The Toronto Maple Leaves have a bunch of players going to the Four Nation Face-off. Yany Hockenpa is one of them. I'm not talking about him. William Nylander is going to represent Team Sweden. Austin Matthews is going to represent Team USA. Mitch Marner is going to represent Team Canada. All three of those guys have been eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs every single year that they have played in them. And every year, we hear the same thing. What is it? We know you don't want to hear it, but we tried our best, and we weren't able to do it. But you know what? We got some experience.

Lessons were learned?

Adam-lessons were learned.

Sorry, I'll shut up.

Lessons were learned. And they learned a lesson in 2017. They learned a lesson in 2018. They learned a lesson in 2019. They learned a lesson in 2020. They learned a lesson in 2021. They learned a lesson in 2022. They learned a lesson in 2023. Really? They learned a lesson in 2024. And I'm here to tell you, fuck each and every one of those lessons, they are going to learn more in the 10 or so days that they are spending at the Four Nation Face-off than they have learned from any of those playoff losses. Absolutely any of them. Because instead of, I think part of what's holding them back is no matter who is surrounding them in their playoff losses, at the end of the day, they're surrounding each other. They're in their echo chamber of trauma And this year, whether they win with Canada, the United States, or Sweden, there's a chance all three of them lose. Oh, God. Whether they win or whether they lose, they are going to learn more by being surrounded by guys who have done it than they ever have in a leafs uniform. Wow.

There you go. That's a good positive take.

Yeah.

I like that a lot.

They're going to learn more about winning and losing at this little tournament because that's something that they've had robbed from them throughout the course of their career is best on best hockey. The opportunity to play with these guys, the opportunity to experience something that doesn't involve the three of them. So Marner being with the Canadian guys, Matthews being with the American guys, Nylander being with the Swedish guys, I think is going to be a game changer.

Can you kill eight seconds?

Running from the baby Bumblebee. Well done.

That's very loud. Well done. Okay. No, I've actually made it louder. That's great. That's terrible. It sounds like the T-Mobile sound.

It does. Steve, you should just get an alarm that's your voice going, It's over.

Stop talking. Steve, I think that's a very good take. I don't disagree with it at all. I think the idea that these guys have played professional hockey in the National Hockey League with themselves for their entire careers is something that often gets overlooked. Here we have a single moment where they will not be doing that. I think it's not insignificant at all.

You're not going to have a room full of guys looking at you. It's not going to necessarily be all your responsibility. If Canada is down, they're going to be looking at Nate. They're going to be looking at McDavid, they're going to be looking at Crosby.

But Mitch is going to want them to be looking at him, and I like that. Oh, yeah. He's going to be competitive with this guy.

Unless in the round Robin, he has 50 points and everyone else has three. You know what I mean? Matthews is probably going to be their number one center, but it's Eichel. It's freaking... Do you understand?

I I really like the take.

Oh, yeah. I don't even know if it's that hot.

I tried. You know what? It's unique. I have not heard a single other person say that.

Oh, yeah.

It's going to be genuinely good for them.

I completely agree with you. I have no rebuttal. All right. I yield my time, Jesse. Sydney Crosby will play at least one game for another NHL in his career.

Oh, boy.

If he plays beyond this season.

Well, he signed a contract extension.

Doesn't matter. If he retires at the end of this season. Oh, yeah. Then you can't hold me for this take. Okay. Yeah.

Let's assume he plays next season.

Assuming he plays next season. Let's cover that. Sydney Crosby is going to play at least one game for one other NHL team. Wow. And that's okay. No, it's not. I think it's okay because Penn's fans are realizing what we all know, which is this team is bad. And do you really need Crosby to play every game in his career for the team if they're going to look like this? Right? Cydney Crosby The greatest potential legacy beyond the Cups that he can leave the penguins, one of the greatest, is the haul that he gets when he's inevitably traded. He can jumpstart the penguins rebuild by half a decade. Retool. Retool. And this goes for Malkin and Littang, too, but more Malkin than Littang. If Crosby is traded, if Malkin is traded, all the stuff that Buffalo is going through, all the stuff that ducks are going through, all the stuff the sharks are going through, you can avoid all that. You can just jump right in. You just jump right into the, Hey, we might be good in the next two years thing. You might have a bad year where you get the first overall pick or the second overall pick.

But the idea that you hang on to Crosby out of pure Pennsylvania stubbornness is not ideal. You don't want to do this. You don't want to do Ryan Getzlab, Cory Perry to the Ducks, where they hung on forever and there was nobody to take up the next thing. It's He's not going to be Rucker McGordy, kids. He might be good, but he's not Crosby. And all I am saying is that if you were to go to Colorado and go and win a Cup with Nate, you're going to be happy for him. You'd be thrilled for him. And You won't resent the fact that he finished his career elsewhere. Oilers fans had to deal with it with Gretsky and Messier, right? Lemieux did stay with Pittsburgh his whole life. However, he was an owner and a player at the same time, and that was weird. Probably couldn't happen today. Definitely different. Jarmer Jagger left. Played for a bunch of other teams. Just trying to think. Gordie Howe played for the Hartford Whalers, played with his sons. Do Detroit fans He paid him for that? All the greatest players, even Bobby Orr, did not stay with the Bruins.

He played a few games before his knees gave out with the Chicago Blackhawks. And if Bobby Orr had played a normal career, he would have played until 1990. And so- Holy shit. Because he started in the late '60s, early '70s. So he would have had he had a normal one. So I'm just saying, Pittsburgh fans, let it happen. He deserves it.

T-mobile.

I'm calling you. Rabutal.

I disagree. I wholeheartedly disagree. I think Sydney Crosby played. I know this is going to be the one that we replay in a year or two because it's going to go the other way. It's going to be fun. I truly believe Sydney Crosby wants to retire a Penguin no matter what. I know we've seen it. I made the argument on the other side a million times over the last couple of years in that athletes are Ross Pro Sports do this every time. It's the Brett Farr playing for the Vikings and the Jets. It's Aaron Rodgers going to the Jets. There's two football examples there. It's whatever. Hakema Lizawan being on the Raptors.

Everyone thinks they're Tom, braided, and the Bucks.

Exactly. Everybody wants... No athlete thinks it's over until it's very over. They always have that last little gasp where they're reaching out straws and they go to that other team and they try and do it, and it fails. It's Matt Sundeen on the Knucks. He was actually really good. I truly believe Crosby is the outlier in that he's going to retire a Penguin because that's all he wants to do in hockey. But that's my view on how Crosby feels it.

I think the time for this has passed. I was fully on board with it, and then he signed the extension anyway, and I'm like, You made your bed, lying it. They might make the playoffs. Probably not. He's made his bed. He's going to be a Penguin forever. Okay.