And when I feel like Oscar Matthews brrrr Hahaha Oh man, that's one of those commercials that in about a week or two is gonna start getting real old if it hasn't already for you guys. It's on the verge. If I watched more things on TV than hockey, I would definitely be tired of it. Yeah, and there's certain commercials that you get tired of them and then something will happen and then you're okay with them for a little bit like that.
East side Mario's one with the dad and the son where they do the voiceover. I was so I was so sick of that one. And then now Patrick starts reciting it and it's actually adorable. Okay, that's cute. I was gonna say I've just started getting sick of that one again. Oh pop they got more soup Yeah, now just imagine my seven year old walking in and saying that randomly out of nowhere. Hahaha! But it's a reality! Oh my god, Patrick. So, how was your trip, Mr. National Beanographic?
Mmm. Around the world in 80 beans. This one was just down to Appleton, although I might be going up to none of it again. Around the world in 82 games. Sorry, go ahead. Hahaha No little impromptu training on the manufacturer that we're a dealer for. They've got an electric fire truck coming out. Ooh, that's kinda cool. Nice. Yeah, we're actually delivering one in Ontario here. We should see it by the end of the summer and hopefully deliver, or by the end of July, hopefully deliver in August.
That's some pretty cool insider news for all the listeners. Yeah, so it's really interesting. Kind of excited to be able to get my hands on one of them. But at the same time, just enough training to scale the living shit out of you, because 700 volts is a lot of electricity. Yeah, I was thinking like the amount of battery power to be able to run all of the onboard stuff while also running the truck. That's gonna be crazy. Man. Engineering. So is it a Tesla cyber fire truck or what?
No, this one will be reliable. No! What's who are you allowed to say who makes them? Yeah, I can't see why not. So we're the dealer for Pierce Manufacturing, which is considered the Cadillac of fire trucks. Ooh, that's pretty cool. Oh man. So what should we start with here? It's been a while. We missed a couple of games. Apologies guys, I know it's spotty. That's what it's like. All our long time fans, you know, we come and go. Sometimes it's a bunch of episodes, sometimes it's not.
But thanks for being here anyway. So we had a weird, we'll call it like a hundred shots over two games. We're- Let's start with the beginning 25 or 27 shots, depending on who you ask, from the New Jersey game. The hell? We haven't seen the Leafs unload like this with shots in a long time. It's been pretty tame this season. But for one period, are you joking? Like, what the, ooh. Yeah, something happened with the Devils this year.
I don't know if it's the loss of Dougie Hamilton, the change of you wouldn't think one player would have that big of an effect. Huge gold-titting issues this year too. Yeah, they can't catch a save. I don't know if it was entirely luck last year or just maybe entirely bad luck this year that the goal tenon has just completely gone down the toilet. They probably should have made, I was just going to say they probably should have made the Jake Allen move maybe a month and a half earlier.
Yeah. Yeah, and it's funny going into the game. I was thinking like, I mean, yes, the Leafs haven't played New Jersey this year But they've played Jake Allen like they know Jake Allen better than most goalies in this league So this should be a little easier if anything and holy shit. It went the other way. Jake Allen knows this team quite well Yeah, he had one of those games. Veteran goalies can often do that for you, right? Like, hell, look at Jonathan Quick this year. Oh my god.
Are we calling Jake Allen a veteran goalie though at this point? Is he already there? Have we gotten it? He's 33 already? My god. Where does- where do the years go? I guess he is at this point. Yeah, it was a weird, weird game. Like, I mean, it seemed like there were so many holes on defense with New Jersey and the Leafs were able to take advantage of it for a tiny bit. But like other than getting some shots off, like it's, oh my God, Jake Allen just shut everything out.
Like they got goalied for the first time in a long time. And then from there, it just, it seemed to go to their heads. The team collapsed after that. Like they just. collapsed. I don't know how to, how do you excuse the fact, yes there's guys out and everything, but that was a full team debacle, mistakes that nobody should be making and everyone's making them.
you start pressing really, really hard, if you're getting goaltending, like you said, mistakes start happening and you start getting really frustrated at yourself or even your line mates, and that's when cracks start forming and stuff like that really happens in the game.
Full disclosure, I didn't really watch this game, but watching the Leafs play as long as I have, this is something that they tend to fall into, not as much lately, thank goodness, but it seems to happen against the Devils the other night. There was like a five to 10 minute stretch in the second that it was like mid 80s all over again. Like we might as well have had Chris Terreri and Alan Bester in that. Like it was just, there was no such thing as defense and it was go, go.
Yeah, the defense on both teams, just absolutely abysmal. That last game, it was kind of fun to watch. Like it reminded me and I bring this game up a lot, but it reminded me of the other games against New Jersey. There was one like I think it was two seasons ago at this point where it was it was like this just a scoring fest. I think the Leafs had up scoring like seven or nine goals or something. But they seem to do this against New Jersey.
Like they're fast and they can get around the Leafs, but. On the other end, the Leafs can take advantage of the fact they have no defense and goaltending. So it's just, it's like full offense on both sides. Yeah, and it was one of those really weird games because with the Leafs getting so many shots right away, it was almost like they kind of let off a little bit and relaxed with the thought like, hey, look at how well we're doing, we're going to railroad these guys.
Like, we don't have to really... Yeah, and they kind of had that mindset and maybe that's like I mentioned in our group chat, the comments from Keith afterwards, that was surprising to me. Like, yes, I'm not saying it's not warranted, but he was not holding back.
