Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wild and Jesse Blake. Let's go. You are never, ever, ever going to beat the Oilers by scoring two goals. What did I say? You're never going to do it.

Last show, I said you got to score five goals. Five would have got it done.

Five would have got it done. You know what? Four would have got it done. Oh, yeah. The empty netter. Yeah, you're right. It's funny is that as soon as that, Bertuzzi-Oh, would he hit the post? In the first day, I'm like, That's going to... I knew it. I'm like, that's going to bite him. That's going to bite him. It's too leafy. Now, I want to run you through... Listen, I understand there's a lot of people upset, fire Keef and PK Suban is like, fire the coach. And Biz is like... He said that? Yeah, he said that in November and then retweeted the video this morning. Oh, wow. And then Biz actually said something I really agree with, which is they should have got Zdorov. I would take it a step further. Whatever was on the table for Tanev and Zdorow, they should have probably done. But let's not talk about defense. Let's not talk about goal tending. I want to just quickly chat about the stat, and then we can get to it. Over their 11-game win streak, Jesse, Steve, how many goals per game have the Oilers scored? Eleven games, eleven wins. How many goals have they scored in eleven games?

I can't answer this question. I know. I know, roughly.

I'm going to say they scored 52.

Okay, now, Jesse, just give me your rough answer.

Over the eleven game? Yeah. It's about 41.

44.

There you go.

Which means they have scored an even four goals per game. Wow.

Now, how to be able to schedule.

What's the least amount of goals they have scored in that time? Meaning what game did they score the least amount and still win?

I know the last Montreal game was 2-1 over the weekend.

There was a Blackhawks game that was also 2-1. Two goals is the least amount. How many goals did Lee score last night? Two.

Oh, my God.

You're not going to beat the oilers scoring two goals. You're just not. You're not. It's not going to happen. Now, I don't want to make excuses. We can talk about the defense. We could talk about the goal of 10, and we can talk about the goal tenant, we can talk about the keeping. But end of story, you cannot win against the oilers if you do not score at least five goals right now.

Would it be a huge deal if this wasn't four straight? No, it wouldn't be a huge deal if it wasn't four straight. But they've blown a lead again for the fourth straight game, a multi-goal lead for the third time in four games, and it would be a third period lead in four straight games had they not simply blown a two goal lead to the Islanders in the second period instead of the third.

So this breakdown, gentlemen, will not be about necessarily the game itself. It will be about the trend.

It's a bad trend. It's a bad trend. It's a bad trend. It's weird that there's any pushback against that.

I don't think there is. Oh, yeah?

What a bet.

The goal scoring thing, I think, is a really important point because a lot of people are ranking on the defense and they're saying, Oh, everybody's out of position, that stuff. And the defense isn't good enough. Go get Zadora. Serve. But Sheldon Keef focused on the offense in his post game. I feel like if there's just a little bit more offense, they can cover up a lot of these defensive problems. He pointed to Nielander hitting a crossbar, Bertuzzi having a puck that's on a wide open net just hits the post and doesn't go in. If they're able to just finish better, these problems, you probably don't lose four games in a row. But I don't know where their finishing ability went. Like Nielander, who spent the entire first part of the season being an unbelievable finisher and scoring the most amount of points he's ever scored, can't do it anymore. Signed a deal.

Yeah. Stop it. He signed a deal. No.

Why should I stop it?

Why should I stop it?

You wanted the money. This is what comes with the money.

But the money is not- Score. No. No, the money doesn't start until next year. Four straight games. Score. Money doesn't start till next year. Oh, well, then fucking- Sorry. He's been fucking fucking fucking-Sorry, he's still making $6.9 million. 69. Nice.

Well, then- 420 blaze it. What a little teacher's pet overachiever he's been then.

Yeah, he's been great. Oh, great. I think he's one of the best- Can't wait for next year when he just tears shit up. It's not next year, though, is it?

If this is how he performs at his less than $7 million rate. How's he going to be at 11.5? I bet he's going to get 153 points.

What date is it today?

Today is January 17th, 2024.

In 2024, What hockey season are we in? It's a year split.

It's the 105th season.

No, it's the 23, 24 season. So has William Neillander's money kicked in yet? No. Yes. So I will not hear it. I will not hear it. I will not hear it. I will not hear it. I'm happy for Willy for eight years. I'm concerned about some other things. He made some good moves. I thought his little move where he spun around and almost put a top shelf and it went off the goalie's head. Like, Stuart Skinner got his ear in it. It could have been a goal. It was great. Superstar. Not worried about the money. Not worried about that money.

You ought to be.

I think- It's why this team is- It's actually the 106th season of play of the NHL. Is it? That was a year off. I'm sorry. Oh, okay.

So this is about the trend. The trend is giving up leads. The trend is the team's bad defensively. Now, we have had for the last two, three years, if I'm not mistaken, coming into this year, the defensive metrics for the Leifs drastically improved. There were They're really good. Let's be honest, the signings this summer on the defensive end of the Puck were mixed. Every signing was mixed. John Klingberg was never going to give you great defensive minutes. If you were expecting that, no. I hope that's not what Treliving was expecting. Simon Benoît has been better than we expected, but he shouldn't be playing with Morgan Reilly near the end of the game.

Right.

Bridge too far.

Can ICan I stop on Klingberg for a sec? Of course. Because, okay, we have this conversation when a team is going after a player, the trade deadline, free agency, whatever, and then they miss out on them. Well, then you can't just Or very often, they don't just go, Well, then we'll get no one. They go out and they get that person light. They go out and they get their silver medal.

They go get Tim Connolly. Yeah. You remember Brad Richards and Tim Connolly?

It's a very notorious one, but yeah.

And Tim was not great.

No, he was not. No, he was not. But you go out there and you get John Klingberg because you're like, This is what we need. We have these killers up front, killers, and we need someone to get them the fuck. They got to get them the fuck. And then Klingberg, his pelvis explodes. And that happens in sports. It is what it is. It's a shame.

He wrecked that pelvis.

He wrecked that Pelve.

Did you just get out there and crush Pelve?

You just crushed Pelve. So uncomfortable. But you go out there, and who's he been replaced with?

Well, that's the thing.

No, I have an answer. Who is it? Simone Benoît. That's who's... There is a roster spot now because that player is hurt, and he was replaced with Simone Benoît. Now, Benoît has been pretty good. Didn't look great on the game winning goal last night, but he's been fine. That doesn't fit the vision they had for this team in the summer at all.

No, it doesn't.

At all. So what's going on there, Brad? What's going on there, Shani? On account of, I'm going to remind everyone, Shani up at the top for over a decade now, Shani.Makes the calls.Makes the calls, Shani. This team, like Sheldon Keef, very obviously cannot fucking stand the team that he has to coach every night. It's pretty obvious. He put the team 13th forward from last week on the top line.

And he's actually looked okay.

And he's looked fine. Except for on the game winning goal.

New Hyman. That's Pontus Holmberg.

Oh, for fuck.

Can't wait till he goes to Edmonton then.

I thought Holmberg was holding his own in that position.

He's been Yeah, he's been fine. No, what I'm saying, though, is before the preseason, I had no idea this player even played wing. He's supposed to be center, and I guess it's easy to go from center to wing. I don't want to get caught up on Pontus Holmberg. He really does not like this team. You commit to David Kemp for four years. Why do you have David Kemp?

You have David Kemp to center your fourth line?

Well, no, you have David Kemp.

Shut down center.

David Kemp, who, by the way, walked Darnell Nurse last night, which was a good- Darnell Ners can't pivot.

Yeah.

It was fun to see David Kopp walked on and coming off the boards and just go right around him. It was nice.

Good for him.

Whatever.

You're putting him- Two bad contracts going head to head. Oh, my God.

Nurse has to thank his lucky stars. He's on the oilers. That's the worst contract in the NH.

Him and Cal McCar, just neck and neck in contract. I know.

Does he make more? I think he It makes more.

Is it more?

It's 8:25, isn't it?

He's 9:25 or 9:15. My car is 9 flat.

I thought Darnell was in 8. Okay, let's triple check this. Where is Edmondson in Colorado? Let's bring up Colorado.

I'm almost positive.

Anyway. If he's in the nines, it's worse than I ever thought.

Yeah, My car is 9, and Nurse is, Darnell Nurse, nine to five.

Bar none. Bar none, the worst contract.

250 ran ahead of Kael Makar.

Handily the worst contract in the NHL. Who's worse?

You're right. Who's worse? I can't.

He puts up points on the oilers. Okay, call up any AHL defenseman and put him in the same position as Nurse. He'll do fine.

It's still 2030.

It's a fucking nightmare. It's good Lord, looking at that gives me hard palpitation.

All right.

And he might win the Stanley Cup.

Who would you rather have?

What?

Nurse at 9:25 or Mccar at 9:00?

Nurse. You know what? Nurse because I like a challenge. Sometimes you have to create adversity to get to your goals. This is turning into a LinkedIn post. Sometimes you just have to pee your own pants in public. Here, here.

Going back to David.

Shelby Keef has this lineup. Is this the point you're trying to make?

Yes, but he's right, too, because Treliving goes, We're going to get John Klingberg to do John Klingberg things.

For all his warts, he's going to put up 50, 60 points. Oh, he's hurt? Okay, replace him with a guy who has one.

Now, is it fair to say that because they just moved people up the line? Oh, wait. Okay, I'm sorry.

Okay, we're going to sign David Kempf, $10 million. The new Matt Martin, two and a half times 4 equals 10. All right? Which means we're going to trade him for a no-name goalie, and then he's going to play fine. But you signed Shutdown Center David Kempf.

To play him with who? Two random men.

I love Bobby McMahon. It's not a shutdown-line player. I think he's fine. I like him on this team. It's not a shutdown-line player. And for God's sake, we've seen enough of Noah Gregor that he's not that player either. So you're playing your shutdown center with two random men? Mm-hmm.

Okay. And we're wondering why he's having... Everybody's focusing on comp. Why is he having an off year? Yeah. Well, okay.

So then ice your third line. Oh, well, you don't trust them. So ice your second line. Oh, well, you don't trust them. So ice your first line. Oh, well, you're trying to trust them last night, and they cost you the game. Do you see what I'm saying?

I got you.

This Frankenstein frigging design of the team. They had a vision for it. The vision was immediately bad, and they're plugging all these gaps that don't make sense. And who got moved up in the lineup for Klingberg?

Well, it's like Giordano or depending on how you look at it, Lilligran or Mccabe. No, they're on the third pair.

It's Benoît. Oh, Benwa. You mean... Yeah.

Klingberg was with Mccabe.

It's Benoît. I don't think it's a direct replacement for Klingberg. This is the point that Adam was trying to make. I think It's been a mismash of Laguison and McCabe and Benwa. Who? Everybody's been over the- Over the Klingberg. Over the course of the months that Klingberg has been out. They've been using all of these different friends because geo has been out for a while now, and then now he's been back for a few weeks. It's been a committee of defensemen that they've just been trying to trot out there.

Laguison is on milk cartons right now. I have no idea where that guy is. They won't use him.

Yeah, his last game was December 27th.

They'll use Timmins who- Who is objectively terrible.

You can't use him. You can't use him. You can't use him in that role.

If you want a Klingberg-type player, you could go with that fella, but you don't want that thing that you want. What are you doing? What are you doing?

I wonder if they're just choosing Timmins over legs because he shoots right.

It could come down to that. You might be right.

Timmins is a right shot.

Timmins is a right shot.

Timmins is a right shot. Leggison is a left shot.

Max Domi, okay? He's brought some intensity to the lineup. Keef has trusted him a little bit more recently, But look at his ice time. He doesn't trust this player. All these conversations that we heard this summer, Brad Draliving had hours and hours. It's like him and Keef were the Joker and Batman with a bunch of pizzas in an interrogation room talking this thing over. They don't seem to be on the same page at all, even the slightest.

The reference was 17-hour meeting that they had over the course of two days.

17 17 hours?

17 hours.

I don't like the job Keef has done.

I don't even think anybody can stay awake that long. No.

