Transcript of Stealarz | The Steve Dangle Podcast

Back at it. Who? S. D

d p. P. The Steve Dangle Podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wild, and Jesse Blake.

After the whistle is a podcast out of Buffalo, with, Andrew Peters and Craig Breve, who were both Buffalo Sabers at 1 point in their career. They were. And they tweeted out yesterday, please stop bringing palm trees and wearing tropical shirts to game. Rumor has it the saber's brass is apparently very upset about it. True story.

So

here's what I take from that. They don't want you to stop doing Yes.

They and so they retweeted this, and they said, just to clarify, this tweet was intended to inspire not discourage.

Oh, okay.

That's good.

So No, dude. Listen, Sabers fan or Sabers fan. Sorry. Sabers management and ownership deserve to hear from their fans, dude. And listen.

Again, it's baby steps. Yep. It's baby steps. Remember when you were getting chirped for literally having, like, an unwatchable, uniceable product, and then you invited beloved alumni on the ice, and you couldn't even give them authentic jerseys with the name spelled correctly?

Yes. Remember that?

Yep. Now it's just, hey, we thought you'd be further along.

Yeah. Exactly.

I still think, like okay. The I I I figured it out. The Buffalo Sabers problems are normal hockey team problems. Yes. That wasn't the case for a long time.

Yep. Their their problems were like traveling circus problems. Yes. And now they're, oh, man. We wish we won more.

That's hey. That's better.

We're probably at what did CJ say? An impact forward away from winning more.

I I totally agree with that assessment. Like, the But don't worry too much,

Kevin, about the 5 years from now, dude. You're not gonna be here. Do it now. You're here now.

That's a good point. I no. I think I think he was a dartboard. I mean, he he said some things he shouldn't have, but, like, also, I believe they're under an internal cap.

I don't think he did a bad job with that press conference, like, listening back to the segment, but there are some things in there where you're like, yeah. Listen. The reality is and I've heard again, I hear it again from Sabers fans. They're like they're like, I can't believe you compared Jack or Jack Eichel to Josh Allen. And I'm like, okay.

Maybe not a direct comparison, but remember, Jack Eichel won a cup and scored 2626 points at 22 games on the way. You guys had your start.

Considering how out for blood the reporters were, he did very well. And I want everyone to remember that press conference. Just dagger, dagger, dagger, over and over and over again. Think of the last time that, Toronto Media Corp did that to anybody. Anybody.

Like, coordinated

attack. Yeah.

All of them. Every guy in that room just f you, Kevin.

Well, I I think I think that that they, you know, the Sabers don't play in the real NHL.

It's pretty clear from

that press conference that they're playing in whatever NHL, the Montreal Canadians in, the Leafs are in. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. They're not sorry, Sabers fans.

You're not the real NHL anymore. You are welcome to the club. People care. Speaking of the real NHL rendition. The Leafs and Devils last night and has what has to be 1 of the goofiest games, I think any of us have ever seen.

The Leafs had 1 shot in the 1st period. 1 shot. And it's funny because I I was repeating that during my stream in the 2nd period, and there were some Oilers fans who had just jumped in, I guess, getting ready for their game. And they're, like, what?

What? No. 18 to 1. It's and

it's In the 1st period. Just the 1st period.

It was, like, 6 nothing after, like, 4 or 5 minutes, and I was, like, oh, that's pretty bad.

16 to 1.

Oh, 16 to 1.

No. There there was a graphic that said, okay. This has been, like, an epidemic the last couple seasons. Mhmm. The shot counter is unwatchable.

Yeah.

They readjust it constantly.

Yeah. I don't remember that ever being a consistent problem, but, like, you can't go by the in game shot clock. It's just wrong. It's just always wrong.

Right.

So I had a stat

that I wanted to get, to, and the set depended on having dependable shot information from last night's game, and I I don't know if I have it. What's the stat? The stat is okay. You ever get a hunch and then you investigate the hunch and it's confirmed?

Okay.

It's a great feeling.

What's the stat?

Here. You know what? I'm gonna send it to you so you can put it on the screen.

AC, what's the stat? Oh, fuck.

I'm gonna give it to you so you could put it on the screen

Oh, yeah. Okay.

To help people understand, the stat. Just waiting for it

to get

to you.

Yeah. Give me a second.

The hunch was as I'm watching Stahler's make save after save after save, do the Leafs play worse in front of Stahler's than they do in front of wool. This isn't a criticism of Anthony Stolars in the least. Mhmm. The love of God send to Jesse.

What's the stat?

We pause. No. No. Why does it Why? There you go.

Okay. It finally got there.

There we go.

The whole

show? Alright.

Guilacuddy. I had to deal with Toronto traffic on the way here and now this fucking thing. He's in a prank. Alright.

You're gonna have to move us off the

So here we go.

These stats So that too much area on the

Fucking stat.

We can't go picture

and fix. I was like, do the Leafs play crappy in front of Solars? Yeah.

Yeah.

His, wolves record is pristine. Wolves or Stolars' record is, like, pretty good, but it's not nearly as pristine, but they have near identical safe percentage numbers. So shots for versus shots against for Anthony Stoler's 436 to 475. That is a shot differential of negative 39. On average, in Anthony Stoler's Leafs game, the Leafs will be out shot 27.25 to 29.69.

With Joseph Wall in net, shots for versus shot against, 314 to 275. Total shot differential of +39, not minus 39 like Anthony Stoller's plus 39. So on average, Joseph Wools' Leafs outshoot their opponents by nearly 4 shots a game. And I checked a goal differential as well. It wasn't included in this graphic.

On average, the Leafs score, a quarter more a a quarter of a goal per game more with wool in net than they do with Stoller's in net. Right. I don't understand that phenomenon at all, but they play way worse in front of Anthony Stollars. So, like, if you were to ask me who the better goalie is, I'd probably have to defer to Stollars. And if you ask me who my game 1 of the playoffs starter would be right now, I think it's wool.

They play better in front of him, and he's almost as good. So good enough. Oh, you can't do that.

Is that weird? You can't do that. That's weird. You can't. No.

Stollars has been the best. He's definitely been the best. He's in the league.

To try.

If they let the guy If they can't get up game 1 for the playoffs, then then trade the whole team.

Well

I'm just sorry.

Hey, every fucking show we've done, every spring. Sorry. Okay. I'll I'll I'll calm down. I'm just swearing.

Let's talk about this because this is their 5th bad game in a row, and they have won 3 of them.

Bad to mediocre. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, because I I I think that they were very mediocre against the Blackhawks. They had 1 good period against the Preds. The the Capitals just flat out outworked them for every single battle. The Penguins, rolled them, and it was embarrassing.

And the Penguins got destroyed last night. I I don't know, man. I just I look at I look at this game and go, this is a this is a team that you should test yourself against. Mhmm. And you should use your newfound physicality to push them around, and they didn't until they did.

They yeah. Once they figured that out, they did okay.

So let me talk about let me talk about the first period, just as a from the perspective of when I was streaming it. And we got into between the first and second period, we got into, like, shot counter. Like, will the will the Leafs get 2 shots before the Devils get 10? Will the Leafs get 5 shots before the level Devils get 20? And each time, it was no.

No.

And and what was hilarious is I'm looking at the game with 11 or I think it's 13 minutes to go. I stopped the chat, and I was like, guys guys, you're getting real negative here. It's only 1 nothing. The Leafs could absolutely win this game, and everybody's like, yeah. Whatever.

You're full of it. And I said, no. You you take whatever time you are at in the 3rd period, you don't care if you're a player what the first and second period looked like. Like, that can be tomorrow's problem.

Yes.

You just go, okay. Rear view mirror. I can do this now. And I think the game hinges on, if if I'm allowed to say it, a hit. Because things started to show life after Max Pachetti ran over Jack Hughes.

I think that's entirely narrative.

You think so?

Yeah. It felt like The game

the game hinges on Pontus' homework. Like, if if Well,

and so let's let's talk about the hit first.

I want It's either Patches or Pontus, which is crazy.

I wanna talk I wanna talk about the patch already hit. Can we bring it up? I I just it's such a bonkers hit. If you miss this, I can I can pull it up, Jesse?

It's okay. I got it.

This hit is is, like, it's a monster. It's it's 1 of those things where they had Patcheredi playing with Matthews and Marner to start the game. It wasn't working. Barube put the lines in a blender, put Nai's back where he belongs.

That's okay.

He put

Mitt in there for a bit. Yeah.

He did. I liked that he tried them there.

Okay.

But I I when this hit happened, and it's been very funny to watch the devil's call of this because they're like, Jack Hughes didn't even have the puck. Yeah.

They corrected themselves. He for sure had the puck. But no. He had the puck.

This is a hit that it's like, oh, yeah. We were really missing that when Pacheretti wasn't in the lineup. Like, people expect Max Pacheretti to be the the guy that

he was 5 years ago, and he's not. He started to put up more points before he got hurt, but he was trucking guys. That was that was his identity as a Leafs player.

I didn't realize that he was capable of trucking guys.

I had no idea. Okay. No idea.

So I'm not the only 1.

No. I had no idea he had that in his bag. Boy, oh, boy.

That's about as clean as it as you a look as you can get.

That screenshot from Jesse, like, you talk about Jack Hughes just not preparing for the boom at all. Now devils fans were not were, somewhat cross with me in the LFR because I said at the beginning of the season when I was, you know, admittedly paying a little bit more attention to the devils, it's 32 teams. I thought they had changed their identity for the better, because last year, I think they were the softest team in the NHL. Mhmm. Bottom 5 for sure.

Whoops. Nope. Still there. And they responded with, well, you obviously haven't watched many doubles games this year, which yeah. Correct.

You know, again, there's 32 teams. They've been chippier. They've been more physical. They've been strong defensively. I didn't say anything about their defensive play.

I assumed they're good defensively, but this can't happen. Jack Hughes can't get flattened like that with Brendan Dillon on the ice and Dougie Hamilton and anyone. Anyone try it's Max Patcharetti. Does he have an NHL fight on his card? Do something.

Do anything.

And so once this hit is laid and I don't know, Jesse. Can we show the fallout?

Yep.

There's a lot of why I on his card. Wham. Good.

Jack Hughes, to his credit, did see it coming and bailed out. You know? Like, he he starts sliding down

Yeah.

Before he gets absolutely crushed.

Yeah. It might have led to some head contact.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's it's him sliding down, so he his head doesn't get taken off completely.

Now I wanna ask, why the whistle blew after this?

So I Because Dougie Hamilton went and stood around pretending he was gonna do something.

So there's there's a half

answer. That's literally why.

There's a half answer. So I I got angry about this because I'm like, okay. Simone Benoit got a penalty for throwing the puck over the glass. That's called delay a game. So when someone lays a legal body check and everyone stands around and goes, why I ought to and stops playing hockey and the ref has to blow the whistle, what is that?

