Transcript of Trade War | The Steve Dangle Podcast

The Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wild and Jesse Blake. Let's go. B. B. Stoville. Wednesday, February 12th. 10: 60 Hoover Park Drive. Boston Pizza Stoville, owned by our friend, former Oiler, former Montreal Canadian, and former relief assistant coach, Keith Acton. Very excited to get back out to Stoville. We had a blast out there last year during the playoffs, and This time, it's the start of the Four Nations Face-off. So Steve and Jessie and I are going to do a show beforehand. You can stick around and watch. And also, Molson Canadian is the official beer for hockey and a partner of the Toronto Maple Heaps and PWHL, and they're bringing you this event, and they want you to play Call the Shot, where you make score predictions for your chance to win $40,000 worth of prizing. And Steve, what else do you get when you order a Molson Canadian?

Bier. You put it in your mouth hole. Right.

Jesse, any thoughts?

My favorite Molson Canadian might be Molson export. Very good.

You like a Molson X?

Yeah, Molson. I forget what's the light blue one called? The one that's the light beer? A couple of %? Molson It's a light beer.

It is called Ultra.

Molson Ultra. Because I do like a light beer. Oh, yes. A hundred %. If I'm ranking them, it's Ultra, Export, and then regular, and they have a fourth one. I can't remember either.

I'm going to know all the Molson.

You could have them all.

Yeah, or just have more beers.

I'm on the Molson website right now, and they're just on the end of the section of our brews, and it's not letting me in. Oh, month. I put 1988 for month. That's my... All right, now, here we go. We got Molson Canadian, just the reg. Then we got Jessie's favorite, Molson X. Then we got Molson Dry. I love Molson I love a dry beer. Yes, Molson Ultra. And then there's the Cold Shots.

Cold Shots are number one.

Monster. Cold Shots, that's the classic. Yes.

Cold Shots on the golf course?

Bam.

They're the only thing that could make me not hate everything about my life. I was just about to say, how did you make me want to be on... Jesse, I want to be on the golf course watching you fucking wreck Steve and I. I want to be on the golf course watching you fucking wreck Steve and I and me hating my life because I can't golf.

When we have the cold shots at the golf course, we're definitely allowed to do that. First of all, you sneak them in. You get them in your bag ahead of time. You got to make sure they're cold. Then the key is to you take your tea to the crack open to the shot. So you get the tea, and then it feels more golf because you're using your tea to crack it open, and then you crack it, you the shotgun. It's a good time.

It's a good time. Dude's rock.

Golf is awesome.

I was going to be like, You're a silly goose. No, wait. Actually, hell, yeah, brother.

One time, my friend, Tom, got Adam to shotgun in the shower.

Oh, yeah. Big shotgun and crew amongst my friends. Absolutely.

You know what? That was your 30th birthday?

Yes. When you shot God in the shower.

I think that might have been the most fun I've had at a party in the last half decade. Jessie's friend, Jessie has these crazy friends. So Jessie Jesse's a very calm, cool... He's like a mountain, right? It snows, it rains, it's sunny. Jesse's still the same, right? Adam. That's how my mother describes people like Jesse.

The kids call it Aura. Aura. He's got Aura.

That sounds like something a mother would say.

Yeah, that's what my mom says. That's how she describes being a parent. You're snowed on, you're rained on. It's sunny sometimes. Oh my God. But you are a mountain and you stay the same. Jesse is like that. Tan, Jessie's friend, is an absolute He's one of those people that in normal situations, you see people doing something, you're like, I'd never do that. Tan asks you to do it, and you're like, I have to do this with this person.

He's the guy.

He's the fire. He's the spark.

I will jump off the roof.

A hundred %. Yeah. And every friend group has to have that. Without that spark, you can't. Tine is that guy. So yeah, it wasn't in Jesse's shower. It was in the gym showers because Jesse had a party room.

Yeah, and there was- And the condo building party room, the gym shower.

So we went to the gym showers and we were crushing beers.

But now, you guys got to go to the golf course this summer. Yeah.

You weren't having a shower.

Because I'm fun to golf with, right, Jesse? No, Adam hates golf so much.

Oh, my God.

It's actually... No, I had fun with Adam.

It was awesome. Steve, you made three puts, and I was shocked.

It was awesome because it was best ball. Yeah. I got mine so early, too. So right away- The rest of us would get it really close for you.

You would go first with the putting.

Right. But then I got mine really early and I'm like, I have already accomplished more than I thought I would today. So I'm flying high. I'm awesome. And Adam, it's just hole after hole after hole passes. And he still doesn't have one, and he's getting more and more and more pissed.

I was so mad that day. You probably can tell from if you've listened to this show long enough that I am patient, I think, with people, but I'm not really patient with myself. Golf is you have to be patient with yourself. You have to be locked in, calm. That's not my personality at all. No. Yeah. I play golf the way I played hockey, which is I'm going to slash and hook, and I'm going to swear at you. I'm going to be angry the whole time. I'm going to be angry the whole time. That's what it was.

They're different sports?

Yes, they are. They're very different. I don't have the mentality. Listen, I don't have the talent for either, but I do not have the mentality for golf.

Out hustling Hustle your way to golf.

That's the problem with it, right? Where's the grinders in golf? Where are the guys that are like, I'm not that good, but I'm going to give it 110% anyway. John Daly. John Daly was amazing.

Actually, wait, no. No.

He's the opposite of that. He was transcended with a cigarette. He was amazing. Yes.

Okay, we'll think about it. That's why I'm saying that was the one time you guys went golfing. We all went golfing as a crew. That was two years ago at the Get Real Charity Golf Tournament. Next time, you guys got to get a couple of shotguns in you by hole three, and you'll be calm and relaxed, and we don't care to be in.

I'm always calm when I go. Yeah.

Steve's a good... Steve's fun.

The difference between Adam and I is Adam has expectations, and I don't. Adam's like, I've been to the driving range, and I'm like, I haven't. I'm going to go.

It's frustrating because I did use to take lessons and I used to be okay. I'm terrible. Cool.

I went mini-put a bunch of times. Pickering playing fields. Let's go.

What's crazy is you're a better golfer. No, I'm crazy.

You're easily a better golfer.

No, I'm not. He has about even.

Man. Okay.

Well, that's just as bad, I think.

So listen, obviously, it was a crazy weekend trade-wise. Of course, the JT Miller Trade Breaks right after we released the episode on Friday because that's the tradition. But we are going to get to all the trades. We are going to get to the Leifs and Oilers. We're going to talk about Tate Thompson getting absolutely trucked. Ryan Hartman. Ryan Hartman as well with Tim Stutz. It's all going to be a part of the show.

It was a newsy few days.

It was. But We run a sports podcast. The booing of the Anthoms will need to be talked about. Here's what I'm going to say. Whatever your persuasion is politically, we understand our place in your universe is to provide an escape. If you want political commentary, literally every quarter of the internet has it, and also television and radio, too. For worse or for worse? For worse or for worse. For worse or for worse. And so we want to be the escape from that because at a certain point, it's overload. However, there are going to be some crossover things. And obviously, we know, and this is what I'm going to make this about, we know that the Anthem in Canada is going to be continually viewed. We know that until this situation is resolved. Canadians are pissed. And they might return the favor. They have every right to be. Yeah, return the favor. I don't think Canadians really care. I think we're voicing our displeasure, and people can tell you it's disrespectful. I think that's the point. It's supposed to be disrespectful. It's supposed to send a message.

It'll be cool if this moment is the turning point for us never to play the anthem again at sporting events. Because it's so irrelevant to the sport that's going on. Who cares?

Well, so remember that in the NFL, players didn't even come out for the Anthem up until a few years ago. Then in the NHL, the only reason that we have the Anthem before each sporting match is because of patriotism during World War II. Before that, they never did it. It's just become a thing that we've done that we've never questioned. I have to give Amazon Hockey, their hockey broadcast, a ton of credit because they don't run the Anthem because no one cares.

Tsn often, shouldn't say often, but they quite often don't run the Anthem.

Sportsnet, it's like, let's move heaven and earth to put the most boring shit on TV, and they sure deliver with the Anthem at the beginning of every Sportsnet game. I don't know why they still do it. I'd love to put it away, but I can tell you this. The A Four Nations matchup, USA Canada is going to be charged no matter where this goes politically. And again, we're not going to get into that. We're not equipped. You know where we stand on these things. It's pretty obvious.

But I call this a couple of weeks ago. I'm like, You know this is going to happen, right? You're like, No.

I thought it. I thought it. It's so stupid that I'm like, There's no way.

It's going to happen. It's happening even more than I thought it was going to happen. And now that tournament is in less than two weeks.

It's almost like Steve also said that the cap might not hit 97.

Well, hey-I'm so good. Alan Walsh. I'm so good. Alan Walsh and I released a podcast yesterday talking about how it probably still will.

Oh, yeah.

Jesse, you weren't there. You recorded the whole thing.

You know what? I don't know.

I'm going to send Alan this clip and say that you're a doubter pants.

But Steve's been right more often.

Tell Alan, get good. No, please don't tell him that. I like it.

Get good, Alan. By the way, the Canada USA game will happen in Montreal, Saturday, February 15th. Steve will be doing that live stream.

Okay, let me ask you this. How does that work? Because typically, internationally, it's only the anthem at the end of the game for the winner.

But this is not an international tournament. There's no IIIF involvement. So they will sing Sweden and Finland's national anthems, I would assume, beforehand. I don't Well, they should.

No, I assume they'll just run it like the NHL because it's the NHL tournament, right?

You have an amazing opportunity to just play hockey.

Just show the. I think we'd all like that where they don't play the anthems ever. Yeah, that's not how.

The Anthem thing is literally useless. It's just pointless. But whatever. People want to do it, whatever. Canada, USA, though, no disrespect to Austin Matthews. We love our guy. But But I am so ready. That Canadian team better get up for that game. That better be the best game any of those guys have ever played in their entire lives. Oh, am I putting pressure on you? Well, you're on Team Canada and you make millions of dollars. I'm sorry. That's what the money and the recognition is for.

If you can't get out of bed for Canada USA in not this climate, maybe take up another profession.

Knowing hockey players, I would assume most of them don't care.

Yeah.

Well, I think you're exactly- The idea that tariffs are going to get Mitch Marner extra motivated for a Canada USA Four Nations game, I think is a mutual.

I think that that could be possible. But I would say that if you're an athlete, two things are true. One, you're going to use anything to give yourself an edge, to pump yourself up. Tom braided wins a Super Bowl. Everybody predicted Tom braided would win, and he's like, Nobody said we could do this. You're going to get that. Number two-And I hate strawberries also. Here's This is what I know about Montreal. They're loud and they really don't like being messed with. Even if the players are like, Oh, I'm neutral politically and I could care less, fine. But I could tell you that Bell Center crowd is going to be ballistic.

That's different. The crowd motivating the players, I think, is a reality. I think the Bell Center crowd, because Montreal is the best crowd in the entire National Hockey League, I think them being so loud can boost the players. You know what Quebec loves- In terms of them in their heads being like, you know what? Let's stick it to the politics side of things. No hockey players thinking like that.

You know what Quebec loves being told what to do and what not to do. They're going to go absolutely- Montreal is going to be awesome. Insane. As for the players, I would love to know how many times in 2024 any of those guys were in a grocery store combined. I don't think they give a flying shit about anything that's going on, Well, they're also paid in American dollars, so it doesn't matter. Yeah. Oh, no. Especially if you're on a Canadian team. Oh, no.

Oh, no.

That really sucks.

But it's a rivalry. Internationally, it's a rivalry and always has been. It's a big game, and it just got bigger.

Look at this. Crosby, golden goal. Crosby's never played for a Canadian team. Who was that against? That was against USA in Vancouver, right? Sydney Crosby was a A popular player before that. Since that moment, even though he won the Stanley Cup and he was Sid the kid, and he played in Romusky and we get all that, that was the moment where Sydney Crosby became a national hero.

Well, and he had just won a Stanley Cup.

Yes.

Nobody's talking about that, though, at that point. Four and a half years into his career, and he scores a golden goal. I'm like, I think he's in the Hall of Fame. He's got an MVP already. This is 2010, early 2010. He He had an MVP, a scoring title, a Stanley Cup, two appearances in the Cup final, and an Olympic gold medal, as well as a World Junior gold medal. That's one of the most accomplished careers you could possibly ask for. And he had it in... It took him less than half a decade. Yeah.

I think the NHL did Canada a huge favor by not having this in Toronto because...

How many times are you going to go to that?

Well, you did It was an all-star game there, and so you're doing this, you're giving this to Montreal. But now I'm so grateful, again, that they did not go to Toronto for this because, again, that Bell Center crowd, monster. And I think that is going to be throughout the entire tournament a factor for this country. Now, the finals are going to be played in Boston. So if it's Canada, USA in the finals, which I think if you're American or you're Canadian, you're hoping for that, that will be electric, too. Oh, That will be can't miss unbelievable television.

Yeah. No, Boston's got a notoriously quiet crowd.

