Transcript of Trouba In Paradise | The Steve Dangle Podcast

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Oh, that that's right. I hope this is Let's start the show.

Who wants this? D p p. P. The Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wyld, and Jesse Blake. Let's go.

Hey. So, Manny, can you just do a quick ISO shot on me here? I wanna throw this out there at you. I don't know if you can see this as Don't. It's a puck.

That would hurt. Fronted ax, Sarnia Sting, Steve Dangle podcast game. It was on an official OHL puck. Can you believe that?

I love that very much.

Isn't that neat? Yeah. Pretty neat.

So gives me another goofy little collector's item to hang on the wall.

That's right. Listen.

You need more. I do. Mhmm. I it's it's never enough.

You have a house full of walls.

You gotta fill them with something. Every any collector knows it's never enough.

No. A 100%. 100%. It was an amazing time in Kingston. Thank you to everybody that came.

Thank you to the, Kingston Frontenacs for for having us. And, Jacob Battaglia, you gotta check out that interview with Jacob Battaglia. This guy is He's legit. Yeah. Confidence, man.

2nd round pick, Calgary Flames. Flames fans, I think you're in for a treat. This guy rocks.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if I care for the kid.

Why? Because he's not a flame or because he's not

a leaf? No. Because we get up there on stage and we do a lovely interview with him and then we do the rest of our show, but he goes in the back.

Oh, this. Yes.

And after our show, before we do our meet and greet, I was so excited to eat the shrimp tacos that I ordered from the Caesar company only to discover he ate them. He ate all of them. He ordered shrimp tacos as well, and you might be like, oh, he just mistook your, so just eat his. No. He ate 6 shrimp taco that's not true.

He ate 5 entire shrimp tacos and took a bite out of the last 1 and left it.

I think he thought all 6 were his order.

Yes. Or that you could just eat whatever was on the table. Yeah.

Or it was like, hey. This is for everybody in the back.

I thought that until I saw the 1 with the bite out of it that he left there. That that he left that as a calling card. No. I think He was big dogging me.

I think he got full.

No. He knew. He knew and he wanted me to know.

How how angry are you that you didn't get to eat?

Not angry. You know what's really funny? Listening to the shit You should

lie more.

Yeah. I should lie more. Fat guy corner. You know what was funny? Listening to the CJ show on the ride home and our Peloton ad while I ate onion rings.

No. That was that was great.

Well, listen. It's all about, you know, setting a, setting a a path for you.

Yeah. You ride the Peloton so that you can eat onion rings.

That's exactly why I do it.

Yeah. There you go.

Mhmm. Yeah. Mhmm.

No. It was it was a it's a fun interview, a great night in Kingston. We had a blast, and we can't wait to do it again with the France next year.

Can't wait.

Just an awesome group, and they do such a great job of, integrating the STP and its fans into their games. And so it was it's it's awesome. We love Kingston, and that was a lot of fun. So, a lot has happened, though, since our last, like, formal show in the studio. We had a Jake Trouba trade.

We had a Kevin and, Kevin Adams, press conference. We had a Shesterkin contract. We have the Leafs and the Devils tonight, so we got a Sheldon Keith back to Toronto interview, that we gotta rip rip through, and there was also a Tortorella ripping, ripping, the Bruins for diving. There's a lot. So let's start with the fact that the Rangers lost to the 5 losses in a row, Chicago Blackhawks last night.

I wanna throw this at you. Arthur Staple just wrote a like, a blistering column, in The Athletic. It just says Staple. Rangers hit rock bottom with no fight and no effort in New York.

Are they not still in a playoff spot?

They are. They're 4th in the metro.

That's crazy.

Now he's he said, the Rangers desperately in need of wins were outworked by the Hawks. They were out positioned all over the ice as they've done too often over through 27 games this year, the Rangers decided trading chances was the way forward rather than sustaining some offensive zone time and shoring up defensive zone play. Here's the stat that's gonna blow your mind. They gave up just 2 goals. They gave up just 2 goals because this was the Hawks, a team that has scored more than 3 goals once in its last 15 games.

So

Oh my god.

So we could talk about the Hawks. The CJ show did a great breakdown about what's going on in Chicago. But for now, the Rangers traded Jake Trouba. They traded him before a 3 game and 4 night stint. Yep.

Shesterkin, obviously, I believe his wife just had a baby, so so he was missing, but last night he was back, at least on the bench. Okay. And the Rangers don't look great, man. Guys, some of the other things that Staple mentioned is K'Andre Miller has stopped progressing. Adam Fox still hasn't scored a goal.

You know Adam Fox? Adam Fox Norris winner, 27 games into the season, has not scored a goal.

Man.

Now this is where I I can understand why the Rangers wanted to get out from Trubas 8,000,000. I get it. They signed with too much money. He's not the guy they they also didn't have him playing a role that he was playing in Winnipeg. Right?

He was playing a much different role in Winnipeg. But at what point do we say what point do Caps fans, to what point do Preds fans tell the New York Rangers what might be the problem, which might be the coach?

I'm not as convinced.

Okay. Because caps fans are saying it. They're like, we know that guy.

Yeah. I I mean, it could be like it could definitely he could definitely be part of the problem. Here's here's why I don't love that narrative. They won the president's trophy last year. They went to the conference final with that coach.

Mhmm. So what I talked about last night and by some some of the response, I don't think I articulated my point well, is, so the rangers were, like I said, president's trophy final 4 last season, and they're on their way to screwing up a pretty damn good thing. And they're like, well, no. They don't want that, pretty damn good thing. That's obviously not good enough to get stagnant and look at them.

They're not playing well and dah dah dah dah. And that's true. That's all very true. I think the rangers are ripe for a, transition on the fly here. You know, moving off of Kreider, I think, would hurt.

It's not the worst idea. CJ sort of threw water on that on on his

He said he thinks he's safe. He's safe But it's New York, man. Because they've got rid of that.

Of Truber, though. Like Yeah. Had they not gotten rid of Truber, they would've had to get rid of him. Trading Jacob Truber off your roster at $8,000,000 when he's playing 3rd pair, even if he's your captain, is objectively the correct thing to do. Locking up Igor Shesterkin, we can talk about the dollar amount, but locking up the best goalie in the league is objectively a smart thing to do.

But I can't help but feel like at some point, maybe not in the summer because they started well. But at some point during this season, the organization poise poisoned the well.

Well, that if you read the columns The column blooms.

Column.

A lot of people are saying that that started with Barclay Goudreau and the way he was treated on the way up. Yes. And that's still a contract that I would defend the rangers dropping off of because the day it was signed, it was not a good contract. It's For the rangers. It's

he

But he was a popular guy?

Says who? Like Well,

he well, he didn't bring the value for the 3,000,000 or

The bullshit. I call bullshit on that.

Do you?

Yeah. Regular season. Yeah. No. That you're in you're a crazy person to give him that amount of money.

But how many times are we gonna do this with Barclay Goodrow? When the lightning got him, they paid a 1st round pick and we're like, what are you nuts? And then they won back to back cups with him. And he was part of that. And then he rode that to a very big contract with the rangers.

That was disaster. Oh, wait. No. Sorry. They actually had, like, crazy success.

And he was, like, a very consistent playoff performer. They, we we streamed the rangers panther series. Rangers probably get outplayed almost every game in that series, if not all of them, but they had a 21 lead after 3. And, Barclay, good row was probably their best, like, or most clutch player at very least in those 3 games. I think what the Rangers are doing is video game business, and it can it can it can go well for you and it can go poorly for you.

The Vegas Golden Knights, just cold blooded. Right? And we've talked about that. We've talked about how the league should have never let those guys win because now every team is gonna try to be them. It doesn't always work the way it's worked in Vegas.

These are people. These are human beings. They get their feelings hurt. And you might be like, well, they're millionaires and they're professionals. A lot of those guys have been there for a very long time.

A lot of the rangers, the most important rangers have been there since before the Vegas Golden Knights were a franchise. And they're looking at how their friends are being treated. Veterans leaders on this team, they didn't bring in Barclay Goodrow to win the Art Ross. Right? And that's how he's treated.

Look at the playoff he had. Like, you could talk about the team falling short. Was it because of him? Okay. So

I mean, they they didn't like the way they went out against the Panthers, but the Panthers were phenomenal.

They yeah. They won the cup. They were pretty good. There's only 1 team who gets to do that every year. Like, most teams would kill to be in the position of the New York Rangers.

And before anyone starts comparing how I'm talking about the Rangers to how I talk about the Leafs, Leafs have never got close. They've never won a president's trophy despite being a, you know, every year, oh, good regular season team, adequate regular season team. And, yeah, I mean, they're in an incredible division. I don't give a shit. Like, they're in that division every year.

You know who wins? You know who wins their division? The Panthers.

Yeah. And the lightning and

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, well. Sorry. And the Leafs have won, like, I didn't bring this up, but Jacob Battaglia who who we were interviewing, flames 2nd round pick. He's born in 2,006. Leafs have won 1 series in that kid's lifetime.

1. So no. They're not the same. Actually, the Rangers have been to the final 4 twice in the last 3 years.

Mhmm.

That's extremely good. I I think I think they poisoned the well here. You know, maybe some of the older guys are getting a little too old. It's possible. But again, they were elite 7, 8 months ago?

9, max?

They were 2 wins away.

From the Stanley Cup final. Months ago.

Yeah.

So I I gotta think the organization wears this and Jacob trouba like getting fired from MSG is a rite of passage. There's no way Jacob Trouba, who I think is probably a pretty popular teammate. There's no way he's the only ranger in that room who thinks that who has that feeling. It's hard to give your best for a boss you hate. Like, I I let's look at the panthers.

Right? Since they're the current standard bearer. Who's the boss? Like, who's the we all know the leader of the team is well, the captain is Barkov.

Their Spiritual leader, I'd say, is Matthew Tkachuk, like, just in terms of, like, chaos. Barkov's the the the captain. Yeah. He's he's a he's a good man, and and Matthew Gachuk is chaos driver for other teams.

The pillar. Right? I think it's Paul Maurice. Yeah. They love him.

They love him, and they're the the Panthers are a very in the room team, If if that makes sense. They there's none of the bullshit. Does it you never really feel Bill Zito permeating through the room or ownership.

You rarely hear Bill Zito's name. Right.

Panthers are very in the room. With the Rangers, there's a lot of Chris Drury banter. That's 1 of the things I love about Bradstreet Living. We we barely talk about them. But there's a lot of Chris Drury banter, and their owner is a nutcase, a certifiable nutcase.

Well, well, I love I don't know if you guys heard this. Somebody said, yeah. He's I've heard him in the last few days referred to as passionate and emotional in 2 different shows, and I'm like, okay. So this means that this guy doesn't react well to any sort of negativity. Like, that sounds like a horrible that is a nice way to say what we really wanna say, which is this guy flies off the fucking handle and it throws people.

Yeah.

Passionate, like no. I actually I resent him being called passionate.

Yeah. Because passionate passionate could be a bunch of different things. Here's what I look at, guys. Guys, and, Jesse, I wanna bring you in on this because this is your team. Mhmm.

