves is a great depth deterrent. He's never going to be on the ice at the same time as Sam Bennett and Matthew Kuchuk and all those guys.

William Nylander. I hate being a boomer about this, dude. He looked like he played taller.

Oh, no question.

And he's been fantastic.

We were waiting for Dick Bertuzzi to come out. Like, total a-hole goal, Bertuzzi. And it seems like, first off, obviously having somebody else there that's going to bash skulls with you or grab somebody by the collar and out the thing, that does help. I feel like there's some speed there for Nylander now, too. Max Domi is very quick. He's a great passer. Oh, my God. And yes, he has his defensive whatever. And listen, if you're trying to play great defensive hockey, putting Bertuzzi Domi and Nylander out there together is I was like, Wow, I don't know about that. But here's the thing. If they always have the puck and they're always in the offensive zone, it doesn't really matter.

That's been the story of Domi's season, I feel. Just visually, I don't know what the numbers are, but when he's on the ice, I usually feel like good things are happening, but when they get hemmed in, they're there to stay. But I haven't seen any of that shit over the last few games.

Yeah. Homeberg can play both sides, right? Who? Homeberg?

I mean, basically every winger the Lefs have can. I don't remember Homeberg playing on the right.

I'd like to see him in that nick Robertson spot. I think he might work a little better than on the Jayte line.

I think that's ultimately going to be Kelly Yarncroke when he comes back. Yeah.

And then Nicky Bob on the sidelines?

That's going to be a fascinating decision because he hasn't played poorly enough to deserve to be scratched.

What if you started Yon Croke on the fourth line and then whoever fails first?

I wonder if that's what's going to happen.

Because Yon Croke was good. You take out Reeves, you put Yon Croke in there. I think that's Yon Croke's spot, but I'd like to see Humbert get a shot with the JT McMahon line because those two together It looks phenomenal. It's weird that we just found this magic with McMahon, but I'd like to see Humbert get a shot over Robertson just for a game or two. It's working, so you can't change it.

They got to try that. They got to try that. I totally agree. This is the time to try. What made this game really special, first off, the camera angles at Mullet Arena are just... I can't not mention that it looks like an OHL game. I can't. I got to say it. But the shots of Matthews, and I think Kaylee Sibley, who runs Sportsnetz social media was down there. I actually saw her shot of watching Matthews score a goal 50. It was amazing because he scores and then everybody gets up. It's a lot of Lee fans, but also Coyote fans got up, too.

She does such a good job.

She does, but I just thought- I miss Sportsnet social team. I thought it was cool that both sides got up and celebrated that because it's a win for Arizona that this player is here. Absolutely. Also, guys, we were talking about joking interestingly on Wednesday about how much games like this mean and how often the leaves blow it. It was like, usually in seasons past, it was like, Put money on the board for the other team. Oh, JT is returning to the island. Absolutely, Babcock is to start the backup. And let's for sure blow the game. I thought that there was real magic in the air with Matthews getting his 50th goal in Arizona after having the guys over to his house and playing his golf simulator. How cool was that? And you have to remind yourself that Austin Matthews with 52 goals now in 55 games, is only 26.

God, it's so stupid. I'm glad that he got it fairly early because early on you could see Mitch Marner just every time he gets the fuck, I got to find Austin Where is he? I'm not going to do anything offensively unless I find Austin. It was worrying me a little, but they did it, and it and it worked and he got the goal. I was like, Okay, now we can start playing hockey.

I love when Mitch makes 30 passes in a row, and then someone, someone on the team on the bench goes, You know, if you shoot it, no one's going to know what's coming. And then he scores in five straight games.

I don't think there's been a complaint about anybody in the top six right now with this current lineup. Not recently. Mitch Marner has been fabulous with what he's doing.

Yeah. He has. It was great to see them to win that game. Your goaltending crush, Karel Vmelka, did not bring his A game.

Well, I have eyes for another, and it's Connor Ingram. And then Vmelka came back into the net and... That is not the Karel I remember. No. That is not Karele the Threl.

And then before last night's game, it was announced that Mark Stone, who was going to be out anyway, will now be placed on LTIR, and Twitter just about erupted about the fact that we got Jack Eichel on LTIR, we got Mark Stone on LTIR. The Vegas Goldenights are going into the trade deadline with $18 million on LTIR.

Jack was coming back in their next road trip they announced. You guys.

He's probably going to play against the Lefs in less than a week.

Also, it's the rules, so eat shit. I'm sorry.

I think I said this multiple times throughout every time this comes up. But the NHL doesn't like this shit, and they do their due diligence on their end to make sure that these guys are actually injured. They're not just getting away with it.

Did you notice that Mark Stone's injury was actually released because of the amount of out... Because he has a lacerated spleen. Yeah. Oh, my God.

That spleen is fucked.

We know someone who that actually happened to. We do? Yeah, a friend of ours we went to high school with. It basically stopped their hockey career. I believe they played double A.

Yikes.

Yeah, dude. It's no joke. It's no joke.

How do you get a lacerated spleen, though? I just wonder.

I think you get hit really hard in the spleen.

Yeah, that's rough. By the way, Mark Stone is not the type of guy to fake an injury either.

I don't know if he's been through everything to just play hockey right now. You think this is going to take him out if he didn't have to?

In his 30s with a team that could win the Cup again this year, yeah, I don't think he's going to sit out because he wants that little capture circumvention. I just don't think so.

Also, I mean, yes, the Leaps went up 4-0 and won 7-3 over the defending Cup champs until you look at the roster.

Yeah, I mean, listen. I felt really good about it. I am not letting the facts get in the way of a good story. I 100% agree. The reality is the Leaps had to play the team that they played. And what do we always say? Oh, injuries, boo-hoo, man. They don't reschedule the games.

That's right.

And Vegas lost and Toronto won. So let's talk about it.

Before the game, I checked. I was on the Bet MGM I checked it. I was like, Okay, I'm going to take the anytime goal prop for Byron Frace because it's going to happen. You should have done Michael Amadio. I should have done Michael Amadio. But it wasn't even offered because of how their lineup was so changing at every moment, and you didn't know who was going to play on the depth boards. So the bottom guys like Amadio and Frayce who aren't regularly in the lineup weren't on there, so I couldn't take it.

Amadio is a regular.

Amadio is, yeah, pretty regular.

Frayce is mostly a Silver Knight. If no one believes me that their Minor League team is called the Silver Nights.

What do you mean? Why do you mean no one believes you?

Because it sounds silly. I like it. Yeah, it's awesome. It sounds silly.

Their ECHL team should be the Bronze Nights.

Oh, my God.

Bronze Age Nights. It would actually work historically. Oh, my God. You You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Bill Foley, call me. Branding expert. Three leaf centers scored against Vegas before Austin Matthews did.

Oh, wow. Great stat. Cool, huh? Good That's a good poll. Is that one of yours?

Well, I looked at it this morning, but yeah, I think so. But I'm sure somebody else said it. No, that's yours. I'm not going to be that guy. That's a good poll. That was all me. That's a good poll. I'm not going to be that guy. Good poll. But the first goal is the one I want to talk about. It's the- McCabe. It's the McCabe goal. But what happens for McCabe to get the fuck? What line is out there?

I actually don't remember.

Tavares, McMahon, Robertson, causing a turnover because Vegas was going to get the fuck because they're taking it from the Leaps. They caused the turnover. It goes to McCabe. He wires it home. By the way, I just fucking love Jake McCabe. Dude.

So much. I love him. He's played a little bit more consistently this season, so he's not getting the same flowers that Brody and Lilligran have gotten over the last week, which is fine. Those two deserve it. Mccabe has been a huge leader on this team.

Where are the Leaps without that Jake McCabe trade?

Oh, a hell of a parting gift from Kyle. He tried to make it better with Laffer We said, No, we don't want that gift. But it's, man, where would they be without that human being?

So great goal from him, and sadly unassisted. But Tavares was a big part of that turnover, and I think McMahon was, too. Kompf, Tavares, Domi are the goal scores. Now, I want to tell you something. When Max Domi scored, I was like, tomorrow's going to be fun. How good you feel? It was so good. How good-I've been saying this, guys. I think I don't really care about what lines are labeled. Obviously, whatever line Austin Matthews is on is the number one line. Don't really care what you call line two or three, but those middle six lines, how they look right now, that is awesome. And seeing Domi score from who? Nielander and Bertuzzi.

Adam, you are the two best things that there is to be as a sports fan. What's that? The fan of a team that just won last night, and more Certainly right.

Thank you.

You've been beating the Domi drum. Dude. You've been beating the Domi drum.

I watched Dallas playoff games last year because I wanted to see- Dude, you're sick. Jesse's things because Jesse loves Ottinger, and I wanted to watch Ottinger play, and I was like, Okay. And Domi was sick in the playoffs. This guy's sick. He's really good.

Thirteen points in 19 games with the stars. I give a playmaker guys who can score.

Crazy. What a weird concept. Now, William Carlson opens up the scoring within the first minute of the second period because it's the first minute of a period, and the Leaps still do that a lot.

Adam, how dare you?

But Max Domi- You just glossed over a huge milestone from the first period. What is it?

I hope someone saved the Puck. Ryan Reeve's first assistant as a leaf.

Actually?

Oh, on the David Koff goal. Yeah.

I didn't realize that was the first- No way.

I don't know if the Puck actually touched his stick.

Yeah, no, he definitely got an assist.

No, he did. He got an assist.

That was his first one. Wow.

Sorry, Steve. I missed that one.

Screw all you all.