We should dump tea in their harbor. Yeah. Take it. Suck it, Boston.

Yeah. Americans, known as real tea drinkers. No, as a- You know what? Let's make them pay extra for their stamps, too.

As a Commonwealth country, I didn't care for when they did that. I thought it was rude. I thought it was rude. They shouldn't have done Pay your tax, all right?

Yeah, come on. It is crazy. I'm going to do the history thing for two seconds. Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

They went. You know what our income tax is? It's crazy. You know what American income tax in comparison is? It's also crazy. They went to war over a 2% tax.

With Britain?

Yes. You know what? They went to war over 2%.

Good. It's crazy. Good. F your tea.

You take this tea and you stuff it.

You stuff it. Let's caffeine all the fish.

What's something good we can dump in the hobba?

In the hobba?

Like, Boston? Something really Canadian.

Yeah, but you don't want to dump Canadian.

No, you want to dump American.

What American thing do we dump in there?

Oh, that's a good question.

Chowder.

No. Chowder's good. Don't eat the chowder.

No, yeah. Put it back where it came from.

Put it back.

Put it back where it came from.

It belongs in the water. It's like Free Willy. Yeah.

Hey, put it back. You put it back where it came from. Go home, little man. Go home. Just a bunch of American jerseys. I don't know. I like the chowder idea.

You know what? Yeah, there you go. Fine. Chowder.

Chowder it is. Clam chowder in the Harbor.

If you're going down to Boston for the Four Nations tournament and you're Canadian, it is your duty to put chowder in the Harbor and put it on video #chowderintheharbour.

I want a picture of a bowl of clam chowder being poured into the Boston Harbor.

That's right. #putitback. Put it back where it came from.

All right. Hey, let's do the Bet MGM big story. Then we're going to talk about all the trades. But Bet MGM big story is all Super Bowl. Okay, so Jesse has got our... It's a Super Bowl props competition between Steve and I. Yes. All right. Now, I know a little more about football than Steve does because I grew up in a football household.

No, I know all these players.

Steve has been catching up, which I appreciate because a couple of years ago, we couldn't even get you to name all the teams. Now you're starting to know who the players are. You're in football pool, so this is good.

I know about a quarter of these guys. All right.

Now, Jessie, what are we doing here?

You take it away. I've gone to betmgm. Com/dangle, and I've collected some of their Super Bowl prop specials that they have for this weekend, along with some of the more traditional bets, like MVP, and who's going to win, and Gatorade, and all that fun stuff. I've outlined it on two sheets for you guys, and I want you to go through them, circle who you think is going to win, and then we'll come back next Monday and see who is the actual champion of the SDP Super Bowl prop competition.

Okay. All right. So first prop, can we talk about what the props are?

You have them? Go right ahead.

First prop, Super Bowl MVP. Okay. And I'm not going to read every odd out, but the top three names on there in terms of lowest odds, because they're most likely to happen, Mahomes, Barkley, and Hertz. So Mahomes, Chiefs, Barkley, eagles, having a crazier, Hertz, quarterback, Pick. And then Travis Kelsey is the next one, is Xavier worthy after that.

That's a donation.

What? You think it's Mahomes?

He's not winning Super Bowl MVP. Travis Kelsey?

Travis Kelsey. Yeah. Okay, so who are you picking?

It's not sexy odds, but he's so freaking good. I'm going to go Saquon Barkley.

I'm going Mahomes because I am cheering for history. I want to pick Pete.

You picked the one guy. That's right. The one guy more favorite.

Next up.

Okay. The next one is the Half-Time, which will be done with Kendrick Lamar. I believe Siza is joining him as well for a couple of songs. Obviously, the Drake takedown that won a Grammy last night, Not Like Us, is one of the favorites to start. But Humble is the top song, meaning it's got the lowest dots.

This prop is for which song will start the performance, right?

Right. And King Kunta, which I know is Steve's favorite-It's a really good song. Favorite Pedro Lamar song all time. No, it's not.

They all are.

They all are. They all are. Which one are you doing?

Okay, so I have a theory that he's going to do Not Like Us, but he's going to remix it to sound scary and ominous. You think that's going to be the opening song?

Yes.

Well, it's tough because you don't want to... I feel like it's too hype to start with that, but I'm going to go- That's what you're putting your money on, your $2, Steve. I'm going to go with Not Like Us. It's that or Euphoria. Euphoria is way better Adam. I'm going to go not like Adam.

I want to go Humble because of that girl singing in the car. Remember that video?

That's a niche video.

It's a niche video, but there's a girl singing Humble in the car, and it's so bad. But I I actually think he's going to come out chill. I think he's going to come out and then build and then build and then build, and then it's going to be not like us and then all right to end.

Well, that would be euphoria.

Well, I think it's going to be-That's how it started the pop-up. I think it's going to be Don't Kill My So I'm going to pick that one because I think he's going to throw back to the songs that we started when Good Kid Mad City came out.

Those were the songs. He's got to start with the voice. You got long odds there. It's nine to one for that to happen. That's a good pick.

Color of the Gatorade Bath. Steve. What color are you picking?

Golefs go blue. What are the odds on that one?

That is 7. 5.

Okay.

That's the best one so far. I'm going to go because I think the Chiefs are going to win. I'm going to go red-pink because they're going to want their own color, right?

I think that's a smart way to angle your Gatorade bets. If it's the chiefs, you probably want to go red.

Right. Okay. Now, that's seven and a half to one. Length of the National at them over 125. 5 seconds or under. Under has the better odds, but that's because most of the time... Sorry. Over has the worst odds, under has the better odds. So which one are you going with? Who's singing it? That's a good question. That matters. Who is singing the National Guard?

That matters. We need an answer to that question.

John Batiste.

He's efficient as a singer, I think.

Oh, boy.

I'm going under.

I'm going over.

Okay. Wow. All right.

I'm going to give... So the coin toss winner, chiefs or Eagles, the odds are the same because it's a coin toss. I'm going to go eagles. It'd be crazy if it wasn't. I'm going to go...

Heads is the odds on favorite to win. That would be insane.

I'm going to go Chiefs because they get everything.

Okay. You want heads or tails? Again, odds are even. Tails. Okay, I'm going heads.

Okay, so you picked chiefs. Adam, who did you pick to win the coin toss?

I say eagles are going to win the coin toss, and it's going to be a heads.

Okay, and then Steve said Chiefs and tails? Yeah. Okay. All right. Last. Oh, no, we got three more.

Who will be You mentioned in the MVP speech, God, teammates, family, team, organization, fans, coach.

Mentioned first. First.

I'm going to go team organization because my MVP pick was Saquon Barkley, and I know he felt very slighted this off.

I know your favorite thing about the Super Bowl is that they hand it to the owner, right? Oh, it's my favorite. Favorite thing. I'm going to go fans. I'm going to go fans. I know that's not traditional, but 70 to 1 odds. If the Chiefs win at this point, right? We're talking about the fan support, how crazy it is. And a lot of Chiefs fans are going to New Orleans. So that's what I'm thinking.

I'm going to say 17 to 1.

17 to 1.

God is like a good favorite there.

Well, If Harrison Butker is given the speech, then I'd go God. But now, who wins the game? Chiefs at a 1. 8, Eagles at a 2. 05. Pretty even odds. Stevie?

Why stop now? Eagles? Is my pick.

Okay.

Adam's going Chiefs.

I'm going Chiefs. You guys already know that. Will Travis Kelsey propose to Taylor Swift? A yes is a nine. A no is a 1.

05. Well, because they're losing, I'm saying no.

Adam?

I think that America can get over a lot of cringe. I don't know if you've ever seen these TikToks where it's like, wow, American person wins the lottery versus British person wins the lottery. An American person is like, wow, all my dreams could come true. It's like, British people's like, oh, how about that? Oh, look at that. You're still a loser, though. You still suck. I think that America can't handle the cheese that would be Travis, Kelsi as much as America can handle its cheese.

She faces a lot of criticism that I think is unwarranted. But the one thing where I'm like, Yeah, you got a point. Stop acting surprised.

Well, she doesn't do that anymore.

She did it yesterday. What are you talking about? No way.

Yes, she does. I I didn't watch the Grammys, so I don't know.

She did it yesterday. I'm like, No, you don't have this childlike wonder anymore. You're in your mid-30s and you're a billionaire.

I am going with no because I believe Taylor Swift is of the ilk of, Don't propose to me on my birthday, Christmas, New Year's, major event. It's got to be about the proposal, not about the Super Bowl.

Yeah, do it at a friend's wedding like a normal person. No, I'm kidding. Don't do that.

We will check in with the BetMGM big story next week. Jesse is going to grade us on our picks.

I'm just going to count them up and see who is right, but let us know in the comments on the YouTube channel who you think is going to win next week.

Betmgm. Com/dangle for all of the futures odds for this and every hockey game in Four Nations. Betmgm IMGM. Com/dangle. So as is tradition, and this is dating all the way back to Thomas Vana getting traded from the Buffalo Sabers to the Islanders.

I think it was the New York Islanders.

Back in our first season on the air, JT Miller traded hours after we uploaded our show on Friday.

Didn't I call that? Didn't I say that was going to happen?

You might have. I don't know. Yeah. Now, the Knucks were on the road. Jt Miller made it to the arena, walked in with his coffee, and they held him out of the lineup. And he obviously was traded during the game. The Knucks announced that Miller traded to the Rangers along with former first-round pick Eric Brandstrom and defensive prospect Jackson-Doring In exchange, New York sent Philip Hiedel, defenseman, and fifth-round pick, Victor Mancini, who's an interesting story, and a conditional first pick, which is top 13 protected. Assuming the Rangers don't finish in the top 13 in terms of draft order this year. I think they're making the playoffs. But assuming they don't... Sorry. If they finish in the top 13, they get the pick. It slides to 2026. Apologies for the confusion.

Which there's no guarantee the Rangers are better next season.

Well, there isn't. But let's talk about right now. Yes. And let's talk about it first from... We've talked about this from a Knux perspective, ad nauseam. We know, we know, we know. I'm exhausted. Let's talk about the resurgent Rangers. Yes, I know they lost to Boston this weekend, but they beat the Golden Nights last night. Sure. Jt Miller, by the way, on a point streak that is over 2,500 days long with the New York Rangers.

That's such a crazy easy stat.

Because his last game as a ranger, he had a point. His first game against Boston, he had a goal. And then last night, he had an assist.

He had not been a ranger for over 500 games. Crazy. He played over... He basically had an NHL career between his ranger stints.

Let's talk about the rangers. Let's talk about the fact that... It's funny. It's a great trade for now for the rangers. It's great. You can't deny that when JT Miller is locked in, he is an absolute animal.

Scored 100 points last year.

But when he's not, he's very not. We saw both sides of that in Vancouver. I think I don't know what... It's been so long since he was a ranger that I have no idea how he was viewed when he was 24, 25 when he was traded to Tampa. But this is a guy who, along with Mika Zbinajad, and Vinnie Trochek is signed. Well, Trochek signed at 29. He's 31. Jt Miller is 31. He signed at 2030. Zbignad is 31. He signed to 2030.

That is a win-now age group You have to. You're not building for the future with that, right?

Right. So what do you think about this deal? What do you think he adds, guys? What do you think... Do you think the Rangers who have looked, they've shown signs of life in the last four weeks. Do you think that this is the thing, JT Miller and these guys, Vinnie Trochek is pumped. It was one of his best friends. Do you think that they can ride this into a postseason?

It's tricky because they have their seasons alive again, and then they go and lose three straight, which is a real tough one. But it's funny. There are things on the line this season because of that first-round pick and its protection. You don't want to kick that can down the road. But this JT Miller deal is big for them for the future. At $8 million, even if he's an inconsistent player, you could probably survive because he's not making what Panarin and Zbenadjad are making. And then with the cap going up and up and up and up, this is going to be like a seven, $6 million player, which if he's not playing on your top of the line, you'll survive. You'll be okay. He can play center for you. Great. If he stops being able to do that, he can play wing. Great. Can kill some penalties for you. Great. Be a factor on your power Superplay? Great. He brings a passion and a fury. He plays furious hockey. If you're worried that your Rangers's team is a little too sleepy, don't worry. You got one of the most of intense players in the National Hockey League when he's on.

I did get a kick out of Vancouver Canucks fans, looking at his first game with the Rangers and going two goals and minus one. Perfection. That is a JT Miller-ass game.

Jesse, you have watched the Rangers with real interest. For you, they are a team for the last, I think, three, four years that you've been like, one What are the teams outside of Toronto that you really pay attention to. Yeah. What do you think about this for them?

There's a lot of conversation about the age of their forward group, and I think it dismisses the fact that the defense corps is so young. You point to like, okay, they got all these forwards and they're all 30 plus. But then you go to their defense and none of them are over the age of 30. None of them are over the age of 28. Actually, Borgen is actually their oldest defense that's playing regular. That's so And that's a good thing. It balances out the overall makeup of the roster because you can't just have all young guys and then you're Buffalo. You can't just have all old guys and then you're Pittsburgh. So they've created a good balance here. And in terms of looking beyond this season, I don't think you can with this team because their expectations this year are that we are going to be in the hunt for the Stanley Cup. You send out Capo a little earlier, you send out Hiedel now, and you're sending out young and get a little older, but the goal is to just improve the roster incrementally throughout the season to get better, to try and make a deeper run in the playoffs.