First of all, I don't believe it.

Over the course of a couple of days.

That's not a 17 hour meeting. Unless it started at 6:00 and then went to 6:00 AM or whatever.

That's two eight hour meetings or an eight hour meeting and a nine hour meeting. That's not a 17 hour meeting.

That's how it was phrased.

Were they working all week? You had a 40 hour shift.

They're just trying to David Gauget, If you don't meet super hard, they I don't even know. Anyway, I don't know where you're going. I'm not even going there. What I'm trying to say is that it's like, okay, so you met. Let's say they met for 17 hours, and that's true, and I don't believe it. If they did, what did you do?

They don't seem to be on the same page at all. I don't like the job Keef has done recently, but I feel like firing him right now, which a lot of people want, only exacerbates the problem.

Just so people don't think I make this shit up. As the days ticked by, while the GM spoke to the least players and staff members about Keef and exhaustedly grinded through 17 hours worth of meetings with Keef himself, all the vacant head coaching jobs in the league gradually got gobbled up. That was from Luke Fox on June 29th? June 29th, 2023. There you go.

I don't think that... Here's the thing. I did read a tweet last night, and I think it was from Alex Hobbs, and he's like, Listen, in no other sport, it doesn't matter how good the coach was, in no other sport would a coach with success successive first round and out, although he didn't have a success of first round because he did have a second round and out in there, no coach would have survived that. But again, this past spring, he didn't have a first round and out. They did get to the second round.

If this is any real franchise, the head coach lost his job by now.

Yeah. I don't even think... I'm of the opinion that I don't really think he's the problem. I think that they have a blanket team, and I agree with you, Steve. Here's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing an unexpected regression in TJ Brody. I know he wasn't great in the playoffs last year, but he was steady for three seasons heading into last year's payoff. He is drowning. He is drowning out there. Mark Giordano, we saw what happened to him in the playoffs last year, too, because he was exhausted. I don't think the plan for him was to be in the top four or play this many penalty kill minutes. I'm looking at Will Laguison's ice time, and it's like, 15 12 minutes, 11 minutes when he plays for the Leaps, right?

Fine. That's a third pair of defense.

That's what Giordano should be. That's what he needs to stay as. Then you've got Seymour Benoît, who is a big body, who does big body guy stuff.

Don't mind him.

I actually have always liked Jake McCabe. I think there are awards to his game, but you're paying him 2 million bucks. I don't really think there's a problem. Oregon Reilly is an absolute beast. Lilligran has looked good since coming back, but you don't have the depth on this defense, and they are certainly not capable of playing whatever system the least are trying to force them to play. That is also, I think, an important point.

A lot of people are talking about nick Robertson being in, as Jeff Merrick likes to put it, La Chey Bow Wow in the dog house there with Sheldon Keef. What's Lilligran got to do to get off that third pair?

I don't know. I thought he looked good, man.

You can't look at this lineup and tell me he deserves that. I'm not saying healthy scratch, Brody. I don't think things are maybe that extreme. It's time to take away some responsibilities, for God's sake. Put them on the third pair. See how Lilligran does it, at least.

It's like how we talked last episode, the true coaches set you up for success. I know what this player used to be, and here's where NHL coaches get blinded, and I don't blame them, is players' skills do diminish. Sometimes they come back, but sometimes they diminish. This player is not of playing the same role as last year. You have to recognize that. So you must find somebody.

Not right now. Maybe it comes back. I don't know.

The question is, well, then who steps in and plays TJ Brodie's role? And that is a true living Shana Henn question. Because there is nothing internally that is going to substitute for that.

Well, it's a question that we have an answer to. Well, we don't want to give up on the prospects we have or the pics that we have, and we don't have any cap space, so we're just going to sit here.

And whose fault is that?Brendon.

Chanahan.thank you. You got to have both.

At the end of the day, at some point, we need to start blaming the actual people who put together this roster and decided to keep doubling down on the thing you hate most is giving these core four the money. They've done this for eight years now.

Well, we make fun of Dubas for loving his guys, and he does. He loves his guys, and he had a type. So here's what you have, right? You have your core 4, Morgan Reilly core 5, whatever.Core 5. Fine. What is your job every year? You got to find some goal tending, some adequate goal tending. He was literally hit and miss. I'm great at finding a starter. I am bottom five in the league at finding a backup.

And we're finding a starter who's peaks for a season, and then you got to get rid of him.

Yes. And making a mistake with Mrazic, and then we fall over ourselves to praise him for getting out of his own mistake.

Finding Jack Campbell in a deal where Jack Campbell was the throw in with Mazin.

Yes, but also- What if Jack Campbell had just not been included in that deal? What would they have done?

It would have been rough. No, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry, you're getting confused. Muzzen was a separate trade. Then I think it was a year later, they made a trade with the Kings. It was Campbell and Clifford for Picks and Trevor Moore.

Trevor Moore was looking great. Yeah, there were two separate deals with the Kings. Yes, you're right.

He had a type, and it was… Okay, you got to fill your team, you try to get your goalies. And then his type was undersize guys with good underlying numbers who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Every game, you're like, But they deserve to win. They can't shoot. They cannot shoot or pass the buck.

Yeah, Patan, Málagaan. Who else you want to include?

Just cardio merchants. Just getting out there and hopping on the Peloton, and I'm in the Scottish Highlands today, and maybe tomorrow I'll visit Morocco.

I like the Austria ride. The Austria ride. Yeah.

All right, everyone, give me a little push. Lift your little weights that you also get at the side.

Then you got to add in always finding a guy who plays perfectly with Matthews and Marner and then not being able to keep them.

Well, and then he would hit. I'm making it sound like he never hit.

No, he hit and then he can't keep- They were gone. Yeah.

Gone. Dude, Hyman- The only reason they were able to keep bunting is because he had a two-year deal.

Yes.

Two-year deal and like, turn down money. To come to Toronto because he's not stupid. He got great advice from whoever was giving him advice. Go to Toronto. They'll use you because you're cheap. You'll put up a 40 billion points and provide something on that team that no one else on that roster, no one is willing to provide, and then cash out.

That's why Bertuzzi and Domi are here right now. Yes. Or the bunting route of this.

And they have 10 goals combined.

Well, Michael's got nine.

Oh, lovely. Oh, well, then great. Great.

Yes. And so your point is about the Dubas roster.

Dubas had his faults, but that was how he tried to fill out the rest of the roster. Brad Ultra Living has filled out the rest of this roster like a kid paying for candy and coins. What can I get for... This one is... Is this 25? It's a nickel. It's, okay, five. And then it pennies. I don't even know where it got this. They stopped making them. And what the age... It's just random men. The roster is full of random men. There's no rhyme or reason or theme or identity to the scene. We want snot. Okay, man. They do play with more snot.

Yeah. But I think what that comes down to of Bradstree Living walking into the circle K and being like, Hey, what can I get for all these dimes and quarters that were in my pocket, comes down to Brandon Shanahan on his way down to the gardener, deciding, Hey, I didn't like Cal Dubas' press conference. I'm going to can my GM as we're in this turning moment in our franchise- Five weeks before the draft. Where I can move some of these pieces because Willy's contract is coming up. Mitch Marner's no trade clock kicks in on July first, and we need a roster overhaul because we just got whooped by Florida, and all of a sudden getting rid of the guy who knew the roster the best and was probably willing to make some moves because he knew that his job is on the line if this thing keeps going the way it is. But no, Brandon decided to get rid of that guy and bring in a guy a couple of weeks out of free agency who didn't know the roster completely and just has to go get a A bunch of guys.

And we're going to sit on our prospects and we're going to sit on our-No! The court you're spending a billion dollars on is in their prime.

No!

No!

What are you doing, you madman?

Man, so you're telling me you're going to hold on to all this shit and develop these guys until they're too old to compete anymore?

Well, no. What did you talk about in those 17 hours? I was thinking about this. I was thinking about this. And I think that if you are the leaves right now and you say you're open for business, what's Friege always say? They're going to throw you an anchor, not a lifeline. So you're saying, No, I won't do it. I won't do it. They'll do it. They'll do it because the logic that you so eloquently put out there is true. You have to win now. This is the time to win. You got your first round pick next year. You don't have that one this year. You've got what you've got in terms of your prospects. You're probably For me, the least are going to have to trade off the roster here. It is going to happen.

Yeah, like Sam Lafferty.

Well, listen, I agreed. That was a really bad move. It just goes to show how quickly this stuff can fall apart.

Well, he made way too much. Oh, sorry. He made 1.15. What are we doing?

Yeah, I agree.

What are we doing? Awful trade.

We need guys who play with snot. Sam Lafferty.

But they had to sign Ryan Reeves. They had to make cap room for Ryan Reeves.

There's another guy in a milk carton. Is he still hurt or are they just not playing him?

When they list the practice lines, I can't say practice, they list him as the extras. Oh, for God's sake. So I assume he can do stuff, but he's not in the line.

Is he in a gray jersey? I don't even know.

I don't know. I'm not there.

I don't think that that factor is too much other than the money that he's taking up. I think we all agree. When Klingberg was signed, when we did our little free agency show here, we were That seems odd. Dumba was still in the market. Dumba signed for the same money. I think, and I understand it's July first. We'll wait till July second when Dumba signed, or July third when Dumba signed. Get your guy at his money. I think all of that's true. Then we go to the Mitch Marner quote. The Mitch Marner quote has been the thing that people have been railing on today. Essentially what he said, and here's the part that bugs me about this quote. Because people don't like him. What bugs me about this quote, and the way it's being put out there, is he starts it with, Obviously, we're pissed off. That's how he starts it. That part is not being tweeted. That part is not being reported. That part is not being clipped and thrown around the internet. I think it changes the tenor of the quote because the rest of the quote is essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here because I lost it.

You want me to play it? Yeah, play it for me. Okay. Don't want anything outside of us, frustrate us or get us angry. Just got to do what we do. Do you feel frustration seeping in? No. But I think a lot of people on the outside are trying to do that.

That's how it goes for us.

We know we're doing right things.

We don't want anything outside of us.

Wait, hold on. He also says at one point, We've been playing some awesome hockey. That's the part that people are like, What?

He says, We had a couple of leads in all of those games.

We've been playing great. Yes. Now, it's not the Stanley Cup of we sometimes play well. It isn't. I understand what Mitch Marner is doing. Remember, this guy wears an assistant captain's jersey. You could disagree with the- I think the refs love that, too. I think that you can dislike the way he handled this, and you could say he should have handled it differently. But I think the part that has been cut off time and time again, which is him saying, Obviously, we're pissed off, changes the rest of the sentence afterwards. I'm not trying to be an apologist here because I actually do agree with him. I do think they've played some awesome hockey. I have seen things from this team that I did not see from last year's team, which was supposedly the best team of the Dubas era. Last year's team always played down to their opponent and always played up to their opponent. This year, I've actually seen the Leaps come in, dominate start to finish. I never, ever, ever saw that before. However.

Pretty rare.

However, they've been really streaky. You've got John Tavares, who is last in, I think it's expected goals. Sorry, his goals not scored but expected. I don't even know how to articulate it.

The goal he is expected to score based on how he's playing, he's last amongst them.

He's last, meaning that he's due for a regression to the means.

He should have been scoring more goals based on his play.

Which we talked about last episode?

Bertuzzi. Wide open net and it goes off the three inches. The three inches, the three-inch piece of metal.

You know what? The no tape on the stick is less cute when you only have six goals.

Okay, fair.

Tape your fucking stick.

Yeah, it doesn't do anything, but I don't care what anyone says. Tape on your stick doesn't do shit. I think at the end of the day, you've got a team here that is very imperfect. I don't think they're as bad as they're being made out to be. I think you got a head coach who's frustrated with his line combinations, which is why he's made some of the most perplexing line decisions that we have seen in the last week. We've seen he's frustrated. Remember, too, where we are in the season. This is January. This is the time for going, let's try it. They are going to make the playoffs. We're pretty sure about that. They are going to play the Panthers and the Bruins. We're pretty sure about that. I am.

They might be out of a spot by the end of the week.

