Transcript of Dentist | The Steve Dangle Podcast

All right, well, we're going to start the show with a couple of announcements when Steve gives me my phone back. I wanted to see what it was like to have a bright yellow phone case.

You can take that phone case off. It's bright yellow underneath it.

It's actually it's cooler than I thought. Is it bright yellow underneath? Gold.

What's wrong with you?

You got the gold iPhone? Yeah.

I was like, why not? I'll be able to tell my phone apart from everybody else's. You won't ever have to look. It's easy.

Not to bring back high school lingo. What a beamer.

Just showing off. Just strutting around. Okay, A couple of big exciting announcements to make before we fully, fully get into the show. Steve and Jessie and I are going to be on Prime Monday Night Hockey tonight. It just so happens, and this has nothing to do with our partnership with San Jose, but they happen to be playing San tonight. Pure fluke. Total fluke, but it's going to be exciting. Of course, you probably want to know the times. The times are about 7: 20. You're going to see a panel segment with Steve and Jessie and I. Can you Can you imagine? A panel. No. Us.

I can't imagine. Are you making this up? Pre-game. Just another MLH.

And then during the first intermission, Steve and I are joining Adnan Verk in the cool zone. Because they do the Amazon does it in the arena, in the crowd. And so that's where we're going to be.

Is it called the cool zone?

Yeah, it is actually called the Cool Zone because I think it's a sponsored thing, part of the arena. They call it the Cool Zone?

It's named after Nikolai Coolman. No.

The Cooler Zone. Yeah. Very excited about that. We think we might have a guest from Amazon coming on later today, but we're not totally sure yet. So we're just going to do it live and in the moment.

We're going to do it.

It's a tease or it isn't a tease? I'm not sure. We'll see you on primemunday. Hockey. The second thing is that we've got a brand new partnership with the Western Hockey League, the WHL. So just like with the OHL, as we continue on our Canadian Hockey League tour, the WHL has graciously allowed us to use highlights. So Steve is going to be doing the Oh, Wow version for the WHL, and you actually already used some clips this weekend in your LFR.

In my Borea Vallis video because the leafs signed a player named Borea Vallis out of the WHL.

What country was he born in, Steve?

Los Angeles, California.

Just as we expected.

Yes, for sure. And he's a Dan Milstein client.

Which ultimately, I'm like, he's Eastern European.

A hundred %. Yeah. No, Borea Vallis. That's the most Italian name I've ever heard.

Could you imagine if you named Leo like Ladislav? Believe me, when I was going through, we were trying to come up with names and we couldn't I think of any, so I just started rattling off guys from the NHL.

I'm like, What do you think of Rostislav? Rostislav Glenn. I know.

That fits. Yeah, let's do it. This kid from Ajax.

Just a kid from Ajax on hero named Rostislav Glenn. You never know. No, every time the Leifs sign a guy, Leifs fans are interested. Anytime your team signs a guy, you're interested. But it's one One thing when I get on there with my fat head and I tell you why he's interesting, it's another when you're able to watch. I could get on there and tell you, Oh, yeah, this guy's a beast, and he does this, and he does that. Here he is in a teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Jersey doing all the things that I'm describing. He did have a teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Jersey. Prince George Cougars. They like to have fun. Really great that we're able to do this with the Ontario Hockey League. League and the Western Hockey League.

Absolutely.

And hopefully other Leagues join. Maybe.

We'll see. Have you called any? Tell us what you know. It wouldn't be like me. Tell us what you know. I wouldn't cold call people. That wouldn't be my style.

It's weirdly your style.

But yeah, we're very, very excited. And I think just like the ORL, the WHL just gets it, and we're thrilled to be doing that. If you're in one of those cities, and specifically if you have... And this It goes for the ORL as well. If you have specific goals that you saw your team score and you want them featured, make sure you tweet a producer Drew because he does listen to requests.

My mentions are now getting flutter with lots of entertaining content, and I'm happy I'm going to think about it. It's usually like some crazy overtime goal or, Oh, man, did you see this pass? It was a frigging between the benches brawl between the Peterborough Pete and the Erie Otter's coach yesterday.

Yes, that was great.

People were like, No, That's what Steve likes. Let's send it to him.

Now, here's my question. Is Oh, Wow! Going to be W, Wow? Is this a series that you do, or are you coming up with a completely different name?

No, I think just to upset everyone, I'm going to call it Hey, that's neat. Hey, that's neat, where we take a look at the best from around the WHL over the past week.

Jesse, what do you got to get out of this? Jesse, as the king of awkward names, what do you think of that name?

That was not good. Do Do you guys have a name, you and Drew?

Well, it's a tie between Hey, That's Neat and Big Dub.

Big Dub.

Oh, Big Dub is pretty good.

Not Best in the West?

That was not bad either.

That was Justin's suggestion.

Best in the West.

Yeah, that's why I didn't want to do it.

I like Best in the West. You should let the people decide.

Do we let the people decide? Can we put a poll?

Also, I assume somebody in the comments might be able to out-dual you guys.

Big Dub, Hey, That's Neat, Best in the West.

Or of the West, either or. On Long Island, in Long Island.

Best of the West. Best in the West. Best on the West.

Yeah, that's right.

Because we're all just an island. That's right.

Best on the West. Yeah, it's true. It's very true. It's very true. I mean, listen, so what we'll do is we'll leave it to the comment section. If you guys have great names for what we should be naming this highlights feature. And by the way, just like O'Wows, this unnamed video will come out every single week now.

Yeah, we should call it Better Than on Terrible. Am I right, fellow folks?

High five. Yeah. So we're very, very excited about that. Just wanted to update you on both of those things. Now, I want to do the big story early. Am I allowed? Am I allowed to do the big story early?

Hey, that's neat.

All right. Now it's time for Steve and I's Oscar Picks. Yay. Now we picked best actor, best actress, best picture, best song, best supporting, and And best supporting for both sides.

Subtress, it says here.

Best subtress. Best subtress. Supporting actress. Yes. Steve and I are great because we haven't watched any of these movies except for Dune 2.

I haven't seen Dune 2.

Dune 2 is amazing.

Steve's literally owe for 60 or whatever. How many movies were on the Oscars?

I didn't see any of them.

Jesse gets really into this, though. This is Jesse's jam, and I think that's why he has us do this because he likes to laugh at how bad we are picking these. No, no.

Jesse, did you- It's not a laugh fest.

Did Did you watch the Oscars yesterday?

I did. The first hour and a half was a lot of, you didn't need to tune in. Last back half of it was decent.

Interesting. How did you think Konan did as a host?

He was okay. I didn't I think a lot of the... The writers, they were iffy. Some of them were a little immature jokes, but that's Konan's style. You do things where he's just like, Coming up next is Ariana Ponde. He's like, Oh, I don't know her name, even though she's really famous. I was like, This is It's not a corny. I don't need that. But Konan's generally very just good at being a personality in hosting. It was decent. Okay. Seven out of 10.

Okay, seven out of 10. It's pretty good. It's tough. It's a tough gig to be the Oscar's host. It is.

It's very hard. Yeah. All right.

He didn't get slapped. These were all things we could have bet on at betmgm. Com. We'll see how Steve and I did. So starting with best... Should we start with supporting?

Yeah, we'll start with supporting.

Okay. Best supporting actor. I picked Kieran Culcom spoken.

Correct?

I put Home Alone, which means Kieran Culkin.

Yeah. You guys both got that right.

That's better than I thought we'd do already, both of us. Best supporting actress. I said Felicity Jones in The Brutalist, just because I like and have a crush on Felicity Jones.

I put What are you doing here? Which meant Ariana Grande.

No. It was Zoe Saldana.

Saldania now.

In Amelia Perez. So that's incorrect on both. Okay.

All right. Next up. Best song. None of these songs are songs that Steve and I have heard. Never, not once. I picked El Mev or El Mel, whatever it's called, from the Amelia Perez.

I put Amelia first because there were two songs from Amelia Perez, and I think El Mel was the first one.

Okay, you guys both got that right. That was the worst acceptance speech of the night. Yes, it's true. They started singing the song, and nobody cares about the song, and it's awful, and it It was so cringe and not great.

I think Wicked-Let's do a worse version of the song we won an award for.

Yeah.

Wicked was not nominated in that category because they didn't have an original song in Wicked.

It's best original song. Okay, all right. Now we'll go to best actress. I picked and held space for Cynthia Areva.

I just put Holding Space. I don't know where it is. Oh, yeah.

It was not. It was Mikey Madison.

I'm not talking about it. Apparently, Anora is a really, really great movie. It was good. Did you like it?

Yeah. But I enjoyed movies more this year than Anora. I didn't know if it was best picture. We'll get there.

Okay, so we'll go actor next. I know I got this one right because Timothée Shemla was robbed, and Adrian Brody was the winner.

Robbed?

You think he should have won? No. Well, I think Adrian Brody should have won.

I thought Ralph should have won. I thought it was going to Ralph, and it didn't go to Ralph.

Adrian Brodie He did win that, and he had the longest acceptance of the night.

Best feature length acceptance speech.

There was a moment where they started playing the music, and he told them to shut it off.

Yeah, because he said he'd be quick, and then he wasn't.

And then he wasn't. I was like, This is some arrogant shit here, Adrian Brody. You are a bad person.

That's the best way to never win another one.

Yeah. So I didn't like that.

Okay. All right.

So Adam's up.

I'm up a point.

You got three, right?

I got three. I got Cury Calk I got El Mal, and I got Adrian Brody. I got two.

Adam, you should not let me be this close.

And Anora, one best picture. Who did you have?