Well apparently he didn't hold back on the guys in the dressing room either, like he gave it to you know, John and the other captains because that's how you treat them, just to send a message to the rest of the team like hey, you know, if you don't... you should feel guilty that I'm screaming at John for your mistakes so don't fuck up like that again, it was crazy but yeah, no, I do agree that I was... no, go ahead, Suddy
to do that because if you want to call out like your smaller tier guys, like your second or third to great players, it's not going to bring it's like effective as what you don't call out your top line players to. So I feel Keef actually needed to do that. And it looked like Tavares had a great night tonight. Matthews had a great night tonight, despite not being, he was questionable before coming in. So whatever he did, it seemed to have worked.
Yeah, and I mean, he picked up his 59th in the New Jersey game. Everybody was hoping for the 60th tonight to break that record in 71 games, but unfortunately, no. But yeah, he still looks good. He's getting as many shots as he can. I'm sure he finished with like 12 tonight. I don't know what the count was, but it's pretty wild watching this guy try to score when he really wants to. Yeah, and he can basically do it at any point in time, like right away to start.
I think it was his first shift out there. He had a wicked backhand chance. Oh yeah, he almost scored right on the first shifter, right? Yeah, like he's and you've seen. Well, I don't know if you recall this or not, but anytime that someone is like a game time for an illness or being sick and they actually play, I don't know what it is, but they almost seem to play better. Like the Michael Jordan flu game, right?
Like. Well yeah, they were even saying on the broadcast, they're like, he's probably going to score, because whenever you're sick, you score. Like that seems to kind of be the rule. According to NHL.com, he had ten shots tonight. My god. Well, I mean when the team's got 48 on the night. Okay, I have to say, looking at 25 to 48 for that last like two minutes, I was like, guys, please get two more shots. Please make this a nice even 25 to 50. Like don't leave me hanging on this.
It just feels so, you're right there, just do it. Just throw something on net, please. Well if it makes you feel better, it's still half and half. Like, capitals at 24, the leafs at 48, so it's half. there's evenness in there. it down to 24 at the end? Oh, see... At different points it was changing, like it was 25 to 49, then it went down to like 23 to 46, and I was like, what the fuck is going on? So yeah. No, I'm literally talking about what was on the broadcast! Kay?
I don't, no it's Teemu now by the way. Oh jeez. Hehehehe Check scores like a billionaire, team-oo. By checking like a billionaire means not giving a shit about how your team actually performs. So who cares about the score? Yeah, so tonight we had the Squashington Napadels, again, closing out the 3-0 series against them on the season. They seem to not have... Good time against the Leafs this year because they've been on quite a run.
Ovi's been hot they've been on a winning streak since you know, I think it was right after the last leaf game and what? Yeah, last two games of playing against the Leafs, they were lost by a combination of eight goals, four in each game. Yep, 7-3-5-1 and yeah, holy. What was the other one? Or was it just the two games? Well, and the capitals, they've just announced, I think it was today or yesterday, that they're gonna be staying in the DC area until 2050, at least.
Right, right, I forgot we did. They were talking about moving... Was it Maryland? or something, like across the water. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about this when it was first brought up. Here, yeah, let me pull it up quick. So the Washington Capitals currently play, they were going to move them and it was this whole thing because it's a big tourism draw. No, it's Washington, Capitals, yeah, Capital One Arena is here. I'll do the whole share screen thing. We're gonna play the map game again.
Everybody that's a long time fan of the show knows we love the map game here. Here's Capital One Arena. But I don't know, it's actually like right down the street from the White House, which is pretty cool. And they were gonna move it over, I think they were talking about, I think it was the Potomac Yard. They were gonna like develop all this, or maybe it was something here maybe. they were gonna develop some area that was currently nothing and move it to the other side of the water.
And everybody was quite up in arms about it on the Washington side, because it is a big tourism draw to a city that doesn't really have a ton of, like outside of the fact that it's Washington, DC, like there's no sports and stuff there otherwise. of your like political tourism type of stuff, there's not too much going on, because the wizards suck.
Exactly, so they wanted to keep the team there and I'm glad they are that's a nice update I did see that and thank you for bringing that up because I totally forgot about it Speaking of that general area, you guys see the video of that bridge in Maryland? Holy... I saw today, they are apparently referring back to an 1851 maritime law accord that they used to limit the fines that the Titanic had to pay.
So there's like, apparently some old maritime law thing where they limit the fine on the makers of the boat for accidents like this. And it's like super duper old. And they were like, we're digging that shit up. right now. No one's claimed it since the Titanic? Great. Some lawyers like guys? Maritime law, put me in. It's like Michael Bluth. deep in the caverns of this law firm, just going through 1800 stuff. Love it.
maritime law is one of those weird ones, but they don't update it that often because why boats? My God. So if unfortunate, I mean, obviously very sad that a couple of people have not been founded to lose their lives in that. It's not a laughing matter, but it is a crazy event. Like just watching the video of how quick that bridge goes down after the thing hits it, it's. Mm-hmm. like almost instantaneous for such a massive bridge.
Yeah, it really goes to show you how brilliantly they're engineered. The fact that there's not much to it holding it up and you never think of it. The number of times we've driven over, walked over or went under a bridge, you never think of what's holding it up and how it's engineered and then that just shows you like, it doesn't take much. I mean, doesn't take much. Those things are basically a skyscraper floating in the water. So it's not often that a building hits a bridge. going in there.
Yeah. Yeah, but no, I definitely see what you're saying. Like it shows how fragile everything is and just how well we design it to that margin of error between functioning and about to break. Speaking of that, Joseph Wall at the beginning of this game... A little segue there. Joseph Wall was brilliant in the first bit of this game. The couple of saves he made really kept this game alive. Had they gone down one or two, then totally different game.
Entirely and he's been really so since coming back from the injury and I know the team has been mediocre in front of him in a lot of these games, but It's I don't know when the team's not playing well, you do expect Your goalie to make a couple good saves and it's been like if they're playing bad He lets in some squeakers and it's kind of a write-off for everybody So it is nice that his confidence kind of exuded out to outward
Well, and it was good hearing him talk after the New Jersey game as well, because he even came out and said, like, you know, I can't be letting in the first shot I face. Like he didn't try to sugarcoat it. He didn't try to make excuses. He called himself out. And for a young goaltender, that's really enlightening to see that he... has the wherewithal to be able to do that and know, okay, I've got to work on it. That's on me. Let's clear it out, move on and get going.
Yeah, in the words of Torrance. Yeah, I mean, and like that's what your teammates want to hear too, because they obviously know it's on you, but they're not going to call you out on that. But if you like get ahead of the bullet and say, you know, this is on me, I can do better. And the next game you actually do better. The boys in the room, they recognize that type of stuff. For sure.
Yeah, it's one of those things, it's an internal storyline, it's everybody's, you know, watching to see, not, maybe not like actively, but it is kind of going to, in the player's minds, like, you know, he did say he was going to do it, I don't know, let's see if he is, because otherwise, oh no, like, we might not be as confident on the next night. Like, it is kind of that, like, you've set a bar for yourself.
It's like in NHL when they ask you, like, the reporter gives you the thing and you can respond with like, oh yeah, I'm going to, like, I'll be great. But along with that, it's like, you have to be the first star in the next game. Like you can't talk all this and not follow it up or you're gonna look like shit. So it was one of those. He gets the plus, he got a plus teammate score, plus management and plus fan score. So well done.
Speaking of plus on the night, am I like, was I asleep the whole time or did I see Ryan Reeves win multiple races to putt? He did. He won a race. alive and on adrenaline tonight. Highlight of his game too.
He won a race going down to the other team's icing line and then he put the puck behind him against the boards circled around he looked like fucking Connor McDavid for a quick second I was like, what is this guy doing and then he won out of the battle right after that So that specific player you're talking about, he started at the blue line, got to the icing line, and skated past at least three defenders. This is Ryan Reeves we're talking about, right? It's Ryan Reeves. It's not McDavid.
Someone check those braces, they might be bionic. No, it was unreal. There was another play too where he was cycling with Tavares. I was like, what is going on here? Like, what? And didn't he, he picked up an assist on, um, what's his name? Connor Dewar's goal, didn't he? Or was he just, yeah. Yeah. be fully honest, at the beginning of the season, I was one of his biggest detractors. I thought he would play maybe 16, 15 games for this team and just be buried.
Like a private suite on Robota Island. But it's been anything but. When he came back from that injury, he's been playing really well. He's been limiting his mistakes. And for the ice time he's getting, he's been quite effective. Yeah, I was in the same boat after those first few games. Like he was well, he was playing well for like four or five and then it was just a steep decline in those first like 16 games. And I was like, all right, we've seen enough. That's it.
And then he sat for a while, then he came back. He looked okay, got hurt. And now he looks great. You're right. It's been night and day whenever we've brought him into the lineup. And another one who has benefited from a break, who I always say would benefit from a break. TJ Brody, or not sorry, not TJ Brody, Mark Giordano. Like TJ Brody also benefited from a break. I'll say, we gotta say that from being healthy scratched for a couple of games, but I'm talking about Mark Giridano here.
Coming back from what I thought, sorry, I'll let you go, but like I thought that dude was never gonna play again after that injury. Like, and I don't think the Leafs thought he was gonna play again, they picked up Ilya Lebushkin like 20 minutes after he went down. Yeah, definitely didn't look good. And not to rip on the guy or anything. But once you get that age and you start to get injuries like that, it's concerning for the longevity of the rest of your career. So to see him...
To see him come back and he wasn't a liability out there. He played great. He looked like a young Giordano with how many times he was at the net trying to score. Yeah, I thought even like throw it on net and pick up the first one. Even in Xan, like the amount of time the puck was on his stick, it was on and it was off. He was making quick reads, which he wasn't doing before the injury and everything.
And like, let's acknowledge after he scored that first goal, the signal to his dad, that was pretty, you know, that, that touched it hard a little bit. Yeah, that was nice. Totally forgot about that, too. Thank you. Yeah, he has really turned things around. And it's nice when you hear right before the game. And I really fucking Yahoo! Please let me know sooner next time. Timothy Lillagran was out tonight along with Riley, along with Edmondson, along with Marner.
So it's like, oh, you did defense might as well just pack it in for tonight. But Brody and Geo really stepped it up and McCabe to Benoit was great. Who else did we have out there? Timons. Everybody was playing well for being shoved into this last minute. I've really, personally, I've really liked the looks of Timmons over the last handful of games.
He's looked confident with his puck movement, he's moving his feet, he's not trying to do anything crazy, but he's doing just enough that, you know, gives us a little bit of an edge that we haven't had with the puck moving, maybe with Riley. Because since Riley's been back from his suspension, he hasn't been the same. No, he's been struggling a little bit, you're right. And like in Timith's, I thought he was making a lot of great plays tonight.
He made one like cough up in his own zone, but that's even like a testament to him having the confidence to try making these harder plays that he can make, but he doesn't usually make because if the guy makes one mistake, then he's in the press box again. So like the amount of pressure he faces every game is incredibly tough. And I thought he had a great game tonight, like he said, Biner.
Yeah, I feel like the way I see the story of Timmons this season is the way he got into the lineup in the first place is by taking risks that were paying off. And then once he got into the lineup, he continued to take those risks that stopped paying off and became mistakes that got him knocked out of the lineup. And so it's been kind of a journey for him. It seems to... True, forgot about that.
