Let's talk about the Morgan-Reilly suspension. Five games is enough to keep him out of the lineup, not enough to take it to a neutral arbitrator. He can appeal. And from what I've asked around, and the consensus is that the Leaps will appeal. But the person who makes the final decision on that is George Peros' boss, guy you've never heard of. His name is Gary Bettman.

Who has gone against Pairos in the past in favor of the Leaps?

Yes. And that was with Spetsa? Yes.

Okay. He went from six to four.

Well, because it was ridiculous. And they know, I think in that particular case, there was no precedent for it because there are no precedents, but also because they know they would have lost the arbitrator. I don't think Gary Bettman did that because he's like, I like Jason Spetsa. He did it because he knew the arbitrator was going to reduce it anyway.

Well, you know what I think the NHL had no appetite for? The story continuing. All right.

I thought it was great.

Oh, yeah, did you?

I think the story is great. Yeah. God, they got it on Pat McAfee. Come on. Like, A legitimate story on that show rather than being like, Yo, let's bring Gary on and pretend hockey's awesome and that we all love it. Isn't hockey awesome?

Just making a mockery of it.

They were actually legitimately talking about it. Yeah. No. I've never seen Gino I'm more fired up in my entire life. No? What was he saying? Gino Reda got so...

What was he saying?

Man. So they had Brian Hayes, they had Marty Biron, and then they had Gino, and they did a segment together. Brian Hayes, obviously, full-blown like, Yeah, he did the right thing. Marty Biron. And actually a lot of ex-NHLers are like, Yeah, he should have expected something. Maybe not a cross check to the face, but he should have expected something. And Gino's like, Listen, the only person that Morgan Reilly hurt there, and this is just his opinion, I'm repeating it, is his teammates because now he's out five games.

And honestly- All legitimate. It's valid. There's some validity to that.

Yeah, but he said it in a far more fiery way. I mean, Gino, you're not used him being all fired up, but apparently he's a very passionate guy. No, you're not. Yeah.

He's never been your boss.

Yeah, exactly. You're a 22-year-old fucking up his scripts. You might have a problem with it.

That was me, 21, actually.

Okay, guys, five games. What was your reaction when Kevin Weeks leaked it? And we will get to that, by the way.

My first reaction was, how the hell does Kevin Weeks know that? I know maybe I'm a little too close to the painting.

Let's not talk about that. Let's keep going. No, it's That's later in the story. Let's talk about Morgan Piper.

It's relevant, and I guarantee Brad Trio living is going to bring it up today. But five games, my reaction was, all right, fine. Five, I can live with. I've seen five game suspensions before, but the ramp up to this made it seem like Riley was going to get... Everyone seemed to latch on to the number 6 because with an in-person hearing, you can do six or more. No, guys. When I heard it could be six or more, I'm like, They're going to really throw the book at this guy. I started to allow myself to believe 8 to 10. I really did.

Well, you're worst case at Ariel, though.

I am worst case, Ontario, and I understand that. The battle of worst case, Ontario always goes on in my head. Listen, what's been fascinating is I've said so much about this incident, and a lot A lot of people heard all of it, and everyone who heard all of it, or most people who heard all of it, were like, Oh, okay, I see where you're coming from. But the people who heard some of it were like, You fucking unreasonable, stupid asshole. But as a Leifs fan, I am saying this, with six seconds left in the game, attacking a player who just scored a goal, dude, you can't do it. It needs to be something that's taken the game. Even if you push and shove the guy, you can't be doing that. There have been some people who have crumpled up their reputations and opinions and relevance and thrown it over their shoulder over the last few games.

You mean since the Reilly days?

Yes. Listen, I've said this before. I'll say it again. Say what you want about me. I'm very open about what my biases are. I like the Lefs. There's a lot of liars.

No. According to Leef fans, you don't.

Oh, yeah. Some Leef fans... Listen, you can't please everybody. But I've never lied to you. I told you who I cheer for. There's a lot of people who are-Serious journalists, quote unquote.who claim to not be fans.

I think, man-Get out of my face. I think-Not It's not a chance. Based on his tweets, Bruce Garyox spent more time in hospital than Ridley Grigg. Every time he brings it up, it's not Morgan Reilly incident or Morgan Reilly crosscheck. It's vicious Morgan Reilly crosscheck. Every tweet.

Well, I mean, you don't get five game suspensions for gentle ones.

Bruce, relax. Listen.

I'm not going after him.

Here's the issue I have. I'm not after going him. I'm ready to put this to bed because it's a... Okay, I was like, Five games. Yeah, I was expecting somewhere in there. But I'm ready to put it to bed because it's the absolute... I've never seen this before in my hockey game. Just lying. You're flat out lying.