And it's January.

Yeah, that's time. There's still a lot of runway to the season. And to what Adam is saying, Sheldon Keef came out of the postgame, and he was talking about the offense and all that stuff. But when they're asking him about the losing, he said, Okay, so the trend has been eight days. We've been on a four-game losing streak. It's been eight days of this trend losing because before that, we had a dominant road trip in California.

The leaves are so fixated on the message and not nearly focused enough on the product. I don't disagree with that. Everyone is so, We need to calm it down. It's been eight. You've lost four straight and blown four leads. Don't gaslight us, please. Here, counterargument. That's 10% of the season so far. Four games? It's like 10% of the season.

Oh, based on the four to two they've played. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, Steve- So you've been dog-ass and blowing it for 10% of the season.

The Mitch Marner quote is bad for the It's bad for the optics.

It's bad for the optics. But again, it's being misreported. It's not fair. No, it's not. It is being misreported. Play it again. You have to have... That wasn't the full quote.

We can get the full one. Give me a second.

That was not the full quote. It's not being reported out there. And to be honest with you, the thing about the Lefs right now is that they need to be saying what he said, he said the quiet part loud.

What was that?

In the room, all of what he said is what he should be saying to his teammates. He's a leader in the room, right, Barry?

We make too much money.

No. He said that louder. No. What he did say- Here, you want it with the, Obviously, we're pissed off.

Play it with everything. All right, here's the whole thing.

What's your sense of frustration with the Leeds getting in in in his last few minutes?

Obviously, pissed off about it, but Like I said, all these games we've been playing, we've played some really good hockey.

We've just given them back. We've had a lot of chances to extend leads in games and haven't done a good job of that. I thought we played pretty good defensive the other night, but just a little slip up here and there. I got a lot of skill that makes things happen.

And he's right.

Wait, where was the rest of it? That's the quote.

And then the next one, the other one comes from a different question. This is the the first one.

You want it again? No, I would like the other answer. No, the other answer is important to that answer.

Okay, because they're separate questions. That's the thing. Everybody's mismatching the whole thing.

But he comes across like Rick James. Come Come on. I didn't mush my boots into what was it? Eddie Murphy's couch? Come on, I got more sense than that. Yeah, I remember grinding my feet in that man's couch. Obviously, you were pissed off about it and blah, blah, blah. No, everything's going to be fine.

Mitch, which is it? But that's where I didn't get to finish my point. That's the quiet part. You say that for a team that's so focused on the messaging, they are really bad at delivering a message. What Mitch Marner needs to do there is be very generic about it because that's what you need to do. To the public, you say, We need to be more accountable. That starts with me. Boom, move on. Quote over. Everybody goes, Okay. But what he did was he said to you what he's telling his teammates. What you What you need to do when you're in a losing streak in life is focus on the little victories. Did we play a good period here? Yeah, we fucking lost the game. But okay, we got to... What we did in that period, that's what we need to focus on. Continually build on those things. It's a streak. It's a losing streak. I believe that they'll be fine. I think most people believe they'll be fine. Are they as good as last year? I don't know. But I think you look at this and you go, Mitch, after a loss like that, public The public doesn't want to hear this.

No. What the public wants to hear is that we're on it, we recognize it, we're pissed about it, and the accountability starts with the leadership group. That's all the public wants to hear. Tell them what they want. Give the people what they want. I agree with you. The team is too focused on the messaging, and they're bad at it. Message it better.

Someone needs to have a conversation with that.

If they said that today, people would be like, I'm glad Mitch Marder is stepping up.

Yes. You're so fucking right. Or Tavares ever once.

Yeah, and you know what? I love him, but... Listen, I've been saying...

Come on.

I've been saying for more than a year now that I think Tavares' time as a captain is coming to an end. And it's not because he's not a good player. It's because we need to see results. And in Toronto, you need a little bit more of a vocal leader. What we had under the Matt Sandine era, Matt's hated interviews, never said much, but you had Darcy Tucker, you had Gary Roberts, you had Brian McCabe, you had guys that were going to talk to the media and be like, well, or Ty Domi even was great with the media. Fantastic in handling it, a postgame interview, especially after a shitty loss. I need to see Austin. I don't need to see the second-line center who's on pace for 70 points. I'm sorry to say that that's John Tavares. He is somebody I do want to talk about eventually. I do think that we're getting near time where Austin needs to take his team now. It's Austin's team, or Morgan's team. Give it to Morgan. Whatever. He never screws up the messaging. I think what we need these guys to do is to just, even if you don't fucking believe it, don't pour gasoline on the fire.

You step out and you go, It's on us. We will solve it.

Here's a frustration that may not seem fair that I think a lot of lead fans-Life isn't fair, so go ahead. Yeah, I feel this frustration. The leads are going to be what?

The leads are going to be what? Fine? I think that they will figure this out, yes.

Yeah, but they're going to be fine Well, fine in the meantime.

Man, I'm a lot more positive on this team, I think, than most people are right now. I like this team.

13.25, 11.5, 11, 10.9. That's not fine.

6.9..

Oh, stop. Right now. That is not a core where I look... You don't look at that murderer's row and go, Oh, yeah, that's fine. Sorry, you got absolutely No move clause, endorsement deals, the salary, the bonuses. I am sorry you got exactly what you asked for, and you now wear this crown of thorns. You are a star. That is what the money is for.

Perform or no one's going to feel bad for you. And I don't feel bad.I'm not saying I feel bad.

Listen, this team, the expectation every year with those salaries is not fine. The expectation every year is... Even if you're not the favorite, this team might fuck around and win the Cup. That's not the discussion.

We're talking about-Second round.

They might make the play. People are going, You never know. They could do a Florida run.

Oh, that's not-How did Florida get to the Cup final last year? But Brovsky.

But Brovsky? And also beating the dog shit out of anyone who came in their bath. This team's not capable of either of those things. Oh, yeah. So the strategy's blind luck?

The strategy's blind luck, the fuck? I think when you look at this, it's that they... Here's the thing. The Neilander thing is the Neilander thing. You have to keep Neilander. You do. I will listen to people who are like, You got to figure out the Tavares thing next year. I'll listen to people who are like, Marner's got a year left. Maybe you go to him. I'll listen to that. I will totally listen to that.

The right thing about freedom is you don't have to do anything.

I think it's important to keep in mind that Klingberg's money is off the books. Sammie's money's off the books, Brodie's money's off the books, Brody's money's off the books. What?

No, so you- Adam, continue your point.

Go ahead.

Well, is that true? Is it not true?

No, he said, New guy signed him. He was taking digs at Brad for Living. It was unnecessary.

I didn't understand. I was like, what? Sorry, I didn't hear it.

Dude who spent the money in a fucked up way is going to have more money next summer. Forgive me if I'm not excited for that.

I get that. I think here's the thing. If it was True Living that was driving those decisions, he's now lost power, which is a good thing because we've all forgotten. I think what we've all forgotten here, you got to let the GM come in and do his thing. All of the people that surrounded Kyle Dubas. When we say Kyle Dubas, what do we mean? We don't just mean Kyle. We mean all of the people he hired, with the exception of Jason Spetsa, who was a junior member of that staff. All of them are still here.

I think they're all employees with a boss.

Well, and I think that now Brad swung and missed a few times. And maybe Shani, too. Again, I will listen to that, that Shani is a big part of this. Maybe it's time to listen to your staff again. I like the direction that they've gone with a tougher team. Toronto wants a tougher team. I don't care that mathematically, this is the way it works best. We saw six years of that, and they didn't make the second round, and nobody wants to hear that shit anymore. Torontians want a team that will beat you up every once in a while. They do. So give them that. They have a team full of superstars that can score goals. You gave them that. What you need now, and what we've said for a while, is you need to overhaul the defense. They've said that they wanted... They've talked about overhauling the defense. What Zdorow got traded to Vancouver for, go look it up. It's embarrassing. I cannot believe they let that deal go. Can't believe it. The other thing I want to talk about with last night is Martin Jones, who was spectacular. That was great. That was spectacular.

But the goal- That first goal stunk.

The goal that dry sidal scored is The Martin Jones that'll kill you.

Sub-nhl.

That is, how are you cheating away from your post? Everybody, listen, I know that average people like myself are not ever allowed to challenge goal tenders on their decision making. Yes, we are. It's not that fucking complicated. Everybody makes goal tending seem like you need a doctorate. No, it's not that hard. It's not that fucking hard. Get fucking real. It's hard, but it's not complicated. Get them against your post and stand up. Martin Jones, one of the things that he's been called out for is positioning. The other one is going down too soon. He could not even see the shooter. So stand up. You know where the angle is. When you go down, you've let the whole top end. Leon Dressel was lethal with that back in.

It's one of Joseph Wull's greatest strengths.

He stands up.

He finds his way through screens. Sammie, when he was struggling, a lot of the emphasis was on his wild movements back and forth. Holy shit, he couldn't find his way through a screen. And when your defense stinks, you got to fight your way through screens. Last year, remember, he had the best high danger save percentage in the NHL? Yeah. First of all, it was probably unsustainable. But one reason why it might have worked is they played better in front of them.

Agreed.

And they took a step backward and-They don't have the talent there anymore.

I think that what's really hurting them is TJ Brodie falling off the way he has. I don't know what's going on with TJ Brodie, but he has... I mean, for all the criticisms of Marner up front, TJ Brody deserves all of them on the back end. He is drowning, drowning out there. That's the coach. Well, it is the coach because he's putting him in spots. But I also think the coach would probably tell you if he was here and he could talk about it openly, he'd be like, put who there? Who should I put there? I don't know.

Give it a shot, man.

With the Martin Jones thing- Brody...

Sorry, Benoît-Reilly. Was that not giving it a shot?

Yeah, for a second.

With the Martin Jones thing, I think it's unfair to criticize your third-string goalie who has two shutouts in 15 games and a 9-22 for letting in one bad goal. There's a little bit of leeway for your third string.

You know what?

I guess, but you're the starter now.

He's been fantastic.

And he was great last night.

Yeah, and he was great besides one play. I think there's so many other pieces of the lineup you can criticize.

Okay, so let me ask you this then, guys. Here's what concerns me the most about the Toronto Mapleies, and I love this player. When they play a fast team, John Tavares is a non-factor. And we saw it with Colorado, with the one good line Colorado really has. That line is unbelievable. And we saw it with the Edmond Tenoilers. The Leaps are slow. I don't know if Leaps fans have realized it, but they've been slow for four years. Tavares, against guys like that, can't compete.

That's why we see guys like Noah Gregor, and we go, and ignore the fact that he's just not a very good player.

You look at the way John Tavares played in the playoffs last year. He had an overtime winner to send them to the second round. Amazing.

It was awesome.

But there were times where you're like, oh. My biggest fear, you're worried about the contract situation. I'm worried about it for a different reason. I'm worried about it because I don't think that this guy is your second-line center long term. And I said it last episode, who's coming in to replace Austin? And you don't have the money to do it. And I'm worried about if they run into a fast team in the playoffs, somebody who can outskate them, that first line will be fine. So Neylander will be fine. But you've put Bertuzzi and Tavares two objectively, and these guys are great skaters by average terms, but in the NHL terms, they're not. Detroit fans will I'll tell you they're not great skater. Bertuzzi is a... Somebody can explain him. He's like, he's like a bit of a zamboni out there. Is that somebody explained it? And I was like, yeah, he just slides around.

He tries so hard, but when he's not scoring. If you squint, he's just Mike Pizzetta. Do you know who that is?

Yes, I know Michael Pizzetta.

Yeah. A lot of people listening are like, Hmm? Yeah. He's like an auxiliary player on the habs.

I also think they Maybe this is a guy they need to work. They need him to work this year. He was a beast in Boston on their first power play in it. He's not seeing those things. His buddies. Get him going. Yeah.

I like... And here's something frustrating about what you just said. If the Leaps do make the play, the two teams they are most likely to face are who?

Boston or Florida.

Are they tougher than Florida?

No.

Are they tougher than Boston?

No.

Are you faster than Florida? No. Are you faster than Boston?

