Transcript
Speaker: Gentlemen, are you ready to talk, Stickpuck? No. Just immediately. I have to get up. Gentlemen, are you ready to talk, Stickpuck? Yes. Welcome, everybody, to another edition of the Toogie's Take.
Speaker: podcast a day late probably a dollar short thanks to a lovely power outage for sin yesterday yeah you have some impeccable luck like I thought I had bad luck with outages but my god California what's going on oh we probably couldn't handle whatever that geo whatever Sun event that fuck that created northern lights everywhere we probably it I don't know probably screwed something up
Speaker: Fair enough. Endo, you're here too. You had a birthday this week. I'm old. Yeah. I'm very old. Old man. Old man river. Today we're going to talk about the Stanley Cup playoffs primarily because admittedly there's not too much else going on aside from the world championship shout out to Austria for nearly upsetting Canada. But
Speaker: In regards to said Stanley Cup playoffs, right?
Speaker: There might be a more negative spin from yours truly. And I'll have you guess as to why, because we'll get to it a little bit later on, but not too much later. We're going to skip over viewer questions and stuff like that, that we normally treat as a warmup. I want to get into talking about some of the positive aspects of the playoffs before I likely rant and rave for 15 minutes straight.
Speaker: So let's start off as far away from the negative as we can by talking about Vancouver. And nope, we can't, we can't talk about Vancouver and Edmonton without talking about the negative. Hmm. Has Dallas and Colorado had much negative? No, besides the personal life.
Speaker: Yeah, yep, that's that's a bit that's a bit awkward too. But you know that that that series is like. If you it's it's on a crack man like this series is on crack. There is like the Avalanche are such a ridiculously good team when they have to cheat for offense like you thought the Leafs were good when they have to cheat for offense. Dude, the abs are probably the best in the league at it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, so you know what, we will start there. Now, obviously, the negatives I'm referring to are primarily the playoff, the playoff officiating and all of that shit. And we'll get to that a little bit later on. I want to avoid it for as long as possible. That Dallas and Colorado series, unfortunately, because of what I just mentioned, Monday night was the first night that I did not watch any playoff hockey whatsoever.
Speaker: because of all that other shit that was going on. I was watching games every single night and the NHL was doing a marvelous job of killing my interest in watching their product again. Which is a shame because as you mentioned that Dallas Colorado series is incredibly interesting. Not only do you have two teams that
Speaker: I mean, could easily win the Stanley Cup, right? Like, there is a legitimate Stanley Cup contender getting knocked out in this round. You could argue that's across the board in all four remaining matchups, right? I mean, you know, the final eight of 32. But for Dallas to now be up three to one and to have done so by winning both games on the road in Colorado in games three and four, including what, five won last night in Colorado, they...
Speaker: look every bit the legitimate contender that a lot of people listed them as heading into this postseason and I wasn't I wasn't quite sure right like you got to go through Vegas and Colorado to get to the conference final the two most recent Stanley Cup winners are they going to be able to do it but they have
Speaker: to this point, looked every bit the cup contender that people thought they could be. And, you know, that's off the back of, well, leading scorer points wise is Miro Haskinen with 12 points in 11 games. He's fantastic, right? He's better than Fox. And I've been saying this forever and I'm goddamn, I'm finally getting vindicated. But because he plays on the West Coast, he still won't get his flowers.
Speaker: Their leading goal scorer and second in points is 21 -year -old. He just turned 21 today. Wyatt Johnston. What a beast. 23rd overall in 2021. That's insane. Last year as a rookie, 41 points in 82 games with 24 goals, 6 points in 19 playoff games.
Speaker: This year, 65 points in a full 82 game season with 32 goals and is now a point per game through 11 games in the playoffs. He's so good.
Speaker: I mean, shit. And I'm pretty sure I overlooked him like we talked about prospects and I remember this guy being like ranked high on someone's list. And like I just didn't watch him like what's his what's his point? Oh, 41 points and 80. Why is he ranked so high? I should have watched him because holy shit.
Speaker: And the crazy thing for me too is like you have Jason Robertson doing Jason Robertson things. He's still probably my favorite non -brewing in the league. Um, Joe Pavelski, by the way, one point in 11 games so far, the lowest for any of the stars forwards. Yeah, he's a little cooked man. Bums me out, but he's 39 man. Like how, like if he gets carried to a cup though, who cares? He still got, I don't care. He's yeah, he, he gets a cup and he deserves it because he's been a beast his whole career.