How dare you? I want to say that this was really the depth scoring coming out party for the leaves. I do hope that this continues because otherwise, it's a pretty short party. Dude, this whole week. Conf, Domi, Domi, Holmberg, That was fucking nasty.

The only forward to finish the night without a point is Matthew Nies. No way. Every other forward in the entire group had a point except for Matthew Nies. They should have given him one. I know, right? Yeah.

Should have given him an assist on the Humbert goal. Oh, yeah. Even though it was a total turnover. By the way, that Humbert goal was amazing. He causes the neutral zone turnover, and this is goal number five, I think. Six. Number six. Six. Excuse me. He causes the neutral zone turnover, and This is what makes... When you see Pontus Humbert, you see what the leaves see in him when he does stuff like this.

He's not a bad player.

No, he's got... And what's interesting is if he can work on his takeaway game... Because his takeaway game is pretty good.

Two hands on the stick game.

Yeah, he does a little the one-handed a little too much. That was a great goal.

That little fake, too. Yeah. I think he's going to do something else there and he just takes the shot. It was nice.

Marchesau absolutely thought he was going to drop the buck to Reeves. Man, I think Logan Thompson is a really good goalie. He was lost. Because it was a nice play. Yeah, it was a nice play. Not the goalie. No, I mean, it was not You know it's a good goal when you get Mike Johnston going, Oh, dude.

He has so much fun.

He has so much fun.

That's what you wanted your broadcaster when you could hear them just enjoying watching the game and the excitement on the ice. They're phenomenal.

Most underrated call from last night, and I'm so mad he didn't score because it would have been the best call of the season, when Reeves had a lane and he goes, Go to the net, and then he did.

He didn't score.

But dude, you're sitting... On one hand, it's tremendous broadcasting. On the other hand, you're between the benches.

He wasn't between the benches last night. Oh, he wasn't? No, they had him up. Well, it's like they're low because the arena is the size of this room. So he wasn't between them. I don't know if there's room between the benches and the mullet, to be honest.

Because I was just picturing him standing between the benches going, go to the net.

Because if I was on the coyotes, I'd be like, Shut up.

Apparently, you could hear Sheldon keep screaming at the ref throughout the arena. Everybody heard what he said at mullet.

Oh, you could hear everything on the broadcast.

Yeah. You're coming through the TV, you hear all those F-balls that were dropped. It was all of them. It was crazy last night.

Watch what you say at Mollet.

They need a broadcast dump where they have seven seconds. It sounds gross, but it brought a dump. A dump button is when somebody swears and you're on a seven-second delay and you dump and go seven seconds forward.

No, we don't need that. We need the swear.

No, we need the swear. Matthews is now the first leaf because he got another goal. Now the first leaf to score 10 goals in a five-game span since who and when.

Ten goals in a five-game span. Jbr had some crazy streaks for the leaf. I'll say JBR.

2018. I think they had this on the broadcast as Rick 5, right? Rick 5?

Yeah. What year?

1980.

Before-just guess. Before the- Before we were in the World War II.

No, No.

1989.

No, we're right in the middle. No, no. 82, 83.

Oh, that's the most high-scoring year ever.

Yeah. Still, it's pretty amazing. I think it's awesome to watch history happen. We're watching it happen right now. There is a player on the Toronto Maple Leaps with 52 goals in 55 games. It's so prepa. Guys, do you know how long it had been before Austin Matthews dropped his first 50 goals on us? And I think that was a 60. No, What was it?

A 50?

Did it go straight to 60?

I don't think he's ever had a goal total in the '50s.

Okay, so he's never had a 50 goal.

It's like a bunch of '40s, bunch of '40s, the '60. He scored at a 50 goal pace several times, but because of COVID, he never actually got there.

An injury is his fit.

It's 40, 34, 37, 47, 41, 60, 40, 52.

Wow. Okay. Goofy. So this guy's got basically a goal a game. We haven't seen a pace like this in in years. Well, since Super Mario. Did you guys know that Austin Matthews is in the top 10 in goals scored since 2010?

Yeah. What? He's played 300 last games.

His debut was 2016.

And he's about to pass. I forget who's on that list, but he's about to hop the net. He's one goal behind the next person. I think he's eight, and he's about to hop into seven. John Tavares is on that list. He's going to pass him eventually. What? Yeah. It's insane.

It's a crazy name. It's crazy. He shows up six years late to the party. Wow. Yeah, crazy. Obviously, great to see Riley back paired with Lagoson. We'll see how that goes. But what I want to give Sheldon Keef credit for because I feel like sometimes he doesn't do this, he'll go right back to... Whenever Justin Hall was out, we're like, Oh, let's see something else.

A little bit of reprieve.

Yeah. And then you'd see him do something like, Wow, Sheldon, that really works. And then Justin Hall comes back. It's like, No, right back to where we were. He held Timothy Lilligran and T. J. Brody together. He kept Benwa McKeebe. You can't split up Benwa McKeef at this point. And he said, Okay, you know what? We're going to do best defenseman with our seventh defenseman who we thought was our seventh defenseman, who's probably our sixth.

Yeah.

And it worked.

Dude, listen, there were moments... Let's be honest. It was great that Laguian was with Reilly on his birthday and everything. There were moments where Keef could have gone, All right, that's enough. There were definitely moments, especially when they get two goals in 26 seconds. But he didn't do it. He didn't do it. I really do People always ask me, What should the Leaps do? What are you hearing? I have one request for the trade deadline. What's the request? Get Raleigh a partner.

That's it. This is going to be-So you don't like Lagoson as his partner?

Not long term, no.

Okay. Even though it was his birthday, you mentioned that.

Yeah, well, here's the thing. The next game is not his birthday. I thought it was consequential.

That's why you brought it up, right? Because it's nice.

It's a nice thing.

What if he needs 3-5 games to get a climatized. It's not like Lagoson has had the easiest road here.

He hasn't played hockey. He's played hockey on and off for three months. I didn't say it's an emergency. He said it was his birthday, and that's the only reason he got to play.

No, no. That's That's not what I said. That's your quote. Listen, when's- Jesse. When's Max Lajoie and Marshall Refie's birthday?

When William Lagos- I don't think they're going to get the spot. Wins the Conn-Smith. Can you remind Steve of this?

When Steve said that he only got to see the ice because it was his birthday.

That's for Tuesday. It's his birthday? I did not see that he gave him the trophy because it was his birthday today. You're going to send this clip to Alan. I am. How dare you?

No, but so it seems to clear things up a little bit for the leaves for the trade deadline, because if you keep... This is what they've been searching for, balance within lines and lines that are producing. If the forward group continues this way, yes, I know we've talked about centers and stuff like that. If Max Domi plays like this, I don't think you need to spend resources on a center. I just don't. No.

And you have other guys in the lineup who can play center admirably.

So I'm not worried about it. In a pinch. And it's the playoff, so you just do whatever. So here's what clears it up for me, because going into this Morgan-Reilly suspension, the least were ho-hum. They were among the NHL's best, but by their standards, by a team that thinks it's going to contend for the Cup, ho-hum. And we thought at least one major defenseman, maybe one and a half, as in somebody to come in and be a depth piece. Now I'm looking at it much differently. I don't know if you want Max Ljoie or Marsha Refai playing in the playoffs, but if you have to, you have to. If Kimo Timanin played four minutes a night for the Blackhawks and they still won the cup. It's fine.

If guys get hurt, guys get hurt.

But it really seems like the thing that's missing is somebody playing with Morgan Reilly, and it's got to be a major piece. If they are going to make a move, has this not just solidified? Here's what it's got to be. Go get the defenseman. Stop talking about it and do it.Right-handed.Right-handed..

Please right-handed. Oh, well, this guy plays that. That's not what I fucking asked for. I asked for a right-handed defenseman, especially with the future of Connor Timmins, not looking all that... Mono is a weird one. I don't know when he's going to be able to get back in the lap. I also would never, ever in a million years, play him with Morgan and Reilly. So that's all I really want. Benoît and McCabe, I trust them as a pair. That'd be a great third pair. Holy shit. Brody and Lillegren, I want to see where this goes. And dude, forget the pairs and exactly who plays with who. Does Brody not look so much more comfortable on the left?

Yes, of course.

Okay, so keep that. It's obvious what they need.

So the name that keeps getting thrown out there, and I think CJ show we're talking about it linked to Tampa, was Noah Hanifin. He shoots left.

You know who doesn't? Who?

Rasmus Anderson.

Yeah, man.

And that name is coming out.

Listen, I've really liked for a long time. I just didn't really bring his name up because why would the flames trade that player?

I don't think Craig Conrad knows what he's doing. What is the- Sorry, you mean Murray Edwards knows what he's doing? I don't know who's pulling the strings, but I got to blame the general manager. Yeah, I guess. But I guess the owner, too. But the idea that they've been trying to resign Hanafan, ridiculous. The idea that you're going to trade Rasmus Anderson, ridiculous.

I think it's very I think it's actually very obvious what they're doing. They're selling. The Flames are selling, and it's an absolute fire sale. And they keep seeding throughout the hockey world that we'll think about it. We don't know what we are. What was the article uploaded today? It was Eric Francis. Tell me. Eric Francis talking about Jake Markstrom. And now, now is not the time. Now is absolutely the fucking time. He's playing incredible hockey, sell high. That's how this works. And Tana, we're going to trade Tana. Just when everyone wanted Tana, no, I don't think we're going to do that. And Hanifin, and he's going to, no. And Lindholme, we're working on an extension.