I don't think so.

What are you good at?

You're Austin.

You're not tougher. You're not faster.

You suck. You're Austin Matthew. You're Austin Matthew. You're Austin.

Your identity is a dude. Well, your identity is one guy. That's not good enough. That clip producer Drew put up yesterday that made the rounds. I think at worst, Matthews is still a top five player in the world. At worst, right? I was just talking about McDavid, who had 153 frigging points last year, and over 60 goals, by the way, and Nathan McKinnon, comparing him for those guys. But even the Avs struggle to win games these days. Yeah, because they've got one good line. They got one good line and maybe the most elite defense pair in the world. One good line. They have a goalie who is fine. Yeah. He's a middle of the pack starting goalie who's on pace to start 67 games. Wow. Yeah, it's bad.

So they got issues.

It's bad. But they're facing all these injuries. And Landescag, he's coming back. Who's injured up front for Toronto? Who's injured up front? Who's missing? Nobody. This is the team as designed. And they're not faster and they're not tougher.

Well, they are tougher. The least are tougher than they used to be.

No, they're not faster than their opponents. Fair enough. I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you. It's okay that they're tougher than they were, but they're still not faster than their opponents. Or sorry, they're still not tougher than their opponents. Or sorry, both. If you had the speed and you had upgraded your toughness, and you're not quite as tough as your opponents, but you're like Tampa. Tampa wasn't tougher than opponents, but they were tough enough to stand up for themselves. And if they were able to stand up for themselves, every other weapon that they have takes care of it, right? The Leaps don't have any of those things. They have several good men.

They have a star player. Well, Tampa has got a star player who might kill you. Might kill you. Kuturov, when he loses it, he could kill someone. That guy is crazy.

A fourth line that... Usually, the fourth line is supposed to be, Oh, there they go. Attack, attack.

Get that.

Get your line out. And Tampa would regularly ice this line where you go, Fuck, it's them again. Belmar, Maroon, Perry.

They've had their struggles this year, too. Like the whole team.

Yeah, well, none of those. Oh, yeah. I was going to say none of those guys are there anymore. No.

Belmar might be. No, I mean, Tampa, generally. Some of those guys are gone. Oh, yeah.

Well, and they've been... It's one thing when you build this monolith, and over the centuries, it crumbles into the sea. The leaves made a snowman, and it melted in the spring. It's just not the same.

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With Mitch Marner, do you think there's any avenue to him accepting a different place to play hockey? Yes. Do you think he... I feel I feel like there's budding sentiment in the Leifs community that he would be open to playing somewhere else.

I feel like Mitch would be open to playing somewhere else.

Does he look like a guy having a great time? No.

I'm sure he's sick of this shit. I I get it. He might go somewhere else and just be unbelievable.

Yeah, because I get it. His childhood dream and everything. But maybe you reach the point and you're like, I can do this somewhere else where it's a little more quiet.

In my Hot Ticket Palooza, I said, It's okay to be optimistic. Well, Jessie, here's the opposite take for you. Childhood dreams die. We saw Matt Duchesne, who was able to tell you the exact make and model of every stick of every member of the Colorado Avalanche that he grew up watching and loving. And then one of his childhood idles became his head coach and told him, Hey, you stink. And it didn't go well, and he huffed and puffed and blew his house down and demanded He started a trade. And the avalanche instantly got better, and the sends instantly got worse. And he pings around the NHL until finally landing in a situation that made some sense for him in Dallas. He wasn't so bad.

He likes guitars. He loves...

Fuck, I didn't know that about him. He like country music. I need another feature about how much he loves guitars. He loves them.

Why was that a talking point for five years?

Because Hockey players are tremendously uninteresting, generally speaking. There are some guys who can spin a yarn. We're going to have one of them on later in the show. But he love guitars. He loves them.

I think it'd be an interesting conversation between Brad true living and Mitch Marner if he approached him and said, Hey, if I found a destination you like, would you be willing to go there?

Well, it's completely up to Mitch as was decided by the President of this hockey team. It wasn't.

It wasn't always. Up until last July first.

Yeah. It's, Hey, we can trade this marquee player to wherever we want. There are 31 potential buyers. And now there's... How many, Mitch? How many? Three to five. I don't know why I'm looking into the camera. He ignores all the noise that he brings up at every opportunity. Stop looking at me. I said in the LFR yesterday, I think the people around this guy are doing him a tremendous disservice because I take a man at his word. He says he's blocking out all the noise. I think he's legitimately trying to block out all the noise. And I think he has people around him who keep sending him the noise. Oh, yeah. And they got to stop.

Yep, I'm almost 100% positive on that.

Do you remember the first time we had Elliott Freeman on?

Yeah.

Years and years ago in your apartment?

He came to my apartment. Yeah. Which is wild to think in retrospect. It's wild. What was he doing there? I don't know.

A surprising roster of people visited your apartment.

Eric, Justin Bourn.

Justin Bourn. James Turdell. Dude, Richard Petty. Richard Petty. Went to your-MLSE. Hot as fuck, nothing but windows apartment. You must have hated it there because you love an ice box.

The air conditioning unit was undersized. So yeah, in the summertime, it would get up to Fahrenheit, 90 degrees.

Oh, my good Lord. It was terrible. That's absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, Friedmann talked about this player, and he wouldn't name him. But this player was like, Oh, I heard you said this and blah, blah, blah. And he goes, Well, who told you that? And it was the guy's-Uncle. Wife or uncle or someone in his family or someone in his group kept sending them all this bullshit. And it was like out of context and Purple Monkey Dishwasher and broken telephone. And it wasn't doing the player any favors. And then he's like, well, here's what I actually said. And it patched up his relationship with that player, whatever, whatever. And that player was able to screw his head on tight. Dude, you are not doing your friend. If I know people in pro hockey listen to the show, I promise you you you're not doing your friends any favors Or if you're a player, your friends are not doing you any favors by sending you the shit that other people say. I think it's healthy. I'm not saying don't hold me accountable for my words. By all means, please do it. Plenty of people do. But if you're truly blocking out the noise, why is it still so fucking loud?

Are you surrounding yourself with people who are helping you achieve your goal? Well, my goal is to win. No, no, no. Let's look at the micro things. I'm blocking out the noise. Okay, here's some noise for you. Well, that's not helping you. Your friends are actively working against you by doing that. Best of intentions, they probably don't realize they're doing that, but they're doing that. Tell them to fucking stop. It's not just Mitch. It's like there's lots of players out there like that. Lots of players, family members with not very subtle burners out there.

Yeah, you can almost pick them out. Sometimes it's a little embarrassing. Yeah. It's humiliating. You're like, okay, I know who you are. And there's been several we're like, yeah, we know.

Well, and like, that clip, I do have to address one comment. That clip went out there yesterday about me talking about Austin Matthews not stacking up to McKinnon.

Yeah, but that was Drew taking it out of context and trolling you.

He wasn't I'm really taking it out of context. I mean, he loves this. I mean, he could upload the full episode and then you'd get the full context, right? But it's a clip. And someone was like, I can't believe this guy gets to talk to Austin Matthews despite talking all this crap. Here's a little advice for young media professionals out there. Your job is not to be a jock sniffer.

Also, you don't get to talk to Austin Matthews.

Hi, Austin. Hi, I'm a good little boy, and I just want to share Take your hand. Gosh, it's so wonderful to be in your presence. What? That's not my job. Adam, I do sometimes have to be in the same.

You talk to him the last three years in Henderson.

In Henderson, Nevada. Yes, Jessie. I talked to him at the player media tour, and I don't know if he likes me. I don't know if he hates me. But he greeted me with it. First of all, it doesn't matter. You're absolutely right.

You're a journalist in that setting.

In that setting, yes. And a journalist who asked, Do you believe in aliens?

Filly shit like that.

I'm not a capital J journalist.

When you were in Sweden, you were in the locker room. You asked the guy's questions. Yeah. No, in those settings, you're a reporter. You're asking questions. It doesn't matter if they like you or not. Yes.

I've said, Dude, he's been a leaf since 2016. I've said plenty of good things about him. I've said plenty of bad things about him. When that thing that happened in Arizona with the security person, what do you think? We were like, Oh, that's great that he did that? No, we criticized him and we hammered him and we hammered his agent and his dad. And guess what? I've met his parents. I've met his other family members. I've met a bunch of family members of the leafs who have come up to me and whatever, and none of them were like, Hey, fuck you.

Yeah, I don't think that that one tweeter was correct about their comments. No, I know. I don't know if they need to be addressed fully.

What I am saying is they've been nothing but professional because they get the gig. They understand what they're doing here. They understand their role as stars. I will always give Matthews credit for that. Anytime I've met Marner, shakes my hand. Steve, I go, Mitch. Morgan Reilly and I have spoken to each other for probably over a decade now or the better part of a decade. These guys, they get it. They get it. It's, and that's me saying good and saying bad. They understand that they got to take their lump sometimes. That's part of the reason they look like a ashamed dog. Sometimes they step in front of the camera after a loss because they're like, Well, I got to take my lumps. They know why they played. It sucks. It sucks.

No one knows better than them how they played, honestly.

Do you know how fast this industry dies? If every time they lose, you just go, It's fine. It's fine.

Well, certain rights holders do that.

It's not true because you can't just keep losing. You can't go, Oh, an 82, and it's fine. If anybody's doing that, they're lying to you.

I've been to lots of hockey games, and every time the home team gets scored on, there aren't droves of people going, Don't worry about it.

It's all right.

It's not true.

Don't worry. I paid to watch you go down three nothing in the first period, and I'm okay with it. Don't worry. Go team. Weirdly, that doesn't happen. I've never seen it.

Can I throw on another team to put a cap on this? Please. The Los Angeles Kings, for all, how bad the Leifs have been. We think the Leaps have been the last four games. They've been bad, but overall, it's been okay. Los Angeles Kings in the last 18 games are five, eight, and five. I'm dying. They have yet to win back-to-back games in this calendar year. Wow. December 27th is the last time they went back to back games, or back to two wins in a row, I should say not back to back games, two wins in a row. They haven't won this calendar year. Of their five, eight, and five record, two of those wins come against the San Jose Sharks.

Sounds a lot like another team.

But I think there's a lot of struggling there from a very good team. If you were to put the Leifs and the Los Angeles Kings in a seven-game series right now, who's favorited?

Oh, God.

I don't I'd probably take in the King. I would take the King. I would probably take the King.

Well, especially with the way Dino shut Matthews down.

The Lefs are dying up the middle right now, and the Kings might be the strongest team of the middle. Yeah, and you see a team like that who on paper is so good and they're struggling. The outlook on them is they'll get it together.

Yeah. Well, the Kings, just to add to the who would win the Kings of the Leaps, the Kings have two centers on their roster right now who have beaten Austin Matthews in a playoff series. So the Kings. It would the Kings, Deneu. And you're like, who's the other one? Dubois.

Playing Series.

But if you put into context who's had the worst last 18 games, it's definitely the Kings. So there are ups and downs to NHL seasons.

Yes, I agree. But...

Yes, but there's a lot of but that we just discussed for an hour. Yeah.

No.

I want to do it again. We just did it for an hour, and that's the but to their ups and downs.

Since we're on the Kings for a sec, can I just take a moment? There was a tweet that went viral, where they didn't get enough players in the All-Star Game. I don't know if they got one or zero.

They got at least one. Gary said, I don't want a reason for anybody to turn off the All-Star Game, so everybody gets a representative. That's what he said. That's his quote.

Well, so it was... And then their Twitter account goes, Well, we're not a Canadian team.

Oh, yeah.

And then had the balls to be like, oh, Lee, fans have found this tweet. What does that mean? Explain the joke. You're not a Canadian team. What is it? What is it? Popular? You're not popular. Okay, got it. That's all.

Stop it. That's mean. I think- That's true. Listen, every team got their problem. It's January. This is the time to figure it out. Toronto may beliefs. Need to figure some stuff up. And on we move because I believe they're playing again tomorrow night anyway. Calgary. Calgary, and they're playing double this weekend.