I would call it delay of game. They're delaying the game because they blew the play dead for no reason other than all the players stopped playing hockey. What happened in the chaos of that hit is Brendan Dillon actually smacked the puck down the ice for an icing. And if you watch the rest just standing there, and 1 of the Leafs, I think it might have been Matthews, was looking at him like, what's happening right now? And the ref goes, it 1 of you skate backwards.

And so a leaf skated towards her own end. He goes, alright. Cool. It's icing.

Wow. Yep.

Yep. So the call that came out of that was icing.

Okay. Alright.

That's why the whistle was blown ultimately. They don't it's funny. They refs, like, sorta don't tell you to keep playing or, like, like, there was a goal a couple years ago. It might have even been devils, devil sabers where no 1 on the ice was playing. There was a big hit or something, and everyone was fighting with each other.

Mhmm.

And the ref decided it's fine that they're doing that. The play continues. The 1 player on 1 team gets a breakaway, and they're like, alright, and they just score.

Yeah. Or was it That's the way it should be, by the way. If players decide to stop playing after a hit and assuming there's no fights, play goes on.

It's it's a little funny to me that, like, nothing came of that.

And now so then then you you pair that with the Kova7ich hit where, NICE That's bad. NICE got him from behind, got the 2 minutes for boarding.

That was bad.

And, again, the devils do nothing. Mhmm. And I get it's Kova Sevich. It's not Jack Hughes, but I was like, this is crazy. Like, these guys are not responding at all.

Just before you go too quickly away from what Steve was saying, it was Khristanov was standing there, trying to talk to the ref and be like, the puck's down there.

Oh, no.

You can see it. Because I was trying to find the the other replay where you have to play after when, Dylan shoots the puck down the ice. So you can see it here. So the puck's the puck's over here. Dylan has it about the, face off dot, and he he shoots it down the ice because Dougie Hamilton goes over there pretend like he's a tough guy.

So Dylan shoots the puck down the ice. So it just went off of his stick. Right? And Tanev down here in the corner. So he's about at the blue line.

He sees the puck go down. So the puck is bouncing off the boards here, and he turns to chase it, and he's going down the ice. But then he's like, oh, wait. I know. Keep go it's not it's not going.

So I'm gonna turn around, and he circles right back, and he looks at the ref, and he's like, the puck's down there. What do I do?

So then Willie Shots are 25 to 6,

by the way. This whole time, the puck is at

the other end of the ice, but you can't, initiate an icing until somebody goes down there to play the puck. And then Willie, he turns here. I assume he's the 1 who goes down at least like halfway

through the roof

to blow the whistle. So you see Willie here just skate by. He's down there. And I assume he just initiates the icing. It's all it's and then it cuts away, so you can't really tell what happened.

At any point, any of these devils that are doing absolutely nothing could have skated down and got the puck and had a breakaway. Yes. So instead so listen. You won't stand up for your guy. You won't stand up for your best player, and you're not smart enough to turn around and go get the puck.

Dougie hit him. Embarrassing thing.

Said it's better that I stand here and pretend I'm angry than to go get a free break ahead.

And why do you have Brandon Dillon?

Brandon Dillon What do you have him for? Is a bad man. He is a bad man. He's a great player, great addition to the New Jersey devils. He provides so much of what they lack.

Like, I don't know if maybe he's like, patches, like, isn't my weight class. Like, he's not my, I mean, that would not be a fair fight. Dylan would kill him.

Mhmm.

But no 1 no 1 paid a price at any point. And, like, they even said on the devil's broadcast, they're like, well, keep your eye out for the next time Patch Reddy's on the ice. Nothing happened.

No. Nothing happened. Well, because they're not gonna do anything because they're the devils.

Oh, boy. I think this is gonna spread because when you're mad about 1 thing, it's easier to get mad about another. So they're mad that they lost that game or at least they should be. And, whoever their next opponent is, I I it should be a chippy game. You can't that can't happen.

That can't happen. If that was Mitch Marner getting got like that, which I think would be the equivalent, we'd be losing our freaking mind.

But on previous teams, previous Leafs teams, this did happen, and the Leafs didn't do anything about it. And it was embarrassing then. And it was part of the team ethos. We'll get them back on the power play, and then you realize that

That's dating back to Babcock.

Yeah. Well but Keith carried that. Yep. That was that was a dubious thing.

Oh, yeah.

And and I think we've clearly found out it didn't work, at least in the playoffs. Now listen. Watch the Devils go win the cup. They dominated this game.

They're a great team. They're a great team. I'm not saying they're not.

But what I wanna ask next is about the Leafs' tying goal. The Devils' goal, had to be Andre Palat. Had to be. Yeah. Was a great goal across the ice.

You spread stallers out. That's the only way really to get the puck past him. Yeah. And he even then had a good read on it. But the Leafs when the Leafs score, it's a it's just a hard work play from a depth player, Connor Dewar, causes a bit of a turnover.

He's already shorthanded. He outraces Dawson Mercer for a puck.

Mhmm.

And that

He's a fast guy.

Didn't realize he was that fast.

He's pretty fast.

But what blows me away about this is he ultimately is able to win the puck battle enough for it to just sit there in front of Markstrom, who is the guy that created the phrase

If you're a goaltender, tend the goal. And it looked like he was like,

should I go get it to me?

Oh, is that maybe because he wasn't like, that I'm sorry. That shouldn't go in.

It didn't seem like he was ready for it.

No. He wasn't.

That caught him off guard.

It caught up, which, you know, good shot from Pontus. Awesome. I can't the full belly laugh I had when the broadcast said, it's his first goal on a goalie this year. Yeah. Oh, man.

I didn't know that.

Yeah. The first 1 was an empty net and then this 1. Yeah. Depth scoring

not have

won that game?

Depth scoring hasn't been good for the Leafs. It broke a streak of, what was it, 6 straight by the top 4, something like that?

Oh, I'm I thought it would

have been The core 4?

Even longer than that.

Yeah. Maybe it's more than 6, but if there's a long streak of just goals from the top 4 or the core 4.

They are, I mean, carrying it, man. Yeah. They're just carrying it. No. Great goal.

Like it hilarious. A team has never been less deserving of a win. Mhmm. But they got it. I mean, jeez.

It I've never seen a team go 32 in their last 5 and need a get right game. But, like, tomorrow against, the Ducks, I believe it is. Troop is in town. Oh, yeah. Troop is in town, and I'll be streaming it.

Jesus, they need a good performance. Come on, guys. Yeah. They gotta be feeling awesome after that, though.

Well, I I I think Maybe I was dollars.

He's probably feeling tired.

Is in the 3rd period. If you're Craig Brube, the only thing you can really yell at the guys to get them going at this point is get this win for Anthony. Oh, 100%. Get this win for your goalie. He deserves it.

Mhmm.

And, you know, it's funny. In in overtime, the devils do what every team does. They win the first face off, and they keep the puck away from the Leafs the entire time.

So annoying.

Cycle cycle cycle cycle. Had a couple of good 2 on ones. Mhmm. And somehow Matthews does essentially the Connor do a reverse and Gets the breakaway. Get gets the breakaway and scores.

You know what? We skipped over something. What? That was the breakaway, and he scored, and that was good. Mhmm.

But, Adam, did you notice how many 2 on ones the Leafs had that they didn't score? Not a lot of them.

A lot

of them. A lot of them. They didn't even hit the net.

Yeah. Every time.

Matthews kept missing the net. I was, like, what the hell is going on here?

For the narrative. Every time they got 1, I stood up. I'm, like, come on. Come on. No.

Every single time. That the Leafs overpass on a 2 on 1? That's kind of the thing.

Oh, that oh, man.

You see, remember the modern 1 where he put it right in the defenseman skates? I was like, Mitch.

I know.

Rebound. Matthews.

Awesome.

That's it. Had such a good chance, and he got, Markstrom to bite. I think this was on, like, the third 1, and, he just misses. No. I was standing up going for the video.

Hey. Screw the 2 points. Think of the LFR. Think of the podcast. Get it in.

Well, that's okay. And then yeah. Fuck. Like, Matthews was fired up for that OT winner. And, like, you don't you don't see that kind of reaction out of him, like, too too often.

It's gotta mean something, and he knows that's a heist.

Yep. I now I wanna say this.

That win.

I wanna say this. I think there's a lot of social media chatter, and I understand it, about

Austin's play. You just get startled by it.

And I had to burp.

Okay. And I

was trying to walk talk through it. Okay.

Matt Patty, what was your reaction to that? No. I was just wondering what that was. Oh, yeah.

Listen. I we didn't have to draw attention to it. I

yeah. You were pretty You're right.

You're right.

It was on mic.

So so there's been a lot of, like, tweets about is he still injured, whatever. Very likely, like most NHL players, Austin is nursing something. But I wanna say that, you know, anybody that's like, hey. I I haven't really liked the way he's played since he's been back. The entire team's been bad.

Yeah. And I just I I wanna Which is also a problem. I wanna put it into context because he's come back and he's been well over a point a game.

Mhmm.

And he scored that big goal and he had a couple assists on his 1st night back.

And How many chances did he have?

He had 4 or 5. He had the only chances.

Like, he's playing not dissimilar to how he was playing at the very beginning of the season Mhmm. When he was getting a 1,000 chances and they weren't going in. Then his play dropped off and the chances went away, and you're like, okay. Something's wrong here. Mhmm.

Then he went away to Germany, and now he's back. I I don't know what to make of

My my point is my point is this. Maybe let the team get right before we start putting oh, Austin's injured. It's gonna be you know, like, listen. I I get it, but it's not CJ says it every year. Like, it's not breaking news that NHL players are injured

Yeah.

All the time. It's it's and I and people were like, well, he's he didn't have a great game. I'm like, dude, the whole team sucked. Like, I don't I don't know. They had 1 shot in the 1st period, man.

Guys are coming back. Paciriti is what? 2 games back?

2 games back.

Max got his first.

I gotta say, his game was fine. It was fine. He can't be on the ice in overtime ever again.

No? You don't think so?

Max? Max Stone, he's 1 of the worst players in the league.

Really?

I think with his speed and his puck handling.

He's only He's so 1 dimensional. It doesn't help.

There was On 3. There was a line change that almost I think he only played 1 shift in the overtime. There was a line change that nearly cost him the game.

Mhmm. Yes. There was. And it was him in OEL.

Yeah.

Thank you. That was that's the Yeah.

And it was OEL's turn to go. Yeah. Yeah. And he's just like, me too. What?

That was bad. Where are you going? That led to the 211.

Yes. It did.

Yeah. Max.

I also don't think Dude,

he can't play through.

I don't think his skill set is good for 3 on 3.

It should be.

It's it's so pass first that it's not helpful.

Yeah. You know,

if if you can't because you want everybody on the ice to be able to finish because you don't know who's gonna get that opportunity. Right? And it it's great for 5 on 5 because you you gotta be able to pass. You know, there's so many guys on the ice, but Yeah. At 3 on 3, you need everybody to be out there to take the opportunities when they can get them.

And Domi's so pass first that I don't think is really helpful.