Okay. You've got a core of just think about this. Panarin, Trochek, Laffren here. Kreider, Zabinajjad. I would put Philip Hetal in there upfront.

And, then you got Lindgren Lindgren, who's a free agent.

Philip Hetal, who they barely have last year.

Yeah. Lindgren Fox, K'Andre Miller, Braden Schneider, and then you've got Shesterkin and Annette and Jonathan Quick, who is a Renaissance man. Like, he's pushing 40 and still playing like this.

It's crazy.

This is a very good hockey team. Right? Like, statistically speaking, you put that up, like, NHL 25 that, that's a pretty fucking good

game then. Paper.

Yeah. Yeah. What like, to me, is Trouba gonna change the fact that, you know, last night specifically, Arthur Staple points out this had a gave away the puck in, like, an egregious way, and it Mhmm. Led to the first goal, and Chris Kreider is not playing out. It feels like if there's poison in the well, guys, Chris Drury has no choice but to make another move.

Right now, it's too easy for their opponents. Because if you look at their stats over the last 10 games, this this stretch from their last 10 games, which is about November 20th onwards, they're last in the NHL. They've only had 4 points in that span, which is, like, below Nashville, who's in 2nd last, and they've had 5 points in that span.

Jesus.

Yep. And if you look at that little stretch there, their PDO is bad, where they're sitting at, like, a 96, 97 in terms of their PDO for them. And then their opponent's PDO is at 105. Like, so they're allowing their opponents, which is just the, shooting percentage and save percentage. They're allowing their opponents to get really easy chances, and everything that their opponents want and can take from them on the ice, it's going in.

And for for me, because the team overall too on the entire season doesn't have, like, too bad of stats. You look at the where they sit in in penalty kill, they're right up at the top. Power play, they're like 10th ish. Same with goals for and goals against. They're in the middle tier.

Just this last little stretch. It feels like an effort standpoint, you know? It's it's about commitment to the defensive end, commitment to not committing turnovers. And I'm not sure if changing the head coach solves solves that because it doesn't feel like it's a giving up on the coach here in this situation. It feels like a giving up of just playing hockey the right way.

You know? It seems like somebody there needs to get the mentality of the overall team and all of those guys you listed, those star players, to just play a commitment of to hockey that we see in the playoffs during that that Florida series where they were up 21 on Yep. The back of Barclay Goudreau scoring a game winning goal and then up, like, a shorthanded goal. Like, his 3 goals in in 3 games there to start that series. So shame.

And you know what?

Unbelievable stuff.

Each each goal was worth a $1,000,000. Right? Sure. Right? I mean, listen.

They got the Panthers a couple extra home dates, within the playoffs.

Sure. But, like, you you know what they're capable of in those moments, and the the Trouper trade, trading your captain, is supposed to be that moment where things get serious. Yes. That's the, I'm the general manager, I'm moving off of the captain for the long term success of this team, I'm gonna sign the goaltender, you know he's here, you know everybody's committed. Now guys go show up.

Like, I did the thing where we fire the head coach and you get in, now it's on you, they sent your captain away, and the fact that they still don't get the effort out of that against Chicago, it's very concerning.

And Chicago's reeling too. Like, it's not just that they're in last place. They're in last place, and they just fired their coach. They have a new guy back there, who who doesn't have

the full backing of the franchise. He's the interim guy.

Yeah. And if I'm not mistaken their top line isn't even what they want it to be they're waiting for I think Joey Anderson to go through waivers so they can call up Frank Nazar. Yep. Connor, I tried tweeted this, and Blackhawks fans were like, can you not? Connor Bedard's line mates have 5 goals combined.

Yeah. It's Philip Kershev and Ilya McCaive. Ilya Mckayev who has fallen ass backwards into the craziest, line mate situations

Yeah.

Ever. Yeah. Like that guy played a bunch with, like, John Tavares. He played with Alias Petterson. And now here he is playing with Connor Bedard.

Yep. Guy can't score. Nope. Nope. He did once.

And then Vancouver was like, he's gonna do this forever, and they gave him 1,000,000 of dollars. Shut it off immediately. Well

and and and sorry to cut off.

Shut off.

Not to go to the Blackhawks right now because I wanna bring up 1 quick thing with the Rangers.

Yeah. Sorry.

The we will talk about Blackhawks quickly because I think we can. But, you know, the Rangers right now, guys, have $7,100,000 in cap space. Okay? 7.14 if you wanna get crazy. By the deadline, it'll be triple that.

It'll be close to $22,000,000 22, 21.935, if you wanna get crazy.

Mhmm.

There's another move coming here or another couple moves.

You would think so.

Yeah. I I would I would think so. Now they do have a cap crunch next year, but this is a prime let's grab some guys. And I don't know if it if it's smart for the rangers to and I actually don't know the answer. Do you try to figure it out with the group you have right now and then at the deadline ad, or do you add now and try to boost them now?

It's so sorry. What's what do the rangers have next year?

In terms of contracts they have to resign?

Yeah. They they they have a cap crunch?

Cap Ocasio, Will Cooley, Keandre Miller, Lindgren, Ryan Lindgren is a, you know, 26 year old defenseman. He's on the left, but, he he's a UFA as well. The

Ryan Lindgren's I'm I'm on the camp now. Ryan Lindgren's, replaceable. I think he'll probably send him out.

Yeah. Okay. And then and then you got Shesterkin whose contract kicks in. So there's an extra sick because he made 5 he's making 5.6 right now, and people are like, well, that's 11a half. It's really only 6,000,000 based on, like, in terms of, like, cap jump.

Right? So the cap will probably jump by 5 or 6,000,000 anyway.

With Willie. They'll be okay.

Hey, you know They already have to pay him.

It's crazy. They don't

have

a cap crunch next year. Not anymore? No. They'll just guillotine someone else

if they

have to. Like Mhmm. And, you know, I I think there's some cope out there that I'm seeing about, like, oh, no one's gonna sign with the Rangers now. People will still definitely sign with the Rangers. It's the Rangers.

It's Manhattan.

Oh, yeah.

Like, what a cap team.

This is only teams in great markets can be this ruthless.

But, I do think it's a thought. It's a consideration. Like, if you watch the TSN broadcast, the sports net broadcast, I don't know how it was received in the states, but all the former players are like, hey. It's a little messed up. You can do this.

And I don't think the rule is going away, like, the ability to put guys on waivers, and I'm not necessarily advocating for it to go away. I don't think the players are necessarily either. I think they're just like, damn, this was a line that people didn't cross before, or GMs didn't cross before, and now they are.

Mhmm.

Now it's open season.

Well, remember, it's probably less about the no trade slash wave and more about the memo that went out to 31 other general managers going, please take this man or this man now.

Yeah. I'm Chris Kreider. I'm gonna break my freaking neck out there, like, for this team. I've been here for how long? Played how many playoff games for you and been your best player in a lot of them?

And this is how I'm treated, fuck you.

Yep. Yeah. I have 1 bad stretch for a couple of months, and now I'm gone.

Not even that bad. Yeah. He's not getting assists.

Now I will scoring. The other side of this, I said this last week, is is and I don't know, Jesse, Steve, what you guys think here. I personally respect the reigners on 1 thing,

and

that is they're not gonna accept this crap. Yep. Yep. And I I I said this last week. I'll say it again.

If this was happening in Toronto, we'd be gaslit to hell about it. It would be, well, you don't know, and you're not smart enough in in so many words. And the rangers are going, nope. We expect to be first, and we're gonna do something about it. Now did they go about it the right way, the political way, whatever?

Absolutely not. But I think that at the end of the day, at least they're willing to take action.

Yeah. With with this whole conversation, the 1 thing you haven't brought up is that the the actual trade, and they won the trade and were paid to dump $8,000,000 that they didn't want. Right. Like, Anaheim gave them a 4th and an asset to dump the $8,000,000, and that's great business from a strictly what they were trying to accomplish standpoint. The New York rate Rangers did a great job with this trade.

Do you remember what it cost the Leafs to get rid of Patrick Marlow's 6,000,000?

It was a A first.

That's right.

That got the hurricane Seth Jarvis.

Who's now on the 4 nations roster.

Jacob Trouba is a useful player for the Ducks. Like, that's that's what they want, and they're gonna get rid of, Cam Fowler eventually. So the money doesn't really look that much troubling because you're getting $6,000,000 off, and you brought in 8 for Treba. And Treba's gonna be an effective defenseman for them, but the Rangers didn't want him or need him and couldn't hold on to him going forward because they needed that $8,000,000. So the fact that they were able to get something for him, it's I think it was it's fantastic trade for their end.

Also lost in this conversation, It's horrible timing, but it's 1 game against the Blackhawks.

Mhmm.

You don't win all 82. No.

I I think it

was in Madison Square Garden. It's horrible timing. You don't feel good about it. You're never happy about losing to the last place team. It's 1 regular season game in December, you'll live.

Yeah. A Blackhawks team who was playing for something at that point. Yes. Yeah.

I mean, the Rangers should have also been there. Yeah. Yeah. But but, you

know, like, every team's an NHL team. Like, every every night isn't just a cakewalk. You know, you're facing somebody good and you can lose any game. We've seen that a 1000000 times with Toronto. And just to to update you, Nazar makes his debut against the Islanders, tonight

Oh, there you

go. For the Blackhawks.

His season debut. Good for him.

He's been lighting it up. No.

Isn't it would be career, wouldn't it? He played last year? I think

he had, like, a cup of coffee at the end of last year.

Ah, I'm gonna look it up.

Okay. So this is this bothers me.

Yeah. He had 3 games last year.

Yeah. Oh, he got 3 in. Okay.

There are very I'm so proud. Very, very, very few mistakes made it into the book. And 1 of them was I mixed up Nazar with Kurchinsky. Oh. For Blackhawks prospects.

Oh. I know. It pissed me off.

What did you say?

I think I just screwed up which 1 was picked 13th and which 1 was picked 7th.

Oh, that's not too bad.

It's yeah. But it's a mistake, and I'm mad about it.

If you did the Nick Robertson, like, he's a defenseman thing because Korchinski plays

Oh, no.

I didn't do that. Okay. Yeah. No. Then that's not

a big deal at all.

So, the other thing is people were quick to point out that, okay, so the Ducks got trouba, so now what? And what was hilarious to me about this is the lack of imagination that people have when it comes to this. Now I'll tell you this. From from what I have heard, the Ducks are not an easy organization to play for right now either.

That seems miserable too.

Greg Cronin is, the rumors are that they that players don't really like him. Pat Verbeek, the scuttlebutt is not a fun guy to work for, and I'm not sure what he's like to deal with on a trade trade to trade angle, but, Well, apparently not a not a popular man. Right. For within certain circles. And you know what?

Hey. Listen. If you're gonna be at that level, I'm sure there are gonna be people that don't like you. But things aren't going great in with the Ducks right now. Trouba made his debut.

He played 22 minutes. He seemed to be strong enough. But what I would say, that people are missing with the Trouba situation is and and CJ pointed this out beautifully on the CJ show. If the Ducks want to parlay him into something of value at this deadline because he has another year, All they have to do is retain half of what is paid. And by the way, it's not 8,000,000.

It's actually 6,000,000 in real dollars. So, you know, Truva at 4,000,000 against your cap, especially next year when we're expecting a jump of 4 or $5,000,000, a lot of teams I think it was CJ pointed out Labushkin is making 3.75 or something for the Dallas Stars.

Right handed defenseman make a shitload of money.

And 4 and and and Truba at 4,000,000 Mhmm. On most teams is a pretty good guy to have if he's paying playing second or third pair. And, at $4,000,000, man, you could probably get a lot of assets back for the Ducks. This is a let's parlay this guy into something else. This is not a I don't think this is a long term fit.

If it is, good for him. But I and and and it's interesting because Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun brought up, oh, well, Toronto's super interested. Steve, he's not coming to Toronto. He doesn't wanna play in Canada. But there is gonna be okay.

And that has more to do with his wife's career than anything. It's not Which not values. Canada. Yeah. Which he values.

Crazy story. Oh. I think that this guy ends up in some sort

of

trade. May he wants to play in the west, so maybe he stays on the West Coast. Maybe the maybe the Kings pick him up. Maybe, you know, like, some team picks him up before, before the end of the season or next season.

So his no move goes with him?

Yeah. Of course. When you it used to be that if you waved a no move, it was gone forever or no trade. You waive it, you go to the team, it's still in place.

I I don't know. For his sake, I I I hope he gets to go where he wants, man.

Like Well, he will in a couple years when he's a free agent.

He so, like, we're talking about a guy who had a a modified no trade. He exercised it fairly, like, negotiated for it in good faith, exercised it fairly, was strong armed, got moved, and now we're talking about moving him again. I know he's a millionaire. I know he's got a great life, but it's bullshit. It's bullshit.

Why is it bullshit? Yeah.

Because he negotiated for the damn thing in good faith. And the Rangers said, hey. So the Rangers nakedly said for the entire players union, this is worthless. This no trade clause is absolutely worthless. We've always known it was somewhat performative like

Well, because they can make life hell for you.

Yeah. It's basically the, we can hey, if you want to get or if we want to trade you, let's figure it out clause more than a no trade clause. But he tried to use it literally, which is the way you're supposed to use it. He negotiated it in good faith. He exercised it in good faith.

The rangers said that doesn't matter, actually. They traded him, and now we're talking about trading him again.

Well, he should've negotiated for a no move. Keep himself off waivers. That that is a conversation. If I'm Jake Trouba, I'm having with my agent going, what the hell happened there?

He also did get to use his rights in this deal because he he blocked a trade to Columbus on Friday. And Buffalo. And he said, I'm not going to either of those destinations. I'm gonna choose Anaheim.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I I don't know, man. I I it's not that I don't feel bad for his, like, family situation, but when it comes to a contract, you knew when you signed that that this was possible. It just didn't seem possible. Right.

Because if Jake lived

up to $8,000,000, you'd still be in New York.

Yeah. I mean, well, I'm not entirely sure of that. Maybe. Maybe. Barclay Goodrow, did he have a no move or a no trade?

He had a no trade 15 team. And so here's here's what's interesting about this.

And Alan see that, tell him to fuck him.

So we had a really great episode of agent Provocate's work because Alan's like Alan messaged us beforehand. He's like, I got stuff to say about this.

Of course he does.

And Alan's contention is not that, Allen's contentious? No. His his his argument is not that, the Rangers did anything wrong per se on the no trade front. His thing was when you call another team the way that the Rangers did with Mike Grier in San Jose, we know. The Rangers called Mike Grier, and they said, we wanna work out a trade.

And Mike Grier is like, great. We'd love Barclay Barclay Goudreau. Barclay Goudreau blocks it. And guess who's first up to claim them? The San Jose Sharks.

He said, when you go to a team and you go, hey, you're gonna claim this guy if we waive him. Right? That he thinks is tampering. That is outside the bounds.

Cap circumvention.

There was Cap circumvention. Yeah. Tampering's later on in the show with Ann

Lauer.

So I thought that was an interesting perspective because you're essentially organizing the way out. We're gonna trade you to this team, or they're gonna waive you. Mhmm. And he said that's that's the circumvention part for him. It's not that, you know, this whole idea that, oh, well, if they have a no trade clause, they can't get waived to those teams either.

No. That'll never work. The NHL will never go for that. That's bad business. And by the way, for anybody that wants an exciting trade deadline, you're gonna need you're gonna need these these these clauses to remain the way

they want. I don't disagree with Ellen at all in that when all the GMs or 32 of them are together and they're like, hey, don't claim this guy because I'm working with a trade with this team and I wanna put this guy in waivers. That feels like collusion. Like that feels it definitely feels not it feels illegal that they can all just collude together to make a trade, a fake trade happen through waivers. That doesn't feel like the spirit of what the CBA is That doesn't feel

like

the spirit of what the CBA is written for. The idea of putting a guy on waivers and then just going, yeah, if somebody claims them, then we'll work out something afterwards. That seems a little better, but the doing something beforehand that you actually talk to the GM about, like, we're gonna circumvent, the actual contract with waivers, that it feels a little weird.

We're in a new a new era here where it's no move or nothing. Mhmm. Yeah. You have a no trade clause.

Well, you can have a don't you can have a 15 team no trade and a no move, and the no move is no waiver.

Yes.

Right? You can do that.

Yeah. But not a lot of guys have that. Right? Like and you gotta leave okay. Well, if you want this thing, you gotta leave money on the table.

Mhmm. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Hey. So there's

a in agent provocateur, there's a great story that Alan has about Patrick Eliez and how he almost signed with the rangers and how Muckler screwed it up. And it has to do with no tradeno move clauses. I think you're gonna love that story. So definitely check that out. Now, we have to get to the BetMGM big story, and we will come back to the Rangers.

But I just wanna ask you guys this question before we go to it. Do you think if you were the general manager of the New York Rangers that you would have done anything differently?

Oh. 0, man. Because I don't think a lot of

people are asking themselves that. Now, I'll tell you what I would say, because I just asked you this question. I had time to think about it. You guys have it. I wouldn't have made it so public.

They were intentionally public in the summer. They were leaking it to columnists, you know, doing all that stuff. That part, I thought was disrespectful to Jake Trouba.

They tried to paint him as the bad guy for, literally standing up for his contractual rights and supporting his family.

Yes. Yeah.

It's the

same thing that happened to Matt's here in Toronto when Matt Sandin refused to waive his no trade to go to Philadelphia so the Leafs could get, I think, was, like, Jeff Carter in a first round pick.

Do you still do you remember the interview about, there was a rumor about him going to Montreal? No. And someone goes, Matt, do you hear the rumor? He goes, no. What's that?

And they go, that you're going to Montreal? And he the the the veil dropped. He goes, oh, fuck. No said it on camera

amazing amazing so do you guys think you would have done anything different other than those things

I think the answer is that you you had a good answer there would have done it less publicly still would have done it and for anyone who thinks that's harsh imagine be the GM of the New York Rangers.

Jesse?

I would have done it in the summer. Yeah? I feel like if if you're gonna pressure them at this point and get it all done and wrapped up, you should just done this in end of early August, late July. Just done it.

When that Detroit deal was on the on the That's

They're, like, the Anaheim deal. Just do this 1 in in August. Like, I feel like that's would have been the better time to do it. You get out of the way. There's no distraction in season for the guys.

There's no you have to get them all riled up to play hockey again without their captain, all that kind of stuff. You know? You get done in the summer. You move forward. You start training camp fresh, no captain, or you name somebody new, and then you get a good start to the season.

I feel like the timing of it is poor.

There you go. Your job beginning, middle, end is make the New York Rangers as good as possible and by leaving this until over a quarter of the way through the season, you you didn't do that job.

Now you're trying to make Trouba kind of the scapegoat in the contract situation all this mess that for the start, like, it's it's very poor timing by a jury in the front office. There you go.

Alright. Let's get to the BetMGM big story. Okay. So I wanna read you this tweet to start things off for our, BetMGM big story segment. This is from kiss from Chris Jastrumboski.

He's the TNT researcher for the NHL.

Goodness.

This guy's amazing. On Colorado trading Georgiev and Aninin. First time in NHL history that a team has traded both opening night goalies before Christmas. Wow. The last time a tree team traded both opening night goalies by the end of the regular season was Buffalo in 14/15, and that was Jonas Enroth and Michael Neuwirth, which is wild.

Now here's what my instant thought is. With the Avalanche getting Wedgwood and with getting Blackwood, are they now poised to go to the Stanley Cup final? And I because because it's it's always a story like this. It's like, this was the pivot point of the season. And I'm looking at right now the BetMGM.

You can you can go to the future section and pick the exact outcome for the Stanley Cup final. Okay. So the Colorado Avalanche, let's say, beating the Toronto, Toronto Maple Leafs in the Stanley Cup final.

Something more realistic.

Okay. Alright. Florida Panthers?

Damn. Florida Panthers? Oh, rematch.

67 to 1 are your odds.

For Colorado?

Colorado beating the Florida Panthers in the finals.

Why did it why was it 67?

I I don't know. Well, the Leafs is 81.

That's mean. We took the Leafs out, and you still twisted the knife. Why?

The Avalanche beating the Lightning a 126 to 1. Yeah. The lowest odds actually are the at least the ones that I could find are the Florida Panthers. Also the oh, sorry. Avalanche to beat the Carolina Hurricanes 51 to 1.

Oh.

No. I want the rematch of the 96 Stanley Cup final.

What's what are the odds for the Ducks to beat the Blackhawks?

What are the odds for the Ducks to beat the let me have a look. Hang on. Hang on. I gotta go up. I'm like a No.

No. It would be Blackhawks to beat the Ducks. Right? Like, that'd be longest odds because Blackhawks are in last place.

It doesn't matter. It's you're pretty good at the matchup. Oh, okay. It'd be

the same. So, interestingly, they don't offer those.

They've not.

You know what? They don't offer those. But I'll

give you I'll give you some long odds. The Anaheim Ducks to beat the Tampa Bay lightning is a 4000 to 1. The Anaheim Ducks to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins is a 10,001 to 1. Holy hell. Same with the flyers and the senators because, listen, man, the Ducks are bad.

Like, they're bad. And, Jesse, which 1 did you want? It was Anaheim Ducks?

So 10000 to 1 is the highest you can go. Yes. So the sabers to beat the sharks, 10000 to 1. There you go.

That's crazy. Okay. Do you take the Colorado Avalanche now as, like, a sleeper team? Do you pick up Wedgwood? Do you pick up Blackwood?

Do you put do you put some futures on those guys?

Oh, I'd I'd sprinkle. Yeah? I mean, listen, it's you could argue they didn't win either trade. But, there's no argument that they're not immediately better. I thought they were immediately better the second they got Wedgwood.

To add Mackenzie Blackwood to that, that that tandem compared to what they had, huge upgrade. Huge upgrade. All they need is some saves. Settle in, make some saves. Nate Dog and crew will take care of the rest.

You might win some games here.

Jesse, what would you go with?

I had Colorado making the Stanley Cup final preseason, so I'm gonna stick with it. Okay. I think they're good. I think the goalie situation looks a lot brighter moving forward, and I'm disappointed that other teams helped them. Why they bailed out Colorado, this awful, awful goalie situation.

Now Giorgio's out, and they got 2 decent goaltenders. And I'm sad that teams helped them.

That's a good point.

The sake of me trying to be right, I'm happy.

Okay. Alright. That is your BetMGM big story. Go to betmgm.com/dangle for more odds and terms and conditions. So the the last we've done a lot of the Rangers.

The last thing I wanna do is actually the senators on the Rangers. Yesterday, Pierre Le Brun sat down with, Michael Ann Lauer at the general manager's meetings in Boca Raton. I think they're in Boca Raton. They usually are.

Some are warm.

Some were warm and nice. And I noticed on insider trading that CJ had a beach behind him, so I was a little jealous. Oh. But Ann Lauer said that the senators have never spoken to a team about Brady Gajuk. And, obviously, Larry Brooks put out a New York Post Sports Plus article, saying that the Rangers are targeting him.

He said he's either frustrated with the veteran columnist Brooks if he wrote false information or, and here's what Ann Lauer said, or he's being fed false information. And if needed, he's being fed sorry. Or he's being fed false information or people are giving this information from another NHL organization. I don't know. We just had a big memo about tampering from the NHL.

I might consider that soft tampering. Now, guys, I'm gonna give you my perspective on this Mhmm. Which is Larry Brooks' job is to, get people to make a snap judgment and subscribe to post sports plus.

Mhmm.

And the way to do that is give them a great headline and not really deliver on the article. If you look at the screenshots from the article, it's just like, hey. They like them. And it's like, cool, man. I like Ferraris.

Yeah. But I

want a Bugatti.

Yeah. It would be a great fit. And that's cool, man. But do you think soft tampering here, or do you think this is just the senators are struggling, Matthew Kachuk wanted out of Calgary, and so people are just making a bunch of assumptions about Brady.

I think 2 things can be true at once. Number 1, Michael Ann Lauer is so mad about the Sens having a pick confiscated for their role in the Dodonov trade. No 1 has ever been more mad about anything ever than Michael Ann Lauer is about that pick, and this is part of his presidential campaign to get that pick back. Well, what about well, what about well, what about and he's pointing at everybody.

Number 2 Which I respect, by the way. Good for you. Go get it back. Number 2, all the

rangers fans saying there's no way this could possibly be tampering. No 1 has ever coped harder. That it is the copious cope that ever coped. How come every June free agency comes and we're like, everyone tampers. Everyone, they're calling this guy.

They're calling that guy. How come everything gets announced to 12 o'clock right on the button? And now it's, Oh, he was the best guy around. What about all the people he tampered with? What tampering?

Oh, there's no tampering. I do believe this is a thing that happens. I can be convinced that the Rangers are trying to do it, with Brady Tkachuk a 100%.

They've certainly, Jesse, telegraphed their interest.

No. I I don't think they did at all. I think the reports on Friday is that they didn't have any contact with him. We heard, Dreggers say 0 zilch in his tweet calling out

That's true. But what I'm saying is that I think the Rangers and Larry Brooks are pretty and have been for a long time, and Larry's earned that. And this might have been Larry going, let's just throw that out there because I know they like him.

No. I I'm choosing to believe that he was wrong. I think he was very wrong on his reporting.

Wrong? You you think he was just wrong? Yeah.

I think he was wrong. I think I think he kinda extrapolated from something that wasn't really there and all of the insiders when when they are so adamant about dunking on a fellow reporter in the biz, I they're gonna lean on the guys who are trying to dunk.

Jesse, do you think Larry Brooks is very popular?

I think I think he works for a tabloid. Oh.

I mean, truly, they are they're they're on the line. They're on the line. Their post sports section is pretty good.

Oh, yeah.

They do a good job. They do. Hey, listen. Larry does a good job. Molly Walker does a good job.

I'm not gonna I'm not talking to a I would say that, yes, their headlines are a bit tabloid y.

There's there's a newspaper in

front of the New New York Post? I do.

There's a newspaper in Toronto and you go, oh, well, this guy does a good job. This guy does a good what about this guy? Hey. Listen. Hey.

Listen. I think that's going on here.

Alright. Now let's talk about, 1 of the spurned lovers in the Jake Trouba saga, and that is the Buffalo Sabers. Everybody was talking about the Columbus deal that was in For what we understand, the Sabers had 1 in place too, and they coulda used some good news last week after going up for nothing against the Colorado Colorado Avalanche in front of producer Drew and then losing the game. For nothing. It was for nothing.

Do they want to have the most expensive decor in the history of man?

Well, I mean,

Darlene, power, freaking add $8,000,000 in Trouba.

I keep saying it, Steve. How many towering defensemen are you going to add before you realize you need something else other than towering defensemen?

Well, at the end of the goal scoring contest.

Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And and and so this is so Kevin Adams, I thought, had 3 or 4 notable quotes. And and,

You made me ignore all of them over the last few days

Yes.

So that I could react live on the show, and it's been very difficult.

I'm gonna warn you that this, particular news conference is mixed like a Beatles concert, concert, mixed like a Beatles album in that 1 side will come in 1 ear and 1 side will come in the other because they mono mixed it.

So annoying.

It'll be fixed. Nobody will hear that.

Oh, nobody will hear that? Oh, that's good.

No. I'll fix it.

Jesse Blake.

But we'll start on a minute 55 into this.

And I want you

to hear what the reporter has to say. Oh. Because the report is Buffalo is a hardcore hockey town. They've got great media. You can't fool them.

No. You can't. And listen to what this reporter says. This is just after Kevin's opening remarks, and you'll see this reporter just lay right into it. Oh, the hard part?

Yeah. Here we go.

Yeah. Happy to answer questions.

Kevin, you've got 11 wins in 26 games. You're 12th in the east. You're 23rd in the league right now. You're coming off your 3 days removed from 1 of the most disgraceful losses in the history of the franchise. Why is your team so mentally fragile?

And what are you gonna do about changing the composition of this mix? Well,

I think, the, you know, the color

No. Let's not keep let's keep going. No. Let him answer. Let him answer.

Bravo. Good question.

Holy shit.

K. Let's go. Because I want I want you to hear his answer here because you that starts with that question. Here's what he answers with.

Auto game is it's tough. You know, that's, that's 1 of those games that, you know, they wins and losses at the end of the day all count the same, but those ones hurt. And, yeah, there's a lot of reasons, I think, as you watch the video and you go back that, you know, we we unraveled, and, we need to learn from that and be better. You know, I think if I'm looking to the the positives of you bring in Lindy, you know, a new system or 26 games into the year, you know, some of the stuff that I look at trying to judge our team, there's some positives there and and reasons to believe that we're gonna take some steps, which we need to. We're not happy with where we are.

We need to get better. But, you know, you look at, you know, even strength, expected goals for goals against. We're right where you wanna be, know, to be a playoff team. You know, you're we're surrounded. We think it's Jersey, Dallas, LA, maybe.

They're just good teams in that mix right with us. So we're there's some things that I look at when you try to step back and zoom out and take some of the emotion out that are positive signs.

Okay. Let's talk hold it there. So I want you to I want you to hear that because I wanted you to hear the the reporter who ostensibly is representing the fans.

Yes.

Right?

Yes.

That's what the media's ultimate job is to be. You are the conduit between the fan anger, and then you listen to how the organization responds. Right? You listen to how Kevin Adams responds there. Do you do you feel and see, and can you empathize with the frustration that a Sabers fan must feel listening to an answer like that?

Yes. To me, and we said this sort of at the beginning of the season, the Sabers are 1 of the most difficult teams to evaluate and talk about this season. Because at the beginning of the season, I said, I think they've done a lot of good things. I think they're on the right path. And I think if you look at where they are in the standings, I think that's the I I think I was correct.

Mhmm. I think I was right. They're better than they were last year. Are they good enough? Sabre's fans have they finally, after all these years, it's here.

The breaking point is here. They're done. I thought after Ical and everything that was it. No. They still had some punishment to go through.

And I don't know if I don't know exactly what it was. Maybe it was watching all the former sabers win cups in recent years, especially on the Panthers. I mean, Eichel winning 1 the year before had hurt too. I think that that made them snap, and they just don't give a shit what the excuse is anymore. They're done.

And I don't wanna hear it.

If the Leafs were where the Sabers are, and Treliving or Dubas or Keefe or Barube or Pelly or Lou or anybody got up and said, yeah, but look at where our expected goals are.

Our expected goals are pretty good. He I don't think Kevin Adams said anything wrong. I don't. But that doesn't mean, saying them out loud is right. No 1 wants to hear that shit.

If you say something no 1 wants to hear, was it the correct thing to say? I'm not totally sure.

Well, especially in a situation like this.

He made the same mistake that every executive seems to make in these situations. He tried to talk his way out of it.

All he had to do there was go, you know what? I I wanna level with you. Nobody on the team and nobody in the front office is is, happy with this either. Yep. That's it.

There's your sentence. There it is.

How often does an executive talking make it better? It's almost never.

Well, he starts this press conference, and we won't go to it, guys, but I I wanna say that he said, you guys wanted me here. I'm here. I'm I believe in being accountable. Here I am. That's how he opened the press conference.

Bless him. Bless him. I don't know if it was the right call, dude.

Okay. Now I want you to listen to this. The 7 go to 738, Jesse, if you can. This is where the the jokes from this weekend sorta started, although this isn't quite the palm trees line. But he does go back to this a couple of times because the reporters put him in this direction.

So this is the line you're looking for is we're not a destination city. I wanna run this 1, and then I wanna run the next 1, and then I wanna break it down. So have a listen to this. It's about 40 seconds.

Paul, like, this is not a a time. We're not a destination city right now, where you're gonna be able to go out and get UFAs, that are the that are the key guys. And I just don't think that's that's the way to build a sustainable winner. So you evaluate your core. You look for trades that you can have players that can can grow with you and add to your team.

If there's UFAs that you can add that are that makes sense, that work, of course, you're gonna be open to doing that. So that's what we're in the process of. But to circle back, yeah, you always look at everything. And if there's ways to improve, we'll do it.

K. Let's go to the next 1 here.

Well, in recent memory, the way to build a winner is to call you.

Let's go to hold off on that just for a sec. Let's go to 14 15 here. And this is where the palm tree's quote comes in. K? So you add that to what you I wanted to add to that quote because that quote was the 1 that made the rounds, but there were other things around it.

It's it's really simple. You become a perennial playoff team. You make the playoffs. You have a chance to win Stanley Cup year after year. You are on less teams.

No trade less. We don't have palm trees. We have taxes in New York. There those are real, and those are things you deal with. But, and trust me, there's I mean, conversations every day, and there's a lot of players in this league that were on their list.

So we need to we need to earn the respect, and it starts with getting over the hump, getting in the playoffs, competing. And, once you do that, I mean, look

at look at the the bills.

I mean, that would be a perfect example. I would, you know, assume that this wasn't a destination or a place that a lot of people were signing up to when they were in a 17 year playoff drought, and, they've done a phenomenal job over there. You get Josh Allen, and people are lining up because they have a chance to win the Super Bowl every year. And I think that's what we're working to build here. Here.

Okay. No. We'll pause it there. Now here's the thing with the Sabers. And this isn't Kevin Adams' fault necessarily because, he is several general managers removed because they replaced 1 every month, it seemed like.

It was crazy. It was crazy.

But they did have a Josh Allen. His name was Jack Eichel. And what the Sabers did and this is where I take I take real umbrage with his we're not a destination city. Mhmm. Because it plays into the nobody wants to live or play in Buffalo thing, which is not true.

I've seen eras of Buffalo saber hockey where free agents went out of their way to sign there.

Isn't Minnesota in first place?

Well, yeah. But I I think people say that that Minneapolis and Buffalo are very different economically, different challenges and that sort of thing.

They don't have palm trees.

They don't have palm trees. They do have taxes. The the the I think the where I wanna go with this is you're not a destination organization. Mhmm. The way that and I want you to go and I want you to watch, and I'll still have Sabre's fans disagreeing with me in my comments when I make this.

That's okay. I want you to go and watch episode 4 of the Amazon Prime series, The Captains. And they talk about or not The Captains. That's the Jake Troubles. And I want you to look at the 1 with Jack Eichel.

Yeah. Who's he paired with? I know what you're talking about.

Yeah. Just go watch the 1 with Jack Eichel. We don't we don't have to break it down too, too much. What this organization did to Jack Eichel was they made it seem like he was a prima donna. They made it seem like, hey, listen, we've done everything we can for you, Jack.

We gave you $80,000,000 on a contract. The least you could do is do what our doctor says to do with your neck that you have to live with for the rest of your life.

And get operated on, what was it, every 10 years for the rest

of

your life?

Yeah. And what happened was the what really happened here, guys, and Sabre's fans, I need you to hear me on this because Sabre's fans turned on Jack Eichel. Yep. And and it's not necessarily your fault, but the organization wanted you to. They wanted to drive home the pressure of, if you're gonna be here, you're gonna do it our way.

And Jack said no. And what so there was a press campaign of which some of the media participated where, hey, Jack Eichel, you're being a prima donna. You don't care about Buffalo Sabers hockey. You're not in it to win it. I'm so glad that you got traded.

And this is an organization that Ryan O'Reilly signed a contract with. And when he won, the Conn Smythe said he lost his love of hockey. This is an organization that moved moved off of Brandon Montour very quickly, couldn't get rid of Sam Reinhart fast enough after a couple of seasons where he Let me ask you this. If you're a free agent or you're a Jake Truba

Mhmm.

Looking at the Sabers organization, why would you wanna go?

They got 1 big fish in recent memory, and it was Taylor Hall, and it's because he fucked up.

And how did he do there? He was bad with the Sabers.

They're like the bad kids school. Like, you got you got detention too many times. You know, Taylor Hall didn't do his homework, and now he's gotta go to Buffalo. And For 5 seconds, by the way, until they

traded him for because he was bad.

Like, Anders how's Anders Bjork doing? And a second, I think. Taylor Hall, who was not very far removed from his MVP.

And this is this is the the thing. Right? Fried was mentioning this morning that Sabers fans were all over Dylan Cousins, and Sabers don't wanna move off him because they worry that he's the next guy to leave and and then go win a cup somewhere else.

I mean, learn something from history for god's sake.

You have cousins. You have Petrka. You have stage Thompson. They're Above

all of them too. They're too good.

And and this is the thing. All the goal scoring that the Buffalo Sabers need and the expected goals department here's the thing about expected goals is you actually do have to finish. You do have to score them. All of those guys could have provided that. Eichel, Reinhart.

They could all be there. Those are the guys I would argue they need. Casey Mittelstaedt. Did you need did you need Beau Byram that bad?

Yeah.

When you have Power and Darlene and all these other guys? In retrospect,

I, like, I kinda like the deal at the time, but in retrospect, if you look at roster construction, you need Mittel Sat more, than you need Byram. That's not the case for most teams. I think most teams need, Byram more than you need Mittelstaedt, but they need Mittelstaedt, who also hasn't had the greatest season.

Yeah. But on a Really, really, really Colorado team that's been mostly injured and

Really, really, really good start and then he's tailed off, but still.

And then, Jesse, if we'll go to the last 1 here, the 1 thing that Sabers fans are super pissed about is, you know, you do the Jeff Skinner buyout. You've got a significant amount of cap available. Why haven't you done anything with it? Here's what they say.

Yeah. I mean, I think the answer is yes, except, like, it's not in a vacuum, though, Lance. Like, you you you have to look at past this year when you're putting your roster together. And, the cap, I think I've clearly explained before, has never been something that I'm as focused on as as all of you or the fans. We're trying to build our roster out that we're able, year after year, to compete.

And if you go add an $8,000,000, player that's got 5 years left on his contract, what does that do for the next round of guys? And that's what my job is to make sure we're positioning ourselves not only today, but into the future. So if there's if there's players out there we think that it will help us today, that also keeping the long term view in mind, we'll act on it.

But you already know. You're not paying big money to Quinn or Levi now. And in July, that might have been a question. You know that now that they're not getting big money deals after the season.

Oh, yeah. I'm glad. But she really is.

But, you know, I mean, but the whole world knows that just by watching the games. So, I mean, and and you're right, you have to take the long term view, but we're talking about this year. I mean, you cannot go 14 years out of the playoffs. I mean, teams make it just out of dumb luck. I I mean, I understand you're probably doing consistent trade talks with teams, and I know the trooper rumors are out there right now.

You might be on the team tomorrow for all we know. The question I think is simply why isn't there another even another Jason Zucker type 1 year veteran kind of acquisition being made? Not a guy with 5 years left on his deal. You've got the room on the cap this year where you can still deal with future years?

Yeah. I I guess, you know, I'd have to go into specifics, which is which is tricky in these situations. But if you go back to the summer, there were there were a short list of UFA guys that, you know, we we had targeted. And fortunately, we were able to get Zucker because I think he's really stepped in and been a stabilizing player and been a good leader and mentor and played well on the ice. There were other guys pursued, chose other places.

That's what happens in the UFA market. And, in terms of trades, I mean, there was, in my mind, a trade that we worked really hard at this summer that we went all in on. You guys probably would have roasted me, say we were gonna overpay to get the player, and they ended up not trading him, and he's still on that team.

That would be Marty Neatrous.

It's not from lack of want, but we're not gonna go, Mike, and just make a trade so you guys can say we've spent to the cap, if we don't think it makes sense for for now and into the future. And that's just you just can't operate like that.

So that's part of the second

Yeah. So that that's the 1 thing that I took issue with with with Kevin Adams there. It's like the the palm tree stuff I can I can get? Like, they're obviously not a destination. He was just trying to say, like, we're not Florida, you know, which is, like, he said in the worst way possible, it became a meme and all that.

But the not spending the money and the excuses and I think the guy's asking the questions, the reporters in the room, they're they're so right.

That's true. Minutes in to the crucifixion of Kevin. Yeah.

It's a 30 minute press conference.

Holy shit. You're sitting there and you're you're asking him 14 years out of the playoffs, like every year now has to be a go for a year. Right? And and Steve, if I give you a $100 and I say, I I got I'm gonna give you a $100 so you can buy dinner today and tomorrow. Yes.

And you say, well, I want this dinner here. I'm looking at this menu, and they have an item for a $100. So I can't buy that because then I won't have anything for tomorrow. Yeah. Don't spend the full 100.

Yeah.

Like, why don't you get something different so that you'll have money for today and tomorrow? With Kevin Adams, the question about the cap is you have so much cap room and you have supposedly the thumbs up from the pagulists to go spend the money, but your excuse is that you don't wanna sign an $8,000,000 deal for 5 years. Don't do that contract, do the lesser contract. He didn't have an answer for that because he seems like the way he's GM ing this Buffalo Sabers team is coming from a standpoint of of being way too timid. And he's doing he's doing the easy path of, like, we're we got a bunch of young guys, we got a bunch of draft picks, just play them.

It's all good. Instead of being proactive in building a team and trying to do something to win, he's sitting back and he's throwing his hands up and saying, we can't get free agents. We got a bunch of young kids. They need to stick around. They only need contracts 1 day.

Just sitting back and relaxing instead of everybody's asking for some sort of action from Kevin Adams, and he just doesn't seem right for the job at this point.

The anecdote that he provided too, if I just add to that before you chimp in, the anecdote he provided about, well, what happens to the next 5 years of the player that has, you know, an $8,000,000 contract? Goes up,

and you do your job.

Yeah. Okay. So you know what? You're right. You you're making several $1,000,000 to do this or a $1,000,000 or whatever he's making.

Just don't do anything.

The Florida Panthers traded their all time leading score. The, like and we're not even talking about, like, all the all the trades that they they made with the Sabers. The Vegas Golden Knights got rid of their the most beloved player in in franchise history. The rangers are just lopping off heads left and right. Do something.

Do anything. Yeah. Well, this guy said, oh, call the next 1 and the next 1 and the next 1. Do something. Now the the 1, I'm I mean, I'm not gonna stick up from, but the subtext here that he just can't say because he'll get fired is the accusation from a lot of Sabers fans is its ownership and Yeah.

Internal cap, and they won't they won't

spend to the cap.

The Kevin Adams always says that he's got, like, the go ahead from the pugulas to do it, but, yeah, all of the rumors are that he doesn't and the actual thing is he can't spend the money, which is even worse than, like, fold your franchise. Go go do something else.

Overspend. Overspend. Go into free agency, and give a 2 and a half $1,000,000 player $5,000,000.

Sure. Something.

Dude, you would still have 3.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and yeah, listen, spend it on the right guy. Like, I get that. But isn't that your job, man?

And the reality is, again, players talk. There's only 700 of these guys. They all know each other. If you're from a small town of, like, 10,000 people, you I'm sure you can relate to, yeah, everybody knows everybody through everybody. Mhmm.

The NHL is like a group of 2,000 people. They all know each other. They're all very well aware, and the walls talk. Do you think that a star player wants to go there and be treated not by the fans who are actually great to people, but by the organization the way Jack Eichel was treated? And I would say no.

Absolutely not.

The Buffalo what's crazy about this press conference in the state of the Sabers right now is they are second last in the Eastern Conference.

Mhmm.

They are 1 point out of last in the Eastern Conference. They are also 3 points out of a playoff spot.

Yeah. That's why the standings are irrelevant.

Yeah. Like They were they were they were ahead of the Bruins a couple weeks ago.

There's some the damn Bruins, by the way, who are 1 point behind the Leafs.

Of course.

Go away. Mhmm. I think if if you look

at this team play, you know they're not a playoff team. Right? I Like, 3 points 3 points out, they're not like, the Atlantic division every year is Groundhog Day. Like, no. The the Sabers aren't knocking off Tampa, Boston, Florida, Toronto.

Like, we've seen it. We've seen 2 months of hockey. You can see it. It's not happening.

I just also don't feel like they're dead. Like I don't know. They seem

They're pretty dead.

They seem an impact forward away from being in the conversation.

The impact forward, they should have gotten July. They died in July when Kevin Adams decided to sit on his hands and say, you know what? I can't sign any long term contracts because I'm afraid I gotta pay Darlene for his next deal many moons from now.

You know what I'm gonna say to Kevin, don't worry. You might not be here anyway. Yeah. Like, just go and do something.

Is this cope? Is this so the conversation used to be the saber suck at their irredeemable and fire everyone because there's no point even watching the games. That used to be the conversation. Now it's they shouldn't still suck. They're not far away from the conversation.

How do you spend your way into a playoff spot?

Basically,

like, I don't think it's ridiculous that the sabers could be relevant very soon. That's not a conversation we used to have. Mhmm. The conversation used to be these guys, like, aren't even an NHL team. That used to be what it was.

Yep.

I don't know. I'm just

Okay. And Kevin Adams inherited the team at that point. Like, he didn't, like, pull them from irrelevance. He inherited the team that was, like, okay, there's pieces here, they could do something. And then since then, we've stand pat at that point of the franchise.

He's sitting there complaining about how hard how hard his job is or explaining to us how hard

is explaining. Yeah.

And no 1 wants to hear it. Like, I think he handled those questions well. I think he's done some very good things for the sabers. If he were to get fired tomorrow, I don't think he'd be leaving them in terrible shape. I also think he should probably get fired.

Does anybody Like, you you need a new set of eyes on it. Can I also throw out this? What did the Sabers what favors did the Sabers do themselves bringing in Lindy Ruff this year? And the reason I asked that is there are certain coaches, you get to a point where you've had your day, and it might be passed. And I'm not gonna give Lindy shit for everything that happened with the devils last year, but there is a reason why devils fans were like, please go.

And and and and this is the thing. So you go back to what worked 25 years ago, by the way. That's when they were at their peak with Hasek, and Lindy was the coach then. 20 5 years ago, 1999. Is he

coming in the door? Is Dom coming in the door?

What do you mean? Oh, Haczek.

Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, no. And this is So And Lindy's 1 of those coaches where not everybody loves this guy. So did you do yourself as a non destination city, and I would say non destination franchise, by bringing in a guy that a lot of guys don't wanna play for?

Well, Jesse said the magic word last show, I think, where he called Lindy Ruff a Cito Gaston hire.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Referencing the Blue Jays and okay. So the Blue Jays bring back Cito Gaston. What are the Blue Jays thinking? My thinking is at the time, no 1 wanted to be the manager of the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays were not a destination team.

They're not now. They were for a little bit. They're not now.

Well, not with this management group. No.

No. And I think Buffalo's in the same position. Their repute reputation unfortunately precedes them. I think the only way out of this problem is to draft well Mhmm. Which I don't know, they've done okay.

They have. They have. No question.

And

spend to the cap every year whatever the cap ends up becoming.

Yeah. His his quote about not caring about the cap, what do you mean you don't care about the cap?

Yeah. It means you have more money to spend on players.

It was the first care. It was the first like, I mean, there's no winning that press conference, but that was the first question where I was like, that's a little patronizing.

Yep. I I also, let

me say this. The Sabers have almost the exact amount of money to spend right now and at the trade deadline as the New York rangers. So how is that money being spent, Kevin?

Damn. Dude, I don't know who you go out there and get like, I I think you just start button mashing if you're him. Go do something. Go find anything.

Well, here's what I was thinking. You know what's not a destination city unless they're winning? They also wear blue and yellow. Who? Saint Louis.

Oh. And guess what they did?

I forgot that they're they've worn so many colors.

You know you know what Saint Louis did? They went out, and they got aggressive and signed 2 of RFAs this year. And they did it in a creative way that worked out for them. And and Broberg's been really good. Kevin Adams doesn't have that in his bag.

He doesn't do that.

Not a skill set he has.

Now, Roberto Luongo told a story. I think it was on chiclets, that he was offer sheeted after Florida traded him to Vancouver Mhmm. Which is crazy, but he turned it down. There was a rumor. I don't know if it was ever confirmed that Mitch Marner was offer sheeted.

Columbus. By Columbus.

Yeah. You have to accept it. 13,000,000. Somebody can't just give you an offer sheet and then it's like, oh, you could go to this team. No.

You have to also accept it.

But with the long ago, I'd never even heard a whisper of that. And I wonder if the Sabers have gone out there and offer sheeted guys. And people are just like, no. I don't wanna go there. You have to make trades.

Mhmm.

You have to go out there and make trades. They're not every player in the NHL has a no trade. Not every player in the NHL has a no move. Get active. Get active.

Do it. Overpay. Whatever. Then you guys would be on the don't pre argue with something you haven't done. Come on, man.

Oh, man. You should

have seen what I could have done to that guy.

That Marty Neetches deal that I didn't do, it was so good, and you would have criticized me for it anyway. What are we doing here? What are we doing here? You're patting yourself on the back for a hypothetical that you didn't succeed in. You're in the success business and you failed.

What do you want? What do you like, listen, I don't wanna go to that press conference either, but you're in the success business and you failed.

Wear it. You know what they say about doer? The clothes are built for doering. Doering things.

It's the end of the

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You see? Yeah.

You see? No. That works. Yeah.

See that? No. No. It doesn't. Whether we're on whether you're traveling or lounging at home or going to a nice dinner party, doers.

Those are the ones who DUE are. That's growing on me. These are the clothes you wanna go, go with. And and here's the thing. They're not about the fast fashion.

They're committed to sustainability. We're talking slow fashion.

Yeah.

It doesn't make you slow. It just means that it lasts longer. They use recycled materials and plant based fibers wherever possible for natural breathability, softness, and moisture absorption. And if you got that hockey booty, well, those pants, they kinda they grab you and they tuck you.

It's great for if you're the 4th line center. Oh, no. It's spelled different.

No. Yeah. 4th line. Yeah. So Got it.

So, you know, listen. Dior is a a pant that I I have big legs. I have a big butt. Steve, you can relate. Oh.

They kinda Never. They kinda fit great. And, as a sweaty boy, I don't don't feel too sweaty in them, which is good because it's always a problem for me as well.

Is welcome for the 2 people who have to sit next to them all the time.

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20% off. Shopdoer.com/sdp. Now something you don't know about us is oftentimes right before the show, Steve will show Jesse or I or both of us something that happened with his kids.

Mhmm.

And it's he's it's the digital equivalent of the guy that had way too many photos in his wallet in the nineties. They just kinda fall out. Yes. Like, these are my kids. Check them out.

I'm proud. And if you're somebody that loves those type of memories, those family related things, we should you should check out story worth. Each week, story worth emails your loved 1 a thought provoking question, that you get to help pick. And it's things like, what's the bravest thing you've ever done? What's the farthest you've ever traveled?

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That's storyworth.com/stp to save $10 on your first purchase. Let's move on to the success business, and you failed, Keefe and the Leafs and Devils. Now I'm gonna be streaming the game tonight. Hey.

But I I wanna No. Today's not Monday. Today's Tuesday.

Yeah. It feel it feels like Monday. Yeah.

Yeah. Because we're recording.

And I just wanna go through, Jonas Siegel sat down with Sheldon Keefe. And, there are some things in this article that the people who would really identify with the philosophies and thoughts of the Dubas era Toronto Maple Leafs, which Keefe is a huge member of

Yes.

I think you'd find interesting. And, we'll start with some of the answers. And this is, talking about his time in Toronto. I look back to my time in Toronto. This is Keef saying this.

And it's hard to compute quite honestly because we were 1 way in the regular season. At times, we scored a lot. At times, we didn't defend well enough. At times, we did. I think, we don't get enough credit for defending like we did.

And then we get into the playoffs, and I just think don't think the defending was ever really an issue. We couldn't score. That part of it is difficult. But it's just a reminder of how hard we need to push, to be able to learn to score in different ways in the regular season versus the playoffs. And he's talking

guys didn't go to the Nets.

And he's talking about the Devils in this particular situation. He said, but, yeah, that was 1 of the things. We talked a lot in Toronto about trying to be better defensively. I don't think that's ever why we lost in the playoffs. I look back at those game sevens and all these series, we could have won before getting to game 7.

The number of opportunities we had to score goals and not being able to generate enough, that's the big reason why we lost, and that doesn't necessarily jive with the perception of the team, say, in the regular season. Do we agree with that, guys?

Yep. Yep. I I Mhmm. That Sheldon Keith always understood the problem.

Like, look just go look at the box score.

I know. Always understood.

They they got they got what they needed, and they the stars weren't able to put the puck in the net.

I think early on too, Freddie Anderson in the playoffs, you just never knew what you were gonna get. He was exhausted. He was either gonna put on the game of his life or he's gonna let 6 goals in.

See, Freddie Anderson, I if I'm not mistaken, never played an elimination game for Keef.

Oh, okay. So then

Like he was horrible under Babcock, though. Yeah. And except for the capital series, he was great. That 1 friggin time. And then under Keith, I think it was Campbell Campbell.

Samsonoff. Campbell? No. Anderson might have been in that.

Anderson was in that for the first 1.

Yeah. He might have been in that for the Columbus series, then it was Campbell Campbell.

Samsonoff last year.

Samsonoff last year. Yeah.

And that was it?

And Samsonoff won. Samsonoff twice.

And yeah. Before that too. Samsonov.

On the final Boston series this past spring, he said, when you look back, you watch that Boston series in 2024. We played very well defensively. We played hard. We were right there even with no Austin and no Willie. Even Bobby McMahon was a big loss for us, and he's right.

He

is. Bobby McMahon was. I thought we were right there. I could've won that series. The Montreal series, we lost in 2021.

I look back at that, and I remember going back through it. We lost 2 games in overtime when we had them facing elimination. We had 15 2 on ones in that series, and 11 of them came in our 4 losses, and we scored on 0 of

them. Jesus. That's that's, Leaf internal stat. Right? Like, I Yeah.

I don't think he's quoting a public stat necessarily.

No. And Jonah Siegel says, which is almost impossible to do. He's not scoring on them. And and it's I'd love to know

who was involved in all those 2 on ones.

So Keith said, so it's like we score in a couple of those. The series is over, and then who knows what happens from there, but it's the little things. We gotta be able to come through big moments and condition yourself to do so. Clearly, I didn't do a good enough job of that. And, you know, I I think my issue with Keef was never that that he didn't own what the issue was.

I think it was that he couldn't get the players to respond to it. No. And I look at that stat alone, the 1521 ones.

Ugh. Ugh.

If you have 1521 ones and you score on 0 of them, then that's not the way to score goals.

2 on ones? Yes. They are. If

you're not What? Okay. Yes. They are. What I'm talking about.

Ones are absolutely how you score goals. What are you talking about? You know

what I'm talking about. That was a wild quote, Adam.

That is a wild quote.

Wild quote, guys.

That's an Adam quote.

Talk what have what have you put your entire fucking season on this year? Go to the net. Yes. The 2 on ones weren't working. What didn't they do?

They didn't go to the net. Thank you. They kept getting a clean quote. It's you didn't make an adjustment and change.

It is it is safe. Adam.

Okay. Well, okay. You know what? No. You know what?

Let's let them off the hook. Let's let them

off the hook again.

That's not what we're doing. That's what

we're doing. Going to the net

Yeah. Is a helpful way to score goals. Yeah. Yeah. This that team this team

because they were a rush. My point is they were a rush team. They were not a dump and chase team. They were not a chaos in front of the net team. 2 on ones were the only way those Leafs could score.

The

2 on ones against the Leafs went in.

Went away in the playoffs. The 2 on ones against the Leafs went in.

This is the problem. They failed at the 2 on ones. No. They they couldn't score, Steve.

2 on ones are good. Are you sitting here arguing 2 on ones? No.

I'm not. I'm saying the Leafs couldn't convert on them, and those were their only scoring chances. Go back and watch it. You watch the game.

Oh, no.

You stream the games.

You are right.

Thank you. That they didn't That's my point.

They didn't get, second chances. Right? Like, they didn't get chances.

There's no rebounds. There was a goalie saw fucking everything. We were turning that year in the regular season. We were turning it was like the Sam Montembo game game 1 of this year.

That was just trending playoff.

We put them on the the Leafs put Sam Montembo on team Canada that game.

It was it was, that without the dominance in the shot counter.

That's my point. I'm not saying 2 on ones are not Yeah.

But just more. We can't If we disagree with you about the 2 on ones, you can't immediately say you're letting them off the hook. Like, that's not what we're doing. Don't spin don't spin the conference.

That is letting

them off the hook.

Keith. No. I know I was disagreeing with what you were saying nothing to do with the Leafs.

Keith was regularly like go to the goddamn net. Yes. And even though he had more of a rush team by his design

Mhmm.

Right? So, you know, it's it's, you know, you could say maybe Keith wanted 1 thing, but he coached another way. But we know for years years years, he hammered home, go to the friggin net go to the friggin net playoff style goals go to the friggin net and they wouldn't do it for him they're doing it for Craig

they are

with the exact same forward group nearly exact in a lot of ways. Now the last part

of the article, I think, is 1 of the most interesting, because we talk about a lot who's making the decisions here in Toronto. And Keith Pelle, at a sports conference earlier this year in Toronto said, what he literally likes about this team is there's harmony all the way through the front office, from the top right down to the coach. And, so basically, Keith was asked about that, and he said, I've never had a real conversation with Keith Pelle before, so I don't know what that quote was. I spent hours with Brad, and I was actually surprised to be back as Leafs coach a year ago. And, Jonah Siegel said, I guess you were in limbo for quite a while.

And Keith said, probably nobody in the organization there knows me better than Brandon Shanahan, who worked so closely with me, and with everything from blueprint or the Amazon show, has probably watched 100 of hours behind the scenes of me working, and probably knows me better than anybody in hockey. He decided to keep me around.

Mhmm.

So That is that not proof that Channing's making all the calls?

It yeah. We know that.

Yeah. We've we've known that for

The head coach and everything and, like, big trades, they're all his decision. Yeah. Yeah. It comes down to him.

I think Keith Pelle meant to praise Craig Barubi with that quote but it reads like shiving Keith.

It does. Which is

the Leafs MO. They shiv guys on their way out.

They did it to do this.

They did it to do this. And I'll always bring it up. The the, 2021 Amazon documentary, they protected everybody. Jimmy VC, fuck off. They they shit on that guy so bad because he was 1 of the only players they had license to.

Right? So this is their ammo. And, generally, I like the organization, but they did him dirty. Every time he scores on the Leafs, I bet it feels like absolute euphoria.

Here's what Craig Barube had to say about Max Domi and Nick Robertson. He said the score sheet, the goals, it's important. Max has gotta maybe be take a little bit different of approach and not be such a selfless player and shoot more. Just getting to the net and the greasy area is a bit more. He's the type of player that could score more goals there.

He's a strong guy. He's a heavy guy. So I think for him, a lot like Nick Robertson, they gotta get inside more and get more to the net and score some greasy goals. We need them too. We need those guys, and we need secondary scoring.

And Max Domi, by the way, projected to be back tonight.

Max oh, is he? That's it.

Yeah. He's practicing with them today. So

That's awesome. Well, I bet he'd like that quote and then scoring against Sheldon Keefe. You know, maybe because that quote is mostly about Max Domi, but maybe he figured out why Robertson's not scoring right there is the team's not designed for him to score anymore. Last year's team was

Rush guy.

Rush guy. Yeah. His I don't remember his first goal of the season. There's only 2 to remember. But the 1 against Vasilevskiy, Rush crazy angle, all that.

That's not really how they score anymore. Unless you're William Nylander. Mhmm. Who scores on those 2 shitty 2 on ones?

I know I know where I was going. I know I know I know I know. I thought you jumped on that like I was I was saying 2 on 1 should be out. You guys knew what I where I was going with that.

Yeah. So attack us.

Did do you see a 2 on 1?

What did you do to me?

Did you see a 2 on 1 and go, no.

No. Of course not.

I know. I just fucking

But my point was, they weren't scoring the right way, and the way that they had scored wasn't working.

Robertson, I love him. He can't I don't think he can do what Keefe is asking him to. Like, oh, yeah. Go to the net. Go to that.

Like, that's not that's not Travis connecting you. That's not Brandon Hagel. That's not like I'm trying to think of the other little guys out there who score gritty goals in this league like Cole Caulfield is not really doing that he's just a laser beam I don't I don't know if Robertson has the facilities to do what Keith is asking him to do. Brew it. Yeah.

No. No. Keith.

Oh, Keith.

Oh, in

that quote. Oh, I see.

Yeah. I don't I don't know what Robertson's future is in the league. Because if you're an undersized guy and you don't have the speed to make up for it or the the skill set to make up for it, like, where do you play?

Hey, let's let's tack on our last conversation. Kevin Adams should be calling the Leafs every fucking day to try to get Nick Robertson.

Nick Robertson.

He should.

I don't know.

Why not? I don't

know if anybody should be calling for Nick Robertson.

I mean, try.

He has

Oh, you're in 2nd last. Like, what do you have to lose?

He had 15 goals last year.

Yeah. I he can score in the NHL, and the reason I know that is because he has it's he's just clearly not

a dump and chase forward. Not a dump and chase guy. And maybe he can't adjust his game the same way the other guys can.

Okay. So he's got this laser beam of a shot Yep. That overpowers any flaw in his game. Mhmm. And in the OHL, he had an elite setup man in Simeon Durga Chintsev.

And then in the AHL, I'm not totally sure who all his line mates were, but I'm willing to bet Alex Steves was on there. And he just became Marley's all time leading scorer, Nick Abruzzese, who's a pass first forward. And then in the NHL, he's mostly been getting, like, most recently, it was Fraser Mitten. It was Pontus Holmberg. It was Max Domi who is a pass first forward, but they didn't have the puck enough to be a threat offensive.

Is, like, oh, we need to play Nick Robertson with Matthews and Marner to get him going. Like, what?

What's the same with Pontus Holberg, though, isn't it?

No. Thomas Holberg has lots of places in this lineup.

He played a role.

Yeah. Yeah. He's got a purpose. And, like, if Nick Robertson needs star players around to have a purpose, then he's just not gonna Like this Like, he needs to be an effective 3rd or 4th liner. I think Homburg

sorry. I think Robertson can't do the things that Homburg does to be effective on this team. I also don't think Homburg can do the thing Robertson does. But it's just the tools Holmberg has are better suited for this team.

Okay. Does that make sense? I also think that Robertson's a complimentary piece, and I think they're asking him to drive scoring on the 3rd line without any viable candidate to help him. And that includes Fraser Minton. I know Fraser's had some points and stuff, but that's a lot to put on Fraser Minton.

Stop being in your own zone all the time.

They do get hemmed in a lot with him there.

When you do have an opportunity with John Tavares because of a weird line change, don't fuck it up and go outside and then take an offensive zone penalty. Yep. You know what I mean? Sorry. I know this turned into a conversation about Nick Robertson, but I still I I stand by what I said the like from before Keith was fired.

He has always known what this team's problem was.

Elliott Friedman. Okay. The reason we went to Robertson and Domi, by the way, is because that was a Baruah quote. Elliott Friedman from the board board of governors meeting that he just posted this a couple minutes ago. Betman says there will be despite Betman denying this a couple weeks ago, Betman says there will be negotiations with the PA about the cap going up more than 5%.

Yeah. Because they're gonna need to.

Can't trust him.

There are no active tampering investigations. Duh. Because everybody's doing it. You have to fine everybody. Would it gonna not have a first round next year?

And then, the Florida Panthers are closing in on hosting an outdoor game at the Marlins Ballpark.

Oh. That's cool.

That is cool. That's very cool. I, that'd be interesting.

It's warm.

It does get cool in Florida at certain parts of the year.

I mean, they've they've had outdoor games in Mexico. They'll be okay.

Yeah.

They had an outdoor game in California.

The other thing that, the insiders mentioned on TSN this morning was that, the PA and the NHL are hoping to have an agreement in place potentially by the playoffs for the next CBA.

Oh, that'd be excellent. Yeah. Some assurance that hockey won't stop.

Yeah. Hey. Great for small business owners. Yeah. Yeah.

That's great minds thinking like Adam. The Marlins

also don't play in an outdoor stadium. The roof is retractable. Yes. You can take it off and put it back on. So, like, knowing the NHL, they'll probably play with the roof cover.

No.

I if it rains

that They'll have to. Right?

And that would be, like, controlled environment.

Isn't that what they did in Vancouver when they wore those weird maroon jerseys?

Vancouver doesn't have a retractable roof. The BC they played in the

where the BC Lions They got a deluxe. Play. Right?

Yeah. Isn't yeah. That was their outdoor game was actually Was

that I don't know.

No. No. Because Tore Tore Torets was wearing a a heavy jacket for that.

I'm almost positive that was roof close. Really?

Really?

Stupid boo. No way. Boo. Hoover. Jesse's looking it up.

Oh. That was serious? That was the Eddie Latt game.

Yes. Where well, that's that was Lwongo's last game with the Canucks. That's where he he Patrick won.

Then I'm out of here. 2014 heritage classic. Yeah. Was played inside. Yeah.

Steve, there's a roof

on it. No. Shit. You were wrong.

I was

wrong? Yeah. Didn't you say

he said it was he said it was inside.

I said it was inside?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was yeah. I was saying there's a roof on it. Right?

Hey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was played it was played inside.

There you go.

Yeah. Attendance, 54,000.

Good for them.

And man, can I send them

lose the descends?

54 thou so, like, instead of calling them an outdoor game, we should just call them a game with a bigger audience.

Yeah. Oh, look at this.

Hey. It's more people.

Yeah. Because it has the little thing on the top. Right? It is the first I'm just gonna read directly from Wikipedia. It's the 1st outdoor game to to be played in what is technically an indoor stadium, albeit 1 of the larger capacity than a typical NHL arena.

BC Place is a retractable roof venue, and it is unknown if the stadium has the capabilities to keep its roof open during inclement weather. So that's all they said. So, yeah. Oh, it was announced hours before the game that the roof of BC place would be closed for the duration of the game due to weather concerns. There you go.

They're probably worried about it raining and then freezing to the tracks than the retracts.

It's also not a really technically outdoors outdoor indoor stadium.

The man was monogamous despite his multiple concurrent partners. Like, Like, what are what are you talking about?

Right? The the retractable roof, it opens like the the little hole in the top. Like, it's not Oh, yeah. You know? The BC place is basically covered.

It is, like, what is it?

Listen, man. It rains it rains a lot out there. I get that. I get that. I get that.

Yeah, but don't call it an outdoor game.

They didn't call it

a heritage classic.

Yeah. Heritage classic. Heritage

classic is supposed

to be. It took place indoors. Stop it. Knowing the NHL, we'd be like, oh, they're gonna play in 60 degrees Celsius weather in Florida, this is gonna be awesome! Then they'll close the roof.

So that's

all I'm saying. Boo and hiss. Boo and hiss.

Do we wanna do a press conference or are we rapping?

We can ask some questions.

Let's do some questions. Oh, yeah.

You okay? Yeah.

You alright?

I said, yeah. The Presser SDP. The Steve Dangle Press Conference. Here's what I wanna see. Outdoor game in Europe.

In where? Oh, yeah.

Outdoor game in Europe.

Oh, Europe. Yeah. That'd be cool. Steve, you were in Ottawa this weekend.

I was.

I just streamed the Leafs game for you.

Thank you.

And we haven't had a show since you were in Ottawa. Do you want to say anything about Ottawa? Because Because last time when you were out east, it took several episodes to get to stuff, and then we had, like, a 30 minute conversation. Do you have anything

about Ottawa's book signing? It's awesome. Yeah. Ottawa is just they always show up. We've we've done a bunch of live stuff there.

They've they were the number 1 piece of feedback I got is they're begging us to do a live show. So we gotta find a way to get out there and and do a live show signed for over 3 hours, met a lot of people that I met at the signing in 2019. Some people that I met at other signings. It's Ottawa always shows up to the best. Yep.

There was a lot of fun. I left very tired and but happy. The thing that is always the most sore after those signings, like, it's not my knees, it's not my back, it's not my hand. Everyone's like, oh, how's your wrist? Or whatever.

No. It's my face. Like, because I'm I smile. I just smile for 3 and a half hours or whatever, because I'm happy. Mhmm.

It's great. It's you don't have to twist my arm to go to events like that. It's the best.

Great.

Yeah.

Well, we'll get up there. We'll figure it out.

Yeah.

Alright. Same with Kingston. Mhmm. 1st question comes from Carson. Carson writes, with the Penguins being 5 and 1 over their last 6 games, what will it take for Adam to admit that the Penguins may finally be cleaning up their act and playing like a real NHL team?

Tristan Jari is no longer a pumpkin. Yeah. I think that helps.

He's 4 what is he? 4 and o in his last 4, and he's got, like, a save percentage that's, like, 9:30 or 9:30.

Yeah. That Adam, how do you respond?

I

had I actually had a couple of pens in my pens fans in my DMs, saying, like, what do you gotta say? The pens beat the Leafs. I'm, like, first off, the Leafs haven't beat anybody. They haven't won shit. So if you're if that's your bar, you're gonna be real disappointed.

They haven't played well, I would say, 4 straight games.

Yeah. The Leafs the Leafs had a bad week last week. I just don't think they were that good. I I think it's gonna take more than, 5 and 1 in your last 6 for me to get excited about it. I mean, where are they now in the in the standings?

I mean, we're 1 of the hottest teams over the last week and a half, and you're still not in the playoffs. Like, let's let's take a breath.

Yeah. I'm happy

for you. That what happened to the Penguins where that's the bar?

Yeah. What

is it? You won. You won.

Yeah. What it's gonna take for me to admit that they're a good hockey team is, be ahead of the Flyers and Islanders.

Yeah.

You know, be like, make the playoffs, man. In a very You don't need me to tell you that they are. Like, if they make the playoffs, then that tells you that they're good enough to make the playoffs. That should be enough. But I I I think that the reality is that, the the play from some of their better players or who's supposed to be their better players, like, who knew Matt Grislic was the playoff power play phenom.

Dude, his, I forget what the name of the chart is, but his even strength versus power play It's insane. He's, like, unusable The greatest player Schlitzschmidt Schrum.

Yeah. The greatest power play who knew it was gonna be Matt Griesling? I don't know.

Beat Eric Carlson. They have Matt Griesling.

If if the penguins are bad, it's a story because Crosby and Malcolm play there. Right? If the sabers are bad, it's been the same story for 14 years. The reason that we have focused on the penguins and we have focused on the predators is because they're not supposed to be there. The Predators are supposed to be, I thought, a team that could win the division.

The Penguins are a team that keep telling us they're good, and we keep going, yeah, but we watch you.

They're the custodians of How many hall of famers are on the roster right now? 4?

Probably 4. Yeah. I would put Letang in the hall of fame for sure.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah. 4.

Yeah. I don't know, man. And and, like, listen. They're they're a team that I keep asking. Like, what are you?

And if Tristan Jari is good, then you're a a team that should make the the playoffs. Let's see.

They're not yeah.

Right? Is that fair?

No. I mean, if you have and Ned's been okay.

Mhmm.

So you have competent goal tending through both guys, which again, most teams in this league are screaming for. Your defense is well, we know what it's built for. It's not great at defending.

Mhmm.

But can move the shit out of the puck. Yep. I look I look at their team up front. I'm like, that's not bad. Mhmm.

This probably the top 2 centers sure help everything. Yeah. Why and the Rangers, like, have their hair on fire. Like, what why why can't they the Penguins make the playoffs in the metro?

They should be able to. The Islanders are That was the story, though. Yeah. Right? You have to understand.

Like, I'm not picking at your team because I don't like Penguins fans or I don't like Pittsburgh. I'm picking at your team because this team should be doing better and they're not, and that's the story.

It's you got the the devils and capitals and hurricanes, I think, are your clear 1, 2, 3. Yep. And then you got, like, the Penguins

Philly, Islanders, Islanders.

And Islanders having a mid off Yeah. To maybe get the last spot. Yeah. The those 2 wildcard spots in the east, like, Jesus. The bar's low.

Nobody wants them.

Get in there.

Nobody fucking wants

them. Get in there. It's wild. Yeah.

That hall of fame thing you're talking about remind me of this video I did is probably running on, like, 2 and a half years ago now, where I said current active NHL players who are gonna make the hall of fame. And I, like, listed every active hall of play, player in the NHL who I can

put in the hall

of fame. Guarantee, today, if they retire, they're going in the hall of fame. And I doing all that research for that list and everything, I realized every Norris trophy winner has made the hall of fame except for Randy Carlisle. Woah. Every single 1 on that list that's currently eligible for the hall of fame except for Randy Carlisle.

Wow. And that streak is about to be broken again. Do you know who is going to be the next Norris trophy winner to not make the hall of fame? Because this this player came in my discussion and I said, well, he's not currently active anymore, but he has the trophy and everybody on the list has a trophy, but he's gonna be number 2 all time. PK.

PK Suban. Oh. And that was that was like a little thing I had in the video about, like, hey. Because I didn't have him on my list because he wasn't active technically. He was in between the retirement phase at the end of New Jersey and all that, but he's going to become the 2nd Norris Trophy winner of all time to not make the hockey Hall of Fame.

And if you go down the list of the guys who have won it recently too, all of those are gonna make it, like, Chara's not in there yet, he's gonna be in there. Weber's gonna He is gonna Doughty, Weber, Carlson, all of the ones, Quinn Hughes, like, projected out, probably gonna be in there, all the guys, Adam Fox even, but we'll see how his career goes.

Yeah, he's got a lot of career left. But PK,

we can guarantee is number 2.

Wow. So I

thought that was, I just wanna bring that up because I thought it was interesting.

The You're about to get ripped on his Instagram, by the way. He's gonna do a why Jesse Blake is wrong, and I will make the hall of fame by p k Subin.

Prove me wrong, mister Bernal Karl. The bar for having a short career and still making the hall is saying. Yeah. It's you're talking Peter Forsberg, Pavel Burey, Eric Lindross, Bobby Orr, Mike Bossy. Like, it's a it's a very insane standard.

When you think of, like, no cups, not multiple trophies, not Yeah. So Yeah, I thought that was interesting. We can leave it there. Let me ask 1 more question. I had 1 more question in front of me.

I'm gonna ask it before I say leave it there. This is from Natasha. We all know Steve did a dang its for NHL plays, but if you had to create a list of Steve's top 5 dang it for LFRs or your any of your own videos, what would it be? What's on that list?

Nick Robertson is a forward.

Oh, that was a good 1.

Has or sorry. A defenseman, rather.

Has to. It's probably 1.

It's gotta be 1. Mistakes mistakes.

When you get to the point where you've created that much content, it's kinda hard to remember at all. It's all people That's what it is. It's not that he didn't we haven't made mistakes. It's like, I can't remember. Like, I have no idea.

People show me clips from my videos. Yeah at these book signings and I'm like I don't remember doing that yeah yeah I remember doing that I remember saying that and it's funny I get to watch it like everyone else I go what a psycho because I don't remember saying it Shoot. Yeah. I'm a bit I'm a bit some to your fellas.

Yeah. Yeah. You got 1 of the the Also,

why is it over the top 5? Can it be a smaller, like a top 3? Maybe what's what's your 1 mistake?

I feel like I make a lot of cutie mistakes. How about this?

How about this?

A lot of cutie mistakes.

Let us know in the comments. Yeah. Because we have people who've watched in 20 years worth of Steve Dangle. Let us know in the comments if you had to make a Steve's dang its from his own videos, what would make it? So there you go.

How about that? And then we'll I'll do this next press conference tomorrow.

There was 1 there was 1, that I still remember, and this is season 18. It was from season 1 that I still remember. I went on this rant. I think it was about Jonas Frogan because the Leafs only played him, like, 3 minutes. And I was like, what is the point of even having this guy in the lineup?

Play him more or scratch him and in the first comment, it's just like, Steve, you got hurt in the first period. Oh my god.

Alright. That's good. I like that.

I like that.

That might make it. That might make it.

I'm sure there's better ones.

STP will be back tomorrow. Got another 1 tomorrow. Yeah. So more of this. There was, like, 1 or 2 games yesterday, and there's, like, 40,000,000,000 tonight.

So there'll

be a lot to talk about.

I'm excited. See you then.

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