But it's also been, you got to commend him for being able to adjust to finding stability instead of, you know... constantly going for that goal, like trying to go over the top to stay in the lineup and trusting that his defensive play is gonna keep him in there and he doesn't have to score. Yeah, to your other point, I thought Geo was, he was kind of like a rock back there today. He was comforting Presidents back there. He slowed everything down. He had really quick passes.
And this guy won the Norris in 2019, so although he's a little longer than Tooth right now, he still knows what he's doing back there. He makes smart decisions. And maybe with a bit of time off, he's someone we can look forward to going into the playoffs. Yeah, I mean, if anything, it's nice to know that the depth is... I mean, last year it was nice to know that we had all these extra defensemen, but really, Victor Mete barely played. Who was the other one? Ben barely played.
We had a couple other ones that were just kind of kicking around, scratched or on the Marlies all year. And this year we've seen... Like, yeah, they all played last year. I remember it was like 18 or 20 defensemen played, but they all played like three games. This year we've seen... a healthy rotation of the same like nine defensemen. And it seems to work like I don't find any of them are definitely like the bottom. Like it seems like everything kind of works.
Any rotation of these guys can get you at least a chance to win. So that's more comfortable going into the playoffs than I think I was last year. Quantity... Quality over quantity. Even though I think we might still have a bunch. Hehehe. Well yeah, we still do have extra. And it's like the group mentality type thing, right? We don't have a Norris Trophy candidate for this season, but we don't really have, it's not like we have two or three guys that should really still be in the AHL.
No, it's by committee and that's okay. I think that's kind of what the Leafs need. I just, yeah. I think Edmundson will be a good addition there. That's the one that I'm kind of waiting to see more from in the playoffs. ported edition. Who do you want to see him play with, game one? Um, realistically to me, do we try him with Riley?
That's kind of what I was thinking too, like someone who's so reliable, he has a cup, he's super nasty in front of the net so he can cover for Riley's deficiencies, which he's had lately. Yeah, that's who I would like to see him with. I don't hate it. Actually, this is a good time to pull on a question. Actually, before question, shout out to Bonito the Basset Hound. I said I was going to give you a shout out. You gave us one. Thank you for the love and listening to the show.
I forgot to say in the last episode. But Southpawcal, fun guy, does Geo or Brody make the playoff lineup? I don't know if that's an either or a both or one or. What do you think? Game one. is going to make day one lineup, but you're also going to see Geo win there at some point for sure. They will both be in the playoff lineup at some point. Okay, so if everyone's healthy, what are your three pairs for game one? Riley Edmondson. You go ahead, Peter.
Edmondson, McKay, Benoit, and then the third pair, I guess. Brody Labushkin? All of that pairing scares the shit out of me. Ugh. Yeah? What do you think, Johnny? I mean, I would go Riley, the Bushkin scares me, but at least they know. If you go Riley Edmondson and then McCabe with Lebushkin and then Benoit with Brody That's mine. That's what I would do. See, I also think it depends on who they're playing. As silly as that sounds. No, it's not silly at all, I don't think.
But I think we all agree that those are the six that you're starting in game one. I think then your extras are Geo, Timmons, and Lilligrin. Yeah, I have a big heart on for Benoit this year though. I love the guy. So I'm adding him in and realistically he's probably not going to be on the opening night lineup assuming everyone's healthy. Yeah, because we did leave Lilligran out of this. It's funny, it's one of those guys, he's hurt for the night and it's like, oh shit.
Keith loves Lilygrain though. Like if I can, do you take out Lebushkin for him? That's a tough one, I don't know. Like you said, depends who you play. lets you. Yeah, it does. You don't think so? I think management likes, I think they like Lily. I do too, I just don't think they like you pulling a little bushkin out after they spent on him. Yeah. You're not taking Edmondson out. You're definitely not taking Benoit out. You're not taking Riley out.
I think that's the thing is it's Benoit or Lilligran, unfortunately. Like, I don't agree with that, but I think that's what it might come down to. But we'll see how, if Lilligran's just out with an illness, it's whatever, like we're gonna, they're probably all healthy in 10 games from now. Oh, is it? Shit. That's that's what I read. Riley was upper body injury. I think Lily was illness. What happened to Riley? I feel like I missed that.
Yeah, I don't really recall anything specific happening either. Yeah, oh well. So, I mean, I feel better about the D than I did, like, I don't know, three, four months ago, now that we've discovered this Diamond of the Rough in Benoit, it makes me feel a lot better. Like, there was kind of a hole there on the, he plays on the right, but, meh, still left-handed, isn't he?
Yeah, Benoit's still left-handed, but I just like, I like the steadiness that he brings and he's come in all year and been great for us back there with the, like he's not gonna be creating massive, amazing breakout passes.
Like that's something Brody's done well over the last little while, I think, that he wasn't doing to start the year, is he's always had that good, you know, exit pass out of the zone or the crazy, pass from beside his net to the opposing blue line to Willie streaking in for a breakaway like Brody's good at that. That's something I missed from Muzzin. He was really good at just those hail Marys. Like finds Marner on the other side of the rink. Like, ugh. Yeah, we missed that.
But since the two games, like I said, that he was scratched, Brody has definitely come back a lot better, more confident. I think any of these guys are gonna benefit from.
a break like fuck it's such a long season we're on 71 games at this point like give the guys a second to just like collect themselves and reset and you know you get into a routine after a while we all do in something that long even if it's hockey games so break it and just have them reflect and it's usually a better outcome here. Oh So, Bertuzzi, who again, I keep saying this, I was, I gotta eat my words on this one.