I had Dune plus two.

I put brutal, which meant the brutalist.

All right.

So Adam wins.

I got 50 It's like a math class again. Yay. All right. All right. Pretty good. Yeah.

Well done. So Steve won Super Bowl, Adam won Oscars. We need the next thing to-What is the next?

March Madness?

March Madness. Okay. In a couple of weeks, I think the 16th, they do Selection Sunday. But then Selection Sunday, we can come on Monday. That's perfect. You guys can pick whatever. Maybe it's just your winner or something. We have to do a whole bracket, and then we'll see who wins that, and that'll be the tie break. I think that'll be great.

As always, all of this is always available at betmgm. Com/dangle terms and conditions. Betmgm, an official betting partner of the NHL in Canada and the PWHL, and also the Steve Dangle podcast, because we're right up there with the NHL and the PWhL. It's them, and then we're neck and neck right there. Us next. Yeah. All right. Now, now that we've got the Oscars out of the way.

I enjoyed that.

I enjoyed that very much, too. I also enjoy winning, especially when I didn't do any work. Listen. No research.

You loser, Steve.

My wife was so confused last night because she was actually watching it, and I was just passively, I don't know, I'm on my phone, I'm strolling through the room, and then I think Pal Mel I wanted. I went, Hey, Pel Mel.

What's it called? El Mel. Pel Mel. Oh, my God.

I don't know what it's called. Pel Mel. That's good. That's funny.

Jesse, do you want to know what actually happened last night? What happened? Steve basically was like, Hey, man, what should we wear tomorrow on Amazon? I was like, Well, you should wear a suit. He's like, Is that what they get when they get SDPN? Should they get a suit?

No, they asked for Sdpn. So they want some guys in suits. I was like, That's not what they want.

I don't think that fits. I think Steve's right that you shouldn't wear a suit.

Well, we're wearing business casual, which is-That's not a suit. It's a collared shirt. It's a collared shirt, and it's a jacket.

I am wearing a suit minus the tie. Yeah, me too.

That's what they told us to do.

No, it's not. No, they didn't.

Well, so Steve was like, Is this what he's wearing right now? I was going to wear this. Business casual. That is not business casual. How is this not business casual? That is I'm at the hockey rink on a Saturday morning elevated.

Yeah, I wouldn't wear that. Yeah, see? But you can do business casual without a suit jacket.

Well, I'm wearing one.

Somebody has never worked at KPMG. That's true. I can tell.

That's true. Yeah. I think what it was. So Steve was calling and doing a fashion show, and then he showed off some of the stuff that he got for the draft in Montreal. Do you remember that? And Steve has, Jessie, a silk shirt. I don't know if it's silk. This was sports on the Internet, right? Yes. And he has a suit that is not a full-length suit. It has shorts.

So dress- I remember this. Dress pant shorts. And you didn't wear the Psycho Bunny shirt.

They wanted to put you in. Real Psycho funny guy.

No, I wore that for a stream that got like 400,000 views. Oh, that's good. It's still available on the Internet. It's okay. But I was like, well, surely my co-host, Kolby Armstrong, will be dressed similarly, and he's in a cream suit. Can I come out in a A black hoodie? We have fun.

Now, we have fun. The Toronto Maple Leaps played a rare afternoon game on the weekend, on a Sunday, yesterday, against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh. The Leaps are now 27, 0-0 when leading after two this season. Hilarious. In the last 10 games, the Leaps are 8, 2, 0. That's really great. They're first place this morning. Hilarious. But here's the problem. Who are the Florida Panthers, 8, 2, 0. And the Tampa Bay Lightning are 9, 0, and 1 on an eight-game winning streak. The Atlantic will not die. This is the Leaps. By the way, very funny to see some of the reactions to yesterday's game because this is the Leaps' fifth game in eight days. Tonight will be their ninth game or sixth game in nine days, right? Yeah, I believe you. Fifth game in eight, sixth game in nine. The team looked pooped. They looked pooped against the Rangers. They looked a little bit like in the first period that they let off the gas because they were a little pooped against the penguins, too.

They were out shooting the penguins It was 13 to 3 when it was 2: 00.

Then the 10-minute mark happened. They died. They died.

They disappeared.

It's funny to see the reactions this morning because I think people forget that these are not robots. I think sports that had a title like something along the lines as well, there's not a lot to be proud of in a game like that. To me, there's a lot to be proud of in what happened this weekend because, objectively speaking, 60 minute game-wise, perfection in your game-wise, these are two really not great games. But the key was they found a way to win anyway.

The NHL often takes its cues from the NBA, and what cue they're taking is publicly hating the product. We had the Four Nation face-off. It was great. Now we're back to regular-season games, and we could talk about how much it sucks ass. What? That was fun. That was a very fun game. It was not...

It wasn't great.

Beautiful hockey.

Beautiful hockey.

It was fun hockey. It was dumb hockey. And also, has there been a report this morning from the Pittsburgh Penguins? Are all the players on the team accounted for?

Joel Blunkist is actually in Wilkes-Barre, and Tristan Jari was called up this morning.

How about on the decor?

Everybody seems to be there.

I need to know if Eric Carlson safe because I was pretty convinced that during second intermission, Mike Sullivan was going to kill him.

Well, we can start. Do we want to start at the beginning or do you want to start there? I'm fine with it. I don't know. Here's what you need to know. Leaps are up 2: 0 after 10 minutes. They're out shooting the penguins 13 to 3, 13 to 2. Domi goal. Got a Domi goal. Whoa. Whoa. Then, hilariously, we get two Domi penalties in the second half of the first period, one that leads directly to a goal goal. Then another one where I think Max... Did he not get... Was there not? No, it wasn't him. He wasn't on the ice for the second goal.

It's his second two minor game in a week.

Two minors in consecutive shifts.

Maximum Domi very quickly went to minimum Ome. Jesse?

He burned all the goodwill he got from scoring a goal with those two penalties.

It went from Happy birthday to you to ride the pine and get off my team.

The Lefs then, they've got 13 shots It's 13 to three, and then the two nothing lead they've built evaporates within two and a half minutes. And by the end of the period, the penguins are up on a goal from Sydney Crosby, three to two.

Now, how many of those three goals did you look at Joseph Wall and go, oh, no. Yeah, two. Two goals. Two. That's a good number.

Possibly three.

This is bad. It was bad.

You know what I hate? Because... Okay, what is the big crime Joseph Wall has committed this season that has gotten so many fans to turn on him?

Who's turning on Joseph Wall?

Oh, buddy.

Yeah, it's weird. I think it's just because Anthony Stoller is just so good.

People have been on him for months, and it's like they already forgot about last season. I think fans were already worried about him getting injured, and then he did, and it's just-But he's been the healthier goalie, so why are you on him for getting injured when he's played the most games he's ever played in his entire career? Joseph Woll's The greatest crime this season is not being as good as Anthony Stollers. Joseph Wall has probably been a, I don't know, top 20-ish goalie in the NHL this season. You can win a lot of games with that. It's just Stollers has been stupidly stupendous. And just because Wall is the... We're not used to having two good goalies. We don't know how to handle it. One of them has to be asked.

I think a lot of the negative storyline that came out of Pittsburgh, and I think that's the way you framed it correctly, Adam, was that people are harping on the goaltending and how it's an issue and how the Leifs won despite having this awful goaltending. But the way you should look at it is everybody's going to have a bad game every now and again. Wole wasn't going to have a perfect season, and they won despite all of that. It's a very positive win.

Remember when John Tavares was hot garbage coming off of an illness and legitimately the worst hockey I've ever seen him play? Okay, well, Wolf's coming off an illness. Sure. He's played enough good hockey that I'm like, Crumple up, throw out the tape, set it on fire, do whatever.

Joseph Wall is a very good goalkeeper. Very good goalkeeper. He's been doing that throughout this entire season. So, yeah, I don't understand any hate towards him at this point.

I'm zero % worried. And I think in a game like that, in a stretch like this, right? Most of those games, they've won five in a row since the Four Nations face off. Four of those have been on the road.

They play so many road games.

They play so many road games. And by the way, Leifs might have lowest strength of schedule, quote unquote, But the schedule is insane. They're back home tonight and they're playing again.

So strength of schedule is about quality of opponent, right?

Yes, it is. It has nothing to do with travel.

It's quality of opponent at the snapshot of the time when you publish that little chart.

Yeah, because it changes immediately.

Everything changes when one team wins one game.

To me, it's like, if this is court, it's inadmissible. You're going to talk about the strength of schedule, but you're not going to talk about when the games are? Yeah. That's useless information.

Yeah. No, we brought that because I kept harping on when we're coming back from Four Nations, the least have a terribly difficult schedule. It's impossible all these game. And then people are publishing, Oh, strength of schedule, though. I'm like, No, but look at when the games are happening.

It is inadmissible, dismissible, useless information if you're not going to include whether or not they're on the road, you're not going to include back-to-backs, you're not going to include back-to-backs with travel. That's ridiculous to me. Completely.

They played Friday, traveled, played Sunday, traveled, played Monday. Traveled. There's no practice. Then they go back on the road. It's difficult.

No Tanev. Their defense looks shitty. Well, yeah.

Well, and that's the other thing. So I want to talk a little bit about that because the defense did look shaky. The forwards looked exhausted. They look like they're skating with lead in their boots, right? But with the defense, it's like people are like, Oh, man, this leaves defense is really bad without Chris Stanev. It's not that bad, first off. It's not great. It's not the great. But it's like, Hey, man, Vegas' defense doesn't look as great without Alex Petrangela. Oh, man, Shay Theodore broke his wrist. I can't believe... It's just that we're not as strong as we were.