I I think too, the you know, I will say this with Patches, with Domi, even with Matthews, like, give him a few games, everybody. Not maybe with the over I can believe you on the overdrive.

Understand the Matthews thing. He has he has 4 goals in his in 5 games.

He's he's fine.

Like

The standard he has set for himself is so cartoony

Yeah.

That if he goes 2 games without scoring, we're, like, I I think he's broken.

Over the 19 games he's played so far this season, he scored 9 goals. That's a 40 goal pace.

That's which is 29 goals behind last year's pace.

Well, let's let's Hold on. I think for a guy

who started the year with whatever injury he had to go to Yeah. Germany for, and then he so he played through that for a couple weeks, and then he he's now back in the lineup, and he's been 4 goals in 5 games. I think a 40 goal pace is pretty good for up and down month that he's had on and off the ice.

Yes. I agree completely. And and remember I don't I don't understand that. A lot of those a lot of those goals, that he didn't score, like, he he scored early. He didn't score later.

Right? There was a few games before he went off on IR that he just didn't score. And so that 9 and 19 Really?

He's he's only gone 3 goals, he he's only gone through, the longest stretch he's gone without a goal is 3 games. Right. Like, that's not

Are you serious? Yeah. Like,

this this idea that Matthews has been on a drought and he's been struggling, he's been consistent.

Well, actually okay. So it's 4, and that's from the, it's the Rangers, lightning, blue jacket, St. Louis week. He didn't score.

Oh. 0, no. I got a rock.

Alright. Those are assists.

You're wrong. I'm looking at Those

are assists.

I'm looking at his game log, and we can pull it up right now. There's no there's a 3 game stretch to start the season, and then there's a 3 game stretch here where he was injured for multiple weeks in between the stretch. That's right. Yeah.

I don't

know. Where I where is this coming from?

Yeah. I think it's it's it's like I just don't understand for me. I don't understand what people expect from players when they get back from injury. Like, Matthews had 2 assists in that first game back and has scored 4 goals in 5 games as Jesse rightly points out. But, like, it takes them a week or 2.

I know. It does. Tavares had a bad couple weeks, then he's been outstanding.

No. I I know what it is. We're Leaf fans, and we're broken and damaged, and we assume the worst.

Right.

We assume he's broken, and he'll never be back. He'll never be back to what he was. We've already seen the best of it. It's over. That's how we're wired.

When yet when I would say the best have probably yet to come with him.

I mean, it doesn't help that they're like, he's day to day on IR in Germany. He'll be back tonight. He'll be back next week. He's back.

Well, because they didn't know.

Yeah. But like that screws with people.

Okay. Well, I

That screws with an already Swedish fan base.

Can I give you the final stat to Give it to us? Tap it off during that 5 game stretch where he has 4 goals, he's shooting 19%.

That is about wow.

Is a point, percentage off of what he shot last year, where he scored 69 goals.

And

what he shoot before that, I think it was, like, 10.

Yeah. It'd be like overall on the season, he's shooting 11%, which is way down, which is awful for us. Brutal. Which would be the lowest mark of his entire career. But since he's come back from injury, he's shooting 19%, which is otherworldly generational shooting percentage.

So I think he's fine here, guys.

Mhmm. No.

I'd I'd be curious what, I don't know.

I'd be The numbers back up that he's fine.

Yeah.

I'd be curious what and I don't know what websites track this, like, true shooting percentages. Because shooting percentage is just the percentage of the shots on goal you take that go in. But the shots you miss don't count towards your shooting percentage, which is insane because you shot the puck and missed the nets. Mhmm. And so if you if you shoot 10 shots in a game, 1 of them hits the net and goes in.

You shot a 100%. That's stupid. That doesn't make any sense. You shot 10.

That's,

that's very true.

Yeah? Yeah. I'd be curious what his real shot percentage is.

From game winning goals to spectacular saves, BetMGM gives you the chance to take those highlight reel plays to a whole new level. Now here's what I wanna know very quickly, guys. Mhmm.

Was that Key and Peele a whole never level? Nothing. Was that is that Key and Peele, or is that SNL? I forget. I don't know.

But I think it sounds like Key

and Peele. The question I have is the Leafs are playing the Ducks tomorrow night. They've had 5 pretty mediocre to bad games in a row, last night being particularly bad. Do you bet on them getting getting it right and having a get right game against the Ducks and Jake Trouba?

That sure feels like a wake up call game that they just had against the the devils, but they're probably we don't know this for sure, but probably going up against 1 of the best goalies in the league. 1 of the most underrated goalies in the league and Lucas Dostol, who is also gonna wanna get vengeance over the Leafs for last year when he had a gem against them, and they won anyway, and then the next game the Leafs killed the Ducks. It's I think it's gonna be a feisty 1.

Jesse? The Leafs have a history of not showing up against the Ducks. Usually, it's on the West Coast Swing when they go out there. True. True.

They melt down completely because they flew out to the other side of the country. But this feels like a win, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they crashed and burned. So I'm in the middle here.

There you go. Alright. So listen. With BetMGM, wherever side whatever side you want, BetMGM is not only the official sports betting partner of the NHL in Canada. They're also the king of sportsbooks.

Betmgm.com for terms and conditions must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario, 1866-531-2600, to speak to an adviser free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Igaming Ontario.

Usually, I end the ad with this, but I'm gonna start with it. 20% off at Dewar Oh. For your jeans. Okay? We'll explain why these are great.

If you've never seen us talk about Dewar before, I just want you to know if you go to shopduer.com, shopduer.com/sdp, you can get 20% off your first purchase, which is just in time for the holidays. And Dewar are not fast fasten fast fashion. They're slow fashion. They're using great materials that actually breathe, and where possible, they use recycled materials and plant based fibers for natural breathability, softness, and moisture absorption. And as a sweaty guy,

I thank them. So slow fashion just means it lasts a long time.

Yeah. It it it it means that when you buy it, you should expect it to be around in, like, you know, several months, unlike some of the stuff we're buying these days. Right?

Yeah.

I saw a stat the other day that said, like, we have enough clothes on earth now to clothe the next 4 generations. That's how bad the fast fashion product has gotten. Yes. Isn't that crazy? Generations.

A lot of generations. And this is why we need to get back to buying 150 years. Isn't that nuts, dude? It's crazy. That's why we gotta buy quality, doers quality, and you should try it.

You can check out their flagship stores in Canada or United States, or shop online at shopdoer.com/stp. Again, it's shopduer.com/stp to get 20% off your first purchase. 20% off. Shopduar.com/stp. Yeah.

So, for the devil's side, that's a good team. Now Sheldon Keefe called, Anthony Stallers the best goalie in the league. And 1 of the 1 of the questions I got to start the game was, hey. What's it gonna take for Anthony Stullers to get in the Vezna conversation? Now the Vezna conversation is interesting because it's the 32 GMs that, vote on it.

It's reputational. I think if a goalie wins a Vesna, it's because they've had a good 3 year stretch. It's not because they had 1 good year. Whereas, like, Jack Adams, it's like, wow. Your team really surprised everybody.

You get it. Next year, you're fired. Right? Like, it's that that sort of thing. I think Vesna is like a it's a it's a tracking over 2 to 3 years.

It's a reputation based award. A lot of these GMs are not watching a ton of out of market hockey. They're just not. No. And and so they're it's weird that they're voting on it,

but they are. So you have to have such an otherworldly single season to not be in the Vezdah conversation the year before

Yes.

And then jump into it. Something like Tim Thomas.

Or Jim the net detective carrier.

Jim the net detective carrier.

And I think when you look at, Stallers, you gotta have headline grabbing, headline grabbing stuff. And last night, I could see those box scores being shared around the league. I could see executives go, man, did you see that? That was crazy.

Dude, played 27 games last year, 925. He's played 16 games this year, 928. Like, how long does he need to keep this up for that to just be what he is? I mean, I don't know if anyone is a consistent 925 anymore

It'd be nice if there was.

In 2024. But, I'm looking, and, she's actually better than that. So, dude, he's nuts.

Yeah.

He's I mean, who is the best free agent signing they've made in

the last 10 years? Free agent signing?

Yeah. Like, is there an argument Tavares. That they're both oh, right. Okay. So since Tavares

Okay.

I think they might both be on the team right now, like, in TANF and Stolars.

Yeah. And if you don't count Tavares, I'd put OEL in there too.

He's gonna

make He's gotta be up there. Like, who I'm trying to think of, like, dudes up front.

They signed a lot of guys on, like, piddly little contracts at the end of their careers, like your Joe Thortons and your

Bunting was pretty good.

Because they haven't I think it was a great they haven't

been like, the need hasn't been to build through free agency. Yeah. You know, they had their 4 guys and they've just been That was it. Filtering out the pieces around. Mhmm.

Well, that makes a lot of sense that it's Tavares.

It does. But since him, like, Jesus, like, yeah, Stoler's has to be how many games do you have to play? And for him to like, I know he's splitting the net with wool. That doesn't disqualify you. Mhmm.

Because a few years ago, if I remember correctly, 2 of the goalies nominated for Vezna out of 3, split the net. It was the year Robin Leonard was nominated.

I mean, Elle Mark and, fucking Swamin.

Oh, that's right. Were were either of them nominated though? I thought they finished 6th and 7th.

Well, Elmark won the Vezna in 2023.

Yeah. Yeah. But he didn't split the net with Suyman. He he played most of the games. Let's check.

Yeah. He split it last year for sure. Let's see.

In 2023, the Vesna trophy year, all mark started 48 games. Oh. That's very split.

Yes it is. Wow. That's a lot less than

I thought. 7 off of an exact split. Damn. That's

So Yeah. If you play so basically, you can get nominated for the Vezna and even win

it Mhmm.

In the forties, if your numbers are good enough.

I mean, all of us

are just exactly on track to do that.

Yeah. Like, yeah.

What was the last team to have 2 guys nominated for the Pheasant City?

Oh, Mark and Swamin.

Were they both?

No. You mean like top 3 nominated?

Yes.

Oh, no. No. They weren't the top 3.

I don't

think Wile is gonna get there, but like yeah. No. Stoller's is

who would

you rather have right now? Who'd you rather have? Mhmm. It's not a

long way.

And that's with Joseph Wahl coming off of just recently ended a 6 game winning streak.

Last okay. So to go back to, the Leafs play better in front of Wahl. Out of the 10 games that Wole's played, the Leafs have only been out shot in 3 of them. 2 of those games were because of score effects. 1 of them was a 3 nothing win.

Another was the 53 win over Tampa where they were up, like, crazy on Tampa, and then Tampa started to come back. And, and then the game against Pittsburgh was the first game this season with woolenette where the leafs were out shot and lost. The first game all season long. They've given up 30 shots or more with Wollen Net twice. They've done it with, Stoler 6 or 7 times.

Do you think they missed Jake McCabe? Yeah. Yeah. Kind of important, isn't he?

The first goal, well, the only goal that the devil's got like, I like Phillipe Myers. I do. But I'm looking at that going. I wonder if someone else gets there.

Mhmm.

You know who's losing their shine a little bit? Connor Simmons. I didn't

mind his play last night. He made some good defensive plays.

No. Once it once a game, Connor Timmons gets beat off the rush.

He he

had a bad 1. 0, he got turns about.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember who it was.

Every single game, at least once, he gets absolutely cooked. Yeah. And it's like I've had they have so many defenseman that, like, it's unnecessary to have somebody to line up who that happens to.

Get McCabe in there, and then it'd be nice to get Haakonpaugh in there as well. I mean, it it changes completely, but McCabe and Tannen were by the metrics like a top 3, shutdown pair in the league. Yeah. You missed that actually.

Yeah.

When that goes away, Morgan Riley, like, I've I've seen some criticism of him recently. He's playing with the Leafs' 8th defenseman as his partner.

Yeah. Maybe 9th. I also wanna say, I would love to get an update on Haakon Pozny because he was selected She's

had a procedure.

To team Finland.

Mhmm.

And, Henry Okiharu is the only Finnish defenseman in the NHL who was not selected to team Finland.

Oh, wow.

And Hockenpos barely played.

I don't wanna do this because, like, getting to represent your country is a very special thing, but I can't help but look at him and go, hey, what if you didn't?

Yeah. Take your time off.

What if you didn't? Yeah.

That would

be great.

You know how you didn't start the season, and then you played a few games, and then you got injured and had a procedure, and now you're still out, and you're gonna play extra? Are you sure? Don't think you are. Mhmm. Please don't, Yanni, I yeah.

I don't love that. Well But I'm never gonna tell a player not to play for their

country.

Steve, to answer some of your Vezna questions, the 23 season run all mark 1, Soyman did not receive a a Vezna vote, so he wasn't in the voting. But last season, they were both within the top 8. They both received some sort of vote, so that's kinda fun. I can't find an instance where 2 goaltenders from the same team were within the top 3, but there have been shared Vesna's amongst goaltenders on the

same team. Years years.

Yeah. Like, the Montreal Canadians, 3 goalies won the Vesna in 1980, 90 Oh, wow. 1981. Alright. So there you go.

And I

don't even know who any of these guys are.

Yeah. Buffalo Sabers, they kinda split. So it used to be kind of more like a tandem, award as you can see on the NHL site back in the late seventies, early eighties, but I can't find any top I don't think there's been a top 3 where, like, the tandem, 1 gets the 1st place and 1 gets, like, 3rd or something like that.

Well, the 1st year the NHL website even shows a finalist was, what, 1982?

In in terms of the runners up here?

Yeah.

Or, like, the 3rd place voting?

Yeah.

Yeah. The 3rd place voting came in in 1982.

Okay. Yeah. Murray Bannerman.

There's a lot of names I'm not familiar with. Ron Melton. It kinda shows you how volatile goaltending is, where guys can just have, like, a hot year and receive a whole bunch of ESNA votes and then never really do anything ever again.

I am I'd like I research like a crazy person when it comes to hockey, especially for the book, especially for goalies.

Mhmm.

And for there to still be names on that list where I'm like, I've never heard of you in my entire life is, is something.

That's cool. You're you're you're a hockey player, top 3 goaltender in the league at that point, and you're like, I don't even know that name.

At 1 point, you were a top 3 goalie in the world.

Yeah.

Never heard of you.

Most surprising Vezna nominee from the last 5 years, Adam and Steve, taking a look at the Vezna winners and nominees, if you wanna throw on the screen, Matty. Which 1 would you say is the most surprising name amongst let's go from 20, 19 onwards or 2020 onwards.

I would probably say, oh, 2020 onwards because I'd say 2019, Robin Leonard.

We're we're oh, yeah.

Yeah. That's that's a surprise with the islanders.

Well, because he was coming off some real rough years, and then he went to the island and was instantly on freaking beatable. I would say Philip Grubauer. Oh, Jesus. Philip Grubauer. Yeah.

Philip Grubauer for me. Dude, he's Oh, in Colorado in 21. Yeah. 3rd place, Vesna.

He's unplayable.

Wow. Yeah. I I guess, like, amongst all the other names, you're like, oh, yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah. I thought Georgiev might have gone on there just because he has so many wins. Yeah. No. It's gotta be Grubauer.

And people forget how good Ben Bishop was that year for in 18, 19 for the Stars. He was great.

He had a great career. Yeah. He did.

It's it's funny to look at, Carey Price on this list and realize he only had the 1 victory and then 1 third place, and that's it, actually, from his entire career.

Because he's overrated.

Oh my god.

No. This is

Are you are do you actually believe that? No. Of course not.

I've just given I don't know. I thought you might have had a take about it. Have a take about it. You've been holding back.

No. Don't know. I thought you might have

had a take about it. You've been holding back. No. I just

I love getting under

Habs fans. Yeah.

Carey Price Overrated.

Is he's 1

of those for I'm skipping over that so you don't get killed.

Yeah. Carey

Price is Bad. Is 1 of the Adam, we're all gonna die.

Yeah. I don't support this.

No. This this is that is can you please put the camera on, Adam, while he's Yeah. There you go. Thank you. So keeping the camera on Adam, Carey Price Doesn't like Quebec.

Oh, my god.

Lives in BC now. Well, I guess you have your answer.

Why you can't just go by a war.

Yes. Yeah. But, like, for me, I love when because award should show you the history of the league. Like, that's why like, something like Taylor Hall's heart trophy win, I'll never get over that. That should have been Nathan MacKinnon's.

And when you look at the awards, it should give you, like, a snapshot of that time. And when I look at the Vesna Trophy, voting, I know how good Carey Price was. And to see his name up there once for a win and then 1 time for a third place vote, and then that's it, it It kinda shocks me.

It this is 1 of the most egregious ones. Scroll down to 19 I think it was 96 when 1996. When Jim Carrey won. So so click on him and click on his stats.

Okay. Oh, 0, there

you go.

Oh, god. It takes you to an entirely different page. It's brutal. For that season, he had a 35, 249 record. He was he was very good.

Where am I looking?

906. Oh, there

you go. Yeah.

906. That's the best goalie in the world. He was literally a better goalie the year before, and then he completely turned into a pumpkin. Go to go to, just hockey DB, Dominic Haczek. So we can look at his 95, 96 numbers.

He wasn't even nominated for the vest, and I don't believe. I think it was Oz Beg and someone else.

It's I just pulled it up on an issue.

9596. Yeah. 22, 30, and 6. Granted, that's not a great record. 920.

Oh. Robbed. That's ridiculous. Consecutively, he had 9:30, 9:30, 9:30,

9:30,

9:30, 9:30 7, 9:19, 9:21, 9:15. Maniac.

Why did Jim Carrey get it?

I don't know.

It's a good question.

I think there was the record. Right?

I Jesse, I think at yes. That's part

partial part of it. Games under 500. You have to remember

too that you're probably within a decade of Soviet block players coming over to the NHL, and they're being in a huge resistance to it. Guys from Czechia, back then Czech Republic, guys from Russia, and you had Don Cherry on Saturday nights going, even that French Canadians were soft. Right? Like, sweet oh, forget forget Europeans.

So okay. French Canadians soft. French Canadians soft. North Americans with a visor soft.

Yes. Yeah. It was it so it was a different time, and I think there's, like,

there was a non soft guys.

There was a there was a thing about against, you know, Hachette because he wasn't a North American. There was. And he proved them all wrong because he was the best of them. So he he was the best 1.

It wrecks a streak of he won the Vesna in 94. He won the Vesna in 95. He won the Vesna in 97. He won the Vesna in 90 8. He won the Vesna in 99.

He won the Vesna in 2001. So he should have had a streak from 94 to 99.

Yep. He didn't finish in second in voting though. Like, he wasn't even amongst the top 3. Yes. Chris Osgood.

So

could it yeah. Click on And Darius Osgood.

Yeah. I had Darris Perry Poopa. The other finalist.

Chris oh, hold on. That's not

You could argue Osgood should've won it.

That's Patrick. Where's Shouldn't

have been Jim Carrey.

There you go. 95, 96. Osgood was 39 39 and 6.

39/6. Looking 5. Am I looking at

the right year? 95/96. Yeah.

That was a that was the record setting Red Wings year where they had the most points ever in the NHL.

With the 911s. Win. Because It should a 100%. Yeah. Like, I'm saying Hashtag because because it would have been fun.

But, like, the real winner is clearly Chris

The team was also the Monstars. Like, that was a the Detroit Red Wings.

Do you have an error?

That year was Some of

the Bruins in the back. 902. They didn't lose. They did not lose hockey games.

That's gotta be the lowest safe percentage to ever win the Vesna.

Eighties existed.

Yeah. The eighties. I bet, yeah, you could win with, like, an 899.

Probably sub 900 guy.

Yeah. I'd lie. I should look that up.

Yeah. That's actually kind of funny.

Lowest save percentage to ever win the Vesna. That's egregious. Holy cow.

That was such a dude tangent we just went up. When you go back even talking about.

When you look at

You're talking about Stallers running the Vesna.

Oh, yeah.

When you go back and you look at the awards, though, like, there are certain awards. I don't think they just I don't think they took them very seriously until the 90th.

You can tell when there was, like, a shift to, like, oh, we should probably take this voting thing

Yeah.

Seriously. You know what I Given importance to the history of the game.

You know what I think

so that

it changed that was the Jose Theodore, Jerome McGinley controversy.

Yeah. Because it got

left off a freaking ballot

Mhmm.

Altogether, which is

So was Theodore, though. Oh, was it? That's what the that's what's a little not talked about a lot is he was also left off a ballot. I

don't think there's justification for either.

Yeah. It's both it went both ways. Yeah. You know?

So, we got the board of governors meetings happening, in, Florida. And, you know, as we sort of mentioned yesterday, and we've been talking about for weeks, despite Gary Bettman saying there have been no discussions about, the salary cap going up more than the 5%, yesterday, there officially was discussions about the salary cap going up 5%. And it was funny watching the insiders talk about it on TSN because Pierre Le Brun's like, well, there's 2 I think it was Pierre Le Brun who was like, there's 2 things that they could do here. They could leave it, and they're gonna have a huge pop at a year, or they can have a controlled escalator that brings it up to the 97,000,000 or more that Elliott Friedman originally reported. Now, hard to know which way they're gonna go, but there are some negotiations in the next couple years.

And and, you know, usually, they set the cap now. Mhmm. So the fact that they haven't set the cap now because they have to negotiate, we're probably not gonna know what this cap is until the new CBA is announced in June.

This is, like, for everyone, like, why hasn't my team signed to Xplayer? I'm sure this is an enormous fact.

They're all waiting. NICE is waiting. Marner's waiting. Oh, yeah. And here's the big 1.

0. Capri's off. Oh, yeah. He's waiting. And and and I and, actually, it was it was Lebron that mentioned Craig Leopold that, you know, is, like, hey, would be really good to know so we can start talking to him.

That's I'm I mean, with that in mind, it's somewhat surprising that Shesterkin signed.

I think Shesterkin got he got I know. Primo dollar.

I think he's good.

And you get to stay

in New York. And everyone's waiting. You know what I mean?

Yeah. But I think if you're him, you got 11 and a half 1000000 for the next 8 years. It's the biggest goalie contract ever. Nobody can give you more than than than 7 years out on the Rangers.

He did okay.

I think he's okay.

Yeah. I think

he's okay.

He did fine.

Also, the rich, and they can front load it. And I don't even know. I haven't even checked if they have. But, the this goes it dovetails perfectly with the serious CBA negotiations, which are due to begin, surprisingly, in February during the 4 Nations Cup Oh, love it. When the NHL and NHLPA are hosting that together.

Now this is very promising. It's something that when you run a business like like this, you kinda go if there's a work stoppage, we would keep going because we went through the last work stoppage, but it would be extremely painful.

We'd play a lot of video games.

Yeah. It'd be very, very painful. And and I don't think anybody wants that. League revenues are up. Salaries are going up.

Why would you interrupt that? And we don't fully know what the pain points are gonna be yet, but it seems like both sides are feeling good about things right now.

That's good.

And that they think they can get it done maybe before or just after the Stanley Cup is awarded.

I like that. Okay.

So that we like that. That's good.

We're comfortable. Feeling comfy.

The next thing they wanted to talk about was the schedule. Now you guys have heard, and this will be a part of the CBA negotiations, that, they wanna move the schedule to 84 games. And, you know, Gary Bettman was interviewed about it last or yesterday, and he very quickly said, well, if we started in August, we could award it in May. And he's like, I'm being ridiculous.

Yes. Yes.

But I don't think anybody would argue. 2 seasons ago not not not 2 seasons. Last season, the NHL didn't start till after Canadian Thanksgiving, which was stupid because you have a whole bunch of people with their families wanting sports to watch on Thanksgiving in Canada Yeah.

And you

don't have any games. So they started a week early this year. And how crazy was that? The ratings were fantastic.

Mhmm.

So then the question becomes, okay. You wanna add 2 more games to this? And I think probably everybody's okay with it because those 2 games, likely, there'll be players sitting for some of them, especially at the end of the season, but it's extra revenue. People will make more money. Everybody's happy.

It's 2. It's 2 games. The question becomes and this is where Gary gets annoying to listen to. Oh, yeah? They're like, hey.

This is where it is. Gary, you know, having the Stanley Cup awarded on June 24th is not ideal. And Gary goes, well, if we could start in August, well, you know, and he's like, well, we're not gonna do that. The very simple solution is October 1st is the 1st NHL game.

Yep. Yep. October 1st.

Game start in October. October 1. I don't know why it's so funny with these big organizations why it takes so long to get to that point. And, also, training camp doesn't need to be 3 weeks.

It it

It doesn't. It is there has been an 82 game season since, like, 1995.

Yeah. And before that, it was 84 for a couple years.

Yeah. It yeah. But it's never ended as late as it's ending. And COVID is not an excuse anymore. I don't know why last year ran so long.

What are we doing? You know? Oh, you know, Olympics are foreign. Like, we've had all that before, and it was fine. Mhmm.

It didn't go this late. What's going up? The drop dead date to me used to be June 15th, and that's, like, if the cup final goes 7 games.

Yeah. But there have been times, guys you guys remember between the conference finals and the finals where they've taken, like, 4 or 5 days off, which Like no. No. It's the playoffs. No.

You're losing the momentum.

What what about okay. So I agree with that. What about the thought that it's better for the players, which is better for the product?

Okay. I I will listen to when it was Edmonton, Florida in the finals, the furthest possible distance you could possibly be. Yeah. But it's always And they built in an extra day for travel. Yeah.

I listen to that. 5 days between a a a conference final and a final?

No. Most of the teams in the east are on the coast. Most of the teams in the west are on the coast. It's always gonna be coast to coast.

You know? So don't make it 5 days in between. That's not what the playoffs are. That's not what they've ever been. Like, listen.

I understand, oh, it's better for the playoff. I I get all that, but, like, this is the Stanley Cup, and this is how that tournament works.

Get a faster plane.

Well, yeah. Sure.

Do that. Best in a faster plane.

Yeah. All of the billionaires have 1. Yeah. So I I don't know. For me, that is the kind of thing that drives me nuts.

It's like, guys, like, you you're you could you could have started this a week early. You could have done that. You could have cleaned this up. And they're like, well, no. We've already put it down.

We can't change things now. And they can. So so that's happening. And and so there seems to be, like, some significant things being, talked about. And then the the next question that the insiders brought up is, could the NHL be looking to expand beyond North America?

What does the global game look like? And what bothers me

Like a franchise?

Well, you can make the argument that you could put the NHL in Europe, assuming that people would go to it, and have a division there. And they don't come over often, but, you know, you you run it like you run the Champions League. Right? Everybody's got their own play, and then then they have a a tournament and whatever. You can do that.

I don't know how it exactly looks. Don't ask me. It's not my effing job. It's interesting.

It's an interesting idea.

What's clear, though, is they've done a bad job expanding the brand overseas. Yeah. And so that is a priority for them now.

Well, so I remember I, I think it was yesterday, said it'd be cool to have an outdoor game in Europe. And then I started thinking about it. I'm like, well, last year in Sweden, it was a small arena. And here it was like, what's the average attendance for these global series games?

I don't know. I I have no idea.

Like, how many European markets even have, like, an NHL sized rink?

I don't think that's what matters though. No? Who cares how many people? If you're not playing

or expanding there, you might as well make money.

Okay. Well, yes. If you're expanding there so if you're talking about, if you're talking about, like, them going over and playing the global series, I don't think it matters. Like, if you're playing what's that barn in in the Swiss league that's, like, all wood and it's beautiful? Isn't that Zurich?

Yeah. I can't remember. I know what you're talking

about.

It's beautiful. Right? Gorgeous. And there's not 20,000 people in there. There's probably 10,000 or maybe 5.

I don't know. But it's a gorgeous barn and whatever. Seeing a game in that, that's what makes it special. NHL team that you know, in in barn that you've never seen them play in. Cool.

Right? If you're gonna bring actual NHL franchises to Europe, you're gonna build an arena. Right. Like that like, it's Seattle built an arena. Vegas built an arena.

Atlanta and Houston will build arenas. If you're getting a franchise, you're building an arena.

It's a really cool idea. It just feels so far away. Like, not not distance, like, in terms of doability.

You know? They can turn these buildings around pretty quickly these days. Is doability a word? It's the other 1 I wanna I wanna know more about is Mexico. And this is not that's not expanding beyond North America.

That's just North America. But Mexico City feels like it could support an NBA team, an NBA MLB team. Like, it could do all of them.

For most well, for Canadians, anyway. Like, Mexico City's unfathomably big. It's huge. 30,000,000 people. It's it's crazy.

It's most of Canada.

You could you could sell out a game in a market like that.

Probably. Probably.

And imagine Mexican culture and Mexican fandom, and if you've watched CONCACAF and you see the way they react to their soccer teams, bringing that to hockey, that would be amazing.

It wouldn't be so bad. I mean, these are all very cool things that I would like to have happen 1 day, But they've kind of come out of nowhere, haven't they?

What do you mean?

Well, I feel like like we've been talking about, like, Houston and Kansas and Quebec for so long.

Mhmm.

And all of a sudden, oh, yeah. Europe and Mexico. Like, where did that come from?

Well, because I think there's more money in those markets. Like, if you is there more money in Mexico City or Kansas?

I'm I'm gonna assume Mexico City. Mhmm.

Mexican economy is on the rise. Mhmm. It's doing significantly better than it was, say, 20 years ago.

I've

And I don't know enough about it. Well, it is. It just is. And assuming that there's not a a, you know, a trade war, like, that that makes a ton of sense for a a market on the rise. There's a lot of money in Europe too.

Mhmm. And the NHL's job is to make money.

Oh, yeah. There's people and money Yeah. In those places. It's just it just feels like they've sort of dropped this on us out of nowhere.

Well, I think the brand ambassadorship is gonna start now. Like, I think they're gonna try to start to how do we get on European's radars It just feels like and drum up interest.

I I agree with that as a strategy. It just feels like you're a decade away from that even being realistic.

And could be it maybe it is.

Yeah.

Got a plan.

I hope Gary Bettman is not the commissioner.

Why do you hope that?

Because he's 72.

Right.

And also relevant, it's okay to be 72, but he's, Gary Babin, and I'm quite sick of him. Mhmm. And, go to a beach.

The last thing from the insiders That

or he could run the Islanders.

The NBA this week, there was a report out that they are in serious discussions about starting a Europe version of the NBA that they would own. So there's a giant league who's looking into international expansion and not just, like, putting teams over there just starting, like, their own NBA except in Europe, and who knows where that would go from there.

And the NFL did this 20 years ago, 25 years ago? Like, Kurt Warner Yeah.

Was a QB in NFL Europe. He's arena football, was he not?

Was he arena football?

Oh, I

thought he I thought he played NFL Europe too. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe 2, but I know he comes from arena football for sure.

Yeah. So, like How'd it go? Well, I don't think it was, I think, the right idea at the wrong time because there wasn't the the reach. Like, you can't back then, you couldn't watch games in Europe.

Can I ask you a really stupid question? Sure. Are commercial airliners getting faster?

No. They're about the same. Okay. They had the they had that what was that that jet that they could fly across, like, Europe to America in, like, 3 hours or 2 and a half hours?

They have that yeah. That weird they had, like, the long nose.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That Air France They don't fly that anymore. No.

Because they're too expensive to maintain. So The the trip to

London's a lot easier than you'd think. Isn't it, like, 5 Yeah. It's nothing.

Yeah. It's 5 hours.

6 or 7? No.

It's 5 hours. From here?

Yeah. No. No. It is not. No, it is not.

No. Now, are you flying to Heathrow or are you flying to Aberdeen International?

There are

Or or Eden or Edinburgh or Glasgow?

I don't know if I've ever flown direct to, to, no. I usually fly into either Heathrow or Glasgow.

Really?

And then, either fly from Heathrow to Aberdeen or take the train from Glasgow.

Oh, so the train would be so much

It's a really pretty ride.

Yeah.

Yeah. I like it.

But no.

It's longer than 5.

7. 715.

715. There

you go. So,

maybe maybe there'd be a reason then.

The 715, like, is not crazy in terms of, like, you play in Vancouver and you got a series in Florida.

I know. I yeah. I don't know. It literally ended John Klingberg's career. The flight,

it did. He

Yeah. I think that he had it clear that 1 circle. Is that a story?

We all watched him play

NHL defense.

We watched him play in, a game against Vancouver. The next game is in Sweden. We watched his last NHL game.

Okay. Yeah.

We saw it in person.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the Leafs could have checked in on that hit before they signed them.

Yeah. I know. They probably

Vancouver to Miami is 6 hours and 10 minutes.

Holy

shit. So there you go. Mhmm.

Yeah. Okay. So it's not that much different.

Yeah.

But, like

The world's so big. We're

we're, there's a million different conversations going on there. Global expansion makes sense just because of all the other leagues are doing it. You know, the NFL plays games in Europe consistently week after week throughout the beginning of their regular season. Like, teams go over there and they play a game, then they come back and they play games here. So and the NHL with their global series is true.

That's this is what they're trying to do. They're trying to build fan bases all around the world and, like, them doing the games in Australia a couple years ago, the preseason game. That was really smart, really cool thing they did. And this is just the direction we're going down. The world is shrinking because of technology, so it makes sense for them to continue to try to build up fan bases in these markets.

So you're not just trying to tap out the North American market. You're trying to expand into the European market and the Asian market, you know? Yep.

Makes sense. It makes sense. I'm just sitting here with my little brain going, I wish planes were quicker. Yeah. And, like, it would definitely help.

Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. No.

It would help for sure. It'd help everything.

The planes

were quicker, but the world is also smaller.

Yeah. These, like, $1,000,000,000 teams, like

Mhmm.

I I know those things are expensive. Could they not buy 1?

I don't

think they'd be playing each other that much. I think you'd have that that the Europe games would be the Europe games and the North American games. And then it's, like, if if there is intercontinental play, it's for, like, a a higher end tournament. Like, hey. We're, we we've sent our 4 best over to go against your 4 best for the Stanley Cup.

Or you come over here for a month and you play some division games against whatever teams for a month here, and then you get a 5 day break and you go back home.

Yeah.

They can work out. The scheduling stuff, I'm not that's not concerning.

They do in soccer all the time. It's not it's like, like, we have a we have a basis for

this. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, isn't it, like, within Europe though?

Yeah. Oh, they come over.

They'll play they'll play games. They'll play exhibition games.

What was

the which which 1 of the women's league that started way before had a team in China?

That was the NWS. And yeah. The Kunlun Red Star.

Yeah. They went over there. They played a bunch of games, and then they came here and played games.

The pandemic could've put a stop to that pretty quick.

Right. Yeah. But, like, it's it's a thing. I'm not I'm not concerned about that part. The the part that is is, like, the interesting thing to me is, like, can they do it?

Can they because we we've seen leagues try these kinds of things and, like, NFL Europe, like Adam brought up, that was just too early. You know, they tried that through the nineties and it was just it failed because it was technology wasn't at that point, society wasn't at that point. So if the NHL was like, okay, we're gonna start a div 2 we're gonna start our own AHL version, except it'll be in Europe. Does it last more than 5 years, or does it fold at that point? Right.

Or are we at the point where that thing can thrive? Like, that's that's what I'd be interested to see because I think it's definitely something you can try

at this point. Yeah.

So holiday season is a is is really oftentimes a trip down memory lane. It's a return to feeling the way that you did when you were a kid, and the holidays rolled in. And that's all you could think about. Mhmm. And December was the longest month until December 25th, and that was the quickest day.

December used to be, like, 65 days.

Yes. It did. It did. Now, Storyworth is something you should check out. It makes a great gift.

And what's great about Storyworth is it sends your loved ones thought provoking questions, like, hey. What's the bravest thing you've ever done? How did you get used to school every day? What's your, what's the farthest you've ever traveled? Anything about your family member that maybe you just just wouldn't ask them.

Because if you ask them, you'd be like, hey. So what's the furthest you've ever traveled? And they'll go, why are you asking that? But sometimes you wanna know the answer to that because, especially with the older members of our family, we've only got so much time. And how many times have you sat around the dinner table going, I wish I could ask my grandfather that.

I wish I was more curious when I was younger.

Yes. Exactly. Families love StoryWorth. That's why it has 35,005 star reviews. After a year of fun, StoryWorth compiles all your loved ones' stories and photos, into a beautiful keepsake hardcover book.

A physical copy.

Part is that this isn't, like, a digital thing. StoryWorth is not like, hey. You you get it in an app. Like, they're like, no. We send you a book.

Yes. Like, it's really cool.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

So with story birth story worth, you're giving a thoughtful personal gift from the heart, preserving memories and stories for years to come. And if you go to story worth, s t o r y, worth, w o r t h, dot com slash s t p, you save $10 on your first purchase. That's storyworth.com/sdp to save $10 on your first purchase. The, okay. Now 1 thing I I do wanna mention is, the entire Atlantic division actually, most of the league

Are you done with the board of governors?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, the Amazon thing? Do you want me to bring up the Amazon thing?

No. I 1 thing that we've talked about for years on this podcast is the executive committee of the NHL. And Monday, the executive committee met on to talk ahead of the board of governors, and it consists now of 1 chairman. Do you guys know the chairman?

Jeremy Jacobs or his kid.

Jeremy Jacobs or his child. It is Jeremy Jacobs at this point right now, even though he's kinda relinquished power to his children. Yep. He's he's the No. He hasn't.

No. He hasn't.

No. He

hasn't. He's the chairman of the board, and then there's 9 teams who get representatives on the Exclusiver Board of Governors meeting in the executive committee. Do you

want us to name them?

Do you guys want to play a little game? Yes. Okay. If you get 3 incorrect guesses, you lose. So 3 strikes and you're out.

Okay. Danny Wertz

Danny Wertz for sure.

With the Blackhawks.

Wrong. Wrong.

Okay. To clarify, and this isn't a guess, the Blackhawks are not on there at all?

They are not.

Wow. That's new. Mhmm.

Yep. They used to be.

Mhmm.

I think the Leafs must be on it.

I think they are now.

That's correct. Yep.

They didn't they weren't up until

a couple years ago. 8 more.

Jeff Molson?

No. Correct. Oh. 0, man. I was scared.

7 more.

Not James Dolan. I don't think

I'm gonna say I'm I'm I'm definitely not James

Dolan.

No. Bill Foley feels like a guy.

I was

gonna say, yeah, Bill Foley with the Vegas Golden Knights.

No. They're too they're too young of a franchise. Oh, okay. So You know?

We gotta go old.

Yeah. They're too young. Who's tight with GBETs? Too tight with GBETs.

Oh, you think Ilitch? I don't know why I talked off Mike. Ilitch family? Yeah. Ilitch?

Hey. You guys have a secret thing.

I don't know what the involvement because Mike's not Mike passed. Right? So I don't know who the what the involvement of the rest of the family is now. You know, because sometimes and it and I I definitely don't think the pagoulas are. You have to have, like, teams that, like, that are, like, con like, when what was the family that controlled the flyers before, Oh.

Before Comcast did?

Oh, for god's sake. I know who You know

who I'm talking about. You know, that him and Jeremy Jacobs were, like, the 2, you know, the 2 old men who were, like, get off my lawn. Yes.

And

I can't remember.

And they have now since sold out of that team a little bit.

Yeah. It's

so it's not that family anymore. But Yeah.

You're thinking of the Snyder family.

Yeah. Snyder. Snyder. Yeah. Yes.

Man, I gotta think there's gotta be some West Coast on this. Like

There's gonna be I wanna see, like, there's, like, a weird team, like, the Blues.

There's Yeah? I don't know. Alright. Go ahead.

What what No. Okay. I wanna see What's your

guess? Okay. Do we wanna go Blues or or Red Wings?

Definitely not Red Wings. No? Mm-mm.

And that you guys listen to Adam on this 1. Yeah. Definitely think of a championship pedigree from last few years. So not Vegas, Colorado?

The light

The Walmart family? Jeff Vinick?

Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Vinick. Lightning. Alright.

You got it.

You got it. Jeff's not an owner anymore, though. He's just an operator who owns 5%.

Jeff Vinick's on the executive committee.

Okay.

Yeah. He's the rep

That's why they

wanted the lightning.

That's why they wanted

It's so interesting to see, like, Jeremy Jacobs is there even though he doesn't

make a joke. But You could try that from his cold dead hands. He'll never leave the executives. I'm surprised the Ward's family aren't. That's a shock.

Mhmm.

Oh, no. He's not in charge anymore. Or it's his child? Who are you talking

who's building an arena and, like, yelling at mayors?

Oh, the flames? Maloney? Like, the Murray Edwards?

Murray Edwards.

Nope. Hey.

The executive?

Here's okay. But here's what I've heard about Murray Edwards is he doesn't even live in North America anymore, and he's not that involved with the team. It's Don Maloney that's running the show.

He has controlling like, he gets to make decisions for the NHL. Like, that's That's nuts. Because he's that's not all he wants.

He's, like, not involved in

the same way that he used to be. He wants that power. He's on it.

They tried to, like, influence an entire election, like And they did. Kind of, yeah. Oh, yeah. They did. Yeah.

They did. Thinking about the mayoral

1, but

It's a good look inside of, like, who's buddies, you know?

I'm gonna guess the Blues.

Blues? Damn. Alright. So the list is chairman Jeremy Jacobs along with owners. This is from Pierre Le Brun, by the way, in The Athletic.

Calgary Flames, Murray Edwards, Winnipeg Jets, Mark Chipman. I wondered about that. Yeah. I think because he's so fucking rich. Andrew, being told

to STFU by Jeremy Jacobs, really? Oh, jeez.

Yeah. I don't think I don't think Mark Chipman gets told to shut the fuck up by anybody anymore. The the him and the Thompsons are so fucking rich. It's crazy. Like, I'm I'm not surprised the Jets are on there.

They should be. Yeah. That that ownership group is crazy.

Surprising amount of, Canadian representation. Mhmm.

So the Jets are there. Mark Chipman is their representative on the executive committee. The Minnesota Wild, and they send Craig Leopold

that makes sense.

The caps Lebron set it up.

The Capitals, Ted Lee owns us.

That makes sense. Yeah. He is yeah. He's involved

in everything. Yep. Jeff Molson of the Canadians.

That makes sense.

How about this 1? The Anaheim Ducks. No way. The Samuels? Samuels Henry Samuels

No way. On

the executive committee. Larry Tannenbaum for the Leafs.

For for not much longer. No. That's For not much longer. This might be his last.

The lightning, Jeff Vinick, and lastly, David Blitzer for the New Jersey devils. What?

There are some really, like, bottom half of the league financially teams on that list.

Yeah. But David

I'm pretty surprised. It's about the personalities. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

David Blitzer owns, like like, 10 or 11 teams. Yeah. He owns the devils, the 70 sixers, Crystal Palace. He owns, like, a bunch of, like he owns Real Salt Lake. He owns, like, a Portuguese soccer team.

He owns a La Liga soccer team. He owns a CPL team. He owns a golf team, professional golf team.

He's he's the first person in human history to own equity in a team in all 4 major sports leagues.

And yeah. The 1st guy to ever do it. Yeah. Commanders, Guardians, 76ers, Doubles. He's the chairman of Blackstone.

And the MLS. So tech it's 5. 5. Yeah. 1st guy to ever do 5, actually.

Yeah. He's somebody you want involved in these things. You know?

Here we'll have a look at yeah. So he's the CEO of black or chairman of Blackstone, and he runs Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, and that is 1 of that's what Fenway Sports and Entertainment is trying to be. It's Harris Blitzer. Like like, oh, we've got hey. We've got an EPL team and a a hockey team and, you know, a Baseball team.

A baseball team, a soccer team. And Harris Blitzer is, like, great. Which leagues? Damn. Like, they're they own it in everything.

It's crazy.

Holy shit.

And they're quiet. It but what I've what I've heard from internally from, like like, apparently, New Jersey Devils, when they have their ownership conferences, they're pretty intense. Like, those guys are

I believe it.

I wanna see results.

Yeah. Yeah. They are I think it's it's not so much about the when I see those names, I'm like, it's not about the franchise. It's about the dudes who own those teams Yeah. Want influence over the league.

You know, it makes sense that Jeremy is running the show as the chairman, and you get all those other 9 guys in there. It's it's it's I thought that's fun stuff.

Yeah. It is. It's cool to know that. Yeah. It's also interesting that it changes.

Now the the why the executive and committee is important for people that don't know is that back in the day, Gary the reason the the the Players Association won a couple of labor stoppages is because Gary had to get all 26 teams, I think, at the time Yeah. On board, 21 or 26 or whatever it was depending on each year. And Gary was like, this is hard because you're talking about billionaires. And I remember when Keith Olbermann was on Agent Provocateur, he described NHL and and franchise owners as if people that they think that they invented money. When in reality, if you ask a guy like Mark Cuban, he's like, I was lucky to be born in the right decade.

I happen to be interested in these things, and my business took off. And that's what happened. And I got lucky. And and Mark Cuban will tell you, like, you can't plan to be a billionaire. You just you happen to luck into it.

And, so, Gary realized with these, and they weren't billionaires at the time, but these extremely rich guys, they've got huge egos. They're hard to corral. What if I made the circle smaller and I only needed the executive committee's decision, and that was good enough for the rest of the league? So the executive committee exists solely to agree on something or at least agree enough that Gary gets 6 votes out of 10 so that the rest of the league has to follow suit. And if you wanna make decisions in the NHL and you're an owner, sorry if you're not on the executive committee.

You're out of luck. Yeah.

And it used to be a lot smaller,

and

now it's now it's 10 guys.

Yeah. Because it was 6, but I think they grow it based on the percentage of teams in the league. Am I am I right?

I guess so. Yeah. Like, it's

gotta be a third of the teams or something.

But you gotta imagine, like, it's it's like the popular kids in high school.

Oh, yeah.

You know, they came together, and they're gonna make a decision, then they're gonna go tell

everybody else. Yes. On Wednesdays, we wear pink.

Like, honestly. Oh, it's it's the fascinating stuff about, like, how this league

is actually run. Apparently, Amazon smashed their numbers on, that face off series where, I guess, the the owners were shown the so, you know, the 1 with Nylander and, you know, basically, the drive to survive of hockey.

Mhmm. No surprise.

And it's looking like a second season will come.

They did a really good job. We've begged for this for years. It's finally here, and it did well. Yeah. Your fans are not stupid.

They love it. Yes. They

love it.

So good for them. Happy for them. Alright.

I do wanna mention, the world is healing because the Bruins are losing. They lost 8 to 1 last night.

I was so bothered by the fact they were 1 point behind the Leafs. Yeah. So the Bruins real stoked that grew yesterday.

The Jets have 21 wins already this year. Surprisingly, 9 losses. But, Yeah. The Winnipeg Jets beat them 8 to 1, and Marchand said, our practices have been sloppy, and that's getting into the games. And that was what he was saying pre Montgomery firing.

So my question is going to be for this Bruins Management Group when you've got how many more years left of Elias Lynn Holmes' contract where he's got 3 goals and 13 points, What are we gonna do here to, like, fix the team? Because maybe the team's just not that good. Maybe they're maybe they're not being sharp in practice.

But been hot. Like, that game Yep. Was the opposite of what's been going on.

Yeah. That that last night was the outlier. Yeah. The Jets 7 and 3 in their last 10.

The Jets are well on their way down, and the Bruins are well on their way up.

I couldn't say well on their way down. Yeah.

They got their They lost, like, 5 of 7.

Yep. Yep. They did. That is is it 5 of 7?

I think so. Yeah. Heading into last night. Yeah.

It's hard to go down when you're so high up. You know? Like, they're going down.

Play 500 the rest of the year, you're fine. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. They The Cadillac's at a 920 7 now. It's just, like,

what a broad broad watch.

The Connor Hellabuck 920 Challenge is back alive by a Hellabucks jersey or

I hope that comes down

to the wire Me too. It's, like, last game, he has to make 50 saves to get back up to a 9:20, like, something like that. That was fun.

I hope that But,

yeah, it's still alive. I'm I'm looking better now. 7 points away or 8 points away.

Yeah. But, like, I I couldn't believe it every time I checked on that game. Mhmm. I saw a lot of people posting, Trent Frederick knocking out, I don't remember who it was, in a fight, and it just reminded me of Texas Rangers fans constantly posting about Rougie O'Dure, punching Jose Bautista in the face. It's, like, okay, but, like, we own you.

Yeah. Also Did you win? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

I think they won, like, that specific game, but, like, also get wrecked always. Mhmm.

They swept them that year in the playoffs.

They sure did.

Swept them.

Yeah. It's pretty cool. After beating them the year before. Mhmm. Sorry.

It's Toronto. We don't get to talk a lot of shit.

Yeah. Man, Man, that was

a good 2 year run we had.

That was pretty cool.

Yeah. And that got winning the world series a couple years later.

Yeah. But fuck them.

No. No.

They didn't beat the Jays, did they? Nope. Didn't think so, fuckers. So yeah. So that that's how

it's going. Steve's right. Like, his point that the Bruins, that's not who they are recently, so they should be fine.

You'd think.

But wouldn't it be great if they weren't?

Yes. It'd be,

like, way more fun. Like, I'm not I'm not saying, like, rooting for any particular player's downfall. I'm rooting for the whole team.

I don't

I don't no. Not downfall. I want them all to realize they don't like hockey that much and retire happily.

I like that. That'd be cool. I like that a lot.

Brad Marchand is gonna be awesome on team Canada Yes. Coronations.

Yeah. I bet that I hope he wins too. Like I hope he wins and goes. I've won everything there is to win.

I don't need to play anymore.

That's it.

I've done this.

Thanks for the dough.

That all Nova Scotia line is gonna be bonkers. I can't wait. Crazy. Yeah. So well, I think well, you know what?

We'll end it there, and we'll go to a press conference unless, Jesse, there is no time.

Is that Nope. We got plenty of time.

Let's do it. Press conference. The presser.

SDP.

The Steve Dangle press conference.

If you are not subscribed to SDP VIP

What's your problem?

You should be. Mhmm. On Apple, on Spotify, on YouTube, and any of your preferred listening platforms, you can subscribe to SDP VIP, which gets you an extra episode a week. And this week is special because I think there's only there's only 1 important thing in the world that, like, really needs our attention.

What is that, Jimmy?

Steve Dangle's favorite woman in the world, Hailey Welch.

Oh, how dare you. Oh,

yes. How dare you? Yes.

I I am actually, quite excited to talk to you.

Been championing Hawkgirl. If you don't know, that's the

great real name. Bought the wrong stock.

And he he's gotta eat some crow for being the biggest hawk to a fan in the universe.

To be honest, man, I didn't hate anything that was going on until this. Oh, yeah. And I totally hate this.

No. No. No. It's no. Because people were, like, I hate her on principle, and now it's, like, no.

That's that's a fair criticism.

Yeah. It's it's yeah. It's bad. It's bad.

Last night during the game, we ran, the Jacob Battaglia interview. Mhmm.

Cut

down a little bit on the 1 of the intermissions. And I'm I'm dying for you to go back and watch or listen to that our live show from the Caesar Company. Mhmm. Because that kid rocks. Yeah.

I was watching a little bit of it again. I'm like, oh, man. This guy's funny. Like, this is 2. 2nd yeah.

We've had 2 great Jacobs.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Jacob Oster from the, generals, Jake Battaglia from the Frontenac, and he's a 2nd round pick of the flames. He's awesome. Gosh. Hilarious.

Yeah. First question comes from Ryan Stahl on Twitter.

There's another Stahl?

And this is spelled differently. Gunnar Stahl. Anze Kopitar just played in his 14th hundredth game. Wow. He's on pace for 94 points, a career high.

In his 19th season, is he the most underrated player of this generation?

Does he take that spot from Sasha Barkoff who's held it for at least a decade?

Yeah. Like, Kopitar might actually be overrated.

Underrated. Underrated.

Underrated. Sorry? Wow. My bad. My bad.

My bad.

My bad. That's a big 1 though.

You're not

typing and talking.

Yeah. I know. I'm not good at it. Sorry. Barkov might actually sorry for fuck's sake.

We love you, man.

Kopitar. I don't. Kopitar might actually be underrated because Barkov has held the title for so long that he couldn't possibly be oh, yeah. The the captain of the reigning cup champions is underrated for sure. It's over.

Barkov is not underrated anymore. He's gotten his flowers. He's been nominated for his awards. He's won the Stanley Cup. Like, let's stop.

Mhmm. Kopitar, 1401 games now. 427 goals, 816 assists, 1243 points. And the fact that he's still on pace for 94 like, what was it? 2017, he was nominated for the hearts?

20 no. 18. He had 92 points. So he's on pace for a career high, and the previous career high got him nominated Yeah. For best player in the world.

And it it's not a narrative. Like, this tweet is the only discussion I've seen amongst non Kings fans.

It's not a narrative, like, in the slightest, like, no. The hell is he talking about?

He's having an incredible season, and there's just no noise about it.

No. Well, the Kings are good too and and Yep. Started not good, and now they're really good, and people aren't talking about it.

There are times where I'm like, eastern bias is overblown, and then I have a look at Anze Kopitar, and I go, yeah. No. That's yeah. No. Fair point.

Valid. Yep. Valid. He's he plays in the Atlantic or Metro his whole career. Like, we're talking 1st ballot, like, easily.

And now I just feel like he's almost like a hockey player you talk about to sound smart. No. Except he's just incredible. Yeah. Like, he's just flatly incredible.

You don't need to look hard. He's, I'm trying to think of, like, his comparables. Like, who, like, it's difficult because he retired so young, although I don't know if he's officially retired, but, like Mhmm. How much further apart or how far apart are Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Toews, really? Like, throughout their career, I don't think they were very far apart.

Nope. No. In terms of production, Selke votes, Kopitar had the 2 cups. Taves had 3. Kopitar probably didn't have the same supporting cast.

He's he also doesn't get the, the international shine. How many NHL players has Slovenia ever had? Like, what are the odds any any Slovenian player ever passes him? Ever? Ever?

Good.

Because it's growing in Slovenia.

Because of him. Yeah. Sure. Like, he's a he's a foundational player. He's he's, yeah, most underrated player of his generation.

Like, I'm tempted to not even throw 1 of the in front of that. The? The.

Who's more? Like, he's been Connor Dewar is pretty good.

He is. He's been so ignored that, like, you have to think of someone you don't usually think of. Mhmm. I'm gonna go with Anze Kopitaria.

Sasha Barkoff is the correct answer.

No. It's it's not. It's not. It's everyone knows how good he is.

If you ask an NHL player, they still have that answer from 10 years ago. They're wrong. Yeah. I promised this last episode, Steve, we talked about your personal dang its, and you couldn't think of any. Oh, no.

So I said, hey. Leave some dang its in the comments on YouTube, and we'll get back to some of it.

Oh, I can't wait. This will be fun.

So I got 4 here that I'll read.

Okay.

This was a comment from Cultureican 3045. 1 of my favorite, dang it, moments, for whatever reason, was 1 of the prospect pyramids where either at or near the very beginning, Steve sets the whiteboard up and excitedly exclaims, the prospect pyramid, only for 1 of the whiteboards to then immediately fall over and groan and make a jump cut to talking about the budget he's working with or something of that nature. The groan he makes upon it falling so quickly gets me every time.

I don't remember.

You don't remember that? No.

I believe you though. Those whiteboard videos were so stupid. Like, they were great. They were fun visually, but what a pain in the ass. What an enormous pain in the ass.

I did I've done a lot of things, like, eating a spoon or eating with a spoon around your head like that. I I don't know why I made things so difficult on myself.

Lone wolf Poetics said, eating the mustard last year.

Eat mustard cupcake. Yeah.

Yeah. That was your top dang it. I don't know

if that's a dang it. That was a great moment.

It was disgusting.

It it doesn't work, like, but it was perfect. That was horrible.

Horrible. Sjohn4299 said something for the LFRs. Dang it. When Steve threw his phone during the 9 2 Nashville loss in 2014, and it made a mark on his door.

That never that never came off. You damaged your house. Wow. Damaged the house. Like, I think we painted over.

Every day that you walked out of that room, you were reminded of the 9 2 lost to natural.

Reminded how good OtterBox phone cases are.

Yeah. And last 1, assume assassin. Right? How could we forget this 1? Steve's biggest dang it, MLH.

Oh. No. No. Or is it you you made

a whole video and uploaded it. So I would say it's probably your biggest day. I'm,

Yeah. How was that not number 1 on the list?

Oh, man. I hate that so much. Ned. I hope I hope, like, to everyone listening and watching, I hope you never feel that humiliated. I remember.

I hope

I remember getting the call from Steve on the

phone when

it happened.

And so he's like Steve's like, well and then he explained what happens, and I just started laughing. And and and Steve was like, what the fuck are you laughing? And I'm like, because it's not that big of a deal. Like, it isn't.

It it

and and and then I remember I was, like, I was getting ready. I was in the bathroom getting ready. I was probably, like, probably naked talking to you guys. And, I was getting ready to come in and stream a game, playoff game. And, people were like it was so the comments were so hostile.

You need to explain yourself to me. Like, what like and I was like, well, it's pretty easy. Steve had a source. He thought it was a good source. He'd had good things from that source before, and they burned him.

I literally just like, someone I've known for 10 years set me on fucking fire.

And then and then, and I said, you know, it happens. And everybody was like, oh. And I'm like, there was no Saudi money, guys. Don't worry.

Oh, yeah. You did say that. The thing.

Like, it was people were like we're like, how much money did he get paid? I'm like, where did this come from? What do you mean Steve got paid? Yeah. Like, there was some person somewhere started a thing.

Well, he must have been paid by the Saudi government to do this, and then it became this whole big thing where it was like, well, Steve clearly and that's why we call him Saudi Steve. Yeah.

It was because everybody jumped to this new league is gonna be the LIV Golf of hockey. Yes. Even though it was started by 2 North American crooks, and there was never any Saudi like, there was no involvement in the with the Middle East at all. It was just some sort of thing that everybody jumped on was, like, okay. So if this is gonna be LIV Golf of Hockey, then Steve must be being funded by it by the government.

Like, none of it made any sense.

Yeah. I But

it was it was Steve's reaction to it, I think, was fair because you realized what might be coming in terms of, like, the reaction from the public.

Yeah.

And for a weekend, it happened. And then on Monday, we got to the podcast again. We talked about it. We explained, like, yeah. He just got burned and then everything was fine.

I literally had to, go to a kid's birthday party, like, as soon as I got home. It, like, after making sure everything was deleted and everything and, like, I pulled over to write something and be, like,

I got burned. I'm so sorry.

And blah, blah, blah. And, like, literally just had to pretend nothing happened and go to the trampoline kid's birthday party. I'm bringing home a baby, Bumblebee. Well, my mother, like I

don't have a kid. I don't know that. Oh, fuck.

There's I just had to pretend for my tiny child that everything was fine and dead.

That's what that's what being a parent I know.

Intended. Also, Jesse, you don't have to sing to your kid as much as Steven s l do. It's just that she's a she's a kindergarten teacher. Yeah.

I don't know if you know all these lyrics too. I don't.

Okay. I don't I I do know.

I actually remember that 1 from being a kid, but I'll tell you, I don't sing to Everleigh all that much. But you guys are like I

sing to them every day.

When you put yeah. When you just put Leo to bed, it's, like, 5 different songs, a couple books.

I'm like, Emily Not anymore.

Read the book. Get to bed. Bye. No.

Now it's just books now.

Oh, is it?

And every now and then, he asked me to sing him a song. Shoot my baby forever, and then I do it. But Anyway, that Kyla

That helicopter outside on the on the helipad here at the STP headquarters still looks real good, man. You it looks like you shine that up before you,

also, for everybody out there, those guys who were trying to start this league, they They're fraud. They're still frauds. Yeah. And nothing ever happened to them, and they're still trying to fraud people. Yeah.

But most people in hockey now know to completely avoid them.

Every now and then, I'll get a message, like, hey, we're working on a story. And I'm like,

alright.

I'll I'll relive this again.

Sure.

That fucked. Hey. Tell us about it. Hey,

dumb fuck. No. You know what? Give us your dumb fuck story.

It it was a it was just a it was just a time and a place. It's it's and this is the thing. Listen. We're all gonna have days where we put our foot in our mouths, and if you can have a good sense of humor about it, like, that's all you can do. Nobody I do now.

Yeah. Nobody was hurt. Like, it you know, there were people that could have been defrauded, but it wasn't your fault that they were defrauded. It was the people who were committing the fraud.

Yeah. You were on the side of, like, you got tricked too.

And then you said, hey. I got tricked.

Oh, I went out of my way to to reach out to every a bunch of pro players reached out.

Yeah. What? There was an NHL player who was interested in me. Oh, yeah.

And I No. And yeah. Fuck. That was a bad 1. That was a bad 1.

We'll wrap it up there.

I I think I think, yeah, if we're making lists of dang it, that's got a It's a good 1. Got a list.

Is MLH real? Oh.

Do you want a quote from Andrew Burnett to end it? Sure.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I'm fired.

Not, was it 2 nights ago? I guess Monday night, Andrew Burnett told the Tennesseean, we could scratch every guy in our lineup, but, unfortunately, we need players going. At different times, scratching high profile players crosses your mind, but they have to earn it. You can't just do it to do it. It's a false thing to do where you try to create something.

Players see right through that. Is there going to come a time to scratch high profile players? There might.

Mhmm.

But saying that, everyone wants to be held accountable, but they don't like when they're held accountable. That's where it's tricky. And when you've got a whole team that's probably not playing up to their capabilities, to their expectations, it's easy to have an excuse for how come he's not getting it. My point to them is, how about you play better?

And then I went to Shelbyville, and I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.

What's going on in Nashville?

Is he who's he talking about? Like, all of them. All of

Samco, Marshall. Forsberg is actually having, like, a decent season from a Yeah. Just counting numbers standpoint. He's unreal, considering

no 1 on the team is freaking doing anything.

Mhmm.

I boy, I'm trying to think in recent memory of teams who have been more not screwed because they still have a ton of picks. If they chose to rebuild rebuild right now, they'd probably be fine. But has any team thought they were, like been further off from what their own projections of themselves were? Probably not since the 2018 sends who traded for, Matt Duchene. Yeah.

That would have been the very end of, 2017. Yeah. Alright.

Let me let me throw this at you just some stats. To get into the wild card spot in the West right now, you need to have at least 33 points. The Nashville Predators are 13 points shy of that already. Yeah.

And and You're cooked.

I think you're cooked.

This quote was coming off of Monday's loss to Calgary where it was their 8th straight straight loss. I've no. No. People have realized they're on the 8 game losing streak.

It's

their worst loss in 12 years.

And Yossi got injured and didn't play the last 2 periods.

Oh my god.

Like, I the level of screwed that Nashville is at this point is astronomical.

There's the heart trophy and then there's actual MVP, like your franchise is dead without this player. It might be Roman Yossi. Like, fold

Yeah.

Fold and move

without him. I don't know. I don't know what We gotta start they go for it.

We gotta start asking the question about Barry Trotz. Alrighty. You guys all wanna everyone wants to talk about Barry Trotz. I'd like to talk about Barry Trotz.

You know, you killed the man, but not the idea. Is he Mike Milbury? Oh, no. Coach who randomly became GM and started just being the Mad Hatter with every freaking move that he makes.

Man. Oh, man. I don't know. I don't know. That's extreme.

No. It is extreme.

Because Mike Milbury is 1 of the worst general managers that's ever been. Right? That that's bad.

Writing about him in the worst trades ever chapter was so fun.

You could have just done the whole chapter on what he did. Well, because Entire resume.

It's not just this trade happened and it was bad. No. It was, like, the logic of even thinking to do this was so profoundly stupid.

Yeah.

Like, oh, man. He's just a barrel of laughs.

Yeah. Alright. Alright. Oh, just to correct myself, I have my days mixed up.

It

was last night. Yeah. Not not Yeah.

I thought so. Yeah. No.

No. I have my days mixed up. It's gonna be recorded yesterday. And, last night, 8th straight loss. Last night, Romaniosi leaves.

The brunette quotes come Tuesday, like, during the day. Yeah.

Anyways, Nashville Predators, as of right now, are tied for the Blackhawks with the Blackhawks

for last of the NHL.

That's

crazy. A game more than the Blackhawks, which is why that's the tiebreaker.

The Blackhawks are rebuilding and have been so bad in that rebuild that they fired their coach. Yeah.

And the birds are

as bad. Yeah. I can't believe it. That's as bad as they are now. They've gotten goaltending.

Their captain's having a great year.

Negative 28 goal differential only beaten by the Pittsburgh Penguins with a negative 30.

No. But the pens are good.

No. They're good. Yeah. They lost again last night.

The Steve Dangle podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore dangle, at Adam w y l d e, and at Jesse Blake. Connection complete.