I said, unless he turns it on and, you know, end of March, I don't see any way that this is gonna make sense as a trade, but here we are. It's the end of March and he has finally turned it on. In the last 15 games, he's got 11 goals after scoring only seven in his first 55. That's. This showed a shooting percentage.
It was like 6.6 through his first 55 games and now it's 33 in the last 15 Like this dude figured it out Only took three quarters of the season well, we talked about it all year too, like, okay, yes, we expected more, but you know, I'm not 100% concerned because he's there. He's right there. How many times does he snake bit? Like we were joking that he needs to put more stick more tape on his stick because it keeps hitting his blade and he can't, you know, slow it down enough to tip it in.
Like he's been on the sticker, hey, did you see that? His new one, okay, so this is, they showed the evolution of his stick before the game against New Jersey. And he's got that full, whatever the sticker is, that goes over the full blade of the stick. And he was rocking that for a month or so. And now he's covered the entire front third of his stick just in a shit ton of tape on top of the sticker.
So he took our advice because you're getting these hard passes from Marner and Matthews that if you don't have tape on your stick, you've got to be absolutely perfect and have the fastest hands in the league to be able to corral that. So hey, maybe he listens. I mean, it's a bit of he figured out what he needed to do and a bit of he's just a troll and likes to say whenever someone is like, oh, you don't have any tape on your stick. Actually, here's all of it. I'll put more on.
Every time someone tells me I don't have enough tape, I gotta put another piece of tape on the end of my stick. Like, he's just such a troll. did you guys see that pass that Nylander got? The one like, Lubushkin sent him off on? He caught it on his backhand not looking, so he was all just feel. As soon as it hit his backhand, he corralled it. That's one of the most insane things I've ever seen the player do. That is so, so hard to do. Like incredibly hard to do. fuck, I gotta find that.
I was in and out of this one. the opponent's blue line too. The degree of difficulty on that dive is insane. Oh man, there's been some nice plays and nice goals the last little bit, even though play has been overall up and down, I would say, in the last week and a half, but hopefully with everybody healthy and like, look... off the wild card, but like they're pretty saddled into third place where they are right now. So it's a tough sell for the guys.
They've been finding off a lot of wild card teams lately. Like that's kind of been their schedule is everybody that's sitting on the edge there, like between New Jersey and Carolina and Washington and like, it's just been all these teams and then we're now we're going to face Tampa. Like it's.
It's not a nice end of the season and these guys are tired and there's this flu that is still ripping through the team that they are never going to say is COVID, but Yeah, so it's a tough time and I'm glad they're managing to pull out some big wins like this. Like the ones that they have, they've been scoring a shit ton of goals in. But yeah, the ones on the other side have looked real stanky, but hey, tis the game of hockey. As of right now, we'd play Florida.
Yeah. you... nevermind, not even asking that question. I fucking hate it. do we have we got to have the conversation like people have been talking about you know is it worth it to fall into the wild card spot like to play do that. That's so stupid. So not intentionally, I guess, then let's talk about it this way. Would you feel better about the opponent if the Leafs were in the wild card spot than if they're in third place?
So if we fall down to wild card one, we play the winner of our division anyways at this point. Because as of right now the Rangers are first so they would have the second wild card so it would be the Rangers versus Capitals, the Bruins versus the Lightning, and then us versus Florida and Hurricanes versus Flyers if the playoffs started today. And if I be quite honest, I'd rather play Florida. Yeah. Yeah, you'd take Florida over, you know, Carolina. I wouldn't want to play Carolina.
I think they're probably going to go to the end. is, I think it's really between Boston and Florida at this point. Well, so Carolina and Boston are tied at 99 points right now, the Rangers have 100. and Carolina's been surging quite a bit. Wow. I hadn't quite realized that. Yeah, that's fair.
If Toronto fell to the wild card and the Atlantic winner ended up winning the conference, then we would play the first place team in the Metro, which at this point is only a one point difference between the Rangers and the Hurricanes. They've only lost, what's this, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. They've lost like two of their last nine games, I think. Maybe one? One of their last? Yeah. Yeah, there's seven, two, and one in the last ten. Jesus.
They just shut out the Red Wings for nothing too. Holy. Yeah, I would rather play Florida just because the, I don't know, revenge for last year after the, I know Radko Gudis isn't there anymore, but oh my God. Joseph Wall needs his revenge on this team. And everybody does. And I think we know what we're gonna get out of them and kind of built the team to face. Florida again, in a way.
Yeah. At this point, I'm honestly not, like I'm not gonna say I'm not concerned, but I wouldn't favor any of the three other Atlantic teams in the first round over any of the other ones. Like Tampa, okay, we finally beat them last year, but they've now got.
Vasilevsky who isn't drained from playing an entire season and Kuturov looks like he's adding another trophy to his cabinet Florida's of nowhere is just still on top even though they lost their top guys like Marshawn gets better every year even though he's fucking 35. See that would be the only team that might, I might wanna lean towards, but yet again that could be just the fact that in my head every single summer, it's okay this is the year the Bruins are gonna fall off.
This is the year the Bruins are gonna fall off and they never fricking do. If they didn't get Swainman and Allmark, this would be a completely different story, but they somehow locked into the most important position and two of the best of them. So it really helps solidify any holes you have. Like it gives you time to figure out what your problems are and fix them. And they've done a really good job of that. Did we lose? have.
Yeah, we lost Saudi for a sec, but he's coming back in Uh, so yeah, I don't I don't love the idea of facing the Bruins just because of the goal-tending but I think elsewhere they're definitely a beatable team, but We'll see how we do against the fucking panthers in these the next two games in the next few weeks If I had to choose, to be completely honest, I would probably choose either the Lightning or the Bruins. I really don't trust K'Chuck and Cousins.
Like, to me they're the type of players that if you're up in a game they're gonna... Like look at K'Chuck falling down with his skate in the air towards a guy's leg the other night. Yeah, that's true. They are a little... They're dirty enough that you don't want to, if you do beat them, like, be completely ruined for the second round.
Yeah, I'm not saying that the Bruins don't have those type of players, like I can't stand Marsha, but I almost feel like he has a little bit of respect for other players in the league.
No, the way that the Bruins are The way that the Bruins are rough is different than the way that the Panthers are dirty like the Bruins are like classic like hockey dirty and the Panthers are like Dangerous and bullshit and manipulative dirty like they're just a pain in the ass to play against So Yeah, I have to agree. I think it's gonna be rough if they play the Panthers, but it's looking that way.
Okay. Last thing I wanted to touch on here, some strange news came out yesterday that Deacon Sports and Entertainment Group that owns Trois Rivières Lions and the Newfoundland Growlers are a little, how do I put this, Arizona Coyoteing their way into bankruptcy? They haven't been paying rent. So, Tuahui Viejo was like, you owe, I've seen two numbers. I've seen $600,000 and I've seen a million. That might be Canada and US.
I don't think the exchange rate was that bad, but that might be a million Canadian that they're looking for. But yeah, they're back on a lot of rent owed and the Newfoundland Growlers get dragged into this because they're owned by the same person. Because I guess in the ECHL, you can own two teams. That seems. Strange. It seems very weird. When I first heard it, I was, I had initially thought, well, what, like, MLSC doesn't have any shortage of money, what the hell's going on?
But apparently MLSC doesn't own them. Yeah, this took a bit of reading to make sense of it too. So the only thing I've seen since is that Newfoundland is looking to find someone to buy the team, but they've been given a deadline of April 2nd, which I mean, as I'm recording this, it's March 28th. That's, you know, I think it's Tuesday. They have a Board of Governors meeting that they have to have sold the team by. And this news broke yesterday.
So they gave them less than seven days to sell the team. That's pretty crazy. Like I know it's not a billion dollar team we're talking about here, but still you need somebody that's willing to cough up money for a team that's not a guaranteed profit, right? Like you got to really work to make your money on these kinds of leagues.
So it's crazy because we're getting to the end of the season and if nobody buys these and the league has to take over them, like they're talking about potentially having to fold these teams mid season and that's it's abysmal for the players and the community. And I was out in Newfoundland and the arena is massive. Everybody loves going to the games. There's bars connected to the arena right outside that everybody's watching the game at if they're not in the arena. It's a big deal there.
There's a Leafs ECHL affiliate. We've got guys playing there that we need to play games. And while we've been on the side, this is like an entire team of guys that... have been working towards the playoffs. These are important games for them. And for this to just fold like weeks before the playoffs, it's crazy. Yeah. really, really super weird.
And like with, with how the team, like for all intents and purposes from everything I've seen, it's been a success having the Growlers as the ECHL affiliate for the Leafs. Yeah, like I said. have come through there. If I remember correctly, I believe McMahon. Did you go through there? Yeah. And somebody else just got signed off of there. I saw. like mid season. Thank you. Well, I'm done. it's really interesting. It would completely suck for that to happen.
With that short of a deadline, you wonder if maybe does MLSE step in and just buy them and go from there, right? I mean, that would make the most sense, I think. I don't know if they've approached them about it or if they've even considered MLSE. Like, really, like, do they need, oh, Timothy Lilligan played there? No. That's cool. They need this as like a second farm system, right? Like Bobby McMahon came through there. Yeah. So it's, it's like, I don't know.
The farms are, the farm system is getting so big in this league now because like the amount of players there are and having only like your NHL team plus let's say like another 18 guys on the Marlies. that maybe you can have three or four of them that you're looking at. Like it just doesn't, it's not big enough to be able to properly develop people. So you need to have control of like other systems that you can bring people up through.
And it gives players an opportunity to work their way up through those systems and potentially play with other people that are doing that. If they're not doing the same and learn from them, like it's just good for everybody. So I really hope this gets worked out because there's no other real like. There's no, not another team this big. I think there's like a basketball team in St. John's, but there's not much else as far as like professional sports there.
I mean, their curling team is like the best on the fucking face of the earth, but. Yeah. course, Newfoundland's called the rock, and, girl, you're pushing rocks on ice, so it's kind of fitting. Yeah, there's, what's his name, Brad Gushy? Yeah, he's from St. John's. Isn't it Gushu? Gushy Gushu? I don't know, I'm not a curling guy. they told me when I was there it was the gushy highway. So I think because they literally have their highway there named after that team.
Ha ha That's what I mean, like that's the biggest deal there. So the growler is second tier to curling, but still. Well, like the Leafs have had a little bit of a history of having a farm team out there as well, because they used to have the St. John's Maple Leafs too. That was the AHL team out there. If MLSC buys them, they should change the name to that. So I have the ECHL team be the St. John's, Maple Leafs, and then the Toronto Marlies and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
brand, like it's brand association, right? People don't think Toronto Maple Leafs when they see Newfoundland Growlers. Like you gotta know that. You don't look at the Marleys and think, oh, are they the Rangers affiliate? No, that looks like the Leafs logo, slightly different. They're a Leafs team, you know? made it to the Leafs. to me, if I'm running the team, I almost want to be separate from the NHL team because look at how close they are to Montreal.
How many people in Newfoundland have grown up Montreal fans and yes, deep down they know this is the Leafs affiliate, but they're not gonna buy a jersey if it's blue and white. is terrible if you're trying to... I get it. And the affiliate teams are like, I mean, St. John's is pretty far from Toronto. They're quite often not in the same area, especially when you get to your second tier one. And I mean, all of this aside. closer than Orlando. Orlando Solar Bears were our last one.
Um, the other side of this 12 of you is, um, Montreal's affiliate. So the one that actually owes money is the one that should be making money. So I don't know if this is just a management thing or if it comes down to the team actually being like down on profits, but we'll see there's really not much info on this right now. And it's not like they're, I mean, I could probably find this info, but I don't know how publicly available a lot of it is, so we'll see.
Yeah, it's really a weird story to come out. Yeah, really cool though, speaking of the growlers, I don't know if we talked about this, but you saw they signed Terry Ryan for his birthday to play for a day. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I have nothing else. Do you have anything, any fun today in hockey history that's happened? Um, not today. As, uh, as, as you know, I've lost my prep time, falling asleep for the last, uh, couple minutes of the third period there after I put Patrick to bed, so.
Fair. Oh, have we? enough, the last three games of the season are the Growlers vs. the Travier. really, eh? Oh my god. No way. Yeah, I just pulled up the Growlers website just to see, right? I mean, convenient if those games just can't happen. It's pretty easy for the league to figure out. What I was gonna say, I don't know if we've been on since. I went to the PWHL game in Ottawa on Saturday. It was Toronto versus Ottawa. Ottawa ended the 11 game winning streak.
But not without Natalie Spooner trying, oh my God, her hardest to keep that streak alive. Holy shit, like, I've never watched, I've never watched a professional hockey game this close to the glass, I don't think. Like we were three rows back from, like, in between center ice and, well I'd say like, not in between center, in between like the blue line and one of the nets. So like we were pretty close to one of the nets. So I saw two of her goals, like right in front of us. Holy shit.
Like, a lot of the shots in this, Not a lot of them. I'd say like, there's, there's not the same, I'd say the standard level of shot is obviously not as fast. And then all of a sudden spooner shoots. It's like that was like 80 miles an hour. What the fuck? Like you just blew everybody from the last 20 minutes out of the water. Like, no wonder you've got the league leading goals like my god.
Yeah, there's a couple players like, and that'll even out over time, but right now with the women's game, and I'm not trying to disrespect some of the lower end players, but there's a massive to either. I'm just trying to word that very carefully. It's like. Yeah, there's a massive difference between the top tier and then the rest of the league.
And a lot of it is just the fact that the top tier players, they've either been doing it forever, or they've put the focus and the dedication and even with having to, basically by having to sacrifice something with their personal lives, because this is the first chance they've ever had play in a professional league and not have to either have a job or something else on the go at the same time, right?
Like Poulan, Spooner, Knight, like these are all players whose shot is just absolutely disgusting. And it's really nice to see the league be as successful as it has been right out of the gate. Oh yeah, it was completely sold out. And oh, shout out to Darrell Watts on Ottawa. I got a hat trick that was sick too. Also seeing like, it was kind of cool. Sarah Nurse like skating up past us in front of the glass.
I was like, wow, like that somebody that like I've seen on TV a lot, like even, I don't know. It was just like cool star level, you know? Like, I don't know how to put it. Like I wasn't. you see nurse go by. or I don't know, it's not been a thing that you could follow that much. So now that that's like creating celebrities, I think it was just kind of that realization like this person has become a star over the last couple of years.
And there was that effect of like, oh shit, like that's her there. Like, so that was, I don't know, it was kind of cool. Also there were a shit ton of hockey teams there, like entire, like they did a thing on the screen, like, you know, shout out to like all of these teams from. Ottawa from on the Quebec side in Gatineau, from Kingston, from Coburg, shout out. The West Northumberland Wild girls team were there.
Well, like that's something that this league has a benefit of is that like girls haven't had this. Right? Girls have never had this where they can go and they can see someone who looks like them. Like to put it as blatantly as possible because it hasn't been there. There's been attempts but they've never been full bore. we need to do this properly. It's okay, let's see what we can do and we'll go from there. And then someone else pops up and says, I can do it better.
And then it's like, fucking what are we doing here? in and yeah. so this is a foundation that these teams, these young girls can watch right from the beginning and can build that bond so that 15, 20 years down the line, we're all looking at those teams as if they're NHL teams, right? They've been around, we know what they are, we know what the logos are. I know we don't have that yet, but we will.
It's really... really good to see and I'm yet again I'm just I'm glad they're they seem to knock on wood so far be doing everything right. Yeah, the amount of people in line for merch was crazy. The amount of people that showed up already wearing merch, like all the purple and white too, because I saw t-shirts and sweaters, everything. It's like people are really into this.
The people behind us had season tickets and we're talking about all the games they'd been to and who like, yeah, I've been to like six with this person and five with this person. It's like, people are really into it. Also, this game was violent. One person left, like they had to open the, there's no like, You can't go to the dressing room from the bench. So they have to like open the Zamboni door at the TD arena. And so one person on Ottawa had to leave out through there.
I think it was like a boarding into like headfirst into the boards. Somebody went feet first into the boards, too, from a hit. Like there were some massive ones right in front of us, like the last shaking ones. Like it was a lot harder hitting than I think a lot of people expect. Well, and that's, they've talked about it a lot on serious XM. When I listen anytime the PWHL comes up is that everybody always says, Oh, you know, women's hockey, there's no hitting, there's no hitting.