Okay, so the Bruins are missing McAvoy and Lynn Home.

Yeah, What's your excuse? And again, as Steve always says, and as people need to say, the games happen whether you're injured or not. Here's the key, though. We go back to the fact that they won the game, and they won a close game. And I know Pittsburgh is not great, and We'll talk about that. I was going to eat a lot of shit on the stream yesterday from Pittsburgh fans. They were coming in in droves when they were bringing back. Cassie was bringing them all in. They're like, All right, guys. But it was a game that they won, and that's really all that matters. Not every game, and there are certain games that are, not every game, guys, is a reflection on where the team is at at this moment. It is not an identity crisis when Joseph Wall lets in a couple goals. In fact, what I would pose to the two of you and to everybody watching and listening is that the fact that we had a goalie let in two softies, and we're so not used to that, that people lost their mind, shows you how great our goaltending has been.

And how bad it used to be. Yeah. So we're scarred.

Yeah. Go watch Samson off. Samson off in game anything in the Boston series last year.

He had one really good game. I can't remember which one. Well, arguably seven. No, he was terrible for the majority of... Actually, you know what? He wasn't terrible for the majority of last season. That was the annoying thing about him.

Yeah. He was just terrible when it mattered.

Friggin' guy. Nice. Or no, not nice. The final minute of the second, which I think is going to get Eric Carlson whacked by the Mike Sullivan loss.

Yeah, so we'll talk about that now if you want to. We haven't got there yet, but that's fine.

Well, I mean, it's an 11 goal game. No will one player cost anyone the game. However, if we're going to rank them, Eric Carlson is probably the number one reason the Penguins lost that game.

So let's set the stage here. The Leifs score right at the beginning of the second period, I believe, right? Was it not... They tied it up pretty quick.

Early on.

There were so many goals. It was so many goals. I can't believe it. Oh, Matthews. Yeah. That was awesome. Everybody's excited, blah, blah, blah. But the problem with that is then they immediately let the Penguin score.

Oel did not have a banner night. No.

And again, it's okay. But the situation gets Pittsburgh is rolling right now. Hey, we're ahead of the leaves. There's a minute to go in the game.

It was an FU goal, too, because Russ was going back and forth with OEL, and then he buried it.

And Russ had a really good game. I'm looking at it right The part that is amazing is that with a minute to go, you go, Okay, this is a team that as bad as they've been, they're not going to let a goal in the last minute of the second period. What ended up happening is they let two.

And Carlson went, I'm on board and went to the...

Yeah, John Tavares buries one. And I think that's gotten lost in how spectacular the Matthew Knight's goal was, guys. But the John Tavares goal was pretty important.

He looked like William Nylander with the amount of breakways he had. It might have been two. But still, two is a lot to get in an NHL game.

For a guy like John Tavares who's not exactly like fleet of foot.

Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, Is that a myth? And then I watch him and I'm like, No, it doesn't. But He scored, man. He scored. He's hard to take the fuck off of, and he's got ridiculous hands. The hands I find are always the last thing to go on a player. The hands in the shot, his foot speed has never really been there. Defense tends to go as you get older, but the hands in the shot. Spetsa, the amount of times he turned back the clock on the leaves where you're like, Oh, it's 2007 again. He's great. That was Johnny, and that wasn't even the best breakaway goal of that minute.

So that goal, Tavares' goal happens with 56 seconds to go. Then with five seconds to go, the penguins have an offensive zone face-off, which they win. Now, Jesse, can you bring up... Would you be able to bring up game center for this one?

Because? The Visualizer?

The Visualizer. Okay. Because I love the Visualizer. And the Visualizer is amazing here because you see Matthew Nize, he's got the double lines around him, which means he's the goal scorer. Austin Matthews loses this drop.

To Crosby. To Crosby. It's Crosby, Rust, Raquel, Carlson, Malkin.

And it's worth noting Raquel had a crazy game, too. Look how fast he is. And this is with five seconds to go. So what happens is the puck is one back to Eric Carlson, who has a pretty weak pass over to his defense partner.

It was blind, too, because he receives it on the other side- He spun. And he's doing a spin the other way to pass the puck.

Yeah, what the goal visualizer doesn't show. It'd be great if the number spun.

But he literally spins in a circle, fires a blind pass to Malkin, and Nye strips him.

I love that the leaves keep showing up on the bench, like they're hanging over the bench going, Come on, shoot it. He scores with 0. 1 seconds to go. That's one of my favorite memories watching the Lefs with Leo. Got to love an afternoon game, so he was actually there to watch it. I lost my mind way more than him because I'm like, It's going to count. It's going to count.

Yeah. The goal goes in with 0. 1 seconds to go because the bench was yelling at Matthew Nies to shoot it. Now, Steve, Jesse, I know Steve, you wanted to talk about Mike Sullivan and what he might be doing to Eric Carlson. There is no fallout, really, from this, from what I could see online. I think it's been par for the course, which might be worse.

It's definitely worse. He walked off as soon as that goal was scored. Now, part of me was like, Good strategy. He's pretending that goal didn't happen and won't count. No, I think he immediately went to the back to look up concrete shoes on Amazon and Eric Carlson's shoe size. That's what I think he was looking up. Listen, Carlson is a ridiculously talented player. He's got, I think, over 40 points this season. I know he's close to 40 assists, and I know he's got some goals in there. Eric Carlson is what he always has been. The aloofness that he plays hockey with, This isn't 2017 anymore when you don't even talk about his deficiencies because his strengths are so wildly overwhelming, so wildly overpowering. No one can compete with this Swedish God with Thor-like hair that blows in the wind as he brushes by you. It's 2025, and enormous liability. That doesn't... Okay, bad line change on the DeVarro's call. All right. That happens. Maybe could have, would have, should have. What was said on the bench? Who knows? You win an offensive zone face-off with 5. 7 seconds to go, and it ends up in your net.

You suck. If I'm the coach, I'm losing my mind. I'm I'm looking up one-way flights to Madagascar. How are you supposed to get out of being the Pittsburgh Penguins with this person on your team, this veteran? We all know what he can do. It's like the Evan Bushart conversation we had. Listen, what he doesn't do doesn't mean he can't do incredible things. The Bushbaum is a weapon. The outlet passes, the power play capabilities, the, Hey, literally just throw me on the ice when McDavid and Dreisaitl are out there and we're unbeatable. But I can't ignore the evidence of my eyes when I watched the guy not skate backward not bend down and not do anything productive. Then you get to Eric Carlson, who's the older version of that. This... Man, it's going to be difficult to explain one day to the youths how good Prime Eric Carlson was. What an assassin. But those are two goals on him, including one of the most unlikely goals of this NHL season.

It's so interesting because I think the idea that you brought up, the part about him being a veteran is very interesting because in seven years from now- He's 34. Before Or he's inducted to Hall of Fame and you're interviewing Mitch Marner for his book, Head of the Hall of Fame Ceremony, like you do with Matt's. We're going to have to talk about Eric Carlson going to the Hall of Fame. Little things like this aren't going to be in the discussion. But this is a reality of a guy who's 34, been in the league for 12 years, knows not to do these things. And yet here we have an important game for them because every game is important, even though they're not going to make the playoffs, having a play like this. That's inexcusable for from a veteran. I get it from somebody else on your roster, but not the $11 million defenseman who's been in the league for so long. He's going to go in the Hall of Fame.

I would be shocked if he didn't.

Yeah, he has to. He has to.

There's a lot of Hall of Famers getting in now who have never won a cup. It's hard to win the cup, man. Take it from Ali. It's hard to win a cup. He got very close on a one foot that wasn't broken.

Yeah, the Cup stuff doesn't really matter for the hockey. No.

And he's a guy who all through his career, it's like, yeah, well, good things tend to happen when he's on the ice. More good things than bad. Okay. The bad is so insanely bad that it ends up in your net. Not all scoring chances are created equal. How do you give up a break away with less than six seconds to go? Offensive zone, draw that you won.

The counterpoint is that we're making too much of a simple play where everybody should be relaxed because there's six seconds left. But the idea of being a veteran player is that you play to the whistle. There's no moment when the clock isn't at zero that you can give up on a play. I feel like that's why it means more.

How many double-digit players are in the NHL?

Probably 10. Salary.

Maybe 15?

Yeah, 15.

Okay, so keep in mind, the Sharks are retaining, so he makes 10 on the Penguins. He makes 11. 5.

That's why he paid the salary. One day somebody said, You are worth this.

Yeah. So McKinnon makes more, McDavid makes more, Naren, Matthews, Petterson, Willy, now.

Okay, there's five players that make more than Eric Carlson.

There you go.

Five. Now, it's important to remember that Eric Carlson only makes 10 against the cap for our Pitsman. Yeah. But are you ready? What did you guys say?

Who did you say? I said them all.

I got them all. You got them all.

Don't worry, buddy. I nailed it.

I'm so good at it. Okay, great. I was looking it up as you were doing it.

If you're a top 10 highest paid player in the league, I expect you to not make blind D2D passes for what reason I don't know. I'm sure they drew a play up, and he wasn't supposed to spin. He just received the fuck funny.

They won the face off and it was received to his wrong side.

Put it on or anything but that.

Ring it around the boards.

Don't do it blind. No, you got to throw something on that time. But you don't spin blindly and pass it to the Gen Z kid who's always trying and has so much energy. Matthew Knight is out there just running around.

It's like, what, 22? Yeah.

He's got energy.

Either he made the choice or someone was like, Eric Carlson He might do some Eric Carlson shit and derogatory.