Speaker: One thing I wanted to add in regard to Wyatt Johnston really quickly, and it has to do with that 23rd overall pick that he was selected with. Is he a short king? Is he the one or is that Stankoven? Stankoven's short king. Stankoven's short king. Stanky oven. So Wyatt Johnson was selected, like I said, with the 23rd overall pick from the 2021 draft. That pick was involved in two different trades.
Speaker: Originally, it belonged to the Washington Capitals. But on April 12, 2021, again, you got to remember COVID times. So, you know, deadline hadn't happened yet. April 12, 2021, that first round pick, a second rounder in 2022, Richard Ponnick and Jakob Verana were traded from the Washington Capitals to the Detroit Red Wings for Anthony Mantha.
Speaker: A trade that didn't necessarily work out for either side at face value, right? Like, Manta's obviously with Vegas now. He wasn't quite the stellar top six pick. And then Ponic wasn't in the league, like, at all or too much longer. And then Verona ends up in St. Louis and he had his whole issues and stuff like that. Detroit, though, on July 23rd, if I'm not mistaken, the date of the draft moved up.
Speaker: from 23rd overall to 15th in a trade with Dallas. Detroit ended up selecting with that 15th overall pick, goaltender Sebastian Casa, who currently, this year in the AHL, 913 save percentage in 40 games at 21 years old. It'll be 22 in November. That's okay, but still - Yeah, jury's out. It's a goalie. Yeah, and goalies take longer to develop, right?
Speaker: But Dallas ended up trading down eight spots, getting Wyatt Johnston at 23. They also had a second round pick involved that I believe ended up in New York. And now it turned into who's now on Calgary with Artem Grushnikov, who I believe was a part and he was a part of the Chris Tanev trade this past February.
Speaker: And they ended up with a fifth round pick, Jack Barr, who has yet to debut, but he's an NCAA player. I'm pretty sure Stankovin was like a late pick too.
Speaker: because Dallas has been in the playoffs every year. Like, it's insane the level that they've hit with their mid to late firsts. And one time Logan Stan Coven was selected 47th overall in the second round in that same draft class. Oh, you got to be kidding. That is so filthy. What a year before they took Artem Grushnikov, who was a part of the TANF trade. The Dallas Stars 2021 draft class is fucking stupid.
Speaker: just in terms of everything that they did regarding it. Yeah, I need a draft class like that coming up right now. There you go. You might get it. I mean, hey, first overall pick. I mean, last year's looking pretty good with Will Smith and Quinton Musty. But you expect that from a top five pick anyway. So Dallas has a 3 -1 series lead on Colorado. Again, Dallas looking every bit the threat. Colorado.
Speaker: looked prime to make another run for the cup after eliminating Winnipeg in five games winning four straight. And really, it's kind of all of a sudden, it's off the back of a great run here by Dallas. Dallas is an incredibly strong team.
Speaker: But for the abs at this stage, it's kind of, okay, if things can go wrong, they have been going wrong, right? Particularly from Monday's game, game four, they missed Devontaves due to illness, which is very tough to replace.
Speaker: It led to them running a first pair of Sean Walker and Kale McCarr McCarr has 12 points in nine playoff games But Sean Walker who was a big deadline time pickup for the abs has no points in nine appearances now he was never this like crazy point getting defenseman, but
Speaker: You know, like you're on the abs. How are you not, you know, Colorado gave up a first round pick for you. I just find it hard to believe that a guy of that caliber hasn't been involved in terms of point production. And then you talk about the rest of the lineup and it's like, oh, okay. Like, you know, they have some aspects that are struggling, like McKinnon and Rantinen, they're doing really well. And their depth just got stretched that much further.
Speaker: You're already down 2 -1 in a series heading into game 4, and on that day, you get the news that one of your key players is done. And what's really a disappointing and concerning story in a lot of ways, Valerian Achushkin
Speaker: has been suspended for six months without pay and is back in the player assistance program the third stage which there's three out of four by the way the first time
Speaker: that you end up being placed in the program, which again, you can be placed in the NHL Player Assistance Program for a variety of reasons, right? In terms of the program itself, this comes from an ESPN article just kind of describing what it is, but it started up in 1996 as a joint venture between the NHL and the PA.