It's not real hockey. Well, no, it's real hockey. You just, you just don't have people doing stupid headshots, trying to take people's heads off there. Like they're playing physical. They're not just skating around out there. It's not an all star game. There was one call for body checking for like a straight up open ice hit. And I was like, oh, so we are just gonna go for it and take the penalty. Cool. Yeah Yeah, it was a really good game.
I would definitely go back and it's, I mean, obviously we, it was a gift for Christmas to go. That's why we were sitting so close, but otherwise, like if you want to go and sit like, you know, higher up, it's totally an affordable game. Not that Cens games aren't, but not an Ottawa Toronto game. So definitely. of PWHL, what's your thoughts on if the NHL attempted what they're doing with the playoffs? Can't do it. Can't do it. your opponent.
Yeah, so like the NHL do that, first team in each conference gets to pick which wild card they want to play. Just the wild cards. Oh, just the wild cards? just that there's some stability still. So like, if it ended tonight, you'd go to the Rangers and say, okay, you get to pick, Tampa or Washington, who do you want? fun. Yeah, then it feels like you've won something for like achieving something and coming in first place instead of just like, oh you get to play this person.
It's like well they're only one point apart and our record against them is so much worse than the other wildcard team. So I definitely agree that should be a thing. Of all these proposed rule changes that seems to be one that keeps kind of slipping through. Yeah, and like you'd still have the divisional matchups, which they kind of want to keep because the two, three matchups would be the same. And then you would give.
it because you lose a good team in the first round between the second and third place. That's the only argument I have against that. Like, it just seems like you're ratings wise and fan base like viewership wise, like you're getting rid of a team that's going to bring a lot of eyes if they keep going, you know, between both of them, like your second and third place teams could potentially both be in the second round otherwise. And that's a lot more than, you know.
I dunno, depends on the teams, but... Realistically, it's not as of right now in the East anyways, it wouldn't change the matchups drastically. No, it never really does. It's just, it's usually that two-three matchup you would end up playing like the sixth and fifth place in the conference. I still like my idea of just complete utter chaos 1 to 16. I, again, it's the travel that wouldn't make it work, but I do think the idea is fun. The travel and the splitting of some rivalries, but yeah.
Like I wouldn't want to play Dallas in the first round. Why? Because you'd have to travel so goddamn far. These guys are traveling in the first class, private jets. Showdown. Why not? Why not? Peter said so, we're doing it, alright guys? Okay, that now what? Oh no, it wouldn't work. I was going to say it would be Toronto-Edmonton first round, but no it wouldn't be. It'd be Toronto-Florida still. Oh, I gotta give a snack update from the PWHL game at TD. I had a, there's a weird snack bar there.
So you know how they're always like branded, like whether it's something that exists outside of there or it's something they've just made up, it's always like some fun thing. There's one in the TD Lansdowne Arena that I swear it must have been there since the place opened. It's called, oh my God, it's like something cattle.
deli and it's like this it looks like a canteen in a community center arena like it's the weirdest looking little uh like cafeteria sign with just you know the warmers and popcorn machines and drink things like it's nothing flashy but i went there and i got pretzel bites with caramel salted caramel dip or not salted caramel the pretzels were salted as the pretzels are with caramel dip But then it wasn't when they got cold, so.
As you were describing the look of that, I just had a really random craving to get like theater popcorn with nacho cheese on it. so good. Whoa. You Wait, I've never done that. Is that a thing? I've done it before. I don't know if it's an actual thing. I come up with weird concoctions food-wise all the time. It drives my wife insane. Here, it's called the Cattle Castle Deli. And apparently they do like sandwiches, homemade deli sandwiches and classic concession fare.
Like I swear, that's the first thing that must've opened in this place for the 67s years ago. Oh, actually one last point. I was saying when we were at the game, if- They're going to be sharing the arena with the 67s. They should do because it's currently the 67s logo in the center. Once they get the PWHL Ottawa logo, they should do like Arizona, where they have like this the slash where it's both of them. Because, I mean, really, like if we're talking, who's the professional league here?
We're going to we're going to put PWHL's technically a step above the 67s, so they should get their logo at center right. Speaking of 67s, they play my hometown, Brantford Bulldogs in the first round of the playoffs. Oh shit, nice. Sorry, I'm... it, Roscoe, but Ottawa's going down. You know what? I'm only somewhat supportive of Ottawa teams. This is where my allegiance is split. Like the first two games of PWHL, it was like, oh Toronto's not good.
They got like really badly tanked the first two games and Ottawa looked great. And I was like, oh finally. And then Ottawa goes down to, they're in fifth place now actually, or fourth, sorry, they're in the playoffs. I think as of right now, we'll see. But Toronto just went on an absolute tear. Yeah. And it's, they're, they're doing their international break right now.
Yeah. So they're, they're pa they're going to pause for the women's worlds and then come back for, I want to say it's three or four games and then start the playoffs. Nice. Oh yeah, and Boston lost. So Ottawa's got a five point lead on Boston with five games remaining. So they should make the playoffs. It would be Toronto versus Ottawa in the first round if it stays as is. Minnesota is only a point behind and then Montreal. if Toronto wanted to play Ottawa. Oh right, they can pick.
So what they can pick between Montreal or Ottawa. And then Minnesota plays the other one. I think Toronto would get to pick whoever they wanted. Like so any of the teams that qualified for the playoffs, they would get picked. Okay, well I'm assuming they wouldn't want to play Minnesota in the first round, who are almost as good as them, but... Damn. That's gonna be interesting. I'll have to watch who they pick. Anywho, we out. Thanks for listening.
Have a good, lovely evening, and we'll see you Saturday night, I suppose. Ciao ciao. Ciao ciao. Doo doo doo. Weaves Nation.