Okay, Tanev, you're choosing to believe that they're smarter than what's coming out, that the leaks that are coming out, what the reporters are reporting, isn't necessarily true, and those are only coming out because they have a grander plan. I'm choosing to believe that what the reporters are reporting are is generally in line with what they're thinking, and I think they're being really wishy-washy about a situation where they should be selling.

I hope that's not what they're doing for Flames fan's sake.

I keep jokingly saying, but it's actually a serious, not serious, but it's a thing that keeps happening is that every time headlines comes on on Hockey Night in Canada, Friege is like, Well, here we go with the flames again. And he said last Saturday, he's like, he must be listening to the show or something. Because he didn't want to do this. Yeah, he's like, I didn't want to start with the flames, but here we go. And it's because the flames are going to say this, right? And it makes sense that you do this. I don't fault them for this. They're going to say, Guys, we're not trading anybody. We like what we have. Why? Because if you put up, Hey, garage sale, what do you buy a garage sale? Bargan shit. You buy, Bargan basement shit. We'll talk about the penguins in a second because they're in this, too. No, like the Bargan basement prices, not shit. These are good players. These are good players. What I'm trying to tell you is that I think why would... There's a reason Craig Conroy is constantly and the flame is constantly in the news, and that's because everybody knows where this is going.

Now, Eric France is saying that This is not the time to sell on Markstrom because the season will be over. Well, yeah, man.

Dude, trade someone at the height of their values.

Here's what you do. What's going on? Hang on to Markstrom until he plays like he did last year.

Yeah, no.

And then you have to retain on him.

Yeah, dude.

Like, are you kidding?

I do not understand.

Now, it doesn't have to be at the deadline, but it will have to be in July. He's had a great year. That's a guy you sell high on. You can turn this around quickly. You've got goal-tending depth in the system. You'll be okay. I think that the flames are coming out there and going, We got to protect the value of these players, but they need to get great value back. And by the way, they did. I think the way that they handled the Lindholm trade from Vancouver, what a spectacular haul for the flames.

Yeah, it was a great trade.

Well, and consider this. With another big win, Nazem Kadri, OT winner, they're three points out of a playoff spot. You don't care? No.

Because this is... Guys, do we really think, and I'll eat my words if they do, I really will. Do you think that the Flames are getting... They get to the playoff, so they're getting through the Avalanche? They're getting through Dallas? They're getting through Vegas? They're getting through Edmonton? None of the other teams you just mentioned, no. If Vancouver plays like this in the play-offs, yeah, maybe Calgary gets through them on a wink and a prayer. But honestly, the way- You're saying a lot. Vancouver stinks in the last four games, but they're amazing this year.

Okay.

All I'm saying is Vancouver probably kicks out Calgary's ass, too. So what are you doing? You're getting in For two games of $2 million bucks in Gate, which obviously I know Murray Edwards loves that, but he's a billionaire. Remember, a billionaire is a lot more than... They don't care about a million bucks as much as maybe they go deeper into the play this new building, all that shit. You have to plan for this new building. You have to plan for a new era of the Calgary Flames. Take the next 18 months and do that. These players, your team isn't great, but the players that you want to sell are playing well.

Yes, but Rasmus Anderson, everything you said is true, but Rasmus Anderson, I don't think, should be included in that bunch. I don't understand why he's on the same level as Chris Tanev, who's a UFA, and you need to sell high because he's never going to play for you again. Rasmus Anderson is contract for two more years than his 27th.

If I were to trade Anderson, it would be in the offseason. I wouldn't trade him. That's if I'm the flames. Now, Adam, though.

By the way, I'm not bringing up Rasmus Anderson's name because I know anything. I just know people that do know some things, and his name is out there. Yeah. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah. And I don't understand why. That's why I don't understand what Craig Conway is doing, because you hear on both sides that they're trying to resign Hannahfan, but they're also trying to trade Anderson. Those two things don't align and make sense. No.

There's so much information out there with the Calgary Flames that you don't know what is information and disinformation. Every time I read about the Flames, I feel like I know less.

Because everything is conflicting.

Yes. Maybe that's the point.

Yes. That's what I've been saying for months. Now, wait, though. Who embarrassed the Flames last year? Last year. Not two years ago. Not in the The head coach? Florida Panthers.

Oh, I see what you're saying. They made that deal.

They go all the way to the Cup final, but they squiged into the playoffs. It looks like... You know what that trade looked like for a little bit. You know a sign of a good trade is both teams get better? Both teams got worse. Both teams got worse. Panthers went from President's trophy to they barely squig into the meh, and then they go all the way to the Stanley Cup final. If I'm the Flames, I'm like, Wow, you know what? Why not us? The Flames right now are roughly where the Florida Panthers were this time last year. I think the Flames Look at that. And I think they've had plenty of moments to ask themselves, did the Panthers kill us in this deal? And I think in a lot of those moments, they told themselves, no. We got Huberto, who hasn't lived up to his potential, but he's been steadily making progress. And we got Mackenzie Wiger, who's been an absolutely stellar defenseman. And his performance this season is probably underrated because of the team that he's on. Guys, what does he got? Thirteen goals? That's stupid. You got a hat trick the other night.

If I'm the flames and my goalie's this shit hot. And some of the teams at the top of the West are this vulnerable. I'm within three points. Vegas has a bunch of injuries.

It's February.

Vegas has a bunch of... Yeah. It's February.

This is where... We'll He has a bunch of injuries. They're not vulnerable.

The coach sure seems to be talking about them like they're vulnerable.

Of course. He's trying to get his guys going.

This is the argument against a fire sale is all I'm saying.

You're You're diluting. I think that's total self-illusion.

That's awful because I'm going to tell you something, Steve.

Last year- By the way, Steve, you're awful. I know. I just want you to know it's personal.

This year, right now, currently- I'm sorry, Jesse.

Go ahead.

Right now, Currently, the Calgary Flames sit three points out of a playoff spot, right? But there are three points out of the playoff spot with two teams in between them, Seattle and Nashville. Last year, on February 23rd, 2023, the Calgary Three Flames were four points out of a playoff spot. And less teams in between them. The only one in between them was the Seattle Kraken. So you could say they were in the exact same position, one point off, except with less teams in between them last season at the exact same date. And that line of thinking that you had last year would have gotten you to a place where you missed the playoff.

So I forgot my glasses. I don't know where they are. Does it say what their last 10 is on that chart?

Of when?

Like leading up to that point in the season.

Last year? Yeah. I could dig it up, but I don't have it right in front of me.

If I remember correctly, remember there was that Peltier thing where Darryl Sutter was like, I don't know who this freaking kid is.

What's his number? Oh, yeah. I did remember that.

And then they immediately fell in the shitter. And they started like, they were in a decent position to go for a run at a playoff spot, and then they completely fell off a cliff. They're playing well. That's There's a big difference between this year and last year. They're playing well right now, and this is when you want to play well. Listen, if they wanted to be sellers, they could sit on top of an iron throne made of nothing but draft pics and prospects. But I don't think that's what they want to do.

I don't think they're going to totally sell. I don't think they're totally going to knock it down, tear it apart, whatever. You have to sell Tanev. Hanifin is not going to resign. He's not. Hanifin is not going to resign.

No, I'm just with Tanev. Oh, boy. If you think you're capable of heading to the playoffs, you keep that player. Oh, so gross.

No way.

Well, you look at it. Okay, we can go for a playoff spot or we can get what we're going to get for Tanev. What are they going to get from him? Everyone's coming up with these goofy figures because the Jets got a fur or gave up a first for Monahan. Tanev's 34 and always hurt.

But not recently. He's been playing full season recently.

Yeah, but he's been playing hurt.

The cost is whatever somebody's willing to pay. There's dumb general managers. If you don't think he's worth a first-round pick, one of them might be because that's just what they're willing to pay for them.

I know some of you were screaming at your phone or whatever you're listening to this on right now. Steve, did you just say he's always hurt and not refer to Sean on a hand. Fair point.

The Flames are also six and seven in their last 13. So they're below 500.

Yeah, in their last 13. What are they in their last six or seven.

They went on like... They had a four-game winning streak and then a three-game losing streak, and then now they've won two in a row. So that's six and three.

Yeah, we were talking to Julian McKenzie about this in the CJ Show group chat this morning. The flames.

This is not a guy. I don't understand the argument for trying to make a run at this.

You know what?

By the way, I am not saying this is what I would do or this is what I think is a good idea. This is what I'm saying the flames might be thinking.

Well, I mean, listen, the record is good enough to see you two. And the fact that they beat Boston last night, I would send them to this.

That three-game losing, the one where they lost to the Sharks the other day. It was 6-3 to the Sharks. That's the one where Barry Trotz comes in. He says, I'm taking away your cold play tickets.

I watched the Red Wings game after that. Wait, I was messaging- The 5-0 loss of the Red Wings?

This was terrible. They lost 6-3 to the Sharks and then followed it up with a 5-0 loss?

Yeah. To Detroit.

Who's good.

Yeah, they're good. This is why you can't live and die by every game. Yes, you can.

I'm a fan. Yes, you can.

No, as a fan, yes. Management, you can't. Because you You lose five, nothing after losing 6, 3 to the Sharks. That's the drop dead moment you sell. I don't care what your record is after that.

If you're decisive, it is.

Yeah, that is the drop dead. All right, we're actually not that good. Goodbye. And that's when you just wash your hands.

Jesse, Matty, can we bring that chart back up, please?

Their game log?

Game log, yeah. Here's the thing. If you're indecisive, you go, Yeah, but we beat the Jets, and then we beat the Bruins.

If you just take a look at where the way their season is gone. They have a couple of games where they win and a couple of games where they lose. They're fucking mid.

How long do you want to be mid for?

You follow up that miserable streak with a win against the Jets, which is always good, and a win over the Bruins who run the second half of a back to back in overtime. Oh, boy.

I also want to ask you this.

I think there's a lot riding on Saturday night's game against Edmonton.

If it comes... Because, dude, if that's This is what it takes. This is the game. It couldn't be the last 18 months of play or there were two years you want to go all the way back to playing Edmonton in the second round that destroyed your franchise and two of your stars walked.

If that's what it is. I hate myself for falling right into the flame stream.

You've fallen into the ma. You are within their teeth, sir.

The flames are doing a disservice to their overall franchise if they don't sell on their UFA. Yeah. It's like Tanev's got to go. There's no holding on to him. Hanifin's got to go.

Tanev, to me, is the free space. He's 34 in the UFA.

Markstrom, there is still time to do the deal. You can do it in the offseason if you like. Rasmus Anderson can be a part of their next regime. He can sit through this whole retool if you want him to. There's no reason to trade him. But there's two pieces right there that need to go out the door in the next by March eighth.

Here's why I think Rasmus Anderson could be traded, 27 years old. It doesn't fit the next window. Just throwing that out there.

His cap hit, you couldn't give me enough.

Oh, I know. That's what I'm saying. That's why he will probably get you your next couple stars. A good pick and a good prospect. Absolutely. Absolutely. And probably a player off the roster right now. If Lindhome got what he got.

Man, that really set the bar, didn't it?

Sure did.

It was a pretty good trade for them.

That's what I'm saying is this is an opportunity to do this now, and then you could be great with the new arena and everything.

No, Steve wants them to hold on to the Tana.

No, I don't want them to hold on to Tana.

Let's get to the playoffs and play five good games and then go home and golf. Cool. Murray Edwards got $2 million.

I didn't say it would be good games.

$2 million per game. I do imagine Murray Edwards in a room somewhere with one of those old bankers' visors on, the green one is going, This is great. We got $2 million more dollars. Is that his accent? No, it is now. This is great.

He talks like Liza Maneli.

What was that? I hope he dances like Liza Maneli and sings like her, too.

I hope they don't believe that they're like, We got something here. It's a contender.

Yeah. Hey, this episode is sponsored in part by Better Help. Let me tell you, it's the depth of winter. It might be a sunny day outside here in Toronto, but there was, I think there was a From the start of winter here to midway through January, there were 30 hours of sunlight. 30 hours of sunlight in Toronto.

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Well, okay, I want to bring it back to the Leaps for a second because we were talking about the Leaps of the Trade Deadline. You know what bothers me about where you're at with Morgan Reilly?

Yeah, sorry. Alberta Central show. Sorry, what?

What bothers me about where The Leaves are at with Morgan Reilly and finding a defense partner is if you had just, and it seemed high, and it is, you know who played really well with Morgan Reilly? Who? Luke Chen. Yeah. And Luke Chen costs less than Klingberg. Oh, that hurt. That hurt. I wish you had heard about that. Now, Nashville, for sure, overpaid on Luke Chen, and you could see why they did. Luke Chen rules. He rules. And he's done a great job with them. And of course, and they had the cap space, go ahead and do it. Is Luke Chen's market value, 3. Whatever he's making? No.

2.75. 2.75?

Oh, my God. He's half a John Klingberg.

Yeah, but at the time, we would have all been scoffed. Three years, 2.75. Damn, he got three years?

For Luke Chen?

No No way you could do that.

He's a great teammate. Did you hear what he did for all his preds, teammates? What did he do? He bought them all VR headsets so that they could go to the concert at the Sphere. Oh, shut up. They all went to a virtual YouTube concert, and they're This is crazy.

Now, word on the street is, Pittsburgh is ready to sell. I mentioned this a little bit at the end of last episode. Kyle Dubas finally traded Neelander, something he said he'd never do, which is great. The Blue Jackets have Alex Neelander now. This might be the start of the fire sale, but that is such a dubas trade. That's exactly what was tweeted at me yesterday.

That's such a dubas trade.

Man, I want a Neil Benstrom. I need him. I need him on my team.

When someone... Oh, man, who was it? Anthony Petrelli, I think. They tweeted, they're like, Dubas has loved Emil Benstrom since his draft here. And I'm like, Yeah, of course he has.

He does fall in love with It's like Charlie Brown in that ugly Christmas tree. There's some things where you're like, I see potential here.

I never thought it was such a bad little tree. Yeah. Maybe all it needed was a little love. I mean, Bemstrom is a funny player. He was really highly touted at one point, made too much money, fell off a cliff. I don't remember if injuries were involved or anything. And now he's making 900 grand. And this is exactly the tinker around the edges deal that he would make all the time in Toronto. And we'd be like, maybe this is something. Maybe this is something big. Do you remember what an unbelievably disproportionate amount of energy we gave to a trade that involved two players, and the two players were Per Lindholme and nick Patan. We went to war over that damn trade. I'm pretty sure it helped fracture Dubas' relationship with Mike Babcock because he would put Patan in shitty situations, despite management.

Yeah. And then Patan got him fired.

Thank goodness. Good. I'm glad. That was the best thing he ever did for this team. Yeah. Thanks there, nick. But he does these trades where you're like, Yeah, it could be something. They could be a little thing. But they so rarely added up to anything worth getting excited about. Mason Marchman for Dennis Malkin. You know what I mean?

Well, yeah. Mason Marchman turned into a pretty good player.

Just dicken around the edges. He had victories, too. Listen, there are tons of them. There are parts of this team that the least have Kyle Dubas to thank for.

Jake McGabe.

Yes, absolutely. Well, and even Bobby McMahon. That was a really smart deal in the minors. But you got to take so many swings to come up with anything that's going to have any impact on your roster.

Well, and isn't it funny that you had a thing? What did you always say about Kyle Dubas last year?

Loves his guys? Right.

I think Kyle Dubas loves his core fours and loves cat problems because he has gone from one team with a core four to a team with a full decade older core four. And Which is a core four. He talked about that in the press conference. He said, We're not going to move on. He had a press conference from Crosby, Malk, and Littang, and Carlson. He's not going to move on.

So many fewer press conferences. However many he has, he should have less.

And listen, it's not over yet. But right now, nobody has mentioned this yet. Nobody wants to talk about this yet because this player is a legend and he's going to be a first-valid Hall of Famer. But as far as fit with the team goes, that Carlson trade could end up being a disaster. Because it's one of those things-How are you getting younger after making that deal? It's a top 10 protected first rounder that went to San Jose. If they are in the bottom 10 in the league this year, they're going to be and they'll get their first round pick, but then have to give up next year. But when you look at... Let me read you this. He said, Are there moves out there that would allow us to add younger players to the organization that can help expedite things and support the group we already have here? We're trying to look through all of that. If there are scenarios where we can move out some of our younger prospects for players that are a bit older and closer to ready, we would look at that. Younger prospects? So this is what I'm saying. Who?

Well, so he's gone out and he got Paulearvi. He got Neylander and traded Neylander. He's trying to find- Neylander is like 39. And then he says-He's been in the league forever. No, but he's in his 20s. No, I know. I'm fine. Younger by the... Grating him on a curve here for the Penguins. New energy. That's really what we need. Kyle, who did you bring in this offseason? You got Graves, you got a Chari, you got Carlson. You got tons of new energy.

A 34-year-old, I think, Riley Smith.

Yeah, unfortunately, it hasn't worked out. He'll be a great add to whatever team picks him up.

Vegas. In a deal.

Oh my God! Oh my God!

Send him back. Oh my God!

Do the right thing. That might actually happen. You know what? Because Dubas will do right by the player.

Oh, no.

Oh, Pittsburgh. Like, dude. Okay, you go out and you get Carlson. What did we say when it happened? We're like, All right, well, you're certainly committed to going for it now. And then you're not even a full season after that deal. And you're like, We're going to try to get younger. If you hadn't just got here, that's the quote that gets guys fired or gets fans asking for it at the very least. I think he's a really smart guy. I think he's going to inevitably do a good job with the penguins. But I cannot believe A dude who came up under the direction of Lou Lamorello.

The tutelage.

The tutelage of Lou Lamorello.

Always uncomfortable with that word.

I'll toot on your tutelage.

I cannot believe. Toot on your lidge. What's he looking for? There you go.

I cannot believe a guy who came up under the tutelage of Lou Lamorello stuffs his foot in his mouth down to the molars this often.

Kyle, stop. Can we make- Stop. Can we make you more upset, Steven? Do you want to get more upset? Do it.

Because are you bringing up the coyote stuff? No, I'm kidding. We should.

We should.

We will. We will. We'll get there. We'll get there.

Because Kyle Dubas-Mattie put the thumbs up.

She wants fire.

Kyle Dubas did your favorite thing. What? He spoke to the media. He talked to the athletic. That's where some of these quotes came from. Yes, he just has to stop. I want to give you this quote that was in the athletic when he spoke to them. Cal Dubas said, Dubas said his immediate plan for the Penguins is to the current group. He wants to give them a chance to improve their postseason standing. I think we've had enough moments throughout the season when we're at our best that we show we can play with anybody. It just It hasn't happened enough, Dubas said. So we're looking for that in the next stretch here.

That's a big old nothing burger.

Can you go a little bit back, Jesse? Mm-hmm. Look at what Marcus Petterson said.

Marcus Petterson said he wanted Dubas to say he believes in us like we believe in ourselves.

And he shouldn't. Kyle shouldn't. That would be so disingenuous. Love you, Marcus Petterson. Would love for you to be a leaf. I hope they're selling you because if it doesn't work out with Anderson, I would really love Marcus Pederson to be a leaf. But it's great that you believe in yourself. That's awesome.

Why are you looking to make changes if the belief is in this group? I don't understand.

The group's good.

Why are you making changes?

He shouldn't give quotes to the media.

He's got to stop.

The dissonance though, is that he stacked the team. You had an older core, you knew that. You had Littang, Malken Crosby, and you're committed to that. So what do you do? You go out and you add another bunch of olds. What most people would do is they would go, Those guys are a little bit old. Probably should add some young.

I really didn't hate a lot of the moves he made. Ryan Graves was obviously-I told you guys, that was a terrible deal. Man.

Told you. I was like, What?

You were on that shit from day one.

I was on the Penguin stink from day one. This is not a well-constructed roster.

But I love Achari. Me too. I liked the Riley Smith deal when they made it. Of course.

You can like certain players and go, That's not a fit.

Well, and then you're It's tough because that deal was made very shortly after Vegas won the Cup, and you're like, Yeah, Riley Smith is great, and he just won the Cup. And then you're like, Oh, he's in his mid-30s and just played hockey till the end of June. And that generally doesn't lead to good seasons the next year. You know what I mean? Unless you're a super duper star. Man, he wore the we can and we will phrase around his neck for half a decade, and he's making the same mistakes. Shut up.

Stop. Okay, so he's saying they need new energy in there. By the If Sydney Crosby is having a... If he's not nominated for the heart, I'm going to be...

He won't be.

That's bullshit, by the way.

If they make the play, he may. No. He may.

Who cares? Nominated for the heart in what order?

He's got to be top No.

There's three guys ahead of him. There's too many good players. There's Matthews, Kujarov, McKinnon. But it's value to the team. But it's value to the team. Connor McDavid is probably four.

So here's what I would say to that. I would argue that if the Pittsburgh Pengwins didn't have Crosby having an other a year this year, they would have sold already. Oh, they'd be in the toilet. In fact, Fenway Sports Group might be selling the franchise.

Yes, but there's four other guys who are more impactful to their team this season.

I think that's Poopy Caca. I will take that.

You can have that opinion, but I believe- He can be in the conversation.

It was the same argument I had in 2017 with McDavid. The Oilers didn't make the playoffs, but where the fuck would they have been without them?

I understand. That's my point. I understand the point Adam's making.

I understand it. Yeah, but if you look at the numbers, what Kucharov does in comparison to his next closest team, I think he's 30 points ahead of Braden Point. I mean, the lightning- The second on his team.

The lightning-Wow, it's even in the name.

They would straight up not be in a payoff spot with him.

No. Exactly. What Nathan McKinnon is doing in terms of their one-line team, we keep emphasizing that is very impressive to his team. Plus, those teams are winning. I think you have to take that into account. If Matthews puts up 75 goals, he should be ahead of Sydney Crosby in the hard battle.

And everybody else, by the way.

Artemi Panarin, what he's been contributing to the Rangers and dragging them throughout the season. Now, they're playing more as a team, so he's less valuable for the heart. And then David Poshinok, if you want to throw him in there. I think there's six guys here, plus Sydney Crosby's probably in seven. There's a lot of guys having impressive individual seats.

But he's 36 and the penguins are garbage if he's not in their lineup.

You know you're allowed to just say he's extremely good. He doesn't have to be nominated for anything.

No, he does. I believe that he does. Yeah.

I believe that he does. I think Connor McDavid is ahead of him on the Heart Ballet. I think Kucharav is. I think McKinnon is. I think Austin Matthews is.

I think the Heart Ballet is aptly named because he has so much heart. I'm glad it's not the Jeffrey Award for the best Jeffrey. Most valuable to his team, the Jeffrey Award.

Most valuable, Jeffrey.

H-a-r-t. It was actually named after somebody. Weird. So I think if you're- Brett, the hitman. If you're looking at the Pittsburgh Penguins, who I don't believe have outside of the top 10 protected, if that's not a part of it, if they end in the midsection of the league, they're not going to have a first rounder this year. So Gensel, if he's not hurt, and I've heard he's more hurt than they're letting on, you don't know when Gensel is coming back. You don't know how good he's going to be. And You're hoping, and very likely, he's trying to get an extension out of this, right? Yeah. So that's the guy that gets you the first round pickback. Who do you sell? You can't trade Graves. You're not trading Jari.

Let me flag something as well. So that first-round pick is top 10 protected. Well, what happens if it's top 10? You get to pick in the top 10 this year. That's awesome. Except that you're bad enough to- Except you still owe a pick.

Next year.

Next year when There's a pretty good chance this gets worse. It better not get worse because your first round pick's on the hook.

So you go for it this year. I also think they're going to be competitive. I don't think, regardless of how much you trade, Adubas trades off this by March eighth, I still think they'll be hanging in there because their goaltending is good enough. When you have decent goal tendings, you can hang it around in the standings. I don't think they fall to top 10. That's a pretty drastic fall.

Well, it's a lottery, right?

Oh, Yeah, you could win a lottery ball, and then you're in the top 10 randomly.

You could win a lottery ball.

For them lose.

I don't think it's that crazy, guys. There's 32 teams in the league, and the penguins- Not so many teams. Currently sit 23rd.

That's not the catchphrase, sorry.

What? The penguins currently sit 23rd in the league out of 32.

So it's not out of the realm. Based on where they are right now, they would maintain their first-round pick. Yeah. There you go.

And I think you look at who's ahead of them, right? They're seven points out. They have the Islanders Devils. Seven? Seven points out. The Tampa Bay Lightning are the second wild card team. And They're five points up on the Washington Capitals. That's why when everybody was saying, oh, the Leaps are fighting for a wild card spot, I'm like, that is so disingenuous. Get out of here. They were. No, they weren't.

Then they won six straight.

No, they weren't. Go back and look at a week and a half ago. No, they weren't. They played three or four less games than the Lightning. Get out of here. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. And they were up on the Caps and Devils. Anyway, long story short, Washington, New Jersey, and the New York Islanders are tied at 60 points. The Pittsburgh Penguins have 58. You know who's only four points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins that could catch them is the Buffalo Sabers. Guys, that's what we're talking about when we talk about a talent drop off here. Okay, they're only four or five points out or whatever it is with whatever team we're talking about. Look at who they're next to.

By points percentage, I believe the penguins and the sabers are six places different. They are. They are. A little gameplay difference.

Fair.

I'd like to point something out. You got to win the games in hand. Yes.

I'd like to point something out. No. This trade deadline is going to be boring because names and blah. The trade deadline isn't just about names. It's about teams. It's about franchises. It's about futures, right? It's not just about this year. We just duke it out over the flames. We don't know what they're going to do. The penguins, we don't know what they're going to do. Dude, it's in two weeks or whatever it is. Two, three weeks? Yeah.

Parts of three weeks. And we don't know who's selling it. Nashville's like, We're still in this shit.

If all those teams end up believing in themselves, it's going to make for a very boring trade deadline. But then we get to talk about them being ridiculous and believing in themselves, which is a fun conversation.

It'll make for a better offseason. Sure. Sure. Yeah, it will.

No, it won't because they'll believe in themselves in the offseason. That's when the delusion hits heights.

Every team is in line for the Stanley Cup in July.

But April 17th, no, you forget about the early part of the offseason when there are people sitting there not in a playoff spot, really, really mad about it. And then they do silly things. They do.

If you want to take advantage, that's the time to do it.

Oh, yeah.

But again, by August first, the senators are winning the Cup again, and we know. It's It's happening every August. Not April.

Not April. April and May is angry season.

Kyle Dubison is in his quotes to the media since he brought up coaches, doubled down on his belief in Mike Sullivan, who's a very good coach, but he's very adamant that Mike Sullivan will be his coach moving forward.

I think Mike Sullivan is a good coach. I think that they've signed him so they don't have a choice but to make it work. They signed him to an extension two years before his contract ended. And Fenway, and it's like 5 million bucks a year or something like that. Fenway is not going to let him sit on the sidelines unless they absolutely have to. And I think Crosby likes him. If Crosby likes him, he's here.

You either, what is it, die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain?

Well, if You're Fenway, and you're Kyle Dubas, and you're running this team. How do you say to Cindy Crosby, We're committed to you. We're committed to what you want to do here. And they should be. No one's doubting. No one thinks that it was a flawed idea to try to give Crosby, Malkin, and Lantang one last shot, or maybe two. It's flawed, but it's worth going for.

Maybe not all of them, but I guess they're a package deal at this point.

It's worth going for. The issue is that if Crosby likes that Coach, how committed are you to that as well? I think Crosby likes Sullivan, and they won cups together. How could he not? And they're saying... I mean, CJ was saying on the CJ show that Mike Sullivan could coach Team USA.

Cj is fucking cooking.

Oh, yeah.

He's cooking.

Is It's CJ season.

It is absolutely CJ season.

Man, that show is just bonkers. That's good stuff.

Really, really good stuff.

Anyway, there's so much going on. And I think Pittsburgh is such a fascinating story because They got old on purpose in a league that's extremely young and then are now saying, We got to get young.

I'm telling you, man, if he had just got here, we'd be like, What the hell is he doing? Or sorry, not just got here. If he had been here a Well, there's a reason he's got a seven-year deal.

And CJ said that. He's like, We knew that this was a bit of a prayer, and he'll be the guy that does the rebuild.

It's pretty cool of Fenway to just whip that up.

What do you mean?

A seven-year deal just out of nowhere on the off chance he became available.

Yeah, it's crazy that... The thing I know about corporations is they usually have $50 million to give to one person overnight. It doesn't take months of negotiation behind the scenes to put $50 million on the table in a corporate setting, right? Yeah, that's what I think. Agreed. Hey, the Knuts have lost four games in a row. And personally, if you saw the Rick Tucket quotes, you'd be like, Wow, they're much worse. This is bad. This is terrible. He's so pissed. Here's what he said. Not much compete from the guys. That's on me. I didn't get them to compete hard enough. A lot of no shows tonight. If these guys think playoff hockey is that, we're in trouble. Here's what this is, guys. The Vancouver Knucks have lost four games in a row, which in Toronto is an average February. It is.

I mean, they've raised the bar, man.

They're playing, and I like Taked for this, and I was critical of him being hired as a coach, but I've really liked him. What's going on here is the Vancouver Knucks are going through the Februaries. They're going through the Februaries? This happens to good teams all the time where it's a grind, all stars over, trade deadlines coming up. We're really good, so we're probably not... Most of are probably sticking around. And just like any job, it can be monotonous.

I think there's probably two thought processes going on right now with Elias Lindhol. One, yes, he's a really good player, but you screwed up the team's chemistry by going out and getting them. Or two, thank goodness they made the deal when they did. Because a lot of teams are going to make deals on March eighth, and they're going to have five weeks of runway to get the team to gel. The Knux, with the luxury of being really high up in the standings, and I obviously have in the space to do it, they went out and they got their new second-line center, and they have, what, three months to get him acclimated in the lineup?

And it's tough to do, by the way.

I think this is breakage. I think this is the risk you take when make a trade of this magnitude. And they knew that. I don't think internally they're all that bothered.

They can't be. I know what Rick talk.

Oh, they certainly can be.

Well, I guess if you're living and dying by every game, which you said management can't do, then they can't be.

I mean, he's also... Who did they just name Captain? Quinn Hughes.

Who is unbothered by anything. Even when he gets hit, he's got the same face.

He's also a child. It's a young guy. He's really head strong. I don't worry about him, but he's in his early 20s. He'd be fine. That's a coach. It takes more than one person, right? So that's a coach stepping up for his captain and for his team, and perhaps indicating to the media and the fan base that he is going to skate that team through the foundation of the building until they find dinosaur bones. I would love to see footage of that next Knux practice.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. One person who it looks like is well off the... Oh, and just to your point off the top, Adam, you're so right about that. The Vancouver Knux this year aren't the 22, 23 Boston Bruins. They're not going to go win 800 games in the season, never take a night off ever. They're going to have a losing streak. It's fine. They're young. But one guy who is definitely off this team is Elia Mikhaev, who hasn't scored since December 17th. Last night, he got one shift in the third period and played a total of seven Oh, I smell a tree of Pittsburgh.

How dare you, Adam.

Rick Taukeet does not like Mikhaev, and for good reason.

You know who does? The guy that signed him out of Russia. Cal. Cal.

Well, I think Mikhaev likes Cal.

I think so, too. I like Mikhaev a lot in Toronto. I thought he was actually pretty effective. He's not one of the cardio merchant class.

He absolutely was.

Oh, for what? But remember, he had that injury? Oh, yeah.

So he had He had a wrist injury in New Jersey. Dubis stayed with him in New Jersey, remember, while he was in hospital. It was serious. Yeah, no, it was very serious. But, man, he for so long Listen, okay, there are reasons for why you can't score. We need someone to freaking score. And the leaves could afford it when he wasn't making vital player money. He's making vital money in Vancouver, and he's next up. Kuzmenko wasn't pulling his weight. I mean, Mikheil does not make much less. I think what's he making for something?

Let me pull it up. I don't have it off the top of my head.

It's not a cheap contract.

No.

Elia Mikheil. He earned it.

He was scoring.

4,7,5 for three years. This year, and then two more. Yeah. This guy is playing seven He's seven minutes a night, and you can't put him out in the third period. It's rough. It's a disaster right now with Makeyv.

I don't know if it's can't put him out because he was always a very defensively responsible player. I know he's had some injuries. Oh, modified No Trade Clause.

Oh, I'm dying. And two more years at 5 million bucks.

Dude, have a good contract here. That should be the lesson to all the good little boys and girls. Have a good contract here.

What is the... Holy shit. 12 team no trade list?boy.

He was so good towards the end of against the Leaps. I remember watching him against the Devils, not the Cut game, where he took the fuck and was like, I am going to drive the net. And he at that time, this is two years ago, it was the first Justin Bieber Jersey game. I was there. I remember that. He was the only one on the team at the time who was driving the net. He actually went to the net with the pocket.

He would have nights where someone very clearly said, Hey, you know you're like 6,4, right? And he would just crash the net. Like, Dude, you're one of the tallest players in the league. Well, not tallest players in the league. You're very tall. You're one of the fastest players in the league is what I meant to say. When he learned how to score, all those things are great. But if it doesn't add up to results, then who cares? When he learned how to score, he obviously became the player that you offer nearly $5 million a year to. But to hear the Elia Mikheil I know is He's only playing seven minutes, and he hasn't scored in two months. That's actually really disappointing.

And he has 10 goals on the year. So from October to December 17th, he had 10 goals. He was obviously good. Since then, it's been just a whole bunch of bagels.

I want to say, though, the frustration with Ilyam Mekaev. If you're a Vancouver Knux fan and you care enough and you've got Amazon, go watch the The Leifs documentary because you'll see the frustrations that Keef used to have with him, which I think are similar to what talk it had. You see Keef, in between periods, pull Mekaev into the video office. Remember that scene? Oh, yeah. They're like, See what you're doing? Less of that or more of this.

More of this. Dude, when he used to play with Angvall. Oh, man. Like, just the potential line. Here's a bunch of big, fast as shit dude.

Big for nothing.

Who can't crack an egg and can't shoot or won't or whatever the problem is. Dude, if I showed up to my first hockey game ever knowing nothing about the sport, I would see those two take the ice and be like, oh, shit. That's got to be the best line they have.

They might kill someone.

They might kill someone. They're head and shoulders taller than everyone else. They're clearly the fastest guys out there. Envall's nickname was Sea Biscuit.

No one's ever going to stop these guys, ever. No.

Why did they call him Sea Biscuit? Because?

Because Sea Biscuit is the name of a racehorse.

Because he's fast. Because he's very fast.

Should have been called the Peloton Line.

Yeah, they were.

Dude.

Who was with them?

Who played with them? Who cares? It was probably Kerfoot.

Oh, God. That sounds like a Kerfoot line.

Here is the all cardio line.

In I'm going for a skate.

All right, guys, you got to push. You got to... Everything you got going on at work, you just let it go. Everything you got going on at school. Shout out to everyone going through exam season right now. All right, let's... We're going to climb that hill. We're going to climb that hill. You're going to lower the resistance, increase the speed. Increase the speed. Lower the resistance, increase the speed. How many goals have we scored? Still zero. All right, increase the speed and rest. Dude, Dude, they would drive me up a fucking wall. Anyway, it makes me very disappointed to hear Makev has reverted back to that.

We'll see if he can get it together, but that's a contract that's looking like real bad right now. It is.

Not good.

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I scored.

He got nothing but net.

Okay. This is a good one. Tap into every game with the threes on your mobile devices. Get off the sidelines and drive the basket yourself. Guys, do a drive the basket. Do it.

You're driving the basket. You got it, Steve.

Steve, Paul balls it. Even Eric. Steve Steve Palm balls it even when he's faking it. He was doing this.

This is awful.

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Yeah. We got it. You got it.

I have a question for Who is the hottest team in the NHL right now?

The Leifs.

The New York Rangers. Damn. Nine wins in a row. Wow. And it's the second longest winning streak in franchise history. The Rangers have twice 110, 72, 73, and 39, 40. Wow.

39, 40.

It's been a while.

Yeah. And in 39, 40, they won the Cup. Wow. Third of its four Stanley Cup titles. Yeah.

That one, I don't know.

Listen, the Rangers were really bad for a long time.

Adam, I know you're not really into history and everything, but there were a lot of guys off at war.

In 39 Ford?

Yeah. Why? What happened? During that cup run? Yeah, there might have been-What happened? A little of this, a little of that.

Really? Yeah. I thought there was one war to end all wars, and that was it. That's crazy. Anyway- Boy, I have bad news for you. All right.

So Matt Rempe.

Yeah. Well, okay. So we'll get to him in a second. But I just want to say how impressive it is that a team that lost Wheeler, that lost Heedle, still saying we need a second-line center bat. I think Matt Zucrello is having the lowest five-on-five output of his entire career points-wise. I think that's if I read that right. It's like, he's not... Who? Not that he's been bad. Matt Zucrello. Oh, my God.

Mika Zubinajad?

Mika Zubinajad. I always get them mixed up. I don't know why.

Because their last name starts with Z.

That's what it is. Mika Zubinajad is having a low output five-on-five season for some reason.

I was like, Yeah, man.

Matt Zucrello? And they were still able to pull this off. And I think when Jesse said at the beginning of last season that Rangers were his pick, even though it seemed somewhat ludicrous, this is a really good team that has had some bad luck and some other things that have gone. Lafrenier got two goals last night. I know that's That's a big story for sure coming out of the game. Not a bad player.

I was premature in my assessment, but I think my assessment of the team still holds up in that you have a bunch of... Do we consider them middle-aged when you're 30 in hockey? Absolutely. You have a bunch of vets and middle-aged players like Panarin and Zbinajad and Trochak and everybody there. Then they've been mixing in these young players who can help the forward group, which is where they're deficient in the last few years. Their defense has always been great. Now it's coming to fruition in this winning streak. And in the middle of the season there, there was a lull. I genuinely thought, I was like, Oh, are the Rangers in trouble if this thing doesn't get going soon? And now it's all getting put together at the right time because this is what you want to be great from March through the end of April and heading to the playoffs. And it seems like they're in the right place right now. It's really good to see.

I was totally shocked the way they got bounced in the first round. I thought they were a contender the whole way.

The Devils, they were on a heater last year, and they're playing great. Well, and Akira Schmidt.

Isn't he in the minors right now? Yeah. And didn't have a very good season when he was up. It was just one of those things. It was just one of those things. And you can't ever take it away from them. The Devils, that is. I'm not going to update how I feel about the Rangers, man. I still think they have a really good chance to at least go to the final four.

And one of the biggest things about their early season lulls was Shester, and I call them lulls, but they're still winning the division.

They were very good.

They were at the top of the division the whole time. But Shesterken didn't have his game together. For the entire of the fall, Jonathan Quick was the best goalie in New York. And then now Shesterken, it looks like he's good again. He's old Shazerkin, which is just even better for the ranger.

Now, on the other side of last night's game, Nathan Bastian, I think, had the night that the devil's season has been. So he first gets run over by Matt Rempe.

How is he allowed to play after that?

Now, it's just come out that he won't even be suspended, and he will not be fined either, I don't think.

That's insane.

This hit is crazy. Do you need me to give it to you, Jesse?

I got it here.

Yeah, this hit-It's just It's so crazy.

It's just not a league- It's not a league worthy of your respect.

I cannot believe that you can't even get a fine together for this so George Paros can at least pretend that he's trying to protect people.

Here, there was a question asked in bad faith and rhetorically over and over and over again after this hit. What's Rempey supposed to do? Because he's tall.

Oh, look at that.

No, it's a full body hit as was put by- Steve, what is he supposed to do?

So we got this angle and we got this.

What's he supposed to do? And I do actually have an answer for that. Throw a legal body check. Dude, all right, you're big. You're big. All right. Well, sorry. I didn't realize you were big. Go and do whatever you want them. You're big?

Go and do whatever you want. But teams around the league need to look at this. The NHL got smaller. I think it's like, well, if that's going to be the cheat code, then use it.

Go and do whatever you want. What's he supposed to do? Anything he wants. Anything he wants within the rules of the game. When the game has no rules, then it's It's not a game anymore.

Also, Jesse, can you... Yeah, he's- Dude, look at that shit. I don't think his skate's on the ice there. Matty, can you pull Steve's panel down for a second? Okay, his other skate is. Okay, never mind. It looked like... There's a bit like he's out there to crush him. And I think there is... We always put the onus on the player being hit. There is a time when we do need to talk about the guys who are laying the hit going, Okay, what hit do I want to lay? Yes, I want to blow this guy up. I badly want to blow him up. But all Rempey has to do there is sit along the boards and let Bastian run into him, and he probably has the same effect, which is separating the player from the buck without the potential risk. Now, it was Fans get into it, they love it.

You sound like a dork saying that.

I know. You can definitely give me a noogie.

Can I tell you once the whole, Hey, this is terrible for Bastian. That's the head of hit. It's awful. Rev, he could have He avoided it. The one thing I thought about, just pulling back from this incident, it's fucking awesome for the Rangers. You got a kid here who's in his third career game. In three games in the NHL, he's had a fight outdoors. He has 22 penalty minutes. Holy shit. He has a massive hit that got him ejected from the game. You have Jacob Truba 2.0 just out of nowhere. It's fucking awesome going to the playoffs to have this kid.

I have nothing against this kid.

But you shouldn't do this.

No, I don't think he's a bad person. I don't think he meant to hit him in the head. He did. Okay, here's a question, and this actually does affect the story. When did this hit happen in the game?

The actual time on the clock? I can give you-What period? I can pull this up. It was the first period. It was the first period? It happened early on. Then Truba went after it hit Bastion again later. Oh, my God.

That's It's an even bigger issue.

His first period.

You could argue that because he got five in a game, it's one game. This happens in the third period. Maybe he gets a fine, maybe he gets a game. But you get five in a game in the first period. All right, you could argue that that counts as a one game suspension. But what I won't tolerate, what I won't tolerate at all is the lazy, nonsensical, what's he supposed to do? What he's supposed to do is throw a legal body check and you can say, Listen, play within the rules. Do whatever you need to do to cope with that information, but you have to.

No matter how big you are. The NHL is saying that it is within the legal rules.

No, they're saying he got kicked out of the game. The fact that he didn't get a fine, though, on top of getting kicked out. If they If they want to meld their minds into thinking that it's a one-game suspension, which it isn't.

He still got paid.

He still doesn't have the fine against it, too, which it at least should be.

No, the hidden guys in the head is awesome and allowed. I also think it's- I'm glad that We went through two weeks of it's bad and shitty and you shouldn't do it anymore, and we're right back to it's good and awesome.

I also think I'm looking at this. I'm looking at this like anybody that says five in a game is equivalent to a game or is equivalent to a game suspension. No, it's not. He gets paid for the game. The real penalty here is them not making money.

Morgan Reilly went to an appeal. He appealed this suspension for $39,000. In New York, where their head quarters are. Oh, it's the New York bias.

You know what? It's actually fun doing this. I regret ever criticizing anyone for making that stupid argument.

Nhl head officer, Rael Fan.

To any NHL player, that's a significant amount of money.

Yes, of Well, to any person. Yeah. Unless you own a team. Yeah, there you go.

There are some people that's not. But to anybody in the NHL, $39,000 means a lot. And the suspension isn't the same.

Well, and I also... Let's throw this out there. Jonas Siegenthaler was the guy that stepped up on Nathan Bastian's behalf and fought afterwards. And I was like, Jonas Siegenthaler, not? He got filled.

How many fights does he have on that?

I think that might be it. And then later on in the game, Jake Truba absolutely sends Nathan Bastian to Mars. It's a prime clean Nathan or a Jacob Truba hit. Clean.

Yeah, because you're allowed to throw those. You're allowed to throw those.

It was a great hit. I don't blame... I can understand Nathan Bastian being pissed after it, but look at this thing. Can we get a slow down so we can show it?

I just want to see it in real time. It's just...

He tries to kill him. He tries to kill him.

That is a clean, but it's clean. Open ice, clean hit. You never see that.

Wham. See, Jessie- Holy moly. The screen cap or the slowing it down does not do the speed and violence with which this hit is thrown. And You're allowed. This hit is great. This hit is fine.

I love watching hits like this.

Player has the fuck, goes for the body.

What's wrong with that? And then Bastian goes after Truba. Truba beats him. Bastian, who had a bloody nose before, gets another bloody nose, and then gets, I think, two for ruffing and five for fighting. That's the New Jersey Devil's season.

Where can I apply Why is it online to be a concussion spotter for the NHL?

You can't because you'd actually have to try.

Dude, how is this player allowed back in the game?

I know.

There's no way Nathan... That hit should have never happened because he shouldn't have been in the game. What the fuck are you doing?

That first hit should be like, Hey, you're done.

Dude, you got blasted in the brain. You tried to get up, couldn't, fell back down. I don't know if his tooth was already broken or not. I don't know.

The first hit was directly to the head. If your job is to spot concussions, I don't know how that isn't an immediate. You got to leave the game. No idea.

It's crazy. How big is this, dude?

I got a-. Rempe?

Yeah.

Huge.

Hockey DPRs says, Get the fuck out of here. No way.

6'8, 240? Was it Matt Martin? He has a longer reach than the Dano Jara? Whoa. Because they fought right off the top in the outdoor game, right?

That's an alien, I think.

Well, that's the Rangers playing by the cheat code. You can hit anyone and do anything when you're that big. Justin Brazou should take notes.

What's he supposed to do? Throw a legal body check. Hope this helps. Wow. Holy shit. I didn't know he was that big.

Yeah, he's huge.

And he still has to play within the rules that people who are 6 feet tall have to play under. Yeah.

The rules don't change just because his body is bigger.

Hey, man, he hit him in the head. Yeah, but he's 6 foot 8. Oh, sorry. Do whatever you want. It's fine.

The I want to pull up the Siegenthaler punch, too, because if you want to see this dude's reach, that's where you see it's not fair.

Let me see. Listen, I think this player is awesome. The hit sucked. That's all.

So listen, at the end of the day, it sucks to be a devil's fan this season, but I feel like this fight is going to be crazy, by the way. I feel like that this is temporary, but they need some goal-tending. They need to stop getting filled in like this. Like, yikes.

Here's the Rempe punch to Siegenthaler.

Look at him.

Watch. It's not like Seagenthaler can't get close enough to him to fight him because he's so big. Matt, you can bring this up and I'll do this. So there's Rempe because he's 6'8. Seagenthaler is just a normal human, and he can't get to him to fight back.

So he does this mid-stride.

Rempe just punches him in the face. He goes down.

Poor Seagenthaler goes in. He's like, I'm going to stick up for my team. Maybe I'm not.

He just hits him in the face and it's over.

The Rangers knew. The Rangers knew, it's like, these guys are scared. They had them. They had them. It wasn't even... Sometimes you could see teams was like, Oh, tonight you're afraid of me. I'm going to take advantage. And the Rangers do do that. I wish the least would do that a little more.

I know. 2:40.

Last thing with the And 21 years old.

That should be elite.

I got one more quick story, and then we'll wrap.

Okay. Last thing with the game, I want to bring up the quote because I got a serious problem here with Lindy Ruff.

Is it the power play?

Yeah, the power play quote. Do you have it in front of you?

Yeah, I don't have it in front of me. I have the... Hang on. The guy that asked the question is a guy that I follow. His name is James Nichols, and he's a beat reporter for New Jersey Hockey now. Bleacher Report reported this. Here, Jesse, I'm going to send it to you if you'd like to ask. Sure. Basically, I'll tee this up with... This is what James said. He said, My question was simply the power play. Obviously, they struggled. You made that one tweak, but are you contemplating more changes there. And so when Jesse brings this up, you're going to see quite the response from Lindy Ruffleson. He does get spicy.

I have a feeling he didn't appreciate the quote.

I got something to say.

It's a joke. Coaches don't like questions that sound like suggestions.

Let's hear this quote and then let's talk about it.

When you're struggling it, I imagine you've asked every player, now they're feeling it. You guys are creating excess pressure. Us as a staff, we'll go through that power play. We changed these up. We met with individual groups tonight versus usually a meeting that you meet with all 10 11 of your power play guys. We'll go through the whole thing again. When you're struggling it, I imagine-That's it?

Yeah. Here's what's bugging people. What? Here's what's bugging people today. It's the quote about the media. You're blaming the media for your bad power play. Yep. You're toast, buddy. You're toast.

Are you kidding me?

You're fired.

Goodbye. You're an NHL coach and you're blaming the media for asking about the thing you're really shitty at right now?

The people that promote you nightly.

And the New Jersey media. You know what I mean?

Yeah. You're putting so... The devil's a real red hot market in the last... They're a tough market to play in.

I think Jack Hughes can handle it, actually.

And if he can't, then I don't know. It's like, is the NHL for you?

Yeah. People pay to watch me play. I think the dude who screamed that at an opponent the other night is unfazed by reporters.

Jesse.

In the last 46 power play opportunities, the New Jersey Devils have two goals. This is a media podcast for media people, and I'm going to defend the media here.

No, it is not. I'm going to defend the media, and we need to go after Lindy Ruff who needs to be fired because how dare we-Oh, you're going to be saying, Sorry, Lindy.

How dare we ask about the thing you are the worst at in the National Hockey League? You're upset that Okay, Dougie Hamilton went out, and now they got-That's a big loss. Now they got two young guys who aren't good at running the power play, running the power play, and they have been terrible at it. And it's our fault for Askin? Lindy That's the wrong coach for this team.

I have to admit, that quote, I think, tweets worse than it sounds.

I think it- He said what he said.

You showed me the clip, and I kept waiting for it to get interesting.

Because Yeah, you weren't listening to the beginning of that.

No, I heard him say it, and I was like, Oh, that was a little stupid. But the way he didn't say it like, You fucking...

Yeah, because he's not John Torterella. He's not going to get worked up about it. He's Lindy Rough.

The only time I've ever worked up. This is not Lindy.

This is not Lindy Rough talk. He does. You don't think he gets worked up? That's a joke. That's a joke. He gets worked up sometimes. That's a joke. I think he should get worked up more.

He's an old man now, man.

Everyone in hockey is an old You can't get as worked up as you did against Darcy Tucker when you were coaching the savers.

You can try.

Why? Darcy, I'm sure- Luke Hughes and Simon Nemich are two rookies, and they're right now in charge of the worst power play in the National Hockey League.

That's a coaching issue. That's a roster construction issue. Losing Dougie Hamilton shouldn't cause your power play to go two for 46.

Two for 46. You don't even luck into a couple?

Like, holy shit. I want to... Maybe they I'm ready to trade it for Carlson. I want to say this. This wasn't a story we were going to bring up, but because it's now hit the waiver wire, it's important that we need to. Adam Ruzica was of the Arizona Coyotes. There was a video of him purportedly, again, this is unconfirmed, but in the video, it's very clear that there's a plate of cocaine and the little vials that cocaine comes in. Having never done cocaine, but having seen people do it, I know it comes in these little vials, I definitely felt like a dork this morning going, Is this drugs? Yeah. Anyway, a charts account posted it, and they promoted it. Of course, that's when it went viral. That's when you start seeing people in the NHL sharing it, whatever. Did you guys see this? Did you guys see this? Them posting it, I don't think that... I'm not going to make a judgment on that, but I have my own private feelings about it, and we'll move on. What is really interesting is Adam Ruzica is going to be waived today for purposes of contract termination.

Oh, wow. I think that that's a fucking horrible look for the coyotes. I really don't like that. For the coyotes, for the NHLPA, where is the PA here? This is a person that... Listen, people use recreational drugs. We can all walk around and pretend that they use... There's plenty of people that use recreational drugs consistently. Whether or not the person has a problem, I'm not at It's pretty to say. If they're putting it on Instagram, that's problematic. And I would say this. It's not a good decision. It's not a good decision. And usually people who are not in a good spot make bad decisions. Pretty basic math here. But for the coyotes to just go, Nope, you're gone. And there's no... I hope at very least, they said, Adam, we saw the video that you put on your Instagram Live or whatever it was. Are you willing to enter the player substance or the player, whatever the program is. Assistance program. Player assistance. It used to be player substance abuse program. Now we've watered down the term. Now it's player assistance program.

Because it doesn't have to be substance abuse. It can also be mental health. It's not watered down.

I feel like they should be two separate things, but you're right. Altered. If he says no, then I think... If they say, You need to enter this program, and he goes, No, I don't have a problem, then you got every right.

What needs to happen here is we need more details on the conversation that hopefully happened between him and the coyotes, and that they this to him, and it was turned down because that's the right course of action.

Jesse, it's 143 right now. That tweet was posted around 9:00 AM. To me, there's no way that there's been enough research investigation done for this. I'm not saying that this player isn't a problem or doesn't have a problem or there have been issues behind the scenes, or maybe this is three strikes in your eye. I don't know. But the point is that that is not enough time. You could have slept on it. You could have taken the time, and you could have if you're the NHLPA, the PA has got to step in here. Well, they have to step in.

That's what I was going to bring up. We all know what happened with Alex Galchenyuk this summer. Yes. The coyote signed him. He had his contract terminated a week later because of an incident with the police. The video got released however bad you thought it was going to be. It was worse, way worse. But I believe the PA was looking into that because this is a player you just signed, and then you ripped up the deal, and now you got this. And I mean, the timeline is pretty tight, as Adam just mentioned. And you might be saying, Yeah, well, They ripped up Cory Perry's contract. They're looking into that, too.

Listen, Cory Perry might get every dollar. He might. I think him signing in Edmonton for the money he signed for probably means he's going to get every dollar because I can tell you there were at least 10 teams who were willing to pay Cory Perry a couple of million bucks to come to them.

He went to Edmondson. There was a deadline for his appeal, and apparently, they've agreed that they're going to push the deadline. The deadline, I think, was beginning of February, and that's not the case anymore. That deadline is now removed, and he's going to have more time to file an appeal if he chooses to.

So off-season, probably?

And that's Perry. So this is important. That's Corey Perry. This is important. We've talked about this with players who've had problems before. When a player has their contract terminated, It's on the grounds that it's damaging to the brand, and they've done stuff that is detrimental to the team, conduct detrimental to the team. A player in the program in the NHL cannot have their contract ripped up. When a player has a contract terminated, they and their family lose all medical benefits immediately.

Why do some players go into the program while others have their contract terminated for what appears to be the exact same.

Well, the other side of that, Steve, is that if you're dealing with a problem, not everybody's ready to accept that they have a problem. Not everybody's ready to accept that it's time to stop. There can be that in this, and we have to be sensitive carrying this story. But it just seems to me like this is all very... This is too fast. You could have taken the weekend and figured this out. There's nothing... If he said no or whatever happened, whatever went down this morning and early this afternoon, all you need to do is go, why doesn't everybody sleep on this? But this cannot continue and you're not dressing. That's fine.

Oh, boy, what a mess.

What a mess.

The coyotes haven't said anything, though. No, they haven't.

Friege was the one that tweeted it.

Is that what? Okay.

Well, so that's a pretty good source. Okay. I hate that this is what Twitter has become. Are we sure it's Friege?

It's Friege. It's 800,000 followers. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. So I understand. I checked it, too, because especially around trade deadline, you're like, oh, boy.

There's a lot of fake freeges out there. Yeah. Holy shit. That's pretty bad.

Really bad. So here's what I want to say. We'll end this story on this. Whatever Adam Ruzik is going through right now, I wish him the best. And I hope that if there's help needed, that he gets it. That's the only thing that you can-And I hope the Arizona Coyotes didn't just offer a deterrent to players who were thinking about going and getting some help. Exactly. All right, so we'll end it there. Remember, SDP VIP comes out or is already out. It's out today.

Is it out? Yeah, it's out.

It's up.

I'm going to talk about a shoe box.

We certainly did.

We can talk about $50,000 in a shoe box. Let's end on this. Let's do it. Fucking Bart Simpson said the line. Patrick Waab pulled the goalie in against the St. Louis Blues with 10 minutes left in the third period. I love it. No way. I love this man. I love this man. It was awesome.

It's so good to have him back.

I think it was 10:55 left in the third. The Islanders pulled their goalie against the blue.

Less than halfway through the period.

Unbelievable. He said it. He said, I didn't do it. Bart Simpson said the line.

We missed you, Pat.

Yeah, we missed you. Glad you're back.

What a silly goat.

The Steve Dangle podcast.

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