Adam's former home.

Hey, by the way, what are you doing on Saturday?

Oh, I was like, what? Kingston Sunday. I'm streaming.

On SDPN's page. Let's go.

I'm doing a side cast, whatever you call it. Obviously, we can't show you the game, but if you want me to do this loud, screamy energy thing.

It's not like that the whole time.

Live. No, not the whole time. You talk. Depends on the game. I've had game sevens where I was up there the whole time. Sure. It's called adrenaline. Baby. But yeah, Leifs, Knux, it's a marquee matchup.

Oh, man, is it ever?

Two huge teams in this country.

Are they popular?

Yeah, well, they have an unfair advantage.

Imagine being upset that a bunch of Canadian teams got their players in in a Canadian All-Star game.

You play in a state as big as this country.

Yeah, I know.

Stop. Can't get more than one player in the All-Star game. Stop.

Youtube. Com/sdpn. Yes. Yes.

The Leifs versus, I believe, the still first place, Vancouver Canucks.

Division? Yes.

No, who's in the NHL?

It's the Jets? The Jets should still be. That's unbelievable. I'll tell you in half a second.

Unbelievable. Jets from the enormous market of Winnipeg.

Jets It's by points percentage, they have played 43 games. They have 62 points. The Vancouver Canucks have played 44 games and also have 62 points. There you go.

Hot diggity.

The Colorado Avalanche- It's going to be a great stream. Who have one line, and that's it, have 61 points and sit fourth in league standings. The Boston Bruins, with the back of great goal attending, once again, are in third overall.

The Bruins on paper make me want to just fall to my knees and Okay. Their second line, according to Daily Face-off, is Danton Heinen, Pavel Zaka, Jake DeBreske, Better than the leaves. I'm just fed up.

One thing I really love about the NHL season this year is that you have different teams being successful at different styles. The Winnipeg Jets are doing it all with defense. The Vancouver Knucks are doing a lot with offense. The Boston Bruins are doing it with great shutdown, just overall play, plus great goal tending. The Colorado Avalanche are just willing their way with Nathan McKinnon taking over in one line. It's been very fun to watch this season. Because you have these different styles being successful in different ways.

Turns out it's important to have an identity.

I want to talk about this. We talked about Stamkos on Monday, and it was super weird, the timing of it, but Julian Bresua basically talked to the media either Monday night or Tuesday and was like, Hey, we're not trading Stamco in-season. It's not going to happen. I was like, It was weird to me because I'm not suggesting Julian Bries while I was listening to this show, but what I'm What I'm saying is- I am. I don't think that I'd heard Steven Stamco's name out there in Trade Rumors, and Lightning are going to make the playoffs. We know that. Why did they feel the need to say that?

We don't know that.

Well, they Come on. They're probably going to make the playoffs. We don't know that. Betting odds. I would take the lightning to make it over nothing.

They've already blown it in their games against the Leifs, and now Detroit has games remaining, and the Lefs are more than happy to be like, Here, you take it.

The reason Julian Breswell spoke to the media is he has a midseason meeting with the media. Media availability every year.

So that was- I guess somebody would have asked him that question.

Yeah, so he had a press conference. Okay, because I was in there.

I was But yeah, I don't think anybody thought you were going to trade Steven Stamkos.

No, it was in his midseason in media availability. Somebody obviously asked the question of, Hey, what's going on with Stammer?

The one thing I'm wondering about with that is Stamkos has not been good at 5 on five this year.

No, he's been brutal. Brutal. Brutal. Put up a bunch of points, but like you said, he's been getting haved in.

He's on a line with Kucharaf. But I would also say this. Can't be a minus player. Yeah, no, you can't. I would also say this. If Stamkos has a bad year, Does that not help the lightning retain him? Because his price goes down. No.

If you're Steven Stamkos, you go Google me.

Adam's not wrong.

Move off-I think this is helping to bring the two sides together.

If he fell off the map completely, of course, it'd be easier to sign it.

What are you signing him for next year? Like seven million?

Those arguments generally don't work with first ballot Hall of Famers.

Okay.

Generally, you are correct. Generally, you're correct.

Okay, do you like living in Tampa? Cool. This is the number. It's not nine million anymore. Not based on this season. And that's how they're going to judge it. Oh, but I got a point of game. Yeah, but you played with Nikita Kutcherow, who led the league in scoring. Yeah, but I helped him. Yeah, but really did you? Because you had a minus 20, which is goofy. I have that.

I have that discussion with Julian Brieswell. I go to Florida inside for a leagueman.

Okay.

Prove a point.

All right. I'd be like, Good, good. Have fun. Yeah. I think Julian Brieswa is smart enough to figure out a future without Steven Stamkos. I think that Stamkos wants to stay in Tampa more than Tampa wants him to stay. It's not because they don't want him to stay. It's because they're like, No, we have a team to run. I like and respect this because it's not about doing right by your guy. No. It's about doing right by the team.

By the way, I agree with you that the Lightning should explore moving on from him. I agree that they should not overpay him. I'm just saying, Don't try to tell me I'm something I'm not. I'm Steven Stamkos.

Yeah. If I'm Julian Brees, why I go, Here's how we value you.

Yeah. If they have to walk away, I think he'd do it.

I think they would do it. I think the Lightning would do it, too. It certainly seems like- No, no.

That's what I meant, Brezeba.

Yeah. I don't think Stamkos wants to leave. I think ultimately, the Lightning would like to keep him. How could you not? I also, though, wonder, are we getting to the point where this is not his team anymore. I think we haven't seen it in the NHL as much. I've suggested it in Toronto a couple of times. I think I've only really seen it work in San Jose because they've been the only ones that tried it. But Marlowe got stripped, Thornton got stripped, everybody survived. They all stayed on the team. I wonder if we start to see teams go, Okay, but this isn't your team anymore. So we are going to take the captancy away from you and give it to somebody else, and you're signing it less.

Who do you give it to? Kucharav. Kucharav, right?

I mean, the guy's going to win. If this keeps up, and McDavid could catch him because he's McDavid, but let's say this keeps up and Kucharav's first and McDavid's second, and he's the Art Ross Trophy winner. He beats out McDavid. Whose team is it?

Yeah, but it's about the dynamics in the room. Is it Victor Headman's team? The captancy isn't really a points race, right?

But it's got to be one of your better players.

I would say Headman. That's fine. Because what did we say about the Lightning, well, these last few years in the playoffs? They are the best politicians in the NHL. Fabulous. They are the best campaigners to the officials. They are the best at going up to the guys wearing black and white and saying, My fellow Americans. That's what Victor Headman always says, My fellow Americans.Thank you for your question.Yes..

It's great that you're right as an American to ask that question. Isn't freedom wonderful?

It's a great staple. I would give it to Headman because I just think he's better at that, whereas Kuturov just sees the red mist a little too often.

Okay, fair enough. I'm just wondering if that's where we're going.

Back to the Bresla Stamkos thing. I thought the quotes on it were really fascinating because he said before the season that he's not negotiating in season. It's not happening. Then during the press conference, his media availability, he doubled down and he said, Asked if he envisioned Stamkos being a lightning beyond the season. Brizua said, yes, talks won't continue until the summer. After the season, we're going to sit down and evaluate where we are as a team and where Steven is and see how we can make all those parts come together. I don't know why he's so adamant about that.

I think he's He's establishing dominance. He's telling Steven, your era of being the guy is over. I am now the guy. If you would like to remain a part of the team, you will come to me, Julian Brizua, the guy.

Is that a good way to run your team? Yeah. Treating the guy A guy who's Jersey is going to be retired like this?

Look at Vegas.

Look at Vegas. They don't have a Steven Stamkos.

They did. They have a cup. They traded him. His name was Marc-Andre Fleury.

No, he wasn't. He wasn't Steven Stamkos.

He was the most popular player on the team for the years that he was there.

I think it's a little different. I think he's playing with a little bit of fire here, and he's trying to anger the captain of the team, and the guy could have a statue.

I think he's trying to establish dominance.

The Lightning are definitely challenging their guys. I think this is a top-down organizational strategy. Also, I don't think he does this if he's not legitimately willing to walk away.

I think he I think he is, too. Oh, yeah. I think he's playing cat and mouse. I actually, as a leaf fan who our team never does that, I respect it. I respect it. I also have a ton of respect for Steve and Stamkos and all the things that he's brought to Tampa. When they were bad, he was the light. All roads went through him. Remember the year that he was injured, they didn't even make the playoffs. In 15, 16 or something like that and got, I think, Victor Headman. No, 16, 17. Or Was it Sergachev? They got Sergachev that year? Was that the Sergachev year? There's a bunch-Oh, not the Sergachev. I went and then.

Sergachev was a trade, yeah.

Every year, they just fucking hit.

Yeah. I don't know. Now, I don't know if you saw this last night. We're running a little short on some of the hockey stuff because we have a special guest named Terry Ryan coming up. I just wanted to quickly touch on a couple of things. Senators, it was 4-2. It ended 7-2. The senators under Jacques Martin I have not been a whole lot-Not in favor of the senators. Not in favor of the senators. That's right. The Colorado Avalanche. Good at coming back. I think they've come back the most times in the NHL this year.

Making me regret not picking up Justus and fantasy. I almost did.

They're bad. It doesn't matter. It seems now it doesn't even matter that Jacques Martin is in there instilling his discipline or whatever it's supposed to be. This team stinks. This team's bad.

You see it happen where you're Okay, this team is on the verge of a blow up, and they fire their coach. Then the ship gets rideed, and it's just steady as she goes. That's what Vancouver did. That's what Edmondson has done. Lots of teams over the years have done it. In the situations where you fire the coach and it gets worse, that's when it's off with their heads. And I think that's going to happen in Ottawa, man. It's not just going to the easy guys to trade. When we had Jason York on, we were talking about Kubalik and Tarasenko. He's like, Well, yeah. But then the conversation goes to like, okay, what about Shabbat? Man, a couple of years ago, I couldn't imagine him being in this conversation. They were playing him half an hour a night, and he was succeeding. He was the only watchable thing about the team for some games, and now they're talking about trading him? Mm-hmm.

Things are bad. They're bad. Michael Anlauer, by the way, I'm not sure if you read this. I got this quote sent to me, but Michael Anlauer is extremely competitive. I was asking somebody about him, and Here is the quote that I thought you might find interesting. He said, Don't get me wrong, I had a really great 13 or 14-year relationship with Jeff, as in Jeff Molson in his partnership with the Montreal Canadians. You remember Michael Ann Lauer was a 10% shareholder of the Montreal Canadians for 15 years. He said, He said that collaboration is still together. It's been collaborative, but my desire to be a part owner of the Montreal Canadians was to really win a Stanley Cup. I didn't feel like I had that alignment. I'm not going to go into details. Jeff has the last say, and I respect it. I was there for him when he needed me, and there were times of frustration. I played a win. I think Steve Steos can attest to that because he's been with me a lot of my hockey career.

He wanted to be the guy.

I think he also I think there was an insinuation that perhaps the Montreal Canadians are more interested in making money than winning, which as lead fans, we can relate to. But Michael Antlauer is not going to sit... It doesn't matter that you were a part of someone else's core. This guy doesn't give a shit. If I was a Senator's fan, as depressing as it is right now, I would be so excited for the next 24 months.

It's rare that you see an owner this involved and this mad.

Oh, he's pissed. You see him during every game, they shoot his box with Steve Steeo.

And does he look happy? Oh, he looks quite pissed.

His shoulders are past his ears. He's just... Oh, yeah. Like he's got no neck anymore.

This is a tall man. He's going to have a strong jaw and no teeth by the end of the season. He is just crunched at all times.

He's going to be giga Chad. Oh, yeah.

I also want to say that today-TikTok videos.

Cody Hodgson signed with the Milwaukee Admirals. The last team he played with, that's a PTO, 25 games. So good for him. That's cool. An AHL start for Cody Hodgson.

Good for him. Awesome.