Speaker: players who enter the program, which is strictly voluntary, can continue to get paid in that first stage, but they get counseling, treatment, other services that they might need. The program has a hotline that players or their relatives can call if they have concerns. However,
Speaker: There is confidentiality in regards to what issues are currently ongoing, right? Because it can be mental health issues, it can be drugs, alcohol, whatever. Sam Gerard, who entered the player assistance program in 2023 though, he spoke up about why he was in it. And he said, I made a proactive decision to take care of my mental health and will be the entering treatment for severe anxiety, depression, and that led to alcohol abuse.
Speaker: So you never unless a player chooses to speak up about it. You aren't privy to that information, nor should you be. People still deserve their privacy in that aspect, and it's not responsible to try to guess what the hell is going on, right? But what we can say is that it was a year ago that there was that very strange incidents in Seattle.
Speaker: that led to a police report being filed from CBS Sports in May of last year, May 10th actually, we just passed the one year of this.
Speaker: There was a 911 call placed to request assistance for a woman that was found in the Seattle hotel room of Valeria Nachushkin. The woman believed that she overdosed on alcohol or that something got mixed in her drink. There was a lot of weird follow up on that. There have been no charges as far as I'm aware, anything like that. But you had that pop up and it's like, huh, okay, what's going on?
Speaker: The first time you end up in the Player Assistance Program, you know, stage one is pretty much like, hey, let's try to get you some help and figure this out. The second time results in a suspension. And that happened January 15th of this year. The Chushkin entered the Assistance Program for the second time and returned to the team on March 8th.
Speaker: now you have a third instance which results in I believe it's 60 days with suspended pay and an indefinite leave of absence the fourth time or six months not 60 days excuse me six months fourth time is a year yeah and there's no you can be reinstated yes yeah exactly right it's conditional on the league being like okay we think you're in a good spot we'll reinstate you
Speaker: Beleri Natyushkin had 53 points in 54 games in the regular season, had 10 points in 8 games this postseason with 9 goals. To be down 2 -1 in the series and then to have something like this happen with a teammate that you rallied around, I'm sure, upon his return, he's playing great hockey,
Speaker: You know, you talk about like what's happening on the ice and everything like that. But man, this is this is the type of incident that rocks a locker room, or at least you would expect it to. And I think, you know, you had someone like Andrew Cogliano kind of speak out and people are reading between the lines about, you know, the feeling kind of being not mad, but disappointed.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's you. I can understand why someone would be mad or show anger, but you at the same time, it's like that's not a pro productive emotion to it. Like from the team standpoint, it's like and just from like a personal standpoint, like addicts, it's at least I think that's what's going on within addicts. This is to me, this is just classic addict behavior. Hello. I was one.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just you can't fucking help it. Like you're it until you're completely ready on your own to like to kick it. And even then sometimes you have, you know, slip ups and whatever else. And it's a tough gig, but it's it sucks for the abs, man. Like that's just got to hurt you so much. But then again, like on the hockey side only, it's kind of a good
Speaker: good thing, like a good issue where it's like, oh, no, we lost this key player. We get to slot in Jonathan Drew and like they have some good depth still. But like back on the personal side of things like that, it's got to like just put a riff through the locker room. And I'm sure there's a lot of different emotions. I'm sure there's disappointment. I'm sure there is anger. And I'm sure there's people feeling betrayed because they they chose to put their trust in this person again. And he made his actions ended up hurting the team.
Speaker: And that that's that's hard and the abs may be cooked because of that Not just because of him, but that is going to contribute to their possible downfall like you're missing a key player The expectation i'm sure at this point is that dallas wins the series You know totally discount colorado until they're dead in the water for obvious reasons and it's colorado and Nathan McKinnon
Speaker: Yeah, and a 3 -1 deficit's not insurmountable, especially when it's in a certain Eastern Conference series, a 3 -0, seriously doesn't appear to be insurmountable. And we'll go to talking about that series next, I think. We'll bounce back and forth. Anything else to add about Dallas or Colorado? Endo, obviously, I don't know if you have any thoughts on it in particular or not. You look like a tired man. Yeah, I had a long day of work today.
Speaker: I don't think there's much that I can really say about stuff that's already happened. You guys have basically said everything that I wanted to say. You guys letting me have the day off, you know, in terms of talking and speaking. It's nice. I appreciate it. It's just been a great series to watch. It's unfortunate with the game. I see you can't even speak with the player in question. Excuse me. Having an issue to deal with.
Speaker: One thing that people were confused about is he suspended six months without pay. One thing to note is that this wouