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[00:00:00]

Everyone can't be cheering for nick Robertson hard enough. And boy, last night, I mean, that's his whole season. He hit the post. That's him being nervous. I understand. I think the Puck is going to start going in for him, and it'll be rocket fuel for him, and he'll be able to ride that for a little bit. Oh, boy, that Puck stays there for a while when he's out there sometimes, eh? What do you mean? When the Puck in the leaf's end, and he's out there.

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They do get hemmed.

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If I'm honest about nick Robertson, I like his work ethic. He hustles so hard. He's working. And that's why he's amongst the top part of the league in terms of penalties drawn. Guys are always taking penalties. Oh, shit. No.

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Shut the fuck up. Shut up. No. Shut the fuck. Fuck.

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You ruined it. Yeah, Jessie. Now we're screwed.

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Robertson is never drawing a penalty again. Fuck.

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All right, continue. Continue, Jessie.

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There's a reason he's amongst the league leaders in Penalty's drawing is because he's always moving his feet. He's always working. But the skill might not be there, and his hockey sense might not be there. If I'm pie in the sky dream Leifs lineup, I like the kids that they brought up in the last week more than nick Robertson. Okay. I'm rooting for the kid, for nick. Oh, yeah?

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You just completely took away his ability to draw penalties.

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Thanks. If it's a choice between Minton or Robertson, I probably have Minton there. If it's a choice between... If Reeves is in the lineup on the fourth line, and then you want some other skill on the third, Nick's probably out of there. Even like, Grubenken, he doesn't have the skating to keep up, but you can see the potentials there.

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Yeah. I mean, waivers, it plays a big factor here as well. Totally. God. I'll always root for a player and bet on a player where the effort is there.

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Alex Steve's works hard, too. He does. I don't know if nick Robertson has a future on this team beyond this season.

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Well, and I guess we got to find out, too. The other thing is Alex Neelander signed that contract, and if they decide to send him down, he's got to go through waivers now.

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Man, that is- So he better make it work.

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Otherwise, you're a Penguin.

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I got to hear... Oh, shit. I'm kidding. I got to hear from fans of teams where it It didn't work for him. I got to hear from Saber's fans, and that team is terrible. Chicago. Blackhawks fans, and that team is terrible. And who else was he?

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Columbus is the big one because that's where he lit up. They're terrible. He lit up the world last season, and they just decided to let him walk.

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He was one of the best goal scores in the league for about six weeks.

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No, no less than that.

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He had 11 goals. 23 games.

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Was it 23?

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It was 11 goals in 23 games.

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That's pretty good.

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It was like four weeks.

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No.

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23? That's a busy month. You're right. Because I started watching clips of him and everything. He's really, really fast. There's a lot I have Willy in there. He's got a good first step. He's not as smooth as a skater, but he's aggressive with it and agile. There's hands there.

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You had to post twice last night?

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There's hands There's a shot there. He went eighth overall for a reason, right? That wasn't just, Oh, his last name is Dielander. Put him in the top 10. Why did it work out so well for Willy, and why hasn't it worked out for this guy? Why did NHL scouting staffs go, There are only seven better players in this class than him, and it took until last year with the Blue Jackets for him to break out. And then he ends up signing an AHL deal with the Leifs anyway. Yeah.

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In his breakout, teams didn't even want him.

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Yeah.

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What are we missing?

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Well, he turned down deals, but how many deals and how much were they? No.

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But if there was a $3 million deal out there. He would have taken it. It wasn't good enough. What are we missing?

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Well, I think that consistency is an issue, right? You look at the best seasons the guys had. The longest he's played in the league to date for a full season is 2019, 2020 with the Hawks, and he had 26 points in 65 games. And then, of course, he had the 15 in Columbus last year. But that ignores the five games in Pittsburgh where he got nothing.

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You look at his AHL numbers, Adam.

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And they're good? They're good. They're a point of game.

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There isn't a season in there, though, where you're like, this guy's the dreaded too good for this league.

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I would imagine some of it comes down to unrealized potential, and some of it comes down to you were in the Buffalo Saber system, and they haven't graduated Much outside of those big first-round picks.

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They graduated half the Panthers.

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Yeah, okay. All right. But I think that he came to Buffalo at a pretty bad time.

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But I'd like to know what's in his game that That's lacking because I think the shot is there. He looks wicked. The skating, I think, is there, too. I think it's all of Willy's deficiencies, but hyper-magnified on the defensive end of the buck and all that.

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But I don't know. I don't want to be the A guy who, eight years after he's drafted, he's the late bloomer, 26. Here it comes.

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Gms fall for that all the time.

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I know. I don't want to be that guy. But I do watch him and I'm like, How come this didn't work. Now, none of us were banging the drum for him to get signed after exhibition because he was a guy out there, Cedric Paré with Flash. He didn't do much, right? I mean, it's not going to be a terribly long audition. Guys are going to come back.

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And they're coming back quickly.

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Yeah. I don't know. Let's see what happens there.

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Yeah, it's going to be fascinating. Now, for the first time in a long time, the Toronto Maple leaves have a goal-tending duo that... First, Wolf started his second in a row. I was like, Please be careful with that man.

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So you can get Stalers in Florida on Wednesday.

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Of course. But it's also, please be careful with that man. You don't want to play them too much. And an extended break. But I think it's cool that they have confidence in both. That is the first time in a long, long, long time.

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One of the LFR questions was, this is the best Leaps goalie tandem since who? And I had a really hard time coming up with an answer because someone was-Pot Van Damian-Rhodes?

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Where are we talking here?

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Someone went Joseph Schwab. And I'm like, well, that's not a tandem.

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Oh, Curtis Joseph. That's Joseph. It has been that long. Yeah, I see what you're saying.

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Curtis Joseph, Cory Schwab. That's a situation where a dude was supposed to play 70 games or whatever, and I think he got hurt, and Cory Schwab had to play some. Okay, tandem. Reimer Scrivens. Well, no, that was another situation where Reimer got hurt, and Scrivens had to play more games. Anderson Campbell. Both guys had really good stints with the Leaps.

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But never together.

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Never together at the same time. Okay, we can't really go with them. Do we go back to... Someone said Belfort Elkwest, which no. What? No. No. Yeah, you might literally... There was a brief, very brief period. It was Joseph and Potvin.

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Yeah, That was like six games, though.

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It was five seconds. You might earnestly... It's not Potvin Führer. So now we're starting to really-Well, that's why I said Potvin Damian Rote.

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I liked Damian Rote, so it could be...

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The one I didn't want to say in LFR, because I'm like, People are going to think I'm kidding, or the most ridiculous human being ever, like Bauer Sauchuk.

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Well.

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No, no.

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It's not been good.

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We're talking about two goalies who are playing... They're putting up top 10 goalie in the league numbers.

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So let me give you this. Damian Rodes had a 902 save percentage in 22 games in '93, '94, backing up Felix Podf in. And that is not dead Puck era yet, right?

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No, that was '93, '94 was very high scoring.

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Yeah. So you imagine. And I think that year or the year after, Felix Potvin saw the most shots against in the NHL. This is how bad Leaps defense regularly is. Yeah, Felix had a 907 in '66 games that year. And then Damian Rodes continued the next year, 13 games, 9, 16 save percentage. The next year after that, 11 games, 904 save percentage. So this is a guy that I actually think it's Podman Rodes.

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If you're asking from pure numbers, pure save percentage, the answer is Reimer Scrivins. Wow. If we're going to the '13 season, Reimer Scrivins, Rhymer was a 924, and Scrivins was a 915.

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Yeah. You know what? You should trade for a starter the next year.

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Rhymer, that's in 31 games started. Scrivins was in 17 games started. There you go. 924, 915. That's amazing. We know the context of everything that happened in 13. But if we're translating safe percentage, it's those two.

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But Stoller's wool blows their numbers out of the water. Yeah. Right. So they have to keep it up in order for this to even be a conversation. Wolle's played seven or eight games. But every night, the blood pressure is nice and low. It's to the point where the only reason to care who the Lefs are starting is for fantasy. I don't care. Stolars is really good. I like him a lot. Yeah. Wolves is really good. I like him a lot. All right. I do not care. I don't care who's starting. It's been a very long time since that's been the case.

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Steve, you're wondering the next season when they trade for a starting goal tender. Bernier and Reimer weren't too bad either. 922 for Bernier and a 911 for James Reimer.

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No one remembers that Bernier was actually pretty good when he started. Fantastic. But that team fell off the... I think that was... Which was the 18-wheeler? No, the 18-wheeler was... Dude, they were so shit.

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We don't need to. I know. We don't need to. They were bad. Okay, moving on. I don't want to go back there. I can't. I simply can't. I don't know. I simply can't yuck my own yum because that's what we're doing. Why would we go back? It's like, Oh, I'm in such a great relationship. I need to think about my ex.

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Mcalaney and Anderson. Anderson was a 918. Mcalaney was a 914. Oh, wow.

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That might be the answer.

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That's 1617.

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And next year, they were like, Hey, you know what, Curtis? Get out of here. Why don't you join the lightning? What have they ever done?

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How about this one? In 1718, Anderson is a 918. Mcalaney is a 934. He was so... Wow. That's probably the best one.

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He was so... But again, I wouldn't call that a 10. Him at all. That's Anderson, and McAlanee starts every now and then.

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You got 15 games?

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They haven't split it like this for a long time.

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A true one, two.

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That's why I went back to Bauer Sacha because they're like, Okay, we have two former Vesna winners. We're going to have them split it. Also, they're old as shit. They're so old. And let's win a cup. The leaves are weird, man.

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The other thing I wanted to mention from the game last night, specifically, was Lawson Kraus trying to start a fight after one of the goals, and Simon Benoit jumping in and going, Okay, fight me then. And Lawson Kraus backing down. And that is not That is not the first time that's happened this year. It happened against Montreal, too. David Savard back down from a fight, and it looked pretty soft. Now, David Savard doesn't fight, but he's the body to fight. He's a tree trunk.

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Now, there's a little bit of context here that a lot of Lee fans might have missed. Okay. And Andre Turneye- Thourigny. Is it Thourigny?

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No, I just said...

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I know it's spelled Thourigny, but every time I said it in the video yesterday, something in my brain went, No. That's not it. But I had to override it and be like... It's like when you still have a word underlined in red, Microsoft Word. No, leave it. He had that time out. I mean, it was because they were getting scored on and everything. But earlier this week, you think it was still less than a week ago, Tom Wilson, who's a great player, but every now and then reminds you he's a little psycho. Yeah. He got into a grappling match with Kraus, where Kraus is on the ground, and he like, slammed that dude's head into the ice like three times. It was bad. I'm surprised. I'd be more surprised that nothing came of it if it weren't the NHL, although we should give them their player safety video props a little later. Absolutely. Later in this episode. So that's Kraus getting smacked around, and Utah not really doing anything about it. Now, it is Tom Wilson. It's a really tough customer. Last night's leaves lineup didn't I have that. But I think part of the reason we saw it get so chipping and nasty is because Utah is not just struggling to put wins together here.

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They're getting pushed around, and they can't have that. That's why I think all that happened last night.

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But-well, if you're going to start a fight- You should start a fight. If you're going to start a fight, you should be ready to fight. I understand not wanting to do it. I completely get it.

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Well, and that's not a great trade.

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Either.

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No, it's not.

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Especially in a game that you're losing.

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In a game that you're losing, that's not a great trade.

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But what I liked about it, forget about the loss and Kraus angle for a second here and the history there. I liked that the Lefs stood up, and it didn't have to be a star player. They're totally different. It was like, wait a second. And it goes back to Matthew Nye saying to whoever it was- Pasternack. Pasternack, go me. And then Pashterknack turning away, going, and then Matthew Nye is going, I knew you wouldn't. That's what I thought. And And that is something that never used to happen. There is an attitude with this team, and you can see the confidence, and it allows-What happened next round, by the way?

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What? With the-Pashterknack.

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I don't know.

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You fought Matthew Kchuck.

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And?

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Well, I think, obviously, the Bruins win that series. Obviously, he scores the game seven overtime winner. He's feeling really good about himself. But-he's thinking about it? He back down from a fight. Yeah. He didn't back down from that one. Now, you take Matthew Kchuck off the ice. It's a little different than taking Matthew Nye off the ice, especially a really young one. But I just wonder if there was a little something in the back of his head after that.

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Oh, well, maybe. I think, speaking of the least, though, I just want to get to the point where you talk about Will or Mitch having an edge to his game. Well, he can now. He's allowed to. If you know that you've got guys who are going to step in and go, No, no, no, no, no, stars. No offense to Kyle Clifford, but he was never going to get more than seven or eight minutes a night.

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Dude, it was five or six years where they were like, We're tough now. This one person is why we're tough. Nope, it's the whole damn lineup. It's a bad time.

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The other thing I think is worth mentioning is that obviously we know and we gave our flowers to the Tanev-McCabe pair, right? But I thought this was interesting as well. Kevin Pipetty tweeted, Connor Timmins has been on for less five on five goals against per minute than any other defenseman in the league this season. Benoît is second. And the McCabe-Tanev pair is also shutting down lines that after night. It's nice to have two pairs that are playing shutdown minutes. And listen, Are those minutes the same as Mekabe Tanev? No. Do they need to be?

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When Hawk and Pa is back, OEL is the one who sits.

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Yeah, right. No, zero shot. Isn't it great? I think it's very interesting how this has all played out. And there were people at the beginning of the year who already, well, Ben was clearly the guy that's got to go if Timmins is in, whatever. I think he's done his role right. I just want him to take less stick penalties.

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Yes. Yeah, 100 %. And I mean, that's a bad thing, but it's also early in the season, and they'll slowly go away. And all of a sudden, Ben was really upped his game. No, just change the rules. Just change the rules. It's okay. I couldn't be happier with how how this leaves team is playing on the back-end.

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The only thing with that is that Yadi Hakenpaugh is really good at hockey, and he's got to find a way into this lineup.

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When people were questioning that, the skepticism because the injury, I totally understood. But when I saw a little notion out there, do they need this player? I'm like, okay, you don't know who this guy is.

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Yeah, he's very useful.

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He's exclusively desired by the best defensive teams in hockey. That should be our first clue.

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Connor Timmins has been the surprise, though.

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Oh, my God. Dude, I'm shocked. He's been great.

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He's been great. He's been phenomenal.

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I thought if he was going to get in the lineup, all right, he's going to be scoring like a third of a point, something-ish per game, second power play unit, and he's going to drive you nuts, and he's going to cost your team a goal every game or two, and you take the good with the bad? No, that's just a straight up good defenseman. It's just a straight up all around good defenseman. How many times this season have you been like, Connor, that was dumb.

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Once or twice, max. That penalty he took last week where he wrapped a guy at the end of the game. Everyone does that. Yeah, it was a motion. Willy does that. It was a stupid penalty, though. You're asking me. Sure. If I yelled at the TV, I yelled at a little bit.

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But last year, in years past with Keef as his coach, and I'm not blaming it on Keef, but And it's obvious something has changed here. You would, at least once a week, get a decision from him where it's like, Have you ever watched a hockey game? Just so mystifying. And it's like, Dude, you're not a dumb player. What are you doing? And now he's just a solid contributing member of society. Dude, he's so good.