I think that's what they're doing here. I don't think anybody can argue that JT Miller is not an upgrade over Heedle. I think we've played it right now. They've upgraded in that position, and that's all you can ask for at the end of the day in a trade for a team that's trying to win now. They don't need futures. Who cares what happens in the future with this team?

Yeah, Panarin is 33. He got a couple more years left. They're so good.

The windows right now. So if they made this incremental upgrade over, it's not even incremental. It's a big upgrade over. Heedle to Miller. I think that's a win for the New York Rangers.

I don't think you cry too much about Mancini. Not Not because he's not going to be incredible, because, man, everyone I've spoken to since that trade is like, holy shit, wait a minute, you get a load of this kid. He's going to be... I would advise caution because there was a time where the Leifs acquired Deon Finna from the Calgary Flames. And if you remember, people were like, one day this is going to be remembered as the Keith Olle trade. That was the thing people said.

Yeah.

And what was he? Giant stay at home defenseman who was young and wait till you get a load of this kid, and he didn't turn into much, right? He was okay for a hot minute, but he didn't turn into much. Even if Mancini hits, like Vancouver knocks it out of the park, right-handed defenseman, are the Rangers getting rid of Adam Fox? No. Okay. Are they getting rid of Breed Schneider?

We don't know yet. Probably not.

Probably not if they're smart. You know what I mean?

He's not next offseason, but the offseason after he needs a contract, but he's an RFA, so no. He's an RFA.

So you have Fox, you have Schneider, and you can sign some Borgen, third pair of journeymen to fill that slot. I don't think any Rangers fan should have a problem with that, but if you're the Knux, it's a good thing.

No, they just gave Borgren, the extension. Oh, yeah, Borgen. Well, there you go. He's done 4. 1 for four years after this. They have three right shot defensemen. They didn't need Mancini. Isn't that not what fifth-round draft picks are for? You nailed You nailed it. You nailed the pick out of the park, and either you use him in your lineup when you need him, and they don't need him, so you trade him for stuff that you need right now. It's found value. Yeah, it's free stuff. I think they got great asset management there because Clearly, Vancouver values him a lot higher than they do, and the New York Rangers don't need him currently.

The Rangers were a team on the brink, guys. A month and a half ago, it was, what the hell is Chris Drury doing? It starts with Barclays Guchro, and then the Jake Truba drama this summer, which played obviously into this fall when they threatened to waive him, and putting Chris Kreider's name on that trade memo, all of this stuff. Now, it may not erase that, but now you've got Will Borgen in the door. You've got JT Miller in the door. I don't know if Brandstrom offers anything other than he's an AHL player.

It just seems like he may not-Yeah, they set him down immediately.

Yeah. That's a shame. All of a sudden, this team has retooled within the last six months. And yeah, maybe that wasn't popular in the dressing room. But if they make the playoffs this year, I think the Chris Drury experiment here, as ugly and ham-handed as it has been, people are going to say... I mean, the Rangers have to say, That's a victory.

Well, think of it from a human perspective. Okay, so we screwed Barkley Goodrow, and no one's coming back. Okay, how am I supposed to feel about that if I'm in the room. All right, so we screwed Jacob Truba, and we're getting Eurovacanine in back. How am I supposed to feel about that if I'm a Ranger? We got JT Miller? That's exciting. That's a guy who I don't need to worry about. I no longer need to worry about, am I the next one to get pitched out the door? Gm's adding again. Hooray, right? They moved heaven and earth to get rid of Goudro and a Trooba's Cap hit. Now they're at it, right? So I think there's got to be an element that was stressing them out throughout the fall of, I might be We're not. And now you can at least be like, okay, it seems like we weathered that storm. We're here at least for the rest of this season. Let's go win some games.

Right.

I think that's how you got to feel.

And for the Vancouver connects perspective. Let's leave Petterson out of it for a second. Let's talk about Heedle. Which one? Let's talk about... Yeah, they've got three of them now. Three Pettersons. Let's leave them all out, all three of them. That's so ridiculous. Let's talk about Heedle. Let's talk about Mancini, and then we'll talk about the pick and parlay that into the Pittsburgh Penguins trade. So Heedle, lots of potential. A lot of people were hot on this guy from the moment he was drafted, and there has been concussion issues, and there has been injury problems.

Played 16 games last year. 16. That's it. It's not great. And he didn't score. This year, he's got 11 goals. The rebuild with him is going to take longer than this season. For the Knux, that's got to be a future play. He scored. That was pretty cool. I like that. He's got passion. But I don't think you're going to see the best of Philip Heedle this season. You hope to see that next.

Jesse, what do you think about the Philip Heedle thing for the Knux? What does it add? What do you think they're thinking long term?

You're banking on that he develops into something more that he's shown so far in his NHL career. There's a lot of growth that has to come for you to look at this trade at the end of the day and be like, Yeah, we're happy and satisfied. Because I think on the surface, you lose the trade. You parlay it into another trade, and we'll get into that. But I never like the team that's moving away from the better player. They send out the better player, and they get something that's magic beans right now in Hiedel because he's not at the potential that you'd hope, and it's always a guess that he's going to reach there. The concussion thing, I don't think it can be underplayed how serious that is and how it can affect his career. We'll see if he can develop into a high-end score.

What's interesting is, so Philip Heedle, his career high in points is 45, and that's two years ago in 2022, '23. I thought you guys would find it interesting that his career ice time average is about 14 minutes a game because that's how deep the Rangers have been. Holy shit. His first game with the Knucks, 20 minutes. That's hilarious. He's going to get plenty of opportunity to figure it out over the next, I would say not just this season, but the next 18 months. As Steve said, I think he's right. You got to have a good look at this guy long term. If he's going to play center for you, which I He's going to have to learn to win some face offs. He's not a good face off winner, although he won 75% on this weekend with the Vancouver Knux. But his career face off average is 41%.

Even though he scored also a minus one, I So- Yes. Some fans are going to be salty if I don't point that out.

You need to have... Listen, you may not be, and you may not turn into the high flying score that New York wanted you to be when they drafted you first overall, whatever it was. But if you want to stay in the league and you want to get 40 to 60 points, that's a pretty good living you can make, especially with the salary cap potentially going to $114 million in a couple of seasons. You play center? You play center. You're making five, six million bucks a year on that. Oh, at least. Easy. At least. If this player can learn to win face offs, which is literally a learned skill. That is, winning face offs, there is an art to it, but it's not like speed or fast Twitch muscle fibers or hand eye coordination nation that can be trained, but some of it's gift. Winning a face-off is like defense. It's just practice. I know it sounds like a stupid thing to bring up, but honestly- That's important. If this guy is a career 55% face-off man, you're going, Well, at least you can throw him out there on the power play. At least you can throw out there in defensive situations.

Hey, I'll put him out on the penalty kill because he's going to win a face-off. That's what you need. I want to see him do that. Now, Victor Mancini is an interesting one.

I wanted to point out one more thing with Hiedel. I don't know if I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but with the Kuzmenko deal between Calgary and Philly, we saw basically a trade that was partially designed to keep MatVej Mitchkov in his happy place.

And also offload Kuznetzow. That, too. Kuzmenko's deal. Yeah.

The Knucks didn't have another Czech player other than Philip Hronik. So he's been on an island a little bit there, and I know he obviously speaks English, but it feels good to be able to speak your mother tongue with someone. And now maybe he gets to do that.

It's not a big country either. If they came up through the Czech National program, they would know each other.

Yeah. So I'm just pointing it out. That's probably something that helps Hronik feel a little better.

Victor Mancini, fifth round pick, has turned into a guy that looks like he could play hockey in the National Hockey League regularly. But as you said, Jesse, he He's a guy that also was behind a very stacked right side for the New York Rangers.

Yeah, and the New York Rangers, as we said, didn't have use for him. I think the Vancouver Connect do. That's what they need is depth on D because you saw last night without Quinn Hughes, how shaky they really are. He's truly the driver of the whole team, and they need to find ways to get better and more defensemen into their system. So it's not just Quinn Hughes, He's doing everything.

Well, imagine you're able to play Mancini up with Quinn Hughes in a year or two on the same pair. Hironic gets to play with whoever else on the second pair.

Marcus Petterson.

Oh, there you go. Well, that was easy. And All of a sudden, that's a pretty handsome top four. Right.

I'm interested to see if they use him right away because he didn't play last night, obviously, if they let him stay in the minors for a little bit or if they just throw him right in the NHL.

Good question. He's 22 years old, shoots right. The first round pick that the Rangers protected this season that could slide to next year was then parlayed into a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Coming back was Marcus Patterson and with O'Connor, leaving with the first round pick, Vinnie Dajarna and Danton-Heinen. And I want to start there because Dajarna and Danton-Heinen were signings from this offseason that did not work out. Now, I could have told you that Dajarna was not what the the Knux needed. He's just another Tyler Myers.

That really seemed like a setup.

Yeah. I think it came down to the fact that the Knux were not able to retain Zdoroff, right? So they had to try to get someone else who's like a tree.

It's not even anything against DeHarné as a player. I think he's an NHL player, but you just knew someone was going to overpay him in the summer, and the Knucks were first in line.

And yet it's only $2 million, but still.

Yeah, but he's not a multimillion dollar player. Right.

Danton Heinen, they were hoping, would be a part of the solution on the second line, I think. The second, third line. I thought the third lines looked good, like Garland and that thing. They've driven that. Petterson last year, they had a good first line. They had a good third line, but Petterson was on his own. So they bring in De Brusque, they bring in Danton-Heinen, they're trying to find more depth on the wings, and it hasn't worked. And so he goes to Pittsburgh as well. Coming back are two very useful pieces for the Vancouver Knux. Marcus Petterson, steady, left-shot defenseman. Vancouver is good on right shots. They're fine.

Yeah, they're good.

A left shot guy- That isn't Quinn Hughes. Yes. Yeah. And a left shot guy that is dependable. The thing about Marcus Petterson's game that I think is the best is if you go through an NHL game, you're watching the Penguins play, and you don't notice Marcus Petterson, it's because he's doing his job.

This is a part of the conversation. For the captain of your team to take warmup and decide he can't go, Quinn Hughes has got to be in so much pain, dude. Yeah. He's got to be so uncomfortable right now. So getting a guy like Petterson to help take some of the load off the team while Quinn maybe rests and gets a little better. And then when Quinn returns to the lineup, he can eat some of those minutes. That's hugely beneficial. And he's a very lanky guy. He's under 180 pounds, but he's 6'5. But he's rangey. It's good to have a rangey guy and seems really positive as well.

Drew O'Connor is another guy that the Penguins were going to sell anyway.

Well, if Danton Heinen is playing for nearly three million and not really doing anything in your bottom six, you might as well get a cheaper guy for your bottom six. Right.

And what do you think about Drew O'Connor?

If he's anything like his... His brother is Logan O'Connor, right?

I believe so.

Yeah. So I'm more familiar with Logan because of the Stanley Cup final a few years ago. Fast. I mean, it's a shame for the Penguins because Drew O'Connor really had the potential to be the next Mark Donk or Buzz Libet, because Isn't that the most Mark Donk or Buzz Flibbit name ever? The penguins call up someone named Drew O'Connor. I'm like, that guy's about to go off. That guy is about to go off. But maybe the days of Mark Donk and Buzz Flibbit have passed us by.

It's possible. I think they have.

Is Tampa the new Mark Donk, Buzz, Flibbit?

It might be.

It might be. They'll throw some random in the lineup. I'm like, okay, great. Can't wait till he scores 50.

Yeah. It's annoying. Entirely possible.

It's annoying.

Jesse, from the penguins' perspective, Okay. You got Kyle Dubas making a move, moving out some guys, getting a first-round pickback. Kyle doesn't even seem to care whether it's this year's or next year's. He doesn't have a choice. That's all up to the Rangers. Pretty good deal for them, though. They get a couple of guys under contract that they probably can flip at the deadline.

Yeah. No. If they want to make more moves with these guys, like Kyle Dubas has let them give himself a lot of room to collect more assets, which I think is the smart thing to be doing here because they don't want to tear it completely down. They're obviously not buyers, but he's in this middle range where he can collect assets for NHL players and then keep flipping them and keep improving the roster year over year. So it's not a complete teardown in Pittsburgh. I like the deal for Calduvis. He's good at making trades.

He is.

Do you get a first-round pick for Marcus Petterson?

No. The combination, I think, is what led to the first-round pick, which is the smart way to do it.

And the salary going off the books for Vancouver this summer, the flexibility it's going to give them is great because you look at... That's a combined, what, $5 million? What's Drew O'Connor make? Sorry, what does he make? Danton Hyman. Danton Hyman makes 2. 25, and De Arnay makes two. So that's four and a half or 4. 25 million bucks that's just not there. And what's interesting about Dayarne, he's 28. He's a right shot defenseman, and he's huge. You can move that at the trade deadline. What did the least pay for Joel Edmondson?

A third and a fifth?

Something like that. You can get that for Vinnie J. Rna. And he's got another year left, which makes him more valuable. Because there are going to be teams-Depends who you ask. Well, but you know there are teams that liked him. Edmondson clearly liked him. Vancouver liked him enough that they saw him for seven The first two games in the second round said, That's a guy we need to sign. Then I think you're going to look at teams who are like, I need a seventh or an eighth guy who can come in every three or four games in the playoffs or every two games in the playoffs and just be big. I can't have him making much money. I missed out on the guy that I actually wanted. So is Vinnie D. But that's how you have to look at it.

I also think the pens could just use them. Sure. From the beginning of the season, you look at the right side and you're like, Carlson. All right. Well, Jesus, Sarah Carlson. Chris Littang. Well, Jesus, Chris Littang. And then it's just been a rotation of who the hell is this? It's just been a rotation of nameplates. Basically, you throw Vinnie Jay Harnay in there, and he's very good at a very particular skillset. That actually might be a stabilizing factor back there on the right side. The problem is on the left side, you're giving up Marcus Bederson.

Yeah, but he's a UFA. You're not going to bring him back. This is your job to trade him for assets if you're not the competing team. He's not up there in the standings.

Also, wow, the penguins spend a lot of money on their decore, considering how bad it is.

It's $10 million on Eric Carlson, 6. 1 on LATAN, 4. 5 on Graves, Gryslick, 2. 75, DEIHAR Night 2, Pierre Oliver, Joseph, 9. 5. There you go.

950. 950. Yeah. I was like, What? It's a lot of money.

950.

Yeah. No, that is too much money for a decor that is not very good.

You think 27? 27 million? A little too much?

Yeah. Well, I mean, Carlson's a giant for all that.

It's not that much. Well, it's not crazy, but I think when you look at four and a half of that is Ryan Graves and not to continue to take shots at a guy that's having a down year. I'm not trying to do that, but that's a problem.

Put him out there with Deharna.

Try. Well, yeah. Do it. Matt Gryslake seems like a guy, by the way, that they're going to move on from two. And I think that-They better. Well, they better. Yeah.

That's your job.

I told you not to look at it.

I didn't see it.

Okay, Good. I didn't see it. All right. It's time to tell Steve to stay off his phone because Alan sent something through that we're featuring on the show.

Sorry. Absent mindedly, I was going to look something up.

Now I don't even remember what it was. No. I think that there are more moves to be made here by Pittsburgh. You're right. Vinnie D. Rna could just stay. Danton-heinen could just stay. But I look at guys like Heinen, Noel Achari, Michael Bunting probably stays, and Vinnie D. Harnae maybe stays There are guys where these guys can accumulate some mid-round draft picks. And you know Kyle? He can wheel and deal with those pics. He can actually make things happen. The one thing- Itchy Thums. Yes, Itchy Thums. I think he's really good at evaluating value in trades. Most trades he made, with the exception of gold tenders, don't even get me started in Toronto. I think he did a very good job here most of the time.

Will anybody take Tristan Jari? Do you think? They could have had him for free, I guess, through waivers.

They're going to buy him out.

Yeah, I think the buy-out probably makes the most sense. The only player...

There's two players in the entire league he can be traded for. Philip Grubauer or Elvis Mersleekens. No.

Well, yeah, exactly. Columbus would never be- At the beginning of the season, I would have said Mersleekens, but not anymore.

Yeah, no. He's starting goalie for a potential playoff team. And Grubauer.

Grubauer, Yeah, that's a good one because he was also just sat down and you love looking at Grubauer's numbers and how little wins he has, how low that's-What a disaster.

It's crazy how good Joey DeCourt is and how not close to the NHL, Philip Grubauer is. That guy got nominated for a Vesna, signed a huge contract, and immediately turned into a Guinness World record pumpkin. Like one of those ones where you're like, That's the size of a Jeep. Yeah. Can't believe it, man. The cracker should literally be in the class right now.

He's currently sitting 5, 15, and 1 within 866 in the mind. 866? Yeah, and they finally gave up the other day and sent them down. So that's good. How did you get five wins? I guess the best thing for Jarry and the Penguins is the buy-out.

Yeah, I think it's a Brandon Sod situation, except for I don't think Tristan where he's about to go and call and go, Yeah, Kyle, I'd like to give that up.

No, it's not mutually terminated.

No, it's not mutually terminated. But what I mean is I think he buys it or he gets bought out, and then he ends up in Vegas. That's what I think is going to happen, and watch him revive his career. Vegas is so good for guys that are like, Oh, man, I've just struggled everywhere else. I'm going to come to Vegas and become an All-Star. Let's go win the Cup. Aiden Hill was traded to Vegas for a fourth-round pick.

Okay. Now, wait a second. Wait a second. It is Kyle Dubas.

Yeah.

Who did the Clarkson for Horton Trade? Was that Kyle?

Well, it was Kyle and Lou. Yeah. It was Lou. It was Lou's administration. Yeah, he was the GM. Mark Hunter, too.

I'm trying to think of an LTA-R guy who he could... Any stone that could be unturned.

Kyle will look for it. I know that.

Okay, a name just came to mind, and I don't think it's going to work, but I thought of it anyway. Kerry Price. He's not playing.

Yeah, but Fenway Sports Group, even though they have a fortune, they hate taking on deals like that. They're super cheap. I'm looking at- Turn over another stone. I'm looking at the biocalculator. So this is ugly for Pittsburgh if they do it.

There's no reason for my girl to do that.

I was about to say the complete opposite.

You don't think it's ugly?

It's great. Buying out Tristan Jari? What is it? Pull it up, Matty.

Am I looking at the right sheet here? Yeah, that's what I'm looking at. The 26, 27 season. Five million dollars against the cap. Next year, 4. 5. I guess it doesn't matter with the cap going up.

I I think the savings next year are fantastic.

Yeah, because it gives you savings for Crosby.

Well, you're not using them anyway. Right.

But the years two and three of that suck. But again, I guess right now is the only thing that matters for the penguins, or coming up is the only thing that matters for the penguins, right? You got to give it one more swing next year, I suppose.

If you're not using it anyway or using the player anyway, yeah.

You know what? I look at it as like, you're going to have $4 million on the cap for the next four years. They get tons of savings next year, 3. 6 million. Then you're two years there, you're doing the five million cap it and the 4. 5 million cap it. So you would have been paying Jari. It would have been a higher cap it against your actual salary cap. So you're actually saving a little bit of money, and then it's gone. Then that fourth year in '28, '29, you would have had Jari on books, or you wouldn't think he would have been a UFA at that point. And then it's gone and it's 800 grand, which is nothing. You get rid of him at the same time, plus you're saving a couple of hundred grand in '26 and '27, or '27, '28, plus 3. 6 you're saving in '26. So I don't know. I think it's good for them.

In the early years of the Leifs rebuild, well, not rebuild. The early years of Matthews or whatever that was, Dubas did stuff like this all the time, or whether he was GM or AGM. Remember the Jared Cauen trade where they acquire this player? He's like, Oh, I'm going to play. And they're like, No, you're not going to play. And they bought him out, and the Lefs gained cap space from buying him out because of some weird loophole with the numbers. I guess what I would say to Penguins fans, because Dubas eats a lot of crap on this show, one thing I'm fairly certain of is he's not going to just do nothing with Tristan Jari. Yeah.

And if they If you're playing in the minors and you keep in the minors for the length of his contract the next three years, if you want to gain cap space, you buy him out. Because if you have him in the minors, it's costing you money in cap space. He's not completely off the Penguin's books.

Yeah, it's 4. 25 million every... Because you're only saving so much.

When you did the buyout calculator on Puckpedia, what was the date?

I bought him out. It was bought out prior to the '25, '26 season.

Yeah.

Smart. I thought it was as of today.

No, you wanted to push it to July first.

Well, yeah, because there's no point this season.

I think we could easily see in four months from now, the notification come on our phones that Jarry has been bought out if he doesn't have some miraculous turnaround in the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, it's going to be an interesting one. But Pittsburgh is going to be a team to watch. I still think there's really interesting pieces there going forward. Hey, This is Steve Dangle podcast is sponsored by a better help. And let me tell you something. It's that time of year where you're like, got to reevaluate life a little bit. What do I want the next calendar year to look like?

Where am I at?

Where am I at?

Where am I heading to?

Where your head is at determines your reality. That's why this can help. This is better help. It can help with you sorting out that journey. The thing about therapy is it doesn't have to be like everything's on fire and everything's wrong.

You don't need to have eureka moment every time.

Bingo. This is about... It's the habits that you bring into your life that make the long-term difference. And I think the best part about this is it's served over 5 million people so far, worldwide, which is amazing. 30,000 credential therapists with a wide range of specialties. You can easily switch therapists anytime. There's no cost of that, and it is on your schedule.

Did they have to talk to the least to get those credentials?

They did not have to talk to the least to get those credentials. No, those are different credentials, Jesse. Really? Yeah, there are different classifications of credentials.

The media pass I have right now doesn't credential me to work for better health.

No, you wouldn't come up as one of the therapists if an SDP listener-That's probably It's probably for the best. Well, you know you're a good listener. He's a good listener. I don't know. Well, listen, betterhelp. Com/stp, 10% off your first month. It's betterhelp. Hlp. Com/stp. Give your head a break. Now, I do want to say this, Jim Rutherford, who has run the Carolina Hurricanes, he ran the Pittsburgh Penguins, he's running the Vancouver Connect, has been involved in over 230 deals in his lifetime.

Man, man. Remember, a lot of Canox fans didn't like the JT Miller trade or the value. Remember when I was like, You know what? The Penguin should fire Jim Rutherford because when they got Phil Kessel, they stunk. They stunk for two, three months. Then they fired their coach, didn't really do a whole hell of a lot else, and won the Cup. So I have learned to not just be like, You know what? Jim Rutherford is a big, stupid idiot and doesn't know what he's doing. I'm going to wait this one It might just work out for them.

It might. Sharks. The Sharks. San Jose Sharks. I sit next to a Sharks' Truther.

Give me the truth, Adam.

Grandland CC to the stars for draft picks. The San Jose Sharks have traded Michael to Grandland and Cody Ceece to the Dallas stars, Saturday in exchange for a 2025 first and a 2025 conditional third. The third round selection will revert to a fourth round pick if the stars fail to reach the Stanley Cup final. That's a fourth. So the Sharks are- I'm so picky about that. The Sharks are very pro-Dallas right now.

Yes. Just minutiae on the trade thing, I always read it the other way. Yes. Do you guys read it? Because Adam read it where it's a third that will revert to a fourth. No. But I'm always like, it's a fourth unless you do something and then it gets an upgrade.

I'm trying to sell it. It's a fourth. I'm trying to sell it. Actually, they say right now it's a third. No. Only if they don't make the finals, which they expect to do, why would you doubt them? Because it's not that. You don't like the stars? You don't like Texas? Wow.

Well, the Saint Holdem.

Adam. Because it's not that yet. It has to do something to become that. Yes. But you can look at it as it has to do something to become the other thing. But I think it's the fourth of the third.

Sorry, guys. I've cuts both ways. No, it's a third. It's a conditional third.

It's counting your eggs before they hatch.

The Chris Pronger trade. Counting your chicken. With the oilers. No, I like yours better. It's like the Chris Pronger trade with the oilers. The ducks got Sorry. The oilers got an additional first-round pick if the Ducks made the Stanley Cup final. But if they don't make the Stanley Cup final, oh, sorry, the two first-round picks we got reverts to one? No. It's an upgrade when you activate the conditions for the upgrade.

Puckpedia also lists it as a conditional 2025 fourth-round pick.

Good for them. There you go. They're right, and they should say it.

This is the correct way. Right.

A hundred %. Sorry. I will only refer to it as the conditional third. You know how sticky I get about draft picks? I'm looking at you, Montreal, 2026 second round. Oh, Adam.

That pick doesn't exist to you.

I never got that. So I want to do something a little different here. I can ask you about this trade for the stars. I can ask you about this trade for the sharks, but I actually want to do a little Mike Greer deep dive because Mike Greer has been making moves, and I know that the sharks are not good this year. But he sure is doing a good job compiling assets. I'm going to take you back to December ninth, 2024. The Aves acquire Mackenzie Blackwood, Giovanni Smith, in a 2027 fifth from the Sharks for Margiev, Kovalev, a 2026 second and a 2025 fifth. Then in Halloween, previous, I'm working backwards here, right? Halloween, Sharks acquired Timothée Lillegren from the Leifs for Matt Benning in a 2026 sixth pick and a conditional 2025 third pick.

What's the condition?

I don't know. It doesn't matter. That's hilarious. August this year. And remember, they had a great August. They took advantage of two really bad contract situations. The Edmondton Oilers and the St. Louis Who's had that fight over Broberg and Dylan Holloway. That's right. And they also took advantage of Barry Trotz. The San Jose Sharks acquired Jaroslav Askarow, Nolen Burke, a 2025 third round pick from the Predators for Magnus Crona, David Edstrom, and a 2025 first round pick. And five, six days before that, the San Jose Sharks acquired Cody Ceci, who they've now dealt, that has turned into a first round pick. 2025 third as well from the Oilers for Ty Eberson because Stan Bowman needed out of a contract jam because he was trying to retain Broberg or Hollowway or both. That's right. Then this July, he got to Foley, Delandria, Wendberg. Late June, they acquired Wallman Jake Wallman from the Detroit Red Wings for the 2024 second round pick.

And that was- And he's their top score in defense?

Sorry. They got Wallman and a 2024 second for future considerations.

Oh, they got the pick?

Yes.

Oh, Stevie.

That's a rough deal. Jake Wallman has been a monster in fantasy this year. He's also been great for this. And it goes on, right? Stevie, buddy. My career was made general manager. I can't believe it was this long ago already in July 2022. And since then, he's been able to shift in the shadows. I think one of his big wins also is the Eric Carlson trade. He also traded Thomas Hurtle last year.

The Well, in the Austin trade, he got Grandland as a throw in, as a captain. Yes. Because Grandland was not a good Penguin.

That's right. And so the Vegas Goldenites one, the Sharks have, they've obviously moved on from Edstrom, but they have a 2025 first-round pick because of that hurdle deal.

Well, in Edstrom, they basically replenished what the first they got in this trade for CC and Grandland because it's just going to be some other late-ish first-round pick. And Edstrom, I want to say, was the last pick of that Absolutely.

Our last pick of that round. And that Penguin's thing, they got Grandland, Hoffman, who's now gone, and Jan Rudha, who's still there, and a 2024 first-round pick that's top 10 protected that ended up with the Buffalo Sabers because the Sharks traded up three spots in the draft that year. Sure. But I think that despite the sluggishness of some of these rebuilds, we're seeing a few teams really struggle to come back out of them. They tear it down. They struggle to come back out. So I'm looking at Anaheim. I'm looking at the perpetually rebuilding Buffalo Sabers, the Detroit Red Wings. But I look at the San Jose Sharks, and they are not perfect yet. Far from it. I didn't mention the Chicago Blackhawks either. Yikes. But They've got two absolute rock stars in Will Smith and McEncelebrini. And they have what they think might be the goalie of the future, and they were able to get them firm. Not that much.

He was just in the AHL All-Star Game.

They have-Along with Dennis In this draft, two first-round picks, two-fourths. They've got a first and two seconds next year, and they've got a ton of cap room coming off next season. The cap projections is crazy. They are going to have, if it stays at 95 and a half, guys, the San Jose Sharks are going to have $45 million to spend this.

Oh, they can go out and get whoever they want. They could get Rantan and Ann Marner and have money to spare.

I'm not They can get Randon and Marner and a third and pay them all $15 million. All right.

Rantan Marner, Cellebrini. Oh, my God. They could do it if they wanted.

Here's the crazy part. They got $44 million. The next year, they have another $24 million available. Now, they're going to have to resign players and salaries are going to go up and whatever. But if they're smart, this summer, the San Jose Sharks are going to be big-time buyers. Oh, yeah. And they are going to take advantage of the Will Smith, Maclin Cellebrini, ELC deals in a way the Leaps just never quite did when Marner Matthews and Nylander were on theirs because the least went out and they got Patrick Marlowe. First year, he had 27 goals, but that was not what they should have done. They should have gone out and got different players and probably maximize their cap space in a different way.

When they signed Patrick Marlowe, they were guaranteeing they were going to make the playouts for the next two years, but at a cost.

I think, well, the cost is the pick that picks Seth Jarvis. Yeah, heavy cost. The San Jose Sharks have two amazing things going for them. They got basically all their picks, and they got a salary cap that's exploding. Oh, and the third thing is they've got some great young players as well. This team- Mark Edouard-Flasik, by the way, year seven out of eight on a $7 million contract. So he's almost done.

Almost there, guys.

Almost there. I think this team is going to be the team to watch. Everybody's talking about, well, is Chicago Chicago, going to take a run at Capri's off and blah, blah, blah, blah? They could take a run at him, too. San Jose, rich owner, market that is used to success that hasn't seen a lot for a while. I don't know. I think this is going to be a fun team.

How much money did Capperoom did you say they have for next year?

44. 299.

You could sign Marner and Rantin into 14 million each.

And have another 14.

Imagine they go out and get Branten and Marner Capriza. They're not going to do that. Well, then how are you going to sign all these young players down the road? Here's the great thing. Cap's still going up.

Yes.

And Askarov, that extension looks frigging good.

2 million bucks. 2 million dollars?

I mean, he's basically going to be your starter very soon. If not already. Yeah. I know he's played well. Yeah. I know he was just in the AHL Allster game, but look at the numbers. He's their starter. They're just not playing them that way.

Here's the thing. People are like, Well, his NHL numbers, it's the sharks. His NHL numbers are going to be bad.

Does it start with a nine?

No, it's an 896. That's pretty close. But here's what he is in the A HL, a 938.

He's the best goalie in the A.

Who was the best goalie in the A last year? Dustin Wolf. Oh, there you go. Who was just named NHL player of the Month or rookie of the Month?

Dustin Wolf. Dustin Wolf. Yeah. There's a reason we don't talk about the Sharks the way we talk about the Blackhawks, even though the results are similar. The Blackhawks, again, the youth movement in San Jose, Okay, we've given the keys to these kids. And they're going to play together, and they're going to make a lot of mistakes, and they're going to lose a lot of games, but they're going to have some fun. The Blackhawks, it's like they skipped a step because I was talking about the youth movement. I'm like, well, they do have this guy, and they have this guy, and they have this guy. Dude, they have a kid in the OHL who is like a second or third round pick who's played 47 games. You know how many goals he's got? 48 Eight.

Is that good?

He's scoring over a goal a game. Nick Lardis. So they got nick Lardis, Frank Nazer, Nazar, Kevin Khrushchinski, Alex Vlasik, you can put in that group as well. They're going to pick some more guys. But this summer, they went and they got this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy in free agency, and they still suck. And that's demoralizing, and you're seeing it have an effect on Bedard. The Sharks are doing it in the right order.

Good locker room guy with Barclay Goudro. I forgot to mention the Barkley Goudro pickup. Really good locker room guy. Tyler Toffoli, solid as a rock, always scores, takes It puts the pressure off your Celebrini's and your Will Smith's, right? Yes. And you have found money with Grandland.

Well, and now that you don't have Grandland, though, now we'll see how Celebrini does, right? Because you don't have a veteran to insulate you the way he was.

Yep.

And that can be a little more difficult for a young player in this league. But I just like what they're doing with the rebuild a lot more than the Blackhawk.

When Grandland was with the Pittsburgh Penguins last before he was traded for Eric Shark Carlson. He was averaging. So he was traded from Nashville to Pittsburgh. He was averaging about 15 minutes a night, and that's when it wasn't great. He only played 21 games with the Penguins, by the way.

Didn't he have one goal?

One goal. With the Sharks, the last two years, he had 60 points in 69 games last year. He has 45 and 52 this year. So he's back on where his career used to be. 21 minutes, 58 seconds, 20 minutes, 51. He played 16 minutes for Dallas last night, but I would assume He did get a point. I would assume that he's being eased into the lineup.

Yeah, I can't believe all these guys are playing five hours after they're being traded.

Well, I think that if you got to keep... He's a guy that needs to be up in minutes. You can't play him down the lineup. You can't play him. He's not going to be as productive.

You're on a contender, though.

Well, what did you get him to be?

Tyler Sagan replacement.

Well, then he's going to play a lot, isn't he?

I guess. Yeah, Sagan did make nine mil, nine and a half. Yeah.

So, Jesse?

The Black Ox comparison is a little unfair because the Sharks have known they've been bad a little longer. Their rebuilds five years-ish in. They knew they were bad since the season they finished last in the Western Conference, which was the 2020 season. They still had Marlowe and they had Evander Kane. They were conference final the year before. And Joe Thornton. They go to the conference final the year before, and then they finish last the next year, and that's the year they fire Pete Nabor. I think since that point, they've known it was the end. We had the conference finals team, and they don't have it anymore. Since then, they've been trying to sell off all of the old guys, and they're still there with guys like Mark Edward Vlassik. It's been a slow churn here, but it's been really good. This is how you do a proper rebuild. But we need to lay off the Black Hawks a little. They had Patrick Cain.

I can't.

They had Patrick Cain Jonathan Taves on this team in the 2023 season. That was yesterday.

I think things turn around for the Black Hawks quickly. It's just this year is going to suck.

This year sucks, but it's sucking even worse for the Sharks this year still. Since December first, the San Jose Sharks have played 27 games. They are 6, 20, and 1. They're horrendous right now, which is where they should be, and it's a lot of pain, but they're at the bottom still in their rebuild, and it's going to be a quick turnaround now that they have all this cast base, now that all of the old guys are finally out of the organization in the next half-season/year when all the contracts are over. It's going to be a quick build up, but they have been in this for quite a while. They have.

I forgot to mention Lev Shunoff with the Blackhawks as well. What's crazy is both teams were talking about the Sharks and Blackhawks. The top of this draft is nuts. Porter Martone might go to one, Michael Misa might go to the other. There's a ton of other names. Schafer. Big one. Oh, my God. Is McKenna this year or next?

Next. Mckenna is the one team we're going to thank for. Oh, my God.

You have a Sharks team who's probably going to get another top three, top two, top one pick this offseason. And then, okay, now we're going to start looking towards, are there expectations on this team? I don't know, but they're going to spend a lot of cast space, and they're still going to be really young at that point. And I don't know if you go from first or last place in the league to finishing the playoffs, but we're not quite out of the rebuild yet. Let's not jump the gun here.

You're selling wins or you're selling hope. The Sharks are selling hope every night. But the Blackhawks are selling deep depression because it's just Connor Bedard. It's Bedard getting thrown to the Wolves every night and a bunch of really sad-looking veterans.

But they're also It's still selling hope because the rebuild is not at the same point it is in the Sharks one. The Sharks are, I think, so much further ahead based on good management. The timeline of missing the playoffs isn't too far off with the Black Hawks, but they didn't tear it down as quickly or as far in the past as the Sharks had. The Sharks have been more in a we know we're bad situation than the Black Ops have where they believe they were good and they held on to these pieces a lot longer and the Sharks sold a lot earlier. So yes, all the credit should go to the Sharks in how they've been doing this.

I want to also mention, since we're talking about California, a little quick follow-up to the Ducks story we were talking about with Greg Cronin. A lot of Ducks blogs just picked it up. Yeah, I got some messages this weekend.

It ruffled some feathers.

Well, the chat, or at least the story that we brought up last week, in case you missed it, was Greg Cronin, Coach of the Ducks, basically called Mason McTavish a third-line center with some scoring upside. Mason McTavish, by the way, has seven goals in six games.

Well, good coaching. He motivated them, blah, blah, blah. That's how some people, I'm sure, are going to look at it.

Zack Cavenagh, who I got this original quote from, who is a reporter for the Sporting Trib, basically said, When When Cronin was asked about McTavish, he said, Oh, McT can play first-line, left-wing, second-line, center, third-line, right-wing. It doesn't matter. He's like a utility knife. Then he said, One of the core foundations of his game is he's good along the walls. He can protect pucks. He can go to the front of the Net, scored the goal because he went to the net front and tipped it. Let me say this, it smells like a back pedal. This is a guy that had seven goals in six games. That quote came out about a third overall pick three years ago being just a third-line center with some scoring upside and them not being able to find a place for him in the lineup. Now, here we are a few days later, and we're backtracking on that.

He doesn't need to be doing all this. He's backpedaling from something he shouldn't have said. The reason it's so unnecessary is the conversation we were just having with the Sharks. The ducks are heading in the right direction. They're not good, but they're heading in the direction. There's no more... No one ever talks about the debuild part of the rebuild. The ducks aren't doing that anymore. They're signing guys, do extensions. They have great young talent, and they're going to add to it this year in the draft. They're getting good goal-tending. They're not de-building. They got a young, fun team, and they got this guy who's just determined to suck the will to live out of these guys, the will to enjoy hockey. I don't think this is, again, with the Ducks, you get a lot of the, Oh, sometimes old-school coaches don't know how to manage these Gen Zs. Shut up. Shut up.

Maybe you're just bad at human interaction.

Yeah, man.

Maybe you're just not a good coach. Good coaches are able to change with the generations and communicate with them.

Did you notice it's not 1994 and it's 2025? You're still acting the way you did in 1994. There might be a problem. It's not 1994 anymore.

I'm just throwing random years. We know he's popular with management there, but not popular with the fans, this coach.

The impression I got was he's not popular with anybody.

Management, yeah. It'll be interesting to see if he's the right guy going forward. Management sure seems to think he is. It's a heck of a bet on this guy. It really is. This is a young team that could do a lot. It's a real bet to put it in Greg Cronin's hands. We'll see how he handles it.

With how good the Kings are, California could become Death Valley again real fast. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. I used to hate Death Valley. Because that road trip takes time, and you got to stay up late for those games. And I remember just being like, All right, getting ready to stay up till one or two in the morning to watch the Leaps lose four, nothing every night for the next week. Death Valley used to suck. The Sharks, Ducks, and Kings, when they were all great at the same time, was brutal.

I think we're a couple of years away from the Ducks being that.

I know.

I didn't say right away. These conversations always get a little... What year leafs? 2012 leaves?

It feels like Ron Wilson leaves to me.

Where it's like, We have this guy, and he could be that. And I'm always like, okay. Everybody loves their prospects.

I wrote an article once upon a time. I was like, this guy is the best forward in the leaf system. Do you know who I was talking about?

Brandon Cozen. I'm excited. Josh Levo.

Josh Livo. Josh Livo. Okay. I ranked him as the second best prospect in their system and the best forward. Behind Morgan Reilly.

From the start of the LFR to them getting Austin Matthews. That era of the leaves, how many guys came and went that you believed in that were going to be like, Okay, we're doing stuff here. This is the rebuilds clicking. Yeah.

Well, here's the difference. When I wrote that, the Lefs were not rebuilding, they were de-building. They were at the very, very beginning of the rebuild. That's how you're so bad that you get the fifth overall pick and you get Morgan Reilly. Morgan Reilly was essentially the only legitimate prospect they had. That was the problem. The Ducks aren't in that position. So as a Leifs fan, I think we are... As Leifs fans, I think we're uniquely qualified to be like, that's a rebuild that's cooking. That's a rebuild that stinks.

The ducks aren't there. Does it stink or is it just at a different part of the curve?

No, it's like you got a lot of Magic Bean prospects, and then there's blue chips Where you're like, this guy's going to work. Minzukov is going to work. He's going to be fine. Trevor Zegriss is still a bit of a mystery. Mason McTavish is going to work. Leo Carlson, I don't know if he's going to be second overall pick good, but he's going to work. Dostal is going to work. I'm trying to think of who else they got in their system, really young guys. Zeev Bouyum was a really high pick, but he hasn't played any games yet, so we'll see. Already, we're cooking with a lot more than Josh Levo here.

Totally. But then you go to other teams and it's like, okay, so do that same exercise for Buffalo. And you do that three years ago with Buffalo.

Three years ago.

A big difference. What are you saying about those players? Very similar things. And then you get out of it and it's like, okay, expectation time, make the damn playoffs, and they can't do it.

Pittsburgh is fascinating because they have a bunch of guys who are kicking ass in the AHL. Until you do it in the NHL, it means nothing. The 2012 Marlies went to the Calder Cup final, and I was looking at all the guys in that team, and I'm like, how big is the jump really? Let's go Ben Andres.

When we were at the Calder Cup celebrations when they won it, we thought, you know what? You just take this team, plug them into the Toronto Maple leaves, and we have a Stanley Cup winning team.

They had a decor of basically, and almost entirely made up of seventh defenseman, like NHL guys. Yeah.

But you realized, oh, those are all NHL guys playing at the AHL level. They're really good, but they're all seventh D at the NHL level.

Yes. Here, I'm bringing up the 11, 12. Oh, boy. Oh, no. Oh, my good Lord. These are some names. Okay, this is really important.

Okay.

This is really important. Really important for the conversation we're having about overvalued prospects. Yeah.

I Before you name all the names, the hardest part of the rebuild, we forget that. The easiest thing to do is tear it down. The easiest thing is to collect prospects and magic beans and draft pics and all that stuff. The hardest thing to do is to then make that step back up and go from rebuilding to competitive. Yes.

Here are the leading scores of that team. Mike Zigamanis, Ryan Hamilton. Which team is this? This is the 2011-2012 Toronto Marlies that made it all the way to the College of the Cup final. Mike Zigamanis, Ryan Hamilton, two vets. That's not... Those aren't prospects at all. Third leading scorer. Do you remember the German phenom Marcel Mueller?

I do.

Man, we thought he was going to be something...

He was really good in the NHL video games. Yes. His potential was really high. You have him a couple of years and he turns into a first-liner.

I score a ton in the AHL. I don't know if he ever played in the NHL games. Greg Scott. Who remembers this guy's going to make it a million % Jerry D'Amigo?

I do.

Million %. Then you get to actual prospects, Nazem Khadri. He was the seventh overall pick. Joel Colborne.

The wrist injury.

Man, we thought he was going to be something. Philippe Hupuy. That's a former first-round pick who the Leifs traded Yuri Toulousty for. Yuri Toulousty. There's another guy who probably should have popped off and did. He just didn't pop off here. Nicolas Deschamps. You don't remember Nicolas Corbinian Holzer. How far do we get?

Matt Fratten. I'm bored.

Jesse Blacker. Yeah, that's a guy. Second-round pick. Man, that is a who's who of... We thought that's the team in the future.

Yeah, I think that in this case, Sharks, Blackhawks, whatever. They have Sharks, Blackhawks, Ducks. They have better scouts than the Leaps did at that time.

Well, and they also have a ton of just top 10, top 15 picks, whereas that Leaps?

The Leaps eventually got there.

That Marley team I just mentioned had, I think, two.

Yeah, Marner Matthews, Neylander.

They figured it out. With the rebuild conversation, just to close it out, the Detroit Red Wings right now sit in a playoff spot, and they're a team that hasn't made the playoffs in eight, nine years. That turnaround, I think, took way longer than anybody expected. The ownership there thought they'd have some home playoff dates at their new arena long before this. Sometimes it takes a lot of time for these prospects to cook. It takes a lot of effort for things to come together. That's the hardest part is once you're out of it, once you're bottoming me out, is to turn that corner and finally get back in.

The Red Wings also tried to buy their way back, which was weird. They don't even have the pillars that those other teams do. I guess they have three major pieces. I mean, a thoroughly in his prime and not exactly a young guy anymore, Dylan Larkin. Lucas Raymond is one of the least talked about players in the league. He's frigging unbelievable.

The deals that Cider- And more inside of- And more inside of. Those Cider-Ramen deals are going to be such great deals.

Man, we spent so much time talking about that. Yeah. Yeah, no, those are really good deals. And we'll see if Kosa gets added to that.

Yeah, and Edmondson, too, you can throw in there in terms of young players who can be pillars. But yeah, buying their way back to a relevancy is something we're advocating the Sharks to do. Yes.

That's true. That is true.

And you look at this offseason, what Nashville tried to do, where it's like, we're Okay, we're a good playoff team. We just can't score. Let's buy our way to some scoring and click.

But the problem with Nashville is they should have signed a center.

I was just about to say- You got Marsh or So in Stamco.

You could get one of those guys and sign Chandler Stevenson. I don't know. However, who was available center? That's the only one I could think of. Anybody. But anybody. Anybody. Trade for a center. Anybody. That was the problem. I think Detroit also made some bizarro moves. Why did you sign Justin Hall? Why did you move off Jake Wallman? Why did you sign Ben Shera to that Why did you sign Patrick Keynes? Patrick Keynes has actually been good. Why did you do Vlad Tarasenko? You know what I mean? There's a lot of like, what the hell is happening?

The Nashville Predators put marble floor down in a straw house. Guys, you need the most important part. You need elite skill up the middle, and you don't even have it.

Tarasenko and all those signings have them in a playoff spot right now. Tarasenko and Kane.

Yeah, well, that's great.

After firing the... No, it's all Todd McClellan.

It's all Todd Daddy.

It is a large one of it. You know what?

They probably could have moved off Lillanda a little earlier, too. I mean, it's very clear that the team could play some hockey.

They're in a playoff spot, and now he's free to go steal the moon.

Okay.

That's a good joke. What is that?

It's a good joke that got complete silence. What was that joke? He looks like Gru.

Oh, Oh, yeah. He does look like Gru. Okay, let's talk about Saturday night's matchups. There were two potential Stanley Cup matchups. You had Washington, Winnipeg, right? You could see that. That's possible. And you had Leaps, Edmondson. And I'm going to say it. Sure. Why not? That could be a Stanley Cup preview as well.

Got to be fun.

The Washington-Winnipeg game ended in... It was just beautiful dramatics. Morrissey, I think it was the one that scored in overtime and then slapping the boards on the way in Washington.

And when Washington erased, what was it? A 4-1 deficit. Came back. Ovechkin tied it. So every goal he scores is huge. And that one was even huger.

Monster game. Monster game from both sides. Then theLeaves and Edminton, same thing. 4-1. Or well, it was a 4-1. Yeah, it was 4-1. And then it got erased, and then it was called back. Now, we'll talk about that all in a second. Sure. But I think we just need to work our way backwards here. And, Jesse, I'm going to send you this. And you'll know exactly what to do once I send it to you. The way this game is talked about is interesting to me.

Leave Sorilers? Yeah. From Saturday?

Yeah, it's interesting. And, Jesse, I want to talk about or I want you to throw this one particular moment up on the screen.

Can you explain the way the game is being talked about?

That's coming in a second. Oh, okay. What a tease. This game had it all. It was awesome. It was a lot of fun. This game had Connor McDavid, tumbly about the fact that the leaves were rolling in the town, and they had to start the game a couple of hours early because Toronto was in town, and Connor was mad about that. Listen, primetimes, primetimes, baby. Primetimes hours or primetimes hours, if you want to get both markets- You know when a politician randomly puts on a cowboy hat to seem like an every man? Well, Stephen Harper, a leaf fan. His writing was in the West.

But also every politician ever. Or they roll up their sleeves because, well, I'm getting to work just like you. When McDavid, who is very much a Torontanian, Greater Torontanian, pulls that shit. I'm like, you're the stand-up comedian being like, hey, what do you guys do for fun here? Walking in, insulting the rival town. Connor, shut up. What are you doing here?

So So, Jesse, do you have that one piece? Yeah. Do you have that one piece?

Do you want Joseph Wall?

Joseph Wall.

We can't really show the save.

No, but we can just do that.

Okay.

And this could have been disaster for the Leaps. That goal would have gone in. It would have been less than a second to go, and it would have been very this era of the Toronto Maple Leaps. 4-1 lead, where if you heard that before, give it up, go to overtime, and then what the hell It happens. Tanev could have made the save. But maybe.

We'll never know.

We'll never know. And we don't have to know because Joseph Wall grabbed that puck when he just never gives up on it. And then Mitch Marner gets down and grabs his shoulder, goes, Save of the Year candidate.

He's got just a lunacy in his eyes these days where I'm like, You're growing on me, kid. It's awesome. But Joseph Wall, this is the game of his career.

Look at that save. That's going to be a hockey card.

Look at that.

Against person who grew up a leaf fan, Cory Perry.

Remember the McDonald's 3D cards that you used to rotate and you'd see a crazy save? They got to make one for Joseph. They got to bring those cards back. I want to say Patrick Waa had one like this. Dude, he allowed three goals, arguably four, for the oilers, and it still might be the He's the best game of his career.

I would like to point out that Chris Tanev has balls of steel.

Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't give a shit.

He is the most fearless man on planet Earth.

You think he wears a cup?

No.

You don't think he wears a cup?

Try me. Try me any day of the week. Wow.

Did that Puck go off the post? No, it was Chris Tanev.

What happens when the Puck shatters in half? Because at this point, I think that's what would happen.

It might. They are frozen when they go on the ice.

They would crack open a Kinder egg. I just... God, look at likable one and likable two.

And this- And Cory Perry. This happens, by the way, off of a goal by Leon Dreisaitl that was disallowed because Toronto Mapleleaf's sleeper cell agent, John Klingberg, was offside. And we did that on purpose to you, Edmondson, just so you know. We let John Clingberg sign with you because he's actually a Lea fan, too.

I thought he looked all right.

He does. He looks real John Klingberg out He looks comfortable. Now, that goal from Leon Dreisait brought up a memory for me. Interesting. It is game four of the playoffs in round two, Vancouver, Edmondson, where it's in Vancouver, and Vancouver ties the game up with 2 minutes and 30 seconds to go. The Edmondson Oilers should be devastated. They've worked so hard this entire game, and they've been winning this entire game, and Vancouver scores. Their fans are going ballistic. And less than a minute later, Leon Dreisiedel, ice in his veins, scores, puts the oilers up, 3-2. What a killer.

Game over.

And what I remember saying on the stream at that time was, that is a team. That is such a veteran playoff team move. Oh, you scored. That's too bad for you. That's what what the oilers do, and they do it in the regular season, and they did it to the Leaps. Oh, we had our worst first period of the season. Let's say it is for the oilers. It might not have been. It was not great.

I don't even think it was that bad. The Leaps executed, they didn't. Yeah. Wole and Skinner probably gave up the same number of rebounds. The rebounds Skinner gave up were more dangerous, and the defenders in front of them minus home, didn't do a good job of clearing them. The Leaps did a great job of clearing all night. All night.

But the oilers are never out of any game ever.

Ever. They can completely score at will.

And that is what I think brings me to what I want to talk about when I talk about this game. Because there's a lot of talk, and I read both the Edmondson side and the Toronto side. Leaps were so good in the first period. What happened after? And Here's how I want to change the conversation. Guys, you have two heavyweights going head to head. And I compare and contrast this with the Capitals and Jets. What happened in the Capitals? What happened in the Jets? They gave up that lead. They have, as Jesse calls them, the fraud, Connor Hellebuck in net. He must be a fraud. And what I think we need to do because numbers are great.

He gave up four goals. You must have loved that, Jesse.

Numbers are great.

Fantastic for the save percentage.

But what we have to remember is when two teams play each other, a great game is one team has a bad period, and then the next period, they're the dominant team. That's what a great game is. And so what I'm seeing with people is, well, it's, yeah, the Leaps won. But like, oh, the oilers came back and they had a bunch of shots and they outchanced the Leaps 91 to 45, whatever. That is what happens when you get out to an early lead against a good team. They spend the entire game trying to get back at you.

It is almost bad to get a lead that big against Everton.

Absolutely. You set yourself up for a real problem.

Oh, my God. As soon as intermission hit, I'm like, man, the next 40 minutes are going to be long.

And they were. The expectation, because we all want stats to be perfect and round and whatever, is that a team like Toronto, when they get out to that lead, well, it should just stay there and it's going to keep it. No. Against an oilers team like that.

That's not how any sport works.

That's not how this works. And I think the same goes for the oilers, and the same goes in the Caps and Jets game. You play a great team, you're going to be dominated a little bit most of the time, and vice versa. I thought that was two well-matched teams trying to kill each other on Saturday night, and I loved it. Every second of it, loved it. We were talking in early January. This is the question I have for you guys. Is that the close game that you guys were talking about, Hey, the Leaps can win those now, that couldn't win before. Yes. Because the lead was not coughed up.

It was close, real close, but it wasn't. You're right. He was offside. He was clearly offside. Dude, Shout out, who is it? Sam, Kim, and Jordan, Bean.

Who are they, Leef's video review peeps?

12 for 12. Just unbelievable. I don't think we properly appreciate the pressure of There's what all the players go through, and that's crazy. There's what all the coaches go through, and that's crazy. There's the GM upstairs knowing he can't actually affect anything from-He's as helpless as we are.

He's as helpless as any fan. He's paid to be helpless, which is more pressure.

Yes. Right? Yes. I'm going to lose my job if they lose.

Yeah, and I can't directly affect this.

The video crew, what happens if they get that call wrong? You're two minutes away, two and a half minutes away from two points. Huge. You got this call wrong. You might walk out of that building with zero because all of a sudden, there's still over two minutes left. The game is tied, and Edmonton has a power play.

And the least penalty kill going into that game hadn't been very good.

You better be shit sure that this is offside. Now, it seemed pretty obvious. This. But man, huge shout out to those guys.

Ice in your veins. Again, I ask you guys, though. Sure. They didn't give up the lead. I know the goal was called back. I know oilers fans don't love it, but it was clearly offside. It was offside. Are those the type of games against really good opponents, spectacular opponents, that the Leifs couldn't convert on in key situations before that they now can? Jesse.

Yeah, I think on Saturday, the Leifs showed so many good things. With the video review thing, I feel like that's an important point about the staff they have there because the way MLSC can flex their muscles isn't with signing more guys for more money than anybody else because there's a salary cap. The way they can flex their muscles are the extra things around the game. They have carte blanche to spend as whatever they want as an organization, the Toronto Mapleies, on the extras. That includes their video review staff and the resources they give I think you see that in a 12 for 12 that other teams might not be able to compete with that just because of the investment in terms of talent and money in that system. I'll shout out to the least organization for that. In terms of just the winning on the ice, that's a huge part of it. That's part of the winning of the game on Saturday. Where I found the difference was with them and an earlier team from earlier in the season is capitalizing on the special teams. I think that was so important. I know Adam Weil, as soon as I say this, he's going to He's going to say, This wasn't good enough.

No, I was happy. He's going to say, You know what? The power play is not good enough.

I said we got our Peepee boys back.

If you look at the power play from January 15th through today, February third, the Toronto Mapleies are converting at a 42. 9% clip.

That's great. I love arbitrary time frame.

I love them. I love them. One, it's not arbitrary. That's around when we were yelling about the power play. We were yelling around, I think it was the 10th It was the second week of January. So I pick around there. That's two weeks of time frame of hockey games. They've been the number one team in National Hockey. Oh, that's great. So that 42. 9 % is number one in the League for the last two weeks of the season. I think that's pretty significant.

Whoa, whoa, Jesse. Oh, slow down. You got to pull over and put your blinkers on.

Why?

You're not supposed to be driving. You're supposed to pull over when the whambulan is driving by.

I think having Having a power play that is converting at the best rate in the National Hockey League over the last two weeks allows you to win a game against the Edmondson Orleans because you're converting on special teams where that's where you have the man advantage. That's where you can gain, claw back against a team that's not going to allow you very much. I thought that was great. You see that the stars are back in the lineup. Like, Tavares and Nyes are there. Steve made a great point in that having them out means more to the least because they score goals in ways that the rest of the lineup doesn't. Matthew Nyes and John Tavares are two of the best players on this team that go to the net. That's how Craig Burbe has been preaching this team to score goals. And having them there is so effective and so important for this team. It's hard for them to weather storms when those two are out at the exact same time, and now they're back healthy.

How many teams- Man got a goal like that, too.

How many teams do well when two key players go down at the same time? Totally.

But the personnel on how they play, these two players, means so much to this team. Yeah.

There's no one they could even call up and be like, okay, there's no poor man's Tavares. There's not even a poor man's nice.

Because you can't call up somebody and then say, hey, be 250, 610. Like, Nathan Nye is a huge human being that just stands in front of the net.

The only guy... Okay, the Lefs are gun to the Earth. Game seven. You had a three-one lead. You choked on it again. You know why? That's because guys got hurt during game four, and it's Nye and Tavares again. Who's going to the net in scoring goals for this team?

Mcmahon.

You have two hopes in the world, in my opinion. Well, Here are your candidates. Mcmahon. That's not really what the McManimal does, but he did it against the oilers. Patcheready. Loret.

What you should In that exact scenario, what you should come to the table with is, that's Austin Matthews' job now. It's game seven. Show up, you go to the net. I just need Austin Matthews do it. Willy found him the other day or a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about it for a great net front goal. Austin Matthews can go in that situation. Fill in the gap for the other two guys. Be three people. That's why we paid you $13 million.

If they get a guy at the deadline- During the regular season, we got to find ways to fill this in.

Totally.

When it comes to the deadline, for me, it's not just, Oh, you got to get a third-line center, which they do. They have to have that skill set or there's no point.

It's the type of third-line center they're after. 100%. Now, your guy, Yany Gord, went down six, seven weeks, so it's not looking like that's going to happen at least this season. So he probably won't get traded. I want to say this about the power play. What if it's peaking too early? Send tweet.

Shut up. Shut up.

It's actually bad.

It always dies in late February. Sorry, boys.

I just want to call it out there. It's actually bad.

What if it's actually bad? Yeah, I know. What if all this winning is really bad and it's masked by being good at goaling? Wait.

You know when it's going to slow down? When's the trade deadline? March seventh? Yeah. March eighth.

Got it. One thing that is- No, I hope not.

One thing that is still a problem, the goals on Saturday came from William Nielander from Tavares, Matthew Nies from Austin and Marner, McMahon on the power play, and then Marner from Matthews and Nice. Where's the rest of the roster?

They need a three-line center.

That goal was cracked.

Which one? The Marner one? The Marner one. That was great.

They must have drawn that up.

That's insane. Where's the rest of the roster on the score sheet? That is what you need to go do. They can't do it. Rads are living fine depth scoring.

I think we've got a sample size that's long enough that know that they just can't do it. Whatever it is, you're not getting the best out of Domi in his position. Robertson is trying. I like that he- He's looked really good. I It's not like that he plays angry. They need somebody to drive the line between the two of them. That's what needs to happen.

No one out of that group of Leaps that don't score are even paid like guys who should.

No, that's the point. Except for Domi.

Except for Domi.

Domi makes me feel like four mil.

The Domi money, it's so insignificant as the cap goes up. You're like, now he's paid like a nobody.

He's paid like... It'll be in a year, Steve, and in a year, it'll be 4% of That's the cap that they have. Right. That's for Domi. Well, no, this summer, it'll be a 4% of the cap.

Adam has three goals.

I know.

It's very bad.

But 4% is not what you're paying to drive the line. You have not set him up or Robertson or McMahon. Mcmahon, when he's moved up, has been great. But anybody that's played third-line on this team, none of them have been set up for success. Because from training camp, before training camp even started with Jesse on that screen, which is our screen that we get to look at when we're looking at replays and shit. When we bring something up on screen, we actually have a TV here. Jesse's like, Here's the proposed lineup, right? And that's before we even knew if Patch already was going to make the team. We all said, Hey, you know what's missing? A third-line center. We all knew this. We all knew this. So it's got to happen. I hope it happens sooner rather than later. I really do. Because I think there is a division title on the line here, and there's a legitimate... That matters to me, okay?

You're also just going to head into the play-off.

You point six in your entire franchise history. Maybe start with winning small before you win big.

You're going to head into the play-offs with the exact same deficiency you had last year. That, to me, is the biggest issue. If you don't address them.

Matty, throw up the cap friendly. Look at this nonsense. You go from Mitch Marner at 10. 9 million, just on your point about you're not paying anybody to do that. The Mitch Marner 10. 9 million goes down to max. I have the list of their highest paid forwards. Mitzemartner at 10. 9 million. Then you jump down to 3. 75 for Max Domi. Komp at 2. 4, Jankrack 2. 1, Ries at 1. 3, McMahon at 1. 3, Dior at 1. 1. Yeah, they haven't paid anybody to get that depth score.

No, you're getting what you deserve.

Yeah, they've paid, and they are getting that result where these top four forwards are generating everything, plus Nize, who's going to get this huge raise this offseason because that's what they've collected.

Based on what they're paid, you're You're lucky to be getting the performances you're getting out of McMahon and Nize. Absolutely.

A hundred %.

Absolutely. And look, listen, I do think people laugh. Again, Yarn Croke does matter. I think if you haven't been-Especially for this team? Well, 100 %. Listen, it's so weird to me, the discourse around this guy. Dude, he's 15 goals. They were trying to punt him out of town last year, and he's good. He's a strong on defense, plays wing, plays forward, scores 15 to 20 goals a season. His entire career- Penalty killer. Penalty killer, does well in the playoffs. It's unbelievable to me that people are like, Kelly R. Crick, you're stupid. You're such a stupid Lee fan.

Flames fans might take numbers with the play-off.

I am hearing that from Lee fans. You just don't know hockey. Dude, this guy is valuable.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I just don't know that we were ever watching the same game. It makes 2.

1 million. No, you know what it is?

That was, by the way, a great dubas signing.

Yes, but Yarn Croke was one of the guys who, at the end of last season, when everyone, including us, were like, you need to get rid of Marner. They're like, well, no, all you do is nickel and dime, nickel and dime. Oh, yeah. You get rid of Camp. You get rid of Reeves. You get rid of Yarn Croke. Oh, you mean all those guys who add up to one half of a Marner? Like, guys, they're too top heavy. We've talked about this a million times. Can you do better? Can you be more efficient around the top heavy? Slightly, I think is the right answer. But you You can't.

If they nail it- People will say that you can't.

But if you nail it, they could win a cup. But it's so hard to nail it. Right.

That's why you want to give yourself more chance to nail it. Yes. And that is why they will make a trade. And I hope whoever they bring back, and by the way, be prepared, kids. If you want a really good one who's got term, we're going to talk about Easton Callen. We're going to talk about Fraser Mitten. We're going to talk about Ben Danford. Do you think that Fraser Mitten hasn't been scout by teams the Leifs are talking to? Oh, no. Guys- But he could be...

A boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything.

It could even be a boat. Now, I think- That's Fraser Mitten. If you're talking- He's a boat. If you're talking to me about, Hey, it would be really smart to hang on to those two guys. Maybe Danford, I put a little further down. I think he's going to have another year either in the A or the CHL, whatever. Sure. But Kau and Mitten, very likely that if they're still in the Leifs system, there They're fighting for training camp spots next year. They probably make the team. You use those ELC deals as a way to augment the rest of your lineup so that you can afford to get rid of some of the veterans and be more efficient. Maybe Easton Kau and Maybe Holmberg sticks around, you find a new home for conf, and you've got Cauen in there, and then you can take that million and a half dollars you might save and spend it elsewhere. But again, we're talking about little pieces here. Bottom six. If you If you want a great player, if you want Brock Nelson, and I do.

Bork is the number one name I've been this whole time. What? Bork? Bork.

Ray Bork?

Yeah.

Raymond Bork.

What? No, I just... To the least. Anyone named Brock, I think it's funny to call them Bork.

If you want Bork, you're going to have to part with- I think Ray Bork is a little old. You'll probably have to part with something straight.

He was a great linemate, though. Oh, yeah, for us. Yeah, we played with him. We did. Older Steve Dangle linemate, That's right.

Now, listen, maybe Brad pulls off something, a miracle and pulls off a Carolina. We didn't give up any of our top prospects, and we didn't give up any pics.

He's doing it in the stealthiest stealth mode any leaves GM has ever done anything, if that's the case.

There's no talk at all in the market about the leaves. None. There have been 40,000 trade rumors this year, and nearly none of them have involved a single leaf.

It's the craziest thing. That's probably a good Yeah, but I'm not used to it. The silence is so ominous. I'm scared.

Let's be honest. Some of the times that there's been guys on the block, they've thrown in the leaves just for the clicks.

Every flame. Every flame.

It doesn't go unnoticed.

Yeah, Toronto called us, too. What did they call you about? Your linens? This guy's available?

What if he signs with the leaves? They weren't actually in on that.

Only Adam would ever say that.

Four Nations looking like because Yanny Hockenpaw, allegedly a member of the Leaps, will not be playing for Finland. We thought it might be his conditioning stamp, but Maddie, by the way, has a Yanny Hockenpa leaves Jersey coming. We're not sure when it's coming, but- Are you kidding? No, she does. But the reason I bring all this up is that it looks like- Madalyn. Sorry, one more time. Put it up. She played in Four Nations. That would have been so good for the lore. Would have been good for the lore.

It would have been...

Oh, no. It is expected He did today that Team Finland will add the only two Finnish defensemen that they didn't pick, Henry Yorki Haru from the Sabers and- Eurovacaninen. Eurovacaninen. Good for them. Hooray. Hooray. And watch, Finland's going to go win the tournament. Yeah, he will not participate. Now, I want to start this next conversation with some rage bait.

Let's go.

Okay. And Jesse, I'm going to send you a video, and I think you're going to know exactly what to do with it. According to Jeff Merrick. Oh, boy. Okay? Oh, New Jersey forward, Stefan Naison will not face any supplemental discipline for his hit on Buffalo Saber's Tate Thompson.

We need another video. We need another video where you explain why. I think I know exactly why.

Okay, so we'll just have a quick look at the hit here because I think that's key. Then you can explain why, because this was a monster hit. Monster. Tate was left without his helmet. It was crazy.

Before we talk about the hit, Fold the Sabers.

Well, I was going to get to that, but yeah, talk about that.

Fold Them. Years ago, I wrote an article about the Boston Bruins and this thing called the Punk Test. There was a comedian named Patrice O'Neill who talked about the Punk Test. It is a stand-up bit that revolves around when he was younger, he was playing a pickup basketball game, and during the basketball game, this guy kept screwing with him in ways to test whether or not he was a punk. At the end of the game, he's like, You know what? He just made some stuff up, and he's like, I'm going to rob you. He stole his 4X tall Puma suit. I had listened to that bit roughly around the time the Sabers and Bruins played, and Milan Lucci ran over Ryan Miller. Who fought Milan Lucci that night? The answer is no one. Now, if this was 2011, 2012, Milan Lucci, you would have been a crazy person. But no one said, as the term goes, Boo to a Goose.

Boo to a Goose. I've never heard that term.

You've never heard that? No one said, Boo to a Goose, even though this man ran over your starting goalie, your franchise cornerstone goalie. And then the next time they played Paul Gostad, poor guy, had to stand up to Luciech and take his ceremonial ass beating, basically. No one stood up for Miller at the time. Over a decade has passed, and this team hasn't learned damn thing. Tate Thompson, who you can't live life without, we know this for a fact, gets blown up by Stefan Naisen, a guy who started the season really hot, and he's looking for his role on the Devils now a little bit, a little bit, compared to where he was.

Would you say vanilla?

No, no, no. Well, he's definitely not vanilla, right? He's like, All right, if goals aren't going in every game like they were, I'm going to start hitting guys. He hits Tate Thompson. If the Department of Player Safety had the option to look at it on replay and decide that it didn't warrant supplemental discipline, fine. No one on the ice had that luxury. This isn't a matter of, Oh, what? Is there going to be a fight after every clean hit? If you're on the ice, you have no idea whether or not that hit is clean. You drop your confetti gloves, you do something If you did anything, even if you lose the fight, you would very least show that you do indeed have blood in your veins. And the devils, or sorry, rather, the sabers didn't do that. Fold the franchise. If you're a Buffalo Sabers fan, how aren't you just sick to your stomach watching this team every game?

Which is crazy because it's the devils. They're not the toughest team. No. But who on the Sabers is going to do that?

Well, they're two biggest Guys, and I only know this because I watched Buffalo Sabers fan Dwayne rant about this. They're two biggest guys. I think it's Samuelson and Owen Power are out there, and they don't as we say, say boo to a goose. They don't do a thing.

Jesse, let's bring this up if we can. So Tate Thompson is fighting a devil player for the Puck. Dougie Hamilton That is also back there. So you got to basically Tate in a defenseman.

I think it's Siegenthaler.

Is it Siegenthaler? Yeah. '71? Yeah. And then moving it forward here, they're both looking at the Puck. Tate is trying to get around Siegenthaler, who is falling. And Tate looks like he's got the fuck. He's watching the fuck. And here comes Stefan Naison.

You reach, I teach, unfortunately.

And wham, just blows him up. Now, I can imagine that NHL player safety did not have any supplemental discipline here because A, Thompson is... He just doesn't see Nace, and B, he's bent over.

This, to me...

That's a shoulder check, but it is to the head.

So So here's where I got to give the Department of Player Safety a little bit of credit. This is the hit that I think earlier this season we'd be analyzing here, and I'd be like, I have no idea why that's not a suspension. And After they made that video explaining why the Zack Whitecloud hit on Matthew Nies wasn't a suspension, after watching that video and watching this hit, I know exactly why that's not a suspension, because they're either deeming that head contact was unavoidable and/or they're saying the head was probably hit second. It was a hit through the chest that ended up getting head afterwards. White Cloud absolutely hit Matthew Nye in the head, that it was the way he did it, it was unavoidable. That's what I think they're saying here. I don't know that I love this hit being in the game.

I can buy the argument based on the current rules.

Yeah.

I don't want- This is what the rules are and what they should be, and they're never the same thing. Jesse, when you to look at this, if you are NHL player safety, based on how they've explained things before, what would you do?

I think they got it right, and it's largely to do with the size of Tate Thompson, because there's no way in the world that Stefan Naison is reaching the head of Tate Thompson unless he's bent over reaching for the puck. So he's going, I'm hitting you here, but you're bent over leaning into my shoulder there. So It's unfortunate of the circumstance that led to this hit. And I also agree on the slow motion replay, which is how the Department of Player Safety is looking at it. It's chest head, plus he's bent over. So I think under the precedent that we have, it's the right decision.

Yeah. No savers fan is going to want to hear that.

No. They probably are more upset that nobody stood up, though.

Well, and this also isn't the Department of Player Safety necessarily saying it's clean because wasn't Was Stefan Naisen given five in a game?

Stefan Nacin was given five in a game for the third period, check to the head of Tate Thompson.

Did they review it and take it back or something?

No, you got five. No, you got five in a game. And the devil's killed the five-minute major, too. That's the sticker, right? You didn't fight, and then you didn't score.

Yeah, no. Well, our revenge is our power play. Rings hollow when you don't score.

And this is when- Just fold them. They had good vibes last week. I mean, Pterka and Thompson had hat-tricks on the same Cool. Last Wednesday, Thursday.

Half of those guys are missing. It's... For hockey, I mean, for this division. When the Sabers Who was it? The Bruins? They killed with the back-to-back hat.

Yeah.

Man, that goal they are going off.

They did hockey favor with that, by the way. What was that? They did hockey favor with it.

Oh, absolutely. The building going insane the way it was, it reminded me of how this team was like 15 years ago. And I think hockey is healthier when the Sabers are relevant. Just gag me with a spoon, this team. What a miserable watch. Yeah.

I have nothing else to say on this stuff other than, guys, Tim Hortens is bringing up the roll up the rim cups. That's good for Canada. I think that's good for us.

Help the nation heal.

Do you want to do a press conference?

Sure.

Let's do it. The Presser, S The Steve Dangle Press Conference.

I've said this before. I don't know why you ask me. Is it in the show or not?

Oh, I will just say, Jessie, because sometimes I say, Let's do a press conference. You're like, We've We're not out of time.

Yeah, because we're pushing two hours. Right.

Next time, snap your fingers and bang the table. Oh.

So should we do it?

Yeah, let's do it. Let's go. Sorry, subwilfer guy.

I am confused. I am never sorry. I will ask this one question. Wojtek Tobias, who has the most Czech name ever.

Wojtek, and it's Polish.

No, they're from Czechia. That's why I said that. Oh, really?

Never mind. I was thinking of Wojtek Walski.

They say, Hi, guys from Prague, Czechia. Did you know that in the Czechia Extra Liga, we have an award called the Rage Gus Trophy? It is given to the defenseman who excels the most in categories. Hits, block, shots, and plus minus rating. Love it. Each category is awarded one point per statistic with plus minus points deducted, if negative. Don't you think NHL defensemen deserve a similar award? Maybe a modified version named after an outstanding defensive defenseman from NHL history. If you agree, what name would you give it? Thanks and keep up the great work.

It should absolutely be called the Your Uncle's Favorite Player Award. I don't know why this is the first player that came to mind. Anton Volkhenkov. Remember him?

I think a trophy should be named after a more famous person.

Where you don't have to go remember him. But this is a fundamentally boring award, though.

This is a defenseman who... What is it? Hits, block shots, and plus minus? Yeah. Anton Vultchekow. I nailed it. What if-Nurds know I nailed it.

What if there's a more famous defenseman who's good at the defensive part of the game?

Ken Danico. I'm not even kidding. Ken Danico.

I don't know. Maybe an all-time great.

No, that's not what this award is for.

You don't think any all-time defense haven't been good at the defensive side of the game? No.

I mean, it feels, it screams like the modern version of that is the Chris Tanev.

The Chris Tanev Award.

Right? Just defense. Make it happen. Defensive defenseman. Make it happen. Yeah.

Do you agree that the NHL should have a defenseman award? Yes, absolutely.

Every year, it's like, Well, who got the most points? Oh, that guy gets the Norris. And this has been put on I don't know. What do you want? Okay, here. I'm trying to look up defenseman all time. Bob Ganey. Defenseman all time. No, not what defense is. It's part of what defense is. But defense, your main thing is to keep the fuck out of the net and to keep the team from even getting a shot at the net. So the person there should be. Why not? There's like 40 awards for forwards.

Zdeno Char.

All-time Leader in hits by a defenseman?

Yeah. Hits weren't counted as a stat. I don't think it goes all the way back.

Probably not. Mark Giordano?

All-time block shot leader.

All-time block shot leader.

Oh, man. Is he the whole time block shot?

Okay, here's how I know this is a new stat. Here's the top 10. Mark Giordano, Mark Edward Vlassik, John Carlson.

That's...

Wow. Alex Petrangelo, Chris Russell, Oh, Chris Russell, Duncan Keith, Andy Green, Brent Seabrook, Ryan Suter, Ryan McDonald.

How much of Mark Girodano's career was block shots not totaled by the NHL?

Great question. That's a great question because it's possible. He had over 2,000 blocks and over a thousand hits.

'05, '06 is the year that they started keeping track on the NHL records.

I think he squeezing all of his career in there.

Oh, yeah. When was his first? When was he drafted?

It might have been that season. He wasn't drafted.

Oh, yeah. Undrafted free agent. First season in the league is '05, '06. Nice. Seven games with the Calgary Flames.

Okay. Hits all time. Luke Chen, 600 hits more than the second closest guy. Radko Goudas, Brooks Orpik, the Brooks Orpik Award for defense. Dylan Fanaf, Zdeno Chara is indeed in there. Brandon Dylan, Shay Webber, Brent Seabrook, again. Adam Larson? What? And Dan Girardi. That's how you know it's a new stat when players I remember being drafted.

Yeah, I think Zedano is the name.

Zedano.

He's one of the best defensemen of all time. I don't think anybody is upset about Zedano Char having an award named out.

I think the only guy top 10 in both is Brent Seabrook.

What about nick Lidschreum?

Kiss my ass. No, that should be the Norris.

Yeah. Yeah. Fine.

What about Shani?

Shani? That is a forward.

He's a forward.

But he's Detroit.

Oh, stop. We all accepted Les when there was no cap. And we had the highest payroll in the league. What a hero.

What a hero. Good for you, man.

Cool, man. That's great. It's working out. Anyway, let's wrap it up. Let's wrap it up. Hey, next show will be Wednesday. And remember, brand new CJ show just came out yesterday, breaking down all the trades. Agent Provocateur with Alan Walsh talking about how the cap might not just be 95. 5. It might just be more.

More.

And also, BP Stoville, buy your tickets. We'll see you there. The Steve Dangle podcast.

Follow the guys on Twitter at steve_dangle@adamwylde and at Jessie Blake.

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