Just lying. And people comparing it to Dale Hunter on Pierre Terjon?

That's not the same.

How do you look yourself in the mirror?

Aren't you ashamed?

Aren't you just a little ashamed?

Anybody who's doing that has never watched a Dale Hunter game outside of that one clip. Look You have Dale Hunter's penalty minutes over the course of his clip. Here, I got a better one.

They've never watched the clip.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, it's the same. It's the same in the same way that all car accidents are the same. You're comparing a Fenderbender to a head-on collision.

Dale Dale Hunter. Guys, give me a guess. Dale Hunter paid 1,400 games in the NHL. How many penalty minutes did he have?

1,400? 1,600.

Okay, Jesse. 20,000. Well, Steve's closer, but-Not by much. 3,500.

Holy shit.

There was one season where he got less than 100 penalty minutes, and it was his last one where he played 12 games. What was his biggest-Actually, no, that's not even true. Even his last one, it was 12 games with the abs. I remember he got traded there, and the capitals, he had 102.

Oh, my God. What was his biggest one? Did he ever top 300?

I'm looking. No. I think it's 265 and 85, 86 with the Nordique. No, 272, 8182 Nordiques. Yeah. So Morgan Reilly, Lady Bing finalist, Dale Hunter, massacre.

Dale Hunter.

Yeah.

What are we talking about? Those two things is humiliating. And also there's a lot of people you don't need to listen to anymore. It's good because this incident allowed you to see who you don't need to listen to anymore.

You're not talking about fans, though. You're talking about major media.

I'm talking about... No, it's some fans, too, because there are fans who are fun to talk with because they're reasonable. Even though they don't like your team, they understand. Then there are some fans that hate the Toronto Maple leaves more than they love their own team. They hate the Toronto Maple leaves more than they love hockey, genuinely, deeply. There was a big air of, Oh, my God, this story is exhausting, and I I agree, but I don't think I agree for the same reasons. Were Lee fans a little unreasonable?

I'm sure a lot of them-Forever and always. Forever and always.

That's what fanaticism is, as long as you don't take it overboard or whatever. But There were a lot of people. I mean, the Schadenfreund was ridiculous. And that's okay. You're allowed to hate a team. You're allowed to love every bad thing that happens to the Lefs. I just don't have to regard your opinion as legitimate. Okay. As a result.

Jesse, you're smiling over there. Why? No, it's just we wanted to put this to bed, and then they spend a lot of time talking. Well, no. I was going to put it to get bed after this show. Why would I bring it up if I was putting it to bed today? All right. All right. This is putting it to bed.

Well, putting it to bed. And then the GM of the Lefs is going to talk about it.

Yeah, it won't go to bed.

This frigging zombie.

I want to show you something that happened last night that was a non-call on Ridley Greg, and I'm not sure if you've this.

A non-call on Ridley Greg.

Jesse, the video is from @@everydaysends on Twitter. I refuse to call it X. If you can go to the third second and just freeze the video.

A non-call on Ridley Greg.

This involves Boon Center. Oh, my God. A knee on knee.

Sorry, I was very surprised because he wasn't in the frame at all.

Interestingly enough, on this play, the Ottawa senators get called for something. Well, they got called for. No way. Yeah, they got called for interference or something on Another part of it. But yeah.

I thought you were about to say, Embellishment.

No, but it's a brutal... That is an ugly, ugly hit.

No, Greg's pretty lucky there.

Now, I don't think this has anything to do with the Morgan Reilly thing at all. But there certainly is... He's certainly on a different level. If you ask the average hockey fan who Ridley Grigg was and who he played for outside of Ottawa before this incident, people will be like, I really don't know.

Maybe he's getting buntinged.

Well, Well, I think what's happening, very likely, is that he's becoming the Senator's pest. And that's a part of becoming the pest for every team is that there's going to be guys like Boon Jenner. Now, the Blue Jackets got absolutely squashed by the Sens last night.

Yeah, that's usually what you're supposed to do with Blue Jackets. Everyone.

Yeah, I wish we... But is this the guy who's fighting for pest respectability in the league in the way that Marcian has? Or is this a guy who other veteran players are like, Listen, I saw what you did, the Leaps. You're not doing that here.

I think both things can be true. Listen, it's a treacherous job doing what he does. It's making the NHL the hard way. It used to be you did whatever to make the NHL by being the bully, by throwing the fist. Now you make the NHL by being the bag. You put yourself in a position where you piss everybody off, and they attack you. That's how you make the show these days. There's no more big cats. You got to be the rat.