That's someone who should have had the attitude that Eric Carlson should have had in that play. Matthew Nye was playing till zeros. He said, In that moment, there's no downside the idea of me going for this interception, I'm going to go and have all of the energy in the world and try and steal this pass. Kudos to him for playing how you should play.

Leadership-wise, doesn't that say something about where the Lefs are at? Because all the youngest guys, Everybody's willing to go right to the buzzer. And they were screaming at him on the bench to shoot it. And I've seen in Pittsburgh this morning, some of the... I do get a lot of Pittsburgh in my feed because first off, it's a very intense fan base.

They're such an interesting team.

And they are an interesting team. And obviously, I follow a lot because I'm pretty critical of how they've handled the situation in the last few years. And what was interesting to me is people going, as Jesse, you mentioned this, Well, it's more on Blumquist because he led us off to you.

Stop.

It's an NHL player with a breakaway. Most guys in this league are scoring that goal. A fucking slap shot point blank on the goal tender. Your goal tender is held out to dry there. Yeah. I mean, all right.

No, I think that's enormous cope.

I think that was-Innormous cope. Okay. It was worth mentioning, though. It was worth bringing up. Okay.

Could you have gotten a save there? The OT winner.

Yes. So let's talk about that a little bit. William Neylander is the king.

And the penguins tied it with 10 seconds into the third.

Yeah, the penguins. So the least score, two goals in the last minute of the second, and then 10 seconds into the third, the penguins tie it up. So within 70 seconds of actual play, you have three goals. That's how silly this game was. And the crazy part about the third period is it probably was, from a hockey standpoint, both teams best period. Oh, easily. They shut each other down in the So in the neutral zone, nothing happened. But when we get into overtime, the Leaps are one of the only teams in the NHL, if not the only, to not have a shootout at all this year. So good.

No, they're the only.

They are now 8-2-0 in overtime, which is amazing. But this goal, specifically, is really interesting. And are we bringing the game center thing back up, Jesse? Do we have that?

Oh, sure. Yeah. On the Willy one?

Yeah, the Willy one is interesting because watch 88 as you look at the screen here. 88 goes from his defensive zone all the way through the neutral zone, completely untouched, completely untouched, crosses right across the blue line in scores. He doesn't get a single stick, a single... No slash, no body position. It's three on three.

That's how three on three works.

But okay, so When he gets across the Pittsburgh blue line, though, do they not try to gap up on him?

A little bit. That goal with no traffic can't go in.

I think a little bit. I think John Tavares cutting across there really did open some space for him because if you look at John, the way he did it, people are like, Well, Blumquist He might not have seen it. Whether he did or he didn't, he backed off the defense.

The Leaps are a crazy overtime team.

And they didn't used to be.

No, they definitely didn't used to be. But I was so impressed with the way Marner conducted things against the Bruins, and he wasn't on the bench for this, which actually I didn't realize. He starts the play, and then he heads off for a change from McCabe. I thought Reilly was the one who conducted this overtime for the Leaps. It was only a minute. So I guess he didn't have to do all that much. But their bench management and park management, three on three, so much better than it used to be. You remember, the other team used to win the face-off, and it's like, I think I'm just going to turn it off.

Yeah.

I think this is terrible. This is awful to watch. And they would just rope a dope the leaves into exhaustion and then get a chance. And a lot of the times it would end up in the back of your net.

That Which is William Neylander's calling card, what he did in that overtime goal. And Jesse, as a long time William Neylander booster. Yes. When your William Neylander Fandam really took off was 2018 1929s. I can remember it because we used to do the segment Who Wore the Crown? And Jesse faked Willy every night.

When the world came to an end, 1929.

Yeah, but it sure was fun before the world came to an end. What's different about the William Neillander we're seeing this season versus that season five years ago?

What's the progression? On a goal like this, sometimes we're too critical of the defense on a goal, and you need to give credit to the offensive side of it because it can just be a great play where the defense got beat and nothing you can do about it because they're so good and they ran such a great play. That's what's happened a lot with William Neelander this year, where he knows that he's a goal scorer, he's a shooter in more ways than he did previously. Before, he wasn't really tasked with having control of the offense in a way that he is now. He holds the buck for longer. He's into more spaces where he can capitalize on goal scoring with his shot. With all of the breakways this year, you could see he's cheating for offense a little bit more, but it's effective. He's allowed to be more William William Neylander in that he's not being tasked with playing defense as much when the puck's on the defensive zone, and he can get up the ice a little bit. Those things have worked for him this year. It's not like every time he has these breakbacks and he's trying to the zone, they're getting beat at the other end.

He's being successful in playing like William Neillander, and that's led to 35 goals.

Well, the offense does actually help out the defense because it all starts with the defenseman having the puck in their own zone and going, Okay, where do I Yeah. Okay. Glassing out. Or it's, Oh, I hope I don't ice it. Oh, no. There's Willy.

There's Willy already at center ice. There's my breakout. Everything's simple, and he's down the ice. Plus, this play, it's so special because of how flow he's going. He controls the game without this speed element. He's doing it in a different way. Mcdavid, the way he controls the play is through his speed. He'll just go through his-He blasts off. All of a sudden, he's behind the net and he's coming around, he's doing whatever he wants. And Willy He's just doing it with deception. We talked about before about his shot, how he's deceptive with that, but also with his skating where he just holds the buck and everybody's watching and waiting for him to control the entire offensive play. It's beautiful to watch.

It's great hockey. I I thought Matthew Nye's channeled a little bit of William Neylander in his breakaway goal at the end of the second, because if you notice, he catches Joel Blunkist going glove side. Blunkist moves to the left, and then Nye's, because I think Nye's Jimmy just a little bit. It's when you're on that one foot, and Willy is the master. He's the one that catches goal. He's going the wrong way all the time. I think on this one, this is an interesting goal for him because it's such a floater, right? It just floats right through and goes in. What do you think it was about that shot, guys, that caught Blumquist off guard? I know he didn't have a great night, but let's be honest here, usually, if an NHL goalie sees that, they might have trouble with it.

I almost wonder if he mentally took his foot off the gas. Again, you probably want a better answer than that, I know, but there's 5. 7 seconds left. It's an ozone face-off. The second you see Crosby win it, I'm talking about Willy shot, though, in overtime. His shoulder's got to rely. Oh, Willy.

Yeah, Willy shot in overtime. On the Willy goal, he's shifting through the zone to his right, and the shot goes in on the left corner of the net.

Block your side again.

He's going the opposite direction of where the puck's going in. He just catches the goalie off guard with so much traffic in front. She shoots the puck at the perfect moment when Tavares just comes across and there's two defenders in front, and the fact that he's going the opposite way and he shoots the other way, it's just a The whole mind game thing that he does in a split second.

Yeah, I want to correct something I said because I said through no traffic. No, the traffic is right in front of Willy. The launch point of this shot, you're picking it up late. You don't really have much of a choice. And if you lose it for a second, your team wears black jerseys, you're screwed. It's a William Neillander shot, right?

It's beautiful. Yeah. Look at that. That's where he's ahead of the game on most other players in National Hockey League the deception. Here's just an expert play where he's taking advantage of Tavares cutting in front, the two defenders in front of him, and his body going the other way of where he's aiming the tuck.

Tavares, stick on the ice, black stick, black tape, I think. Yeah. I think he...

He just fools him.

Look at that. I also wonder if do goalies give you a little to dare you to shoot it? Like, right here, right here, right here. And Billy goes, I'm not taking the bait. Blocker side.

Blumquist in that moment has to be thinking it's coming glove side, or he's not going to shoot it. I don't know if he anticipated a shot that quickly in that moment.

Willy got this man sent down. That's so... Oh, my God. Oh my God.

That's funny. Yeah. So this compares in contrast with the Pittsburgh Penguins, who are one, four, and one since returning from the Four Nations. They allowed a goal on the first shot again against Boston on Saturday. And what was interesting there is that's the 13th time they've done it this season, only it's the 2011-2012 Flyers did it more. They had- Who was that? Bruce Galov, I think? I don't even know. But yeah, they've done it 14. So penguins are on the verge of at least tying history with their Pennsylvania rivals.

And it's been three different goalies. Yeah. Jarry has done it. Nadelkowitch has done it. Blonquist, I think, did it twice.

Absolutely. Now Blonquist is down in Wilkes-Barre. What's interesting, according to The Athletic this morning, I'm going to quote directly from Josh Yohi's article. Interestingly enough, Jari hasn't been good since being demoted to the age HL in January. Oh, really? The man who has been the number one star of the past few seasons in Pittsburgh has allowed four or more goals in four of his seven appearances in Wilkes-Barre since clearing waivers and being sent down on the 17th of January. He was particularly ineffective in his recent starts. Jarry Jari, while playing for Wilkes-Barre, has allowed 13 goals in the past four outings, starts which have seen him allow at least four goals on each occasion. So it's not like he had one bad game and then three good ones. It's consistently four plus goals.

To me, that highlights how mean people were to Jack Campbell when he got sent down to Bakersfield because we were on every game of his. Look at this. Take a look at this. Meanwhile, here's Jari doing the same thing.

He's getting show. I think the difference was that we saw the Oilers as a Stanley Cup contender? Yes.

Their season hinged on goal tending, we thought, going in and we're like, Jack Campbell is the guy for them. He's going to lead them to Stanley Cup. They got something and they spent a whole bunch of money on him and it failed. So it was more attention on it.

Yeah, exactly. Totally. That is the Penguin season in a nutshell. The Eric Carlson stuff, Mike Sullivan walking off the bench early. Well, not early, right at the end of the intermission. The goal tending was have been terrible, and they're going to have to really solve that this year. I'm also grateful that the Lefs won, so I didn't have to eat shit in front of a whole bunch of people.

Jarry is getting bought out this summer. You think so? Yeah. If you look at the buyout calculator, it makes too much sense. Instead of having him sit in the minors or you call him up and he's making 5. 35 for the next three seasons. You just buy him out, you save 300 grand the next year, 827 the next year, and then it's just set 800 for the next three years after that.

If the penguins are, in fact, rebuilding, and I know that P. K. Suban took a lot of heat for his take on Kyle Dubas and the penguins, and penguins writers and fans. Is that why? Yeah. Well, they got on him about... Well, that was one of the things. Sorry. But penguins fans and writers got on him and said, Listen, they have chosen a lane. The penguins are rebuilding or retooling or however you want to brand it. The problem with that, Jess, is you look at that, that's two seasons from now, $5 million against the cap. Basically, the cap rises, but you're going to lose $5 million of Yeah, but you're paying five million either way. Yeah, you are.

So either you have Jarry, you pay 5. 3, or you don't have Jarry, but you get $3. 6 next year, and then the following season is the same amount that you'd be paying them and have on the salary either way. To me, in my eyes, for the '26, '27 '97 and '27, '28 seasons, either you have Jarry or you don't, but you're still having that $5 million cap hit.

And Blumquist shouldn't be up if they're going to play like this.

No. I still would like the penguins to figure out something creative with Jarry.

Kyle Dubas is a very creative traitor.

He is. My white whale is some deal that involves both Tristan Justin Jari and Philip Grubauer. Yeah.

I think it makes- It's a ton of sense.

Well, it's two goalies who are former All-stars. Grubauer was nominated for the Vesna very recently. It's insane. Jane. Jari, there's a reason he makes... They didn't give him that money out of the kindness of their hearts. He was good. He was really good. To me, a change of scenery deal makes the most sense. Boy, they make a lot of money. So Jari's 5. 3, he said. And I know Grubauer is 5. 9. Obviously, the penguins don't need to be taken on a more expensive goalie unless there's something else.

When does Grubauer's contract expire? If Because let's say it expires a year early. Maybe that makes sense. Right.

I'd like to see something get figured out here because I don't know, that buyout- It's an ugly buyout. It wasn't all that advertising to me, honestly.

Jari expires the year after Grubauer.

Maybe that makes a It makes a lot of sense. You take more salary in the interim.

Yeah, Grubauer makes more, Jari makes it for longer. Yeah.

But does that make sense for Seattle?

What's a Grubauer buyout look like?

He's going to put it up. Let's see. Yeah. Because I think... Here's the thing. Does that make sense for Seattle?

I don't know. Well, they should be in a playoff spot right now. I keep saying it. They should at least be in playoff contention. And Grubauer is, I think, 5 and 15, something like that. He's been terrible, right? And I keep harping on the same thing. So Jesse's got it here. Actual Capit. Hot damn. That does not look bad. So he makes 5. 9 next year and 5. 9 the year after. A buyout makes Grubauer 1. 983, let's just say $2 million, followed by a hair over three or a hair under 3. 1, 1. 6, hair under 1. 7, and a hair under 1. 7. That's a way more advertising buyout than Jarry.

So then my question is, why if you're Seattle, do you not just buy them out?

Yeah, they might just do it themselves. Why would you take on Tristan Jarry?

They might just do it themselves. Boy, the penguins are screwed here. I I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

It is going to be- I think you take the cap savings and you move on from Jarry.

Boy.

Oh, man. It's just not a lot. In two years, they save more with him and the miners, don't they?

We'll see. Around the same. They're saving 1. 4, 1. 6 right now with him and the miners.

Yeah. I bet that number actually goes up with the cap going up, right? First off, I think NHL minimum salaries are going to come up. And I also think that your cap savings when a player gets sent down will probably go up as well.

Right now, his cap hit is 4. 2 in the Minors, so that's what they're saving.

It'd be 5 million two seasons from now, though. So that's rough. Oh, man. I think you might have to eat that. What did he do? Yikes. Now-not great. Let's talk about another extension that happened this morning in goaltending-wise, by the way. By the way, I do want to mention this. Leefste has seven goals in seven games. Yay. That's so silly. And Tobi Niemla, who is a former first-round, second-round pick? Third. Third-round pick who people had high hopes for, might be leaving and going to Europe, probably signed this summer. Now, Josh Cloakey, who is a reporter for The Athletic, said that the agent said that's 100% not true, and the players committed to playing in North America. We'll see this summer, right? You probably can't say that midseason, but it was an Expressin, which is a Swedish outlet report. Tend to believe them. They're pretty good.

What a shame because the second Brad Treliving came in with his reputation for loving big dudes.

Beef.

Beef. The first thing I thought was, Well, yeah, I'm a little screwed. Then last year, he played a bunch. He put up a bunch of numbers in the minors. I'm like, See, he's fine. And this year, he has disappeared.

Yeah.

Steve, you were telling us before the show that you were in the Expressing once. When was that?

For what, Steve? I think it was the Expressing. It might have been Afton Planet. It might have been both. They might have quoted my report about Major League Hockey, three on three league that never fucking happened.

They did a big feature on that. So you were international?

An international failure, yes. Maybe a day I go by where I don't go, when I think about that. But today is not that day.

People are going to be, I think, rightfully a annoyed that they'll call it the leaf, say, like I saw this morning, somebody said, They fumbled an asset here, and that might be true. The reality is, if this player was in demand by any other NHL franchise, they would only have to call Brad for living. I don't think that's a fumbling the 18th defenseman in their organization? Yeah, I think people had higher hopes, right? They should have. They should have. And maybe him going over there, playing a couple of years, coming back and signing in the NHL is the route.

I hate the viewing of this player like he was never going to work.

I don't think that that's... No, I don't. Do you think people think that?

Yeah. Because he is small. Hockeydb has him listed at 6'181, which might be the most generous they've ever been to any player ever. When he was drafted, he was like 150 pounds, something like that. They drafted a guy like that last year, actually. Last year in the A as a 21-year-old, he had eight goals, 31 assists, 39 points as a right-handed defenseman. Like, shit, yeah.

Yeah.

Hell, yeah. That's awesome. That's a prospect. This year in 46 games, he has zero goals, 18 assists. They filled the Marley's decor with other players.

Yeah.

He could go to Europe. He's from there, make a really good living, have a good life, maybe even come back.

Who knows? Yeah.

I just feel like some organization out there is going to want the guy. Problem is his European salary will likely be much higher than his AHL salary.

Of course. He wants to go make more than 100 grand. I don't blame him.

It might even be less.

I don't know. Yeah, exactly. That's the thing.

Sometimes with these conversations, I think we miss the forest for the trees. Is Anaheim fans right now having a conversation about Ian Moore? Do you guys know who Ian Moore is?

My favorite player.

Yeah, man.

Taking big spots Just after Toppie in that same draft who's never played in the NHL before. That's a name that nobody should have a conversation about. Why not? Toppie should be in that same conversation.

There was a bit, and I'm stepping out on a limb saying this, there was a bit of a West Clark cult. I'm not saying that West doesn't deserve some... He made some great pics. Matthew Nye. Matthew Nye is a spectacular pick. I'm not trying to... I think that's why he's earned that reputation. He's now with It's Pittsburgh. But the same thing, we did the same thing to Mark Hunter, too. The reality is-In reverse. Well, no, but Mark Hunter was... When they brought him in, it was like, Well, they got the draft guru. They got the guy. They're going to get a bunch of guys from the OHL because Mark Hunter knows the OHL, and this is a guy- He has his own cult. And he has his own cult. And it's like, and now they've brought in the guy that did all the Detroit draughts that were so successful and all the Dallas draughts that were so successful. And nobody's talking about him. There's He's a guy that I actually think should have a cult following. But the reality is of prospects is if one in 10 hits, if one in 10 plays a game, you've done your job.

There are going to be guys that just, for whatever reason, don't work out. It's okay. You move on.

It was also-No disrespect to Ian Scott?

Ian Moore? Ian Moore. Ian Scott was the goal.

He's at Harvard University still.

It was also-He graduated. It was also very indicative of how the Leifs used third and fourth round picks over the course of his tenure. They're like, All right, we can go out and get a bigger player with less upside who is probably going to play at least a cup of coffee, but tops out at not very much. Or we can draft Simeon Nogachintzev, who's small for his draft class, young for his draft class, but his ceiling is ridiculous.

Who's also not going to work out.

And he didn't work out.

And that happens. That's why it's okay to trade third and fourth round pics for people. I was just saying. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Now, let's talk about green flags in relationships because we focused a lot on red flags as a culture, as a society. But what if you don't know what good looks like in your your life. And I'm talking not just about dating, mating, relating. I'm talking about family. I'm talking about friends. I'm talking about your boss at work. Sometimes we focus so much on, Well, I don't like that, and I don't like... What do you like? What's good? What's healthy? If this feels good, should it feel good? I know that's a bit of an odd thing, but better help can help with that. That's what therapy does. It gives you a roadmap on where you can go with your life and what's good behavior and what's probably problematic behavior for you. That's what I love about therapy. Sometimes It's like as a person who has lots of anxiety, who spirals often, it is important to know that there are good things happening in the world. It couldn't be me.

No, for sure not. Here's the deal. We want you to discover better mental health with better help. Over 30,000 credential therapists with a wide range of specialties. And by the way, it works on your schedule online, on the phone. You can visit betterhelp. Com/sdp to get 10% off your first month today. That is betterhelp. H-e-l-p. Com/sdp. There were some trades and stuff this weekend. I want to quickly touch on them. Thomas Hickey is going to join us a little bit later in the show. But I do want to say that today, Caps extend their goaltender, Charlie Lingred, the other great goal tender the Caps have. Three years, three million each season. When Logan Thompson and Lingran are signed next season, because they are signed, it's going to cost the caps $8. 85 million a year against the cap, which is right in line with what you want to do. If your goal tender Both of which are good, are costing you less than 10% of your cap, especially with the cap going up, that's going to be pretty significant, and that's going to be lasting. This is going to go until the cap is like 113 to 115 million.

What the caps have this This season, I think there are going to be maybe some Caps fans who are like, Oh, man, they're both getting huge raises. This season is a unicorn. It's just not going to happen. Do they even make 3 million combined right now?

No, they make $1. 8 million combined.

That's so crazy. That's so crazy. That's so crazy.

David Koff makes more than both of them.

600 grand more than both.

That is wild. Linger in this season is only 1. 1. Thompson is only 766.

It's It's like Connor Duhre plus Steven Lawrence, except it's their goalie tandem.

Who are the best in the league. Good Lord. It's ridiculous. Yeah. No.

So that's a unicorn, and that just doesn't happen. And when it does, it happens briefly. Leaps have a similar thing with Woll and Stolers, and Woll's extension kicks in next year. Less than nine mil for one of the better tandems in the league. Where do I sign? Don't even think about it.

Fabulous. Easy. Yeah. Now, the other thing A couple of things we wanted to talk about, but I want to talk about the Florida Panthers adding Seth Jones. Obviously, this trade included some retention. So Seth Jones goes from- Some. Some, while two and a half million dollars. For five years. For five years. A lot of retention. And the Panthers paid a bit of a price for that. Spencer Knight, who has been their goal tender in waiting, who is making four and a half million dollars this year.

They signed him to a big extension before he took his leave and he was a goalie of the future.

But with Brovowski signed and playing great. And you have Drieger. Drieger is there, too. Not the Drieger we used to- Drieger has an 8,7,8 save percentage in the American Hockey League this year.

And he's now their full-time backup.

But they needed to give to get. And Seth Jones at nine and a half million dollars was just too expensive for anybody. But Seth Jones at seven million dollars for the next five years. And by the way, there is a first round pick included in that as well in that deal. Let's talk about just what that adds to Florida, because Florida did lose some off their blue line. They lost Oliver Ekmann-Larson, and they lost Brandon Montour. Now they have a ton of cap space because Matthew Kuchuk is on LTIR, probably till game one of the play-ups. They can keep going. They can keep going. What does Seth Jones bring to this? And what a start for Seth Jones is it going to be? Because it feels like he's never played a playoff game. No. I don't believe.

No, no, that's not true. Columbus is playing around? He beat the Leaps.

Yeah, damn it. Seth Jones hasn't played a lot of playoff games. That's true. He's now joining the defend Stanley Cup champions for the next little while.

Ironically, Seth Jones owns the NHL record for most time played in a Stanley Cup playoff game, the infamous five overtime game against the Lightning. He played 65 minutes and 6 seconds, and he set the record August 11th, 2020.

Wow.

Because the playoffs were in the summer. Right. You're getting one of the most notorious minute eaters in the NHL. The '15, '16 season when he was still with the Nashville Predators, that was the last time he averaged less than 20 minutes a game. In fact, it was the last time he averaged less than 23, 24. This dude has been averaging over 23 minutes a night since nine years ago, nearly a decade ago.

After his comments last week, too, saying, We're basically the same team we were in game one.

Well, I like Chicago getting that done. Not allowing that question to hang over them. I definitely thought this was going to be an offseason move. I was shocked when it happened. But now he's heading into an unprecedented situation for him. Well, unprecedented It means he was a rookie, because when he was with the Nashville Predators, if I'm not mistaken, he was playing behind Shay Webber. It's not a bad guy to play behind. This is the first time he's played behind someone in the better part of a decade. He's playing behind Aaron Eckblatt. I mean, whatever pairing Gus Forzling is on is probably your top pair, because if you got Seth Jones with Nico Michela, bless Michela, he's not Forzling. So top pair is Forzling Eckblad. And then there's you. And you're probably not going to be averaging 23 minutes a night anymore unless Paul Maurice plans on just never using his third pair again. There's also playoff component to this that I think people are missing. There's a huge risk in what Florida is doing with their goal tending, but they're going to go ahead and assume we're using one goalie. Like, okay, yeah, regular season It's a bit hairy.

We got like 20 games left. When the playoffs begin, we're using one guy, one. So in terms of the players you're using every night in the Stanley Cup playoffs, they actually lost nobody.

Nobody off the roster.

Nobody off the roster. And Spencer Knight wasn't there last year. It was Stollers. They're losing no one-off the roster, and they're gaining Seth Jones. That's formidable.

That's something. With Aaron Ekeblad's contract transpiring this summer, not saying that he won't resign, but it is some insurance there, too.

It's insurance or, Oh, we want to keep Aaron. Okay, well, great. It's leverage.

We have a guy behind you.

Bill Zito is really good at this, man. In the fact that he's getting a team to retain... What's 2. 5 times 5?

I'm so tired. It's 12.

5 million? Yeah.

For a first and a goalie. And the goalie is very good.

And it's a first-round pick that is either going to be 2026 or 2027, depending on a few factors. The only way that 2026 or 2027 pick is going to help you win is if you trade it.

Yeah.

So why wouldn't the Panthers make this move exactly?

It's a great one.

I know people don't love analytical, whatever the opposite of analytical darling is.

But he's also... You look at some of the teams he's playing on.

Holy moan. He's a minute-eater on a terrible team. He reminds me a little bit of Jay Bowmeister, where that guy would play 25 minutes a night. And every time I saw him near the leaderboard, I'd be like, why? Okay, he's fine. I'm not calling him bad, but Jay Bowmeister? I always thought there were better players in the NHL. He did finally win the Cup in 2019, I think. I never got it, but I'm sure if you reduce the role a little bit for Seth Jones, he'll be fine, especially on the Panthers.

Jesse?

There's so many One of the little things you touched on there that makes so much sense for why this deal makes so much sense. The Eckblad protection, I think, is such a huge thing about why you do this deal. I thought it was interesting how it came out that he only wanted to go to two teams. It was Dallas and Florida Oh, Seth Jones. Yeah, because he had control over where he gets to play. Those are the two teams he approached. Kyle Davidson, he said, Those are the two teams I want to go to. Dallas was not interested. Florida got the call, and they said, Yeah, we can do it if you can make the salary work.

You had one team you can make a trade with, and you got them to retain two and a half mil of his salary for the rest of eternity. Right.

Well, both teams in this deal had leverage. I think both teams came out. Florida, I think, came out really good. Chicago came out okay. You never like that giant salary on the cap for so long because you only have so many retention spots, and that's going to take one up for next five years. But it was either you have Seth Jones or you don't have Seth Jones, or you Jones, but you have the extra $5 million or $7 million in cap space. They are gaining this space for the future of this team and building it, and then they also get the assets.

You have your goalie of the future.

The goalie situation is a little murky with Bresouah still on the roster. They have three 1B goalies. Nobody's really the starter there. Knight's still so young. Knight's never done anything yet, so we can't say he's the starting goal tender yet. He's having a good season.

Solid numbers, both with the checkers and with the Panthers this year and last.

But he's never been a starter in the NHL for a long period of time. So it's all we'll wait and see with Mrazic, Bersuah, and Knight, but you want as many options as you can as a rebuilding team.

More Soderblom in there, too.

Yeah, Soda Bomb's there. Whenever he plays the leaves, he's Vesna caliber, so he has something in there. So there's a lot of good stuff for the Black Ops, too, and that first-round pick is going to be very valuable to them because they need first-round picks.

Yeah. Hopefully, it doesn't slide to 2027. If on the The Black Hawks, I try to parlay it into this year because, again, I don't want to be spinning my tires forever. I don't want to be this forever. I want to be better soon. I think the top of this draft class is stupid. It's so ridiculously good. You should be trying to get everyone.

Currently, the Black Hawks have $13 million committed to their goal tending, and it's four guys who are, like I said, 1B starters. Morazic?

And next year, or is that what you're talking about?

This This year and next year will be $12 million because Soderblom needs an RFA deal.

Well, you know that the penguins-So it's probably going to go up a little. Penguin in the cracker need a goaltending.

Does Dubis get Morazic again?

Does Edmondson call?

Right. They should look at it.

They should definitely look at it. You're telling me Marazic wouldn't be an upgrade on Cal Picker?

So Marazic was stupendous last year. He's just so bad.

But the Black Hawks aren't good.

And the Black Hawks, they're bad to the point where they're difficult to evaluate.

Yeah. It's the 13 this year, the 12 next year, plus it's probably going to be more because you got to pay Soderblom. Somebody's going to go down. But then in 26, 27, they have zero dollars committed to goal tenders. You have four goal tenders right now, and by the time you get to the '26, '27 season, you got to make some decision on the two guys are going to be UFA's and the Soderblom deal and the Spencer-Knight deal. So they're in a pretty good position because I think they're trying to stink again for a while.

Yes.

Call Seattle. That's it.

All right. We got to move to the next trade here. We're going to move to the next trade. New York Rangers and Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche have just remade their roster just on the fly this season. A whole thing. Low-key. Does not get enough attention from outside of Denver how much they've done. But Calvin DeHonne, Uso Parsinen, a 2025 second, and a 2025 fourth, are now New York Rangers. Coming back is Ryan Lindgren, who's on an expiring contract, had a rough go with the Anders, but was once considered a major part of that top four. Jimmy Veasey, and not David Kempf, but Hank Kempf. So what does this do for both teams? I mean, Calvin DeHaan, who I've been a fan of forever and is going towards the end of his career, not a points guy, but an all defense defensive defenseman.

Calvin DeHaan?

Calvin DeHaan.

Oh, you're starting with Calvin DeHaan? Yes. That's where I got confused. For me.

It's for me.

I will not lie. Calvin DeHaan was really good to me when he was in junior, and we did some videos together, I interviewed him with the Ottawa Generals. I did not know he was playing this year. Yeah. I thought like, oh, maybe he's played a cup of coffee. He's played 44 games with the Avalanche. I had no idea. Good for him. Hope the Rangers play him. I think it's a really good deal for both. Similar to the Seth Jones conversation we had, although Lingeren doesn't have the same track record as Jones, I don't think good players forget how to play hockey. I think he's having one of those no good, very bad, no fun, let's forget this and live the rest of our live seasons. He gets to play behind Devon Taves on the left side. He fills a physical need for the Avalanche that they desperately need without Josh Manson. Having the both of them on the roster is going to be super helpful, I think. Vc is a very versatile player. I think the Rangers are really going to like Parsonin. When it comes to the Rangers and all the players they've traded, are they sad about any of it?

No. They traded Jacob Truba Adam, did they want him? No.

Barclay Goodro, too.

They traded Barclay Goodro. Adam, did they want him? No. Oh, they waived him? Yeah. All right. Okay, so they traded Ryan Linngren. Adam, did they want him?

Apparently not anymore.

Okay, and so what Did they get? Oh, they traded Capo Caco. Did they want him? No. They got Will Borgen. They liked him. They extended him. They got Vaca Ninen. He's been a part of that roster. They got a second and a fourth. They got Parsonin.

They got-They got rid of Hiedel, too. They didn't want him anymore.

Oh, I forgot. Oh, jeez. They got JT Miller. Yeah. They like him. Oh, my gosh. I forgot about that part. There's another team with itchy thumbs, right? They've been super busy this year. And why wouldn't they be busy? They've been mired in every bad thing you could possibly have. And now they're flirting with the playoff spot. They still got some work to do, but you never know. Even if they don't make the playoffs, they didn't strip their team bare, and they added futures that they can either use or they can throw out the window to get better immediately. I still expect them to make moves.

Jesse, what do you think about the Rangers buying? Because essentially, that's what they're doing, right?

They're shifting. They're in a good position for next year. If they sneak in, they're going to be dangerous. If they're up against a team like the Caps, I don't know if they sneak in last spot, you definitely got to favor the Caps, but they'd be dangerous against some of the other teams in the East because the East is mid right now. If they can get in, it's interesting, but they're putting themselves in a good position to have a really nice offseason where they had a whole bunch of expiring contracts and they're making decisions on them now and free up space and knowing who they're going to go forward with. I'm very happy about the years to come for the Rangers because the roster makes a lot more sense now. There were so many decisions that were to be made with the Miller move and the Lingerin deal and moving off of Capo. Now they know who they like and who's going to be on this team going forward. The rest of the season might still be a wash, but they could sneak in. But I think next year, you're like, Okay, we have a Rangers team that shouldn't be a disaster that it was this year.

The Avalanche, you might have it up. If What I remember from the video I made, they only have a second, a fourth, and a seventh this year, I think. But what makes it even funnier is- That's correct.

Second, fourth, and a seventh.

Right. But if they end up trading the second and the fourth, they're going to have to make them both conditional because they had two seconds, they had two-fourths. The rangers, the condition on the two picks that they got was they get the better of the two seconds and the better of the two-fourths. Is it possible the Avalanche do not pick this year? You're already down to a second, a fourth, and a seventh. Get rid of them. You want to win a cup or not. You've It'd be rare. Starting on this far, get rid of them.

All right. It'd be rare. They still need to move middle stat because they really want to do that. So maybe that goes out. Maybe you get some pics. Yeah.

Maybe you get some pics and then you trade those, too. Yeah. No, No, there's CJ on The CJ Show, which is just sick. Please listen to it. Talked about the stuff that's obvious and the stuff that's potentially going to come out of nowhere, I think this deadline is going to be full of it.

Yeah, there's been a lot of silence is what I thought. The Rantanin thing has sucked up a lot of oxygen, I think, for not. I think we're going to end up wasting all of our time on that. But I do want to mention the one last last trade that you also did a video for was Gus Nyquist for a 2026 second to the Minnesota Wild. For a guy like Gus Nyquist, who has 21 points this year, a second round pick is a good little piece of business for Barry Trotz in Nashville. But he also adds a ton to the Minnesota Wild Foster.

Here's how good the renaissance of Nyquist's career has been. In 2023, the Wild acquired him for the deadline for a fifth-round pick. It's two years later. They had to pay a second to get him back again. I wonder if Bill Garen is able to It's going to be expensive. Dude, can you just stay this time?

Yeah.

You're starting to get expensive, man.

Yeah, just stick around.

He was unbelievable for the Predators last year. He hasn't really had it this year, but no one on the preds has. No. The Wild need offense. If they don't get Kaprizov back, then it's all for nothing. If they do get Kaprizov back, Gust Nyquist is desperately needed offensive depth.

There you go. And the Minnesota A while just got better. Now, do you think teams like... Let's look at the top, and then we're going to go to Thomas Hickey here, but I just wanted to quickly mention here. So teams like Toronto, teams like Tampa Bay, teams like the Winnipeg Jets, the Dallas Stars, the Vegas Goldenites, the Oilers, the Kings, do they need to respond to their interdivision rivals already making moves? It feels like the Leifs need to. It feels like the Jets needs to.

It does, doesn't it?

It feels like the Dallas Stars needs to. What do you guys think? Who needs Who needs a big trade deadline? Right now, this can change Wednesday. I'm not going to hold you to it. What team in the NHL needs the big trade deadline right now? Who's general manager needs to be an absolute stud?

I got to say the Leifs.

They're desperately trying to win this division, and it's just two teams who won't go away.

The Panthers are eight and two in their last 10, just like the Leaps, and the Lightning are hotter. The Leaps are arguably, based on how they got their eight wins in their last 10 games, the third hottest team in the Atlantic.

Which is crazy. It's psychotic.

We've known that they've needed a third-line center all season. I look at that decore, too. The more I look at the lightning with that monster headman, the more I look at the right side of the Panthers now, you have to make a move.

Jesse, who's your pick?

If you're the best team in the National Hockey League, you don't add at the trade deadline, I think you're doing a disservice to your fans and to your team. I think the IPEG Jets should add some forward depth. I'd love to see them go out and get somebody maybe like Jake Evans from the Canadians would fit well there, but they need to make a move here.

Trade the fraud. They need to get better in net.

Trade Hellebuck. To Toronto. Bring in David Kampf, so one for one there. It'd be great.

And I'm going to go with the Dallas stars. I think they need to improve on defense, and I think that they wanted Seth Jones and didn't get him.

Man, really surprised by that trade. Absolutely.

We'll go to Thomas Hickey now, joining us on Prime Monday Night Hockey. He's joining us, you see. And joining us from Prime Monday Night Hockey, it's Thomas Hickey again. Thomas, welcome back, buddy. Hi, guys.

Thank you. Thanks for having me back.

So, Thomas, listen, before we get to the hockey part of this, Steve and Jesse and I are going to be on tonight. And we were just wondering if you could be Coach Hickey for a second and give us some keys to success on actual television because for us, we're just on the Internet, right? We're just a bunch of sloppy guys on the Internet. What are your keys to the game, Thomas?

For you guys, yeah. I mean, what a treat. We get to have you guys on be yourselves. I mean, I don't know. I think what everyone wants We're at a time where there's a perfect blend of every form of media. And then when you watch a game, it's streaming, but it's television. So bring that, bring some humor to it. Get me with Adnan Virk. I mean, he's He's one of my favorite people in this industry, so he's going to bring the energy. You don't need to worry about that, but you guys always bring the energy, too. I would say just roll with it. It'll be fun. Don't be pulling your hair out if things don't go too good for the lead, certainly.

We will anyway.

Steve's been having a giant existential crisis about what he's going to wear. Do you recommend a hoodie? Because he's thinking about hoodie and shorts. The true Ajax outfit.

Follow your I have some insider knowledge that Adnan is going to be wearing pink. So maybe if you want to match him.

Oh, Steve, I think you could pull pink off. I know I can pull pink. Get you a pink suit after the show? Come on.

Where do you even... Pink suit, Deepo? I'm so uncultured. I don't know what to do.

He owns a suit. I have two.

Okay. Is it like your wedding suit?

No.

Bless you for thinking that.

Yeah, that That was several pounds ago. Thank you for thinking that stuff. Hey, so, Thomas, let's talk about Primine in the Hockey. Let's talk about Leaps in San Jose. Obviously, this is a bit of a mismatch, but the Leaps are coming off of five games in eight nights and this will be their sixth in nine. And so they're going to be skating with lead in their feet. And I'm wondering for a guy like you that's played at the NHL level, when you get through a stretch like that, most of it being on the road, how do you survive these games?

It's a grind. I think coming home is always a boost. I know it's a strange one, but at least they get to sleep in their own beds last night. You play a matinée in Pittsburgh, and then you come home, and there's something about that that I found gives you just a little bit of extra energy. I enjoyed being on the road, but there's a bit of a monotony that comes with it. And new hotel, you wake up in a new place every day. So the familiarity will probably be good for the Leaps. But it's that time of the year, and especially with these breaks that we're getting for Four Nations and the Olympics next year, it's going to be the norm for a couple of seasons moving forward. But for this group, we had San Jose last week on Prime Monday Night Hockey against the Jets, who are after that night, they did the most points in the NHL. San Jose had the one, I don't want to say had them on the ropes the entire game, but carried a lead up until last, I think it was like 40 seconds left in the game.

The Sharks, you can't really sleep the Sharks, you can't really look at the standings. And I'm not really concerned about a team like the Lefs doing that. But San Jose plays hard. They don't have the talent. They don't have the horses that everyone else does, but they're on a massive road trip themselves. So I think that the fatigue factor, the being on the road, as many games in as many nights as they've had, San Jose is going through it right now, too. They're on a massive two week road trip and not home yet. They've got a couple more after this. So no advantage to either team, I think, when it comes to the rest, except for the fact that the Sharks have a bunch of teenagers on the roster. So maybe they'll have a little extra juice plan in Toronto.

I don't know, guys. Adam, Jesse, do you think Thomas Hickey is a Sharks Scharge's truther? I think he's a Sharks' truther just like us. I think they're better. I think they're better than people give them credit for.

I know what you're saying. They could have won the lot talking to Ryan Orsowski today, the head coach, they could have won their last four games. It's one of those things where you're learning how to win, and it seems like you really know how to lose. They'll carry a lead, they'll get there in the third period, and it's just that one play and everything comes unraveled for them. But as far as teams that are at the bottom of the standings, I actually enjoy watching San Jose Sharks just because they compete and they work really hard. I think it brings out the better in their opponents. And that's what you want to see, because I don't love seeing games that might be determined early. And even if they are, it's like Coast around the rest of the time and get your two points, walk out. I like that San Jose changed that brand, and they don't want to be in the basement forever, for a long time at all. So hopefully it's one of those rebuilds that you get better, incrementally better every single season. Based off of what they've done recently, I know they haven't been winning, but they've been showing that they can play with any team.

So I think for any viewer, that's what you want to see.

Spoken like a true shark's truth, right?

A shark's truth, yeah.

I got sidetracked by my shark's Truth orism. We've been talking about the tough schedule and surviving these games. There's also something coming up, right, that could be distracting you, and it's in the distance. It's like Christmas break at exam season or during the Hockey season, but they got one more game, the Leifs do, on Wednesday. And then not only do they get a two-day break, but the trade deadline is hanging out there. You've been on lots of NHL teams as the trade deadline looms. What's that week leading up to it like?

You can't really ignore it because it is something. I remember it was my third year, I was on an expiring deal. I think we weren't really in it. So there was a chance it could be traded. And I mean, I was a younger guy. It's not like it was going to be a UFA. I was under protection, and I didn't think I was going anywhere. I had no reason to believe that. Obviously, there's a lot more chatter now, especially in Canada and in a hop bed. But I remember getting... It was on Trade Deadline morning, and I got a call from an unknown 516 number, which was a New York number, and I was like, my heart stopped. And I hadn't really been stressing with the Trade Deadline, and I answered it, and it was my dentist calling for a follow-up. And I was so stressed. I was like, I'll call you Yeah, I'll deal with that later. And then I hung up the phone and I was like, jeez, I didn't know that I was so... I've been reading stuff, paying attention. I know the deadline is coming, but I didn't know that I had actually been paying attention to it so much until my phone rang and my heart stopped.

So I think it's going on everywhere. And I think it's tough to insulate yourself in any market, especially Toronto. Guys know what's happening, and sometimes that pressure can get to guys, other Sometimes, I think what a lot of people don't realize is if you're... It's not the fact that you could get traded. That's a part of it. The other part is if you're a depth player there, or if you have a role on the team and you've been trying to earn it, the team might go out and bring someone in that maybe they're going to take your role or maybe it's someone else's, but maybe they're going to fit in somewhere. And that's a big part of it to me. So hopefully you see the best of guys that our role players hanging on to a five, six defenseman role or maybe in your bottom six, that it's an important time of year for those guys. And as excited as everyone gets about trades, when you bring in a new body, all of a sudden, I don't want to say everyone's doubting themselves, but you go, I wonder why they traded for that guy. I mean, maybe is he going to cut into my ice time?

Let's welcome him, make him part of the team. But there's also that side of it, too. And I think as fans of groups, you get so excited when you bring it in and the top end players get excited, Hey, we got help. This guy can do something. And then you got a bunch of guys saying, is my role up for grabs right now? So there's definitely more to it than just the excitement of which names are going to move.

I got to ask you because you do in your other gig, host a lot with MSG. So you see a lot of New Jersey, you see a lot of New York, you see a lot of the... Well, both New York teams. I want to ask you about the Rangers than the Islanders. But one of the reasons why the prices, apparently, are so high at this year's deadline is teams are just flat out refusing to sell. If you look at the way the Eastern Conference shakes out and the West, too, you got a lot of teams within striking distance. The Detroit Red Wings right now are the second wild card team. They've got 66 points as of this recording. But the Ottawa senators are two points behind them. The New York Rangers are two points behind them. The Boston Bruins who are waving the white flag a little bit, two points. Montreal is three points. Philadelphia is four. Islanders are five. With the Rangers and the Islanders, A, do you think either of these teams actually can make it and will make it? And B, do you think either of those two teams should just say, You know what?

Let's punt on this year and sell, like what Austin's doing?

Well, can those teams make it? Yeah. Is it going to be difficult? Most definitely. I think we ran a graphic after last Islanders game, which was on Saturday, and they were six points out through 59 games last season, and they ended up making the playoffs. And I think at that point, when we had finished our broadcast, they were five points out. But you got to climb six teams, and that's a really steep Deep Hill at the same time with what you guys are saying, well, I'll talk Islanders specifically right now. If rangers are already selling off pieces, it doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to be worse. Rangers are selling. It sounds like Boston will. Montreal, who knows? I think Lou Lamorello uses his time. One of his sayings, and you guys probably heard it when he was here, if you have time, you use it. I think his decisions get made probably on Tuesday. They've got back to back tonight and then tomorrow against Winnipeg. What does that picture look like then? And he'll squeeze out every bit of time that he can and maybe he realized that other teams have decided to sell.

But I look back to a couple of years ago. It was my first year out, first year doing this. And I think the Washington Capitals were a point or two out, and they were the first ones weeks ahead to go, you know what? Fire of sale. We're getting rid of everyone. And it's worked out quite well for them. And maybe it was more beneficial than squicking into the playoff. So I think every management group, every ownership group is going to weigh that up. But certainly, the New York Islanders may be the biggest name. Senator Eisman is Brock Nelson, and I think everyone's waiting on him. And maybe logic would say, well, if you get ahead of it, maybe you're going to have more people in the mix than if you wait. But Lou Lamorello has done this, probably more trade deadlines than any general manager, and he's got his own way of doing things. So we'll see where he goes. Brock Nelson could remain a New York Islander, but they've also got other pieces with expiring contracts or with a year left that would be enticing. So I'm interested to see what happens. But there's a distinctive shift once that trade find passes of which direction teams are going.

And I'm interested. We're in for an exciting week for sure.

Pretty sure you played a decent amount with Brock Nelson. If your team were to get him, what guy are they getting?

Yeah, Yeah. He was my roommate, too. I lived with Brock for a couple of years. Wow. Okay. If they were to get Brock Nelson, you're getting a guy that... He's a good two-way hockey player. When he is really dialed in, you're getting a guy that can take over stretches. He's one of those guys where the fuck just follows him around. You watch him skate, you go, Yeah, he moves good. He's quite fluid, but an unbelievable full gliding ability. And still to this day, he's been in the league for a dozen years, and he catches defensemen off guard just with how quick he moves when his feet aren't moving because he's an exceptional glider. He's a guy that if he gets hot, he can probably score eight goals over an eight-game stretch. He scores in bunches. You'd be surprised looking at the all-time New York Islanders list as far as where he ranks and games played and goals. I mean, he's creeping up there with Islander greats. I think he's coming up on 900 games. It might be tonight, actually. He's a really good hockey player. When Barry Trotz got to New York, he was a really good offensive a key player, and he turned into a good two-way centerman.

I find when his game is really strong offensively, it's really strong defensively as well. Like any player in the NHL, when the offense isn't quite there, maybe the defense is good either because you're balancing that act that doesn't make sense. Take away from defense is going to give you more offense. It actually works differently for a lot of guys, and Brock is one of them. But as far as what you would want to call a number two centerman. He's a really good one when he's on his game, and when he's not, he's still a treat and a special player to watch. Just quietly has gone about his things in New York for a long time. I mean, He's a good buddy of mine. I hope he sticks around for a long time. I think of him as an Islander. We'll see what happens. That's certainly not out of the question, but there's a reason why I think there's a lot of chatter around Brock Nelson and what an impact he could have.

899 games is what he's played in an Islander uniform. So tonight will be game 900 for Brock Nelson. Pretty spectacular. Thomas Hickey, Prime Monday Night Hockey. Thomas, I guess we'll see you down there tonight.

Yeah, I'm excited, guys. Pop in. Maybe I can squeeze in between the benches for a couple of minutes.

We'd love that. Are you kidding? We'd love that.

And you know what? I'm making promises that I absolutely have no authority to. I will see you guys. I will see you guys tonight.

It was a nice gesture that we appreciate. And thanks so much for your time today.

The Steve Dangle podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at steve_dangle@adamwylde and at Jessie Blake.

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