I quickly want to hit this, too. This is the business side of things. You probably don't care as much, but Diamond Sports and Amazon have agreed to an investment in debt restructuring. What does this mean? Jeff Bezos. Jeff, yeah. Jeffrey Bezos. Now, this means that there's going to be 20 states that have their games broadcast on Amazon for hockey, basketball, and of course, the NFL is already on Amazon. I think it's really interesting because there have been executives in this country that believe that the streaming sites, the Amazons, the Apples, the Netflix's, whatever, and Netflix hasn't done sports, that do not believe that any of them would be interested in hockey in Canada. I'm saying, if they're this interested in hockey in the States, you bet your ass they're interested in hockey in Canada. I I don't know this. I don't have any sources on this, but I do think there's going to be some Wapper offer, and hopefully, all the rights go to one spot, and we can watch it all when we want with no regional blackout in a couple of years.

Just make it easy.

Just make it easy. How many years left in the sports or not deal? I think it's the Roger's deal.

This year, next year, and the year after. I think it's up in '26. Wasn't it a 12-year deal? Wow. I think it was signed in 2012 or 2013. It's a 12-year deal.

I think it was 2013, I believe it was signed.

The first year-25 is the end, I think.

First year of the contract was 14, 15. Do you know how long it was?

Twelve years.

Well, there's your answer.

So what is that?

I guess there's 24, 20. No. I don't fucking know, man. I don't know. Don't make me do this. I think three years left.

Adam, did you look it up?

Twelve-year, 5.2 billion dollar deal, which is bananas. Oh, my God. This is an article from November 26, 2013. So 14, 15 was when it started. That means it's 26 will be the end. 26, 27, I think.

Okay.

So we got a bit of a ways, but I'm excited for that.

25, 26 is the last year, actually. So that's not... That's not too far off.

No.

We're 2024.

It's not. It's not far at all.

I'm so excited to see how that season goes up until when that's coming up and we hear about all those negotiation and stuff like that. As you said, a lot of people don't care about the business side, but I think that'll be fascinating to watch.

As someone who worked there for a very long time, it's disappointing to hear the tone in your voice. Just, Oh, hey. Hey, that's soon. Good.

Well, it just...

I don't know.

After 12 years or something, I think we're all excited to see what next can happen with happy in Canada.

I'm I'm not taking it personally. I'm not criticizing you. It's what a shame. We put in a lot of work.

Yeah, I don't think it's a shame at all. I think it's just, Hey, exciting new thing can happen. I don't think we're saying, Oh, they did a bad job during the 12 years. It wasn't fun content. I'm just like, there's something new.

I think, yeah, but are you excited for the new thing if the current thing was going well?

I think either way it's exciting because technology changes so fast. I agree with Jessie. That's true. Twelve years from when it started to when it's going to end. It's a new thing.

I remember the presentation because I was there when Keith Pelley gave it, Keith Pelley, now the head of MLSC. He said, We are going to hit this on a five, probably. We're going to do radio.

I was in a CBC. It was a depressing day.

We're going to do radio. We're going to do television. We're going to do digital. We're going to do magazine. I forget what the fifth one was. I remember they had Sportsnet magazine. Anyone have a subscription to that? That's right, because nobody got a subscription to it. For a while there, when they moved all the Sportsnet magazine people over to sportsnet. Ca, to me, the best website in hockey was sportsnet. Ca. It was amazing. Of course, I don't think... Listen, I think it's fair to say that the NHL and Rogers signed a deal that they both prefer would have gone differently. I don't say that to denigrate any of the people that signed the deal. I'm not denigrating the producers, the on-air talent, anybody. We know people over there. They're great people. What's your problem? But I do think that there are things that they'd wish had gone differently. A pandemic in the middle of it, declining ad market, all the other shit that's gone wrong.

Underratedly forgotten. The first year, 0 for 7 on Canadian teams.

Yeah, no Canadian teams. In the play It's like, yeah, that sucks. That sucks. I'm with you, Jesse. I think the excitement of technology. I've watched the Blue Jays on Apple TV. The world is now.

America watched 23 million Americans watched NFL football on Sunday on Peacock.

Which was the Chief's game, right?

They put the Chief's game on Peacock. They put the Chief's game on Peacock.

That's the Taylor Swift effect. Now I got to subscribe.

23 million people did that. Technology is changing so fast that there's so many other things we can do with these broadcasts. That's going to be fun to see.

Wait, what effect?

The Taylor Swift effect?

I just get so mad. There's a lady watching football.

I just get so mad. She might even love a guy on the field.

Keep her away. I've had it up to here.

She's 10 times more famous than he is.

Yeah, I know, but she's using the tight end of the Chiefs.

Yes, as a property.

You got to talk to the mic, Adam.

Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I took my headphones off. Yeah, no, it's... No. Your voice, Terry.

I believe we have an interview to get to.

Let's get Terry, Brian on. Let's go. I can count on one hand the amount of active professional hockey players we have had on this show. We didn't build this show getting guests because we couldn't get any. We still oftentimes struggle. But we have today a professional hockey player on the show under contract with the Newfoundland Growlers. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Terry Ryan.

Thanks, guys. It's an honor to be here. I do follow along, by the way. I watch every LFR, but I do watch your show quite frequently. I know what's going on, and I really appreciate being here.

We love having you. Terry.

I'll e-transfer you the 20 bucks. Yeah, that was great.

That was awesome. Terry, you got to get on cameo. You're perfect at this. Oh, I am. Oh, you are? Okay.

Ever since Teddy Hitchcock made an appearance in my life, I figured I'd go that route. Yeah, I'm quite active on there.

Unreal. Terry, we got to start with the start, which is you're 47 years old. You're playing professional hockey. You're fighting people. How has the last week been? You've done the media rounds. Everybody wants a piece of you right now. Your press conference afterwards was incredible. How do you feel right now in this moment?

It's a lot to unpack. The first thing, content, a contentment that I never, ever felt. Look, I was content in my life, okay? But I really didn't retire on my own terms. I made some bad decisions. I was a good hockey player. I was a first-round pick. I was more than a good hockey player, and I didn't play my cards right. Unfortunately, there are no time machines, but I learned my lessons, and it was too late. I did put out a book 10 years ago now, it seems like two tales of a first-round nothing. I could look at it tongue-in-cheek because I did get to play for the Canadians. A lot of my friends are 6 feet under. A lot of my friends got hurt before their first NHL game. A lot of friends never got a chance for one reason or another even to get drafted, and they were good enough. I understand now more, and the more time that passed since my last pro game, I became more appreciative of being a Montreal Canadian. It was on me. There was a situation without getting right into it. I thought I should play maybe, and I didn't like my coach in the minor, it was Michel Thierryan.

But I didn't really ever go in and try to communicate with him either. He was a rookie coach. I was a rookie player. I was immature to a level. I didn't want to go back to camp. While I was holding out, I ended up hurting my ankle, and I never did get back. I shot it with cortisone for the better part of three years. I played in my three favorite minor league cities, Boise, Idaho, Orlando, Florida, and Cincinnati, Ohio. I realized that it was over. I couldn't get out of the way anymore. I didn't have a step to lose when it came to skating. I'm a winger, and I took pride and be able to get the fuck out and take the hit. But now I was getting crushed. I didn't even be able to see the hit. I just was a sitting duck out there. I realized I didn't have a step to lose. I'd never get back. Like I said, I wasn't a great skater to begin with. I know it was a long way to answer your question, but this is where I'm coming from. There's 47 Then there's 21 years away from the game.

Sorry, the pro game. I always got my finger on the pulse. I've been playing senior hockey regularly, until a couple of years ago, and we take it serious here. We want to go. The Allen Cup is the National Senior Championship, and we take pride in that. Now, the deadline here is when you're in January 10th, so I'll get in the second, but that's the reason that I was allowed to play. Not allowed to, but why the stars aligned. Because you couldn't like, pluck anybody from senior after January 10th. And there's six teams worth of guys that came back from pro or major junior or whatever playing college. So there's lots of eligible players on January ninth. Now, For me, I guess I'd come to terms with my decision and my mistakes as a kid, because over time, people here embraced me as a local amateur player that once had a cup of coffee in the NHL. There was, I think, a little bit of a cloud over all those senior games. No one really ever came out and said, You're a bomb. I mean, they did, I guess, tripping at me. But most Newfoundlanders were really supportive.

But my jersey was I had the key to the city. I always felt like people knew everything from, Terry, what the hell? To, Man, giving me a hug. I wish things could have worked out different. After a while, I was like, I get it, there's pity there, but I did play on the Montreal Canadiens, and I took pride in that. I became part of the Canadian National Ball Hockey Team for years. We just won the World Championship in September in the Masters division, 34 plus. But you Because I could run fine always. I just couldn't skate. It restricted my skating, the high ankle sprint. All of these things are part of my mental being now. It's part of my subconscious. But at this point, I love it. I go down to the Growler's Games. I wish until a few days ago that I could have retired on my own terms, but I didn't get to, and that's the way it goes until now. What was wild about this, and maybe I'll get into the circumstances of how unique this actually was in a second, but I don't mean to skip over so much. But just to tell you guys where I'm coming from.

I've had a lot happen in my life. I've been down. I've been almost bankrupt a couple of times. I've looked at my daughter and I was raising a kid. My buddy, B. J. Young, passed away in 2006. We were going to go overseas and play together. I flew out and I did my best to raise his son, Tyson, who's now 24 years old. He lives in Hawaii. My daughter, Penny Lane, is here with me. I married B. J. 'S ex, and we got divorced. But so, Penny Lane is a product of that. We're really close, even though we're divorced, we love each other. She's only ever known love, but she's known me as a hockey player to tell these stories. Might come to see a senior game, might watch me play ball hockey, but we go to growler's games. We love the team. I love the fact that we still have a professional team here. Steve, I said, I watch every LFR. You're talking about prospects. I watch it all the time, pretty much religiously. I watch First Up, I listen to Overdrive, I watch you, there's Chicklets. There's a bunch of these hockey voices that are part of my life, and you're one of them.

So this is a surreal that I get to go down there and play with the leaf's prospects, the very ones that I often hear about, and to absorb their stories and to fire some back at them. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of that even. So people were there from the film world. Again, my hockey career ended way earlier than I I wanted it to. The NHL wasn't to be all and end all. I was a passionate player, but I could have played overseas or whatever. Just I couldn't make it happen. I was stuck in shelves with Red Bull here and there, sometimes unemployed. I worked in factories for minimum wage at night, but I did whatever for whatever I could do. I went back to school in 2009. I got a folklore degree with an English minor. It really helped me to write the book, and things were changing. They were starting to change. I think positive. But it didn't really do anything to get me a job. My buddy Alan Haukeau got me. He played Jake Doyle on Republic of Doyle. He gets me a job on crew. Jump How High. I was a locations guy.

I was an AD for years, and I got into doing some stunting. The whole while keeping in with Jason Mamoas, read my book. Even when I was trying to get away from hockey and not think about it, I wrote the book, and people kept coming to me about it. I was playing the senior hockey, like I said. But now my daughter, who was born in 2010, now it's 2015, now it's 2016. I did play with Clarenville. We went to the Allen Cup. We lost to Dundas in 2000. I believe it was '16 in the final. I have been in high pressure situations. I skate with the boys in the summer and everything. The last thing I'll say to set up all this is that I'd come to terms with the Montreal thing. I told you, I didn't get along with Michelle Thierryam, but I never should have not gone to camp. That was stupid. I didn't want to go back. I felt embarrassed for years because the fans there really loved me. I was the rookie of the year in the minors. I had 21 goals, 34 fights. I'm not a goon. I never started one.

But at that point, at that era, there was a lot of reasons to jump in for your teammates, and we weren't loaded with tough guys. Myself, guys like Aaron Asham, Darcy Harris, I could go on and on. But there was guys that was just part of it. We took pride in the fact we could score and we could fight, but all of that is a part of the past. But I'm saying to you that I did play with pride in Montreal. You might only see those eight games. When I was 96, 97, I was there for almost the full year. I played four, but I was there to practice and learn. A lot of them were my idles, and I got to know them as peers. Lots of nice things happened in Montreal. If you were to look at HockeyDB, you would think that I had my back up against the organization. But I'm very aware that my decisions are the main reason that my career ended early. It took me a while. Anyway, Rajahul, who was the GM at that point, who I guess I was upset with because I thought I should play more, he's head of the alumni now, and he gets us tickets.

My daughter went to her first game last year. Around this time, they beat the leaps in overtime. They had no business doing it, but it was a great game. She got to see it, and Reggie shook her hand and gave her a hug and took her down to the alumni room. We watched the game with the Shorzy Guys, Jarrett Dolo, and Shorzy, Dolo, and Goodie, and being Jonathan Diaby, Andrew Anson, and then Jarrett Kisaud. Then watch the third period with Jilber Deon, one of my heroes growing up with this big Stanley Cup ring. All of that was water under the bridge, but I still didn't get to retire on my own terms, did I? That was still somewhere up here. I have all these hockey adventures, but at this point, I had a lot of other adventures. When I came out for the game, I realized, here's all these people together. It reminded me of the last shot of Big Fish, if you've seen the movie. I'm not saying that I'm a big fish. I'm saying that this guy told all these stories, and all these people came together at his funeral, I believe it was, for and from all walks of life that hadn't really met each other, that didn't really know if each other were real.

Well, it was like that. It was like people from the film world and then people I went to kindergarten with that I haven't seen since grade seven. Hockey teammates. There was people that flew in from Toronto that are Shorsey fans to see the game when they heard the news the night before. There was this whole plethora of emotions because all these people from all my life were there to support me and share in this moment. I got to be honest, the hockey playing going into it was my first worry, I want to keep up and I don't want to embarrass, but it ended up being, how am I going to deal with this elephant in the room? They were chanting my name when I wasn't getting out there, but I didn't expect to get anything. Matt Cooke started me I thought that was it. The second period, I was up at least twice, I think three times, but there were penalties. We're only going to go so far with this, or otherwise, it's going to seem like a stunt. But he knew that I was serious if he wants to play. I didn't want it to look like a stunt, but I could have not gotten out there again.

When he put me out there, the roof nearly came off, and I'm looking around going, wow. I had 100 people there that had never been to a hockey game. I know them from Music Trivia Night. You know what I mean? This now, I'm 47, and I've lived in St. John's for all this time. It just became this huge celebration of just a unique thing that I got to share with them. Now, that might be the longest question ever answered. And I don't even know if I answered your question because I don't remember what it was.

Terry, you gave it to us.

I have to ask. So you wrote your book. Is there an audiobook? Did you narrate it?

No, there should be, though. I know. I told them. So if ECW Press are listening or Flanker Press here in Newfoundland, I said it from day one, right? Because I do have a podcast, so I do have that avenue to talk to listeners. And you know what it's like. People start to... When you get a listenership and they start to listen, and they appreciate it. I really would like to do that because I think in this day and age with less and less reading, I mean, I'd just assume it be old school, but I get it. We're getting away from that. I think you more authors should have their voices on tape. I listen to a lot of it. I agree.

I was going to download it before I went home. If you recorded it, I could listen to you talk all day, Terry.

Terry, Shorzy, obviously, is a thing that you're involved with, and it spawned off of Letter Kenny. The show did, you're Your appearance on Letterkenny led to you being on Shorzy. Can you explain for anybody that hasn't seen it? I know it's made it into Hockey Circles in the States. There's a cult following with this show that is really special.

Yeah, man. It's really funny because I just gotten in the acting unit Union in 2016, and I was waiting... Or sorry, no, the Film Crew Union. I'm in IATSE, and I got in as a set dresser. For those that don't know, you might go, and we do it. Shows I work on around here, Hudson and Rex. It was Republic of Doyle at the time, and then there was this show Frontier. That was Jason Mamoa here in Newfoundland just a few years ago. It was awesome. But anyway, I was in crew, but they needed someone to play this British soldier that was beat up. Because really, I swear to you, I The year before, I couldn't afford it. It would have cost everything to get my teeth fixed. I was like, I know I'm going to get in the Union in another 300 days on set, whatever it was. I'll just wait for them. While I was waiting, Mamoa happened to like my book, man. He happened to take... I had no idea. He's from Des Moines, Iowa. He follows hockey, plays roller hockey, but he'd never skated. I took Mamoa to the rink and pretty much taught him to skate.

He'd read my book. He loved it. One thing led to another, and it was more Alan Hauke on the take the shot people here, which is a production company, because they had to okay it. But I'm the very first seen in Frontier, right? It caused for a British soldier to get his throat slit, fall down, whatever a minor stunt. But having the tooth out of my mouth looked pretty good for the I started to get other little things. I was working on crew, but, Hey, we need a boxer that gets beat up. Are you ready? That was a little dog. They might say, Hey, we need a gangster for this thing. You're in the background, you got two lines. Do you mind doing it? I'm going, Do I mind doing it? I'm in a movie. What are you talking about? Of course. Now I'm starting to get the odd role. Mamoa took me to Europe for three months, gave me some stunts in Frontier Season 3. I'm in there a lot. We just kept changing my appearance. It was pretty funny, actually. I die 17 times. It's true. It was wild. Again, I know you didn't ask me this, but I am getting there.

I was telling this story, I think it was on Chicklets, but it was on one of these platforms when podcasts were right coming into their own, maybe, I guess, four or five years ago, four. Kiso, I believe, I never really asked him, but I believe he was listening. I'm led to believe that. And casting called me. I was telling this story about getting the acting world and casting for Letterkenny called, and they said, Are you still missing that tooth? I said, Yeah, I am. And they said, Here, can you go audition for this right away? And usually, that never happened to me before. I never had anything to do with someone out of province seeking my services when it came to acting. Are you kidding? Then I heard it. I said, Why do you want me to do? They were like, Well, it's this Newfoundlander that is getting up there in age that plays senior hockey. He got a smart mouth on him. He's got no tooth. He used to play pro-hockey. He was a first-round pick. I'm going, Is this a joke? Is this a joke? I really did, much like the call from Zack O'Brien to play for the Growlers.

Because I know actors, man, that are great actors that don't get a chance to be in a show like this. Just like my book, man, it's great that the Habs let me use their symbol on the front. I had avenues like podcast, people like yourself and Ken Reid and Biz that helped me to promote it. John Cherry, Ron McClane had me right in. I walked right on Hockey Net in Canada with my book with my publicist from ECW, and she went, My God, I can't get you these gigs. Anyway, so the whole hockey world reached out back then. When that platform got bigger, and especially when Letterkenny happened, now, I guess I came back here and I didn't really know that Shorzy was going to happen. I had a bite to eat. It was the last day, guys, of filming that I had the Letterkenny gig, which means we had a rap party that day. It was basically just my scene. We went out a place called Capriol, went out, shot it. It was great because I hadn't seen the guy... I'm talking about Letter Kenny now. I think it's season 8, and it's towards the end, I believe, I'm on a team called the George Streeters.

The whole gag was for us to come and to taunt the bench, me. The other Newfoundlander, I wasn't going to know who it was. No one told me. I didn't even realize that it would be a Newfoundlander. I assumed it would be, but I'm just getting lines, trying to remember them. I get there, and it's not only a friend. I played a high level of hockey with both of his brothers. He left maybe 20 years. He left right out of high school. Patrick Cooke was his name. But I'm looking at him. So Quiso said, Look, here's the lines, but I've only been to Newfoundland one day. And he said, If you have anything else to add, go ahead. I want you to do it my way first, but I'm just going to leave the camera on, and then you guys keep going. So I looked at Patrick, I'm like, Okay, let's do towny. I can do Townie. There's different my accent. I told Kiso because Kiso loves cold water cowboys. But one of my first lines was Center Heis or something to do with that because a lot of people drop Hs and add Hs.

Like, Ed Hurley would be head early. He had head early over there. I'm like, That's outside the overpass. That's around the bay. I can do it, but I'm going to have to think about it before the scenes and maybe change it a little bit. But I go, I can do towny right now. If he wants me to be Ted Hitchcock like this, I can do it right now,. And he went, Okay, that. I said, Okay, that. I looked at Patrick Cooke, and I said, Okay, man, let's just do towny. I'm going to go Monday Pond area. And he goes, I know exactly what you mean. So then we did it, and then we bounced some of our own little lingo in there. Anyway, Jared had lunch with me and said, I might have an idea for the future, which ended up being Shorzy. That night was the wrap party, and I went to it, and I was so pumped to be even part of it because I watched Letterkenny, and I was a fan. Again, this is much like the day with the Growlers. This is my acting gig. I think it's going to end there, though.

I'm like, This is unreal. I get to be on a letter, Kenny. I feel like the soup Nazi on Seinfeld. You know what I mean? Where did that guy go after? I don't know, but he was on Seinfeld for a day. That's what I felt like. That's exactly what I felt like. I was pumped. I went out. I got home at 4:00 AM. I missed my flight. They had to book me a new flight. I was like, Oh, man. I didn't really... You're hung over, you get anxiety. I'm like, I called Jarrett, but I was like, I think I let him down. But apparently, they loved it. They're like, Yeah, he came out. Who cares he missed his flight? Because I was doing the tunes. There was a jukebox. We went back to a house party. It was really a lot of fun. Anyway, that was 2019, I guess. Of course, not that long after that, I got the phone call to be Ted Hitchcock on Shorsey. Even then, I didn't really know what was coming to the level that it did, but it really intrigued me. I think you were referring to earlier about Letterkenny and Shorsey and the level of fandom that's out there.

It is people that... It's a very quotable show, and I think Jared writes it brilliantly. Even like little characters, my character, he gets it all in. He gets depth of characters within 18 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever it is. I don't know how he does it. He gives us this little tink. Well, it's Ted Hitchcock, and if you say it fast. Then there's the Martoonies. These little things that help when you're doing cameo or help when you're doing a public parents are, We want the guy that drinks the Martoonies. Everything that he writes puts a smile on people's faces. So he finds a way to really connect with hockey audiences, purists, and non-hockey audiences, He's got there's a lot of minorities represented in the show. Women are running the league. The way that he's done it is he's made it very 2024. I think much like, say, the Family Guy or the Simpson, versions. Shorzy, which I didn't know going into this. Shorzy, he's crude like Archie Bunker. There's a soul to him, and there's a depths to the characters. But even though they might be a little crude and off the wall, you almost want to cheer for him.

Well, you do. When I was reading it, I thought it was absolutely brilliant as it went on, and I said, Wow, I can't believe I'm going to be part of this. I hope people watch. Man, people have really, I think for that reason, a lot of people identify with it, and it's It's so hockey-centric without being absolutely all about hockey.

Yeah.

Terry, when I saw your postgame press conference from the game the other day got posted, I thought three things. One, God, that's amazing. Number two, God, I can't wait to listen to this. Number three, 13 minutes. I saw the thing go up. I was like, A postgame interview in 13 minutes. We're lucky to get 90 seconds out of the lead. No, this is It's just unreal, Terry. I don't know how you can be unfamiliar with you before the show and not be totally in love with you by now. I just wanted to know because there are mornings where I get out of bed and I'm like, My foot's not bending properly. You're 47 and played a game in the ECHL and got into a fight 48 hours ago. How are you feeling?

Actually, I do feel good, guys. I'm not going to lie, I'm not trying to be a hero, but I do. I skate a lot. I skate five times a week. Like I said, it's the master's team, but I play on the Canadian ball hockey, the national team over 34 teams. I stay active. Now, my worry was, Am I going to be able to keep up with the play? I knew that my cardio would take me so far, but my legs still got to work like they used to, or at least some shadow of that otherwise. After I got out there for the first shift, I knew that. It was like, I'd say, riding a bike, but it was almost like riding a roller coaster because there was a lot of adrenaline involved. I got off on all the plays I was making. I know these guys, Todd Scurving, Jordan Eskott, and Zack O'Brien, James Melendi, the guy I picked up for when I thought Adam Dau. These are guys I skate with all the time. Jordan and Zack have been at a national championships. I speak about ball hockey World Championships with me. We've been in intense situations.

We've got six silver national championship or medals. We never won the gold when it came to with those guys in ball hockey. But we got a great provincial team, and I've played with it. I watched them play from day one when they were 10. And now that they're adults, Zack's 31. He's a good friend of mine. So that was the mentality going in. Before the game, Guys, I don't want to be a sideshow. I'm going to be to some degree. There's going to be an elephant in this room the entire game. But here's the thing, guys. Look, I got in the fight. I understand the game is changing, and I have no problem with that. A lot of people, I guess, I prefer the fighting in. That's just the way I was brought up with it. I get that we're getting away from that. But the other thing is, how far are we getting from that? I saw Bill Burst somewhere interviewed, and he said, There's still 250 plus fights in the NHL every year. Other sports must look at us and go, Are these guys not saying that they're curbing fighting? There's still lots of them.

There's There's still all kinds of fights. From my perspective, at some point it might be gone, but look, I like it because I experienced it, and I think it's a way often to show you passion. I can't make myself good. Not that I was thinking that going into it. I thought this when I was 14, when I first played junior. I was the youngest junior player in Canada, and I had to learn quick when to fight, when not to fight, what it's all about, why is physicality in hockey? I'll explain it like this. I tried to explain to my daughter. I said, You know why I fought there, right? You understand that, and you I understand why the people cheer. Because if I fought in the first period for no reason and I lose that fight, now I'm not doing the team a very big favor at all. I'm being an anti-team. I get called in for one game, and I'm going to put on a circus and all of a sudden lose. And these guys who I respect, that we come down and watch every game. Now, all of a sudden, I'm putting them in a hard position.

That wouldn't be a nice way to leave this team, would it? So I said, You understand why I fought? In the history of hockey, she played soccer on the provincial team, a great soccer team, a great soccer player. I said, Fighting is not in your sport, and it's not a part of it, and it shouldn't be. But in hockey, there seems to be some level of agreement over the years. There's still a level of respect involved, and there's a time to do it and a time not to, which is why I fought in the first place. But it's also why me and Zack Walker shook hands after the game. It's the same thing. I said, It's still there. That's the reason that I did that. I had to go back and over time, I've been showing her the YouTube and explaining to her. Because fights last on YouTube, and a lot of goals don't. That's why I'm glad. Shout out if anybody's listening to this from the Western Hockey League. They put out a little highlight tape of some of my goals back then, and they didn't add any fights. It's fine. I had lots of them.

But sometimes because fights last so long, people remember me as that, and it's fine. But I did have 50 goals in my draft here, which isn't an easy feat. In my last year in Red Deer, I got sent back, and I had 18 goals in 16 playoff games, which is still a record. I could score, and I think sometimes people forget that. It's fine because I don't want to have some level of vanity attached to the accomplishments. But it's nice sometimes for people to be reminded of that because in my mind, I was always out there. When I got onto the ice, it was to take the buck and to put it into the net. It was never the other thing, but I was a good teammate. Now, guys, to finish this another long-winded answer. When I jumped onto the ice, Zack Walker had just hit. Now, I was playing regular in the third period, I started the game, which was nice. If he didn't put me out there again, it's Matt Cooke, too, a guy that I look at, and I know he's suspended a little bit, but he plays with passion. I have more in common with Matt Cooke than not.

I wasn't dirty out there or anything. I think anybody playing, I dropped off my gloves, but I wouldn't really take many suspensions. I know Matt did that, but I think also some of his passion is misunderstood. He played all those games, and he's remembered for a few suspensions. I see a lot of myself in that guy. He's a forward. We I came in the NHL around the same time, a couple of years after me. It was an honor to be coached by him, but he put me out there. He didn't have to. I was getting a regular shift in the third. When I jumped over the boards and I saw James Malindy, who's been the captain here, the Grouillers won the Championship in '19, their first year, '18, '19. He was the captain. He plays now. He's a firefighter, and he still plays home games. He loves hockey. He's as much of a story as I am. It's just that it was my night, that particular night. But James is a great person, a great player. I I watched him since he's 10 years old, and I hang out with him sometimes in the offseason, and I love the guy.

I watched him and I looked down, and I saw that his helmet was popped off. It's 6:00 to 2:00. It's the third period. I swear to you, I swear to you, no level of me was putting on a show for the crowd. It just took over. There was a level of temper there that happened. I know sometimes it might go over the top. In Matt's case, when he got suspended. In my case, I remember, chirping a rep or something. But whatever it is, I believe that part of that passion, if you harness it the right way, that's part of the reason I got drafted in the first place. And for a snippet of time, I was those guys' teammate, and every fan in the building knew why I did it. My daughter could see it. It wasn't just going out to be a donkey. There's still a place for it, and there's still a place to show people what it's like to be a teammate. And I wasn't thinking it at the time, but I don't think it can hurt. Everything had to go right. I mean, I wish I did better in the fight, but I got a few in, and I showed what I was willing.

Sometimes it's about showing up. If nothing else, I do. My good friend Dave Roper is an equipment manager with the Leaps, and he's from Mount Pearl, one of my best friends in the world. I would like nothing more than to see them win. If I rubbed off anything, sorry, if something at all rubbed off and just had to be a competitor or I was willing to do it because I do believe that willing to be a teammate really goes a long way. Again, I wasn't thinking this going in, but I'm telling you that My instinct took over to get into that fight, and it was as if it was the late '90s again. I was a hockey player. That's what I am. What happens when you're a hockey player?

In your head, you're always the same age.

Are you thinking age when you're out there playing shinny? Not at all. To me, it's one of the things that takes your mind off of everything. When I was going through a divorce, when I was nearly bankrupt, all those things. If I went out and played shinny for that little snippet of time, I don't think about any of that. I can't think much. I listening to the Beatles second. That would be my next best way to release nervous tension. But even then, my mind can wander a bit. But when I'm skating around and I'm trying to make plays and I'm with my buddies and I'm coming off the ice and I'm thinking about watching that play and telling stories on the bench. Could be shinny, could be pond hockey, could be the East Coast, but it takes your mind off stuff. Hockey is so great for so many levels. When I was out there, I was in that Hockey, my own... I was in a time capsule that took me back to when I was playing pro in the first place. And one of the reasons is because that passion exists in my brain. And I chased down Walker, I did, and I fought him because my player just got tattooed by him.

Now it turns out it was a pretty clean hit, but it didn't look like it to me, and you don't have time to really think about that. And I'm glad it happened. Now, like I said, what can I do here? What are the positives? Because a lot of the negatives could have happened, or a lot of... It could have been a nice little package, that game. But the fact that Matt Cooke, Adam Partee, the rest of the team were cool, that I'm getting every shift I get, there's a prospect not getting a shift. Some people could have put their back up, and they would have been very justified in doing it. But I think in between, I knew, again, five of the guys are my real good friends and one of the coaches, and half the building. So We really vibed in the room as much as we could before the game. I was a teammate. I was an accepted teammate by the third period. It's wild how hockey works that way. If anything that I hope that the boys can take from this, not that I was looking to have a teaching moment. I'm not trying to preach.

There's a lot of that going on, and I'm not one that needs to be doing it. I'm no hero. I'm no nothing. But I am a hockey player. I don't care if I'm 47 or I'm 17. And those guys saw one of the reasons I was drafted was passion for the game. I'm trying to be objective about it, and that's true. I'm in no way trying to be boastful. That's true. So if that's something that might be lacking a little bit in today's game, I don't know, at least from a Canadian point of view, sometimes. We talk about it a lot, at least in the media. Then if one player took something from that and they don't have to fight, go into the corner. Peter Forsberg is one of the toughest players I ever saw play the game with my own eyes. He never fought. But he'd go everywhere. Steve Iserman, how tough was that guy? Take a shot in the face, come back, win a cup, play on the fourth line, take a pay cut. I think we need more of that stuff, that team on and off the ice atmosphere now. Now, that's what I think.

Am I right? I don't know. But if I am, then some of those kids learned something, and I can go away content with that and with the way that my hometown fans embrace me. My family finally got to see me go out the right way, and not every hockey player is so lucky.

Terry beautifully said, and it's been a joy talking to you. Can you give your podcast a quick plug here? If anybody wants to listen, how would they find it?

Sure. It's on most platforms. It's under the umbrella, the Hockey Podcast Network. It's called Hails with TR. I just said, speaking of passion for the game, I had Dan McCarthy on last week. That was a wild one, even for me. I just tried to get... I do two week, one on my own, which I did right before this, usually Tuesday or Wednesday, and then Friday or Saturday, I have a guest on. It's usually someone I came across. I'm interested in having big stars on there and people that a lot of fans might want to listen to. But it's usually I make a little rule in my head, someone that I came across in the game. As these stories keep being told, I'm coming across more and more people. Rick Viive called me. I was talking to him for an hour on Monday, and I'd met Rick at a charity event. We're not best friends or anything, but you know what I mean? Jeremy Ronick reached out. I'm going on his pod. I mean, I only met him once in my life. I looked up to him, talk about passion for the game again. These things are, and he agreed to come on.

My podcast is really, it's usually a one-on-one with a friend or an acquaintance that I've come across through the game, and not always a musician, or sorry, hockey players, sometimes musicians or the like. Jim Cuddy wrote the forward to my book, There's another one, tales of a First Round Nothing. We a lot of the same opinions on life, the same worldviews. We're really good friends. We like the same music. I think, look, and that's the book. My second book is called Fights, Film, and Folklor, if you want to look for it, Flanker Press. First one, tales of a First Round, Nothing. But here, the thing is, I'll leave you with is in my book, tales of a First Round Nothing is about a kid growing up, okay? It takes you to about 2014. I had a great story, a great bunch of adventures to tell, to talk about. But each one on its own is an anecdote, and a lot of them are funny things that happened to a kid growing up. But if you didn't read the whole thing, if you just heard me tell a story or two on spit and chiclets, you won't get the idea of the whole book.

The idea that I say at the very beginning, and I repeat it at the end, is that hockey is a beautiful game. A dressing room is a microcosm. It's a metaphor for real life. Leaders in a dressing room are going to end up being leaders in real life, chances are. Even the people that we look at, and sometimes people, you're talking about Toronto, They might question a guy like Austin Matthews. Well, I'll tell you this. Sometimes the Leaps have been known to slump. When I saw him score last year in the playoffs, and he went by the bench with some of the most joy that I've ever seen a hockey player have, you wouldn't have that built up inside if you didn't have passion for the game. Now, as you get older and more experienced, you might change the way you approach the game, and other things might rub off on you like it did Alex Ovechkin in the Washington Capitals after a bunch of years, the better part of a decade. But I do think, I don't think the leaves are far gone. Nothing you asked me about it. But I'm telling you because I do think the older you get within the game, a dressing room is a microcosm for real life.

Those players now, whether they win the Stanley Cup or not, they're going to be successful afterwards. A guy like Marner just signed that contract. You know what I said? Well, you can argue the money if you want, but there's not everybody that embraces playing with that limelight. That does it so cooly, wearing a tank top and chewing a toothpick thing. If I was in Toronto, that would mean a lot to me. There's a guy that's growing up a lot. He's growing up, and he's growing up in a dressing room, and they're all going to be fine after hockey. Let's hope they win the Cup one day. I just think that hockey builds leaders in life.

Well, Terry, it's been such a pleasure having you on. We hope it's not the last time. When you're in Toronto, you got to make sure you stop in, okay?

Well, I just found out this morning, I'm taking my dad up to the All-Star game. If you guys are there, shoot me a note.

You got to come by.

We're doing a whole bunch of events that we haven't announced yet. Well, look, guys, I have no plan whatsoever. I said, You know what? After the game, I got a few opportunities to do some appearances that weren't there before the game. At the least I could do, my dad's 71. He loves it. We've had a chance to be on the same hockey ride the last few years, and I want to take him. I said, Screw it. I booked a plane ticket. Nothing else is planned. So shoot me a note if you'd like, and I'd love to hang out on the weekend. That's awesome, Terry.

Thanks, sir.

No problem. See you guys soon.

The Steve Dangle podcast.

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