Oh, Canada, our home native land, true patriotism and WXYZ. All right. Moving on. I have never heard OK, I've heard a lot of rushed Canadian anthems through the years every time they play in the States, but that one takes the cake for botched lyrics and rushed and just like instead of going up on notes, going down just to not hurt her voice to save it for the American anthem. That's something I've never seen.
of point shaving online games and stuff, but there was some dirty shit going on for that anthem. Like someone bent so heavy on the under. That's the only explanation for it, right? Like someone made a fortune off that tonight. I didn't even think of that angle. Damn, that could be too. Ilya Sorokin fan club, shout out on. anthems. So, Ilya Sorokin fan club on Twitter, who's obviously an Islanders fan, commented that they even screwed up the American national anthem last week, the same singer.
So it's not even like, it's not even like a strictly Canadian bias. You just can't get the anthems right, apparently. But man, that was Twitter was like, you really you're still on that. You think there was money behind this? Hey, you never know. a happy bookie out there somewhere. Oh man, so the story of the night otherwise was JT sitting at $9.98 looking for that thousand in the island which would just be fantastic and of course he managed to pull that off.
The amount of signs and booing and I saw one person with a jersey I retweeted it that says trader. It's like a Tavares but they put trader over it. Get over it guys. I don't get the vitriol, like this was how many years ago? He was a quarter store leader franchise, he didn't demand a trade or anything, he just left on free agency to the place where he actually grew up.
I get it for a year or two, maybe three, but for this long and when the guy hits a thousand points in your building, maybe just clap a little bit. Yeah, shout out to the actual islanders on the bench who are giving him stick taps. But oh my god, it's he's on year six now of his seven year contract. That's insane guys, get over it. Like players leave all the time and the captains leave and like, like you said, it wasn't a trade. It wasn't like he ran out of town.
You know, like we've seen Alfredson and Sundine finish their careers on other teams and like that's a little different. you know, when you play 18 seasons with a team, but like, it's not like JT was there for three quarters of his career. Like, I don't know. It's it's frustrating. Like, it's the islanders just have nothing else to cheer for. And if they don't have something to cheer for, then they might as well find a villain, because that's where they're pushing all of their energy into.
And it's gross. he hit the 1k in the best building in the entire league to do it I was surprised to see he's the sixth player at least on the list they showed people that have scored their thousandth point in Their old teams arena or against the world team. Yeah, Marion Gaboric apparently did it sounds high or low. For the amount of people who have actually hit 1000. To hit it in the building you were drafted in? How many players have hit a thousand? How many players have 1000 points in NHL?
97 before tonight. So that's kind of crazy. Like 6% of them were scored against their former team. And that's like that one point. That's crazy actually. And I think one was... 2014, I can't remember the names off the top of my head. I know Gabrick was one, but 2014, 2008, 2004 were the last few, so it's like all recently too. Anyway, stats, stats are fun. happy about it. It was cool that it was a dad's trip and he got to see that. That too, totally forgot.
Yeah, having his dad in the crowd, that's gotta be awesome. And I'm trying to think for Tavares, does it feel better to do it in Toronto or to do it on the island? Like, I don't think he's the kind of guy that relishes in it. if they won tonight. I think it would have been better than if he did it in Toronto. That would have been like the king daddy. But other than that, I think probably in Toronto would have been more ideal.
Yeah, he doesn't seem like the guy who would like to rub it in, you know, like how Castle brings the cup to Toronto. Like, he's somebody that would, you know, want to do it in front of friends and family, more so than in front of a bunch of people booing him. Yeah, God. the bench afterwards where he had just like a huge smile. Which he never really does, right? That was what thank you for reminding me. That was one of my favorite things, because it was like they caught him smiling.
And then as soon as he realized that the camera was on him again, did you see him just go? Just mean face. It was like somebody whispered to him like, John, you're on camera anyway, what you're on camera. Oh, oh, hmm. Can't show emotion. It's like it almost.
humanized him a bit that he's like not playing a character but there is an on and off ice john taveras and we don't usually see that office him unless you really follow like the videos and stuff behind the scenes, but you know Once the game starts he's usually in game mode a professional's professional. He does not let anything get to him. But you're right, he's like deadpan. So the fact that he actually did that and then caught himself doing it is so funny. Yeah, that was great.
All right, let's start it. Alrighty, so we missed the Nashville game. A lot of us had stuff going on. It's Christmas party season. So the Leafs came out with a four nothing win over Luke Shen and Ryan O'Reilly, which is awesome. And Yarncrook, I believe, scored against his old team, which is cool. I think he got one in that one. Marner with a camp scored Marner with a nice breakaway goal. And Samsonov posting a shutout, which is kind of the biggest story of that one.
And really, coming over to tonight, it's like we saw all of Ilya Samsonov in two back to back games, the highs and the lows. Because, I mean, really, not that he let in six or seven goals tonight, but a couple of those you definitely want back if you're trying to stay in it, especially when you're so crippled on D. I mean, they've got three guys that really shouldn't be in the lineup in there right now. And you're down to a. underconfident backup goalie, we'll call it.
So for him, I was hoping that the shutout against Nashville would boost him up a bit, especially after dealing with an illness and missing so much time. But yeah, like I said, there were a couple of those you want back tonight. It was like just the confidence level that I found with him. He, especially early in the game, he was sliding post to post so much. He had a really hard time tracking pucks. He was late to reacting on pucks.
So it wasn't even more like a story of one game to the other, even in this game. Like he had great spurts, but he also had really, really shaky moments too. And you can tell like the team was just not confident playing in front of him. Yeah, and again, even with the team, it's strange coming off the Nashville game where they kept them to 18 shots. I know Nashville's kind of a different team, but in terms of their play style, it's fairly similar to how the Islanders play.
They throw a ton of hits. There's a few guys that can score and otherwise it's a shutdown team with a really good goalie. So, I mean, to put it pretty simply, but it's strange that they were playing such a shot limiting shutdown game against.
Nashville and then they couldn't carry that over like they didn't try to run that same strategy back tonight against the Islanders or the Islanders read through it the game notes and were able to break it but like they've let so many shots get through to Sammy and Yeah, again, it's weird. The confidence wasn't there after a shutout and it's weird that the team kind of broke from that pattern that they started It's a weird thing because they started the game pretty good.
The first eight minutes I found they were strong. They kept all the islanders at chances from outside along the boards, going around the half circle. But after that, like especially I found the wingers from the center ice line to the top of the circle inside, they just let everybody get by. They lost every puck battle there. They had the cycle game going and just like they just hem them in and they kept getting shots and shots and I couldn't understand what the wingers were doing because.
And especially Bertuzzi, god this guy is driving me fucking crazy right now. It seems like he's got Samantha in his skates, he's always losing his guy. And whether it's like resulting in a goal or not, it's just another chance. Yeah, and really the consensus online tonight was that the Leafs were getting bullied pretty early. Like once they were able to like you said, there was a few spurts where everyone seemed like they were on. But otherwise, like they couldn't get anything going.
They were getting pushed around. And it's strange, like with Bertuzzi, this is somebody who's supposed to be a bully and try to protect guys from this happening. And, you know, again, we're seeing him kind of fall into, I guess, the Leafs system instead of the Leafs adjusting to him. And that was what. some of the worry was is how many people does it take to change the culture? It is, but like he's a speedy guy and he's just always losing his wingers.
As soon as they start circling around the ice, he's, he's feet aren't moving and they lose them. So the center ties to pick him up and then he goes for the center spot and they're all in a position. It's a huge, huge problem. I find that I've been noticing that like more than any other player is him because you expect more from this guy, right? In the offensive zone, he hasn't been quite doing it.
And the defensive zone, like you said, he's supposed to be a past, he's not a very big guy, but like he's. He's got some strength to him and he's just not playing with that whatsoever. Yeah, and those are the two elements we brought him in for is being a pain in the ass who can score and he's doing neither of them. So it's kind of still the waiting game. Like we hope by now he'd figure it out. But we're like 23, 24 games in and we're still like Bertuzzi, what you doing, bud?
And we've switched the lines now. Like, who's he playing with now? He's got it's him and Robertson and Tavares, I think, was the second line. Like that. Which is a weird line. Yeah. You just expect so much more from them. Like, even in one end or the other. You're just not getting it in either right now though. Yeah. Otherwise tonight, Matthew's hitting a couple posts. They did a count up to up to 21 posts and crossbars. I think he's hit. And I think that. whatsoever. Apparently he was eight.
They were just way, way overestimating how many posts he actually hit. So I think what's not it might be like 10 or so, but he actually came to play like he was driving play. He was stopping pucks in the D zone. He was in proper position. He was by far the best player. Yeah, and one thing I've been giving them shit for a lot this season is not connecting passes, not communicating well. And it seemed like between him and Tavares and Marner and Willy, they were all making most of their passes.
Yeah. on goal. He was- I barely noticed him at all. I did a few, I mean, to be fair, I was cooking and cleaning at some points of this game, but I did see that there was a couple little plays in front of the net that he was involved in. I don't know. Sure, we'll leave him out of it. But it seemed like there was a little more communication going on with passes and Matthew's taking more shots, which was nice. I could, you know what?
Now that I think of it, there was one time where Mitch had that breakaway and he held up and passed it back to Bertuzzi instead of taking a shot. And I was so fucking mad. right comedian to give to you. Bertuzzi actually drew a penalty on that, which is a great play by Bertuzzo, I think it was. He probably saved a goal there, but he, you gotta shoot on that, right? Yeah, and I mean, look, the Leafs ended up scoring on that power play. But really, when their power plays, what, two for 21?
You don't really want to bank on drawing a penalty there instead of taking their shot. So it's just, yeah. I find like it's indicative of, which I've noticed lately, is the Leafs will take, they'll go along the half-ice, like along the boards. There's two of them coming, there's two defensemen here, and they'll just throw it in the middle of the net. And it never really works out. That's a play you make in Pee-wee, bantam, novice type shit.
You're doing a smart play because defense don't really know where to play. But in the NHL, this is never working, and it usually comes back on their end in a fast rush. And I just noticed them doing this so often. games. It's a play I would do in old cell. middle of the net way, way more than they should. Yeah, and when you've got guys that are good at tipping it in, like great, but they haven't been that graded at this season. I mean, JT's been fantastic as always.
But besides that, like who's getting in front of the net and muscling there right there? But if you guys have in front of you and then you put the puck there, that's a different story. When you go kind of almost like to the icing line and then dish it back in front, you're not gonna get that tip. Like it's just not gonna happen. That's a higher percentage. That's where it bounces back in the Ottoman rush to start.
Yeah, and they've been giving up a lot of those, you're right, when they try to center that and then cough it up and everyone's at a position and all of a sudden it's a two on one or something. There's been a lot of those lately. And I mean, really, that's how they ended up losing an OT, but different story. So, like I said, JT's been good at tipping goals in, picked one up tonight, which was nice. He did. He was huge in the faceoff to hot too. As was Matthews. amongst the reign of booze.
Actually, I think JT's among the top in the league right now for face-offs, because I know he started off a little shaky, but he's gotten back up there. late in the end of this game he was winning almost every draw. Which eventually led to the 6 second left goal. Let me check. I want to see here skaters. I'm pretty sure he's like in the top few percentage face-off wins of people that have not taken multiple but. is. Let me check here. Taveras is 39th in the entire league with a 62%.
So, I mean, really, that's gotta be as far as guys that take face-offs. taken though, right? Yeah, that's the thing is the NHL site is so awesome. It doesn't tell you how many faceoffs they've taken. I'd have to go to a different site, even though I always get shit on for choosing shitty sites. And I see it on this one. if you're going to the top percentage of, you know, one to three centermen on each team, he's way, way up there probably. Yeah, okay here, if we're going... I know this.
Oh, here he's number three. Yeah, that makes way more sense. Vincent Troschek and Michael McCloud are the only ones ahead of him. McCloud's only ahead by like a half a percentage and Troschek by like one. So yeah, 63.6, 62.9 and 62.1. That's a huge number. And he's 213 faceoffs, 131 lost. Anyway, tangent. But JT is absolutely a fucking demon in the face off dot this year.
And that's helpful when, you know, the game's on the line and you have to take an offensive zone face off and the goal is pulled. And your team basically depends on playing clutch. It's kind of important. But let's throw David Camp out and over time.
I thought he played a pretty good game tonight, too Yeah, and like I said, it's not like somebody he's somebody who's affected by fans booing him, but just the mental aspect of that aside, it's just distracting audio wise to have people booing every time you touch the puck. Like, like even if it had no emotional effect on you, it's like, this is just irritating. Like, I have to actively tune this out every time to pay attention to the game. Like, that's going to get frustrating.
So kudos to him for. still playing the stellar game in his old barn. Well, not his old barn. He never played there, but you know. Yeah, we get what you're saying. I'm trying to think of the last guy who got that type of treatment for so long. I feel like Charra got it pretty bad in Ottawa for a while. I would say Alfredson in Toronto got it pretty bad for a long time, like after it was necessary, but different scenario, I guess, like not playing for your old team. that's true.
because after that Sundeen stick breaking thing and he mocked it they were ripping on Alfredson for years. Yeah, he was hated for a long time. Yeah, I remember the raps were putting his picture up on the jumbotron to get people to boo when other teams were up for free throws. Yeah, classic. Now you couldn't put a hockey rep or something a basketball game and expect NBA fans to know what you're talking about. No, those days are gone. Yeah, long gone.
Well, so the Leafs managed to tie it up Morgan Reilly with a beautiful little tip in there at the end. All for not unfortunately, with a very quick OT loss. Yeah, but anyway, Matthews you kind of want to see Morgan take away the pass and just let Sammy take that shot, right? Because he's not going to stop that cross-eye sauce, as it was. But at least give him a chance, like, just save the shot. And I don't feel like Morgan played it super well. But whatever, we got a point.
We got 11 straight games with points, I think, now. 11 of 12, they said, but yeah, I mean, behind first round playoff exits, not starting on time. I don't know what else we're known for, but I would say, oh, too many men on the ice penalties. I would say one that doesn't get enough doesn't get enough credit is, is that wow, I actually just lost my train of thought completely as I was making up my intro to it. But when they Holy shit, what were you saying about the OT?
I comp- Morgan should have played the pass instead of he didn't play the pass it should have let the shot happen The Leafs are fucking horrible at screening their own goalies. Like it's something that they don't get enough credit for. Like Jake Muzzin was one of the best at standing in between the shot and the goalie and letting it go in like underrated for like a great defenseman. But oh, my God, if he's not actually on the person, he's in between them and the goalie every time.
Yeah, the Leafs are always bad at that. So I'm not surprised that happened because they either. have a goalie that they don't have confidence in, in that, or... Yeah, they're always trying to block it. there, I think he takes that pass away a hundred times out of a hundred. He doesn't even care about the shot. He lets Wall handle it.
Well, look, in the Nashville game, you think they took 18 shots on goal to have 18 shots like no, they were blocking a shit done from getting to Sammy to get help and shut out. And that's, you know, that's the game they were trying to play again, but it doesn't always work. So here we are. But yeah, Matthews, Matthews has been back on, you know, 19 goals and counting. Love to see it. Yeah, with coach. Mm-hmm. It's good to see, you know, once Willy starts to fall off a little bit.
I think that break with the weekend on either end of the Sweden game kind of cooled him off. But it's nice. It's nice that during that time, Matthews gets to rest and come back hot. And he's been good ever since they've been back. So you know, it's just pass it off to whoever whoever's feeling it at the time. Exactly.
He's been dangerous and he hasn't been scored in huge bunches either, which is an encouraging sign for Leafs fans because once he actually starts putting games together, it's going to be ridiculous and like heaven forbid all the like Leafs core four actually play good at the same time. That'll be another big thing. Like the point that we're collecting points right now is huge.
Yeah, the only thing with the points in 11 of 12 games is like, if you lose games and over time, you can get points in 12 of 12 games, but it can be six points, which is like winning six of, or whatever, you know, like, you know what I mean? Like, or you can get 12 points. games, right? Yeah, I'm just it's just a misleading thing sometimes to say they have points in 11 of 12 games. It's like, yeah, OK.
But, you know, if they're losing a bunch of overtime, they have half the points they could have had in that amount of games. So I. percent. If you're losing every overtime game, it's a big difference compared to if you're winning every overtime game. Yeah, so what are they actually in their last 10? Be curious to find out. Standings. Oh my gosh. Why is it getting harder and harder to like get NHL stats? I feel like we should just blame Batman.
Yeah, it's funny, the Google thing that pops up is the best one at this point. There's six, one and three. In their last 10, so they I mean, three overtime losses isn't bad, but there is no other team. Oh, only the penguins who are on a fucking shit streak have lost three and overtime. Oh, the Golden Knights have lost three and OT in their last time. But you get my point. Yeah. Yeah, the point's a little red. Panthers and Bruins still ahead of the Leafs in the Atlantic division.
They managed to pass the Detroit Red Wings here by a single point with their OT loss tonight, which is nice. Yeah, looks like the Red Wings are about to lose too, so... Oh, that'll be a three game losing streak for them. So that's good for the Leafs. Lightning Canadians, Sabres and Senators being under the Canadians and Red Wings and the Standings is mind boggling to me. I thought those two were gonna put it together this year and challenge for a wild card spot finally.
And Detroit and Montreal went, nah, we're gonna get that. We're gonna go for it instead. Yeah, pretty wild. Okay, so some quick things came out. during the game here, we had David Perron getting a six game suspension for his two-handed cross check to the face of I forget who it was. After we saw Dylan Larkin go down in a very scary way, if you haven't seen it, but you can go and check that out. Larkin gets hit and he's unconscious on the ice. It's one of those terrifying moments.
And the way that I see it is in that moment, it doesn't matter what team you're on, like everybody around him is like, Oh, fuck. Like for, I mean, for the, at the start, people are jumping on each other. Oh no, I'm remembering this wrong. So it starts off that everybody's looking and then this two-handed cross check happens, then the fights break out. So if you're standing over and being like, oh fuck, is this guy okay? And somebody comes out of nowhere and smashes your face with a stick.
Yeah, that's kind of a dirty play. I get it's his client, but Alan Walsh, who's been like a, we need to protect players from CTE and yada yada. coming out on Twitter and being like, like vehemently being like, we're gonna appeal this basically, like this is bullshit. It's not a good, I don't know. I usually like while she's takes on things, but that was a bad luck for him. I think this was a pretty dirty one.
Like six games might be a lot, but what we've seen this year is there's handing out a couple more games than they have in the last few seasons to try to make a point. And like they've said, you know, they really want to. take these headshots out of the game. And look, Perron might be the poster boy for it now. Like if this is what they're gonna do.
you know, like if that's what it takes and that's what it takes because I feel the roughing has been, to put it mildly, like inconsistent, especially like the whole Gebranson and Cousin thing that happened last game too. If they're policing this Marge during the game, maybe we don't have this as much, but, six games, it seems about right.
But like the whole Alan Walsh thing, like he said, he came out pretty hard for his client there, a little bit too hard to the point where you're like, Put on the jets. He's that weird balance between he's an agent, so he's always going to protect his own guys. Like remember the flurry with the sword in his back thing? That was Alan Walsh. Then on the other side, he's a great advocate for the players as a whole and for having progressive ideas for rule changes in the league.
So it's like this strange position he's in where he would be a great commissioner, but he's also a fantastic agent. So he's like, so sometimes he's a lot more than they're not, but when they're not, you're just like, come on buddy, you're better than this. Like your track record shows. Yeah. Remember what you've argued before, before you stick up for your clients. Like, you know, the minute the suspension gets handed out, like it was within 10 minutes that was posted.
It's like, guy, take a breath. still coming through, don't worry about it, like you're good. Yeah. Speaking of, I did the math. If it's their salary divided by 82 games and then multiplied by six for six game suspension, that's like 350 grand for David Braun. That's a ton in NHL money. That's not a small amount for anybody. Like whether you're a professional athlete or not, like 350 Gs, you're like, ooh, that hurts the pocket. Like if you're making.
pre-segue, like you're no fucking Shohei Atani at this point, but those 350 sheets, you feel that. Yeah, but you did mention the good Branson one that I was surprised about. So this one, yeah, if you didn't see it, good Branson basically grabs cousins from behind. Well, beside kind of in like a choke slam from the side, wraps his arm around his neck, throws him to the ice and just starts like, it's funny, I just watched the Batman the other night.
But you know, in that opening scene with all the thugs coming at him, when he punches that guy down to the ground and he just keeps punching him, good Branson basically does that. He was the caped crusader there for sure. He gets one game, literally minutes after they announced the David Perron suspension. They're like, and good Branson gets one game and everyone went, wait, what? Didn't you just set this precedent that you're going to suspend people for these headshots and dirty plays?
And it's like this was equally. to beat the shit out of him because he got nailed from behind. And if the refs, like I was talking about earlier, like this had been so inconsistent, if they called that hitting from behind or boarding whatever, this doesn't happen. So he took it in his own hands and he grabbed them and cousin-turtled. He turtle twice that game on him. This guy's the biggest piece of shit maybe in the whole league. He's fucking top five for sure. And he turtles all the time.
It's disgusting to see him and Kuchuk. I hate them both. God, I hate them. I guess it's the difference between assault on assault with a deadly weapon as far as the league goes like you hit someone in the face with your stick six games you punch them. Yeah, one. But no you're right like.
he was going a bit first before he went down and then cousins did the whole this and you're right the Branson should not be punching his back of his head his neck, whatever but If you're playing the way that cousins is playing the way that Florida is playing the way that Paul Maurice is playing You have to answer the belt sometimes and they just don't the biggest chicken shit team I've ever fucking seen Pardon my language that we, it's fine.
It's funny that they actually seem to kind of judge these scenarios sometimes based on like, whether the person had it coming or not. Because like really they could have like I didn't have time to see the lead up to it. I was actually going to ask, but you ended up explaining anyway, like what caused this in the first place? But it I don't know. It seems like they took into account that, you know, this there was a build up to this. It was not with the stick. It was somebody getting punched.
And yeah, the guy basically, like you said, he turtled. So, yeah, one game just seems like. his feet doing it. What one is one game seems right for everything that transpired in that game. He wasn't very hurt. He came up. He was chirping like crazy after turdling like a coward. But yeah, one game seems good. Okay, fair. So you mentioned also, we'll segue to the Otani thing. Everybody was mad about this when the info came out.
It seems like what happened, as far as we can tell, is that the Otani camp leaked that he was on his way to Toronto and that it was imminent to finally get that last offer from the Dodgers, the 700 mil for 10 years they were holding out on it. and the Jays had an offer on the table that was north of $600 million apparently, but they wanted the seven and they basically bluffed all the way to the end that he was on his way so we all got used.
Not only the Toronto fans but the entire Canadian baseball fandom was used as a bargaining chip for somebody who's now going to circumvent the cap for the next decade. I just, this is so annoying. Like. Okay, I'm not usually one to put on the tinfoil hat. I like try to stay away from these conspiracies, but as you said, this was a devious plot and it worked. The person they had on that plane was another CAA client. This had to have been all planned out.
Like, the way this went down was so frustrating and not a great look for Toronto sports. Wait, are you saying Robert Hercewak is under the same agency as Joe Hewitt? Oh my god. Hey, how about this, Robert? We're gonna give you a couple bills here. Go fly down to Toronto on this plane. Don't say shit. We're gonna jack up Ohtani's money like crazy. That's actually pretty wild. that. Like I said, I don't usually like to delve in these type of hearsay or conspiracy shit, but it seems a little legit.
The timing of everything was a little too perfect. Yeah. Like, oh my God, oh, it's definitely gonna happen tonight. The way his contract is structured is... insane to any sports league. Yeah, like, imagine Matthews just said, yeah, I'll sign 13 point whatever it is, but you only will just pay me all of it when my contract's up. I'll just take two million a year. That is literally what Otani did.
So if anyone didn't see this, he's taking 70 million a year, 46 against the cap and 68 million a year deferred. So he's making 2 million a year. And then once his contract's up, they're going to pay him $680 million without interest, I might add. So it's not even like he's benefiting in some way from doing this. All he's benefiting from is saying, I don't want to fucking lose again.
So I'm making it so you guys have enough money per year to spend on other players to build a proper team, which is not fair. It's the most blatant circumvention of any luxury tax, salary cap, whatever money thing you have going on in your league, like parameters that are set, they're breaking every goddamn rule of it. Well, apparently this isn't against the MLB's rules, which is insane.
That's the stupid part is like if you have a luxury tax that's supposed to be that's supposed to be for parody and, you know, leveling the playing diamond. But like, look, if you can do this, then what's the point? Like, and I also saw the list of teams paying into this, this luxury tax, like there's teams paying upwards of a hundred to three hundred million dollars since. the last couple of years, just in luxury tax, because they don't give a fuck. So what's the point?
Like, you're not there's teams that win, like, 8% of their games every year. Like, what do you I don't know, this is so fucking annoying. I wonder if the Blue Jays contract was actually structured like that too, because behind the Mets they are the richest team in the MLB. They've got more money to throw around than the Yankees, everybody else. I think it's upwards of $17 or $18 billion.
So you have to wonder if maybe there is a structure like that too, but even still I would have been like, what are we doing here? This is not good for whatever league you're in, right? There's no way that the bottom eight... no, not eight, rather like... 2018 is to fucking compete with this Yeah, exactly. Like the Leafs are in a position where they could do this.
There's a lot of hockey teams and basketball teams that if this was available, they would be like, yeah, I'll just pay it all at the end of the contract. Fine. Like, sure, we'll pay Matthews like 75 mil at the end of the contract. I don't give a shit. Like. Like that's not a thing. You set up a luxury taxi, set up a salary cap, whatever, for these certain rules. So if you start doing this, what's the point of having it?
And the fact that they get 46 mil against the luxury tax is such a, seems like such an arbitrary number. Who decided that? Yeah, like what? Yeah, so it's like they don't get the full 68 million off their imaginary cap, which I don't even understand the point of it's just, it just saves them money basically at the end of the day. So that's the stupid thing is like it doesn't change the team you can put on onto the field like it does in hockey where like you can't go over the cap.
All that means is the owners are paying more money and as they're putting a better team on the field. and more people are coming to watch, who gives a fuck if it costs you a couple extra mil? Like, ugh. Like, you'll find that in the NBA, they have luxury tax, the exact same thing, but to circumvent it like that, where the whole money is not counted against it, year by year, is... It's crazy to me. Yeah, I think there's a middle ground here.
I'm not saying by any means that a hard cap system is the right way to go, but I think that this is just allowing rich teams to put together whatever they want using their money. It's literally taking off the barriers of... If you're allowing billionaires and these big conglomerate corporation owners to buy teams, then you have to take into account that they're gonna throw around as much money as they want. and I agree with you.
Like, I'm not advocating for one system or the other, but I will say this. If your aim is parody, a hard cap is by far the fairest. And what is happening elsewhere is, yeah. Yeah, it is definitely the fairest way to go. I mean, fuck. Look at the NHL. I mean, even the shitty San Jose Sharks that are still a minus 54 are five, three and two in their last 10. Look at that. Like, you know, it's never the end of the world in the NHL for any team. better or worse for your game, but at least it's fair.
Yeah, I'd say there is a frustrating element to it. Like as Leaf fans, you know, your team is playing really well and then you go up against Arizona and they'll beat you six to two or something. It's like, what just happened? How did the worst team in the league just beat us? Well, the worst team in the league isn't that much worse than your team. They're only a few players away from being there. Like it seems like every team is a few players away from being as good as the other.
So anything can happen. amount of you. Yeah. Anyway, I feel like I'm stating the obvious at this point. Let's get out of here. We're back tomorrow night. Who do they play? Is it the Rangers then? Are we just staying in New York? Oh, fun. Two of the best goalies in the fucking league back to back. It's OK. They're both my fantasy teams. or do you think it's Jones? Martin Jones against the Rangers? Eww. I... probably, to be honest. I think it's Sammy.
I think they're gonna try and build his confidence up a little bit and give him another shot. Man, it was so sad seeing him lying on the ice at the end of the OT there. He just had no chance. it's like shades of Jack just, oh no, please don't be sad. Don't be sad. Get up. It's okay. It's okay. I'm not mad about the loss anymore. playing in a beer league somewhere right now and- Oh, poor guy. I honestly hope that he makes his way back up to the NH. I hope so too, but that's a tough road.
Yeah. All right. Thanks for listening in. It's been Leafs late night, where it's never too late for the Leafs. We will catch you next time. A demai. Oh my god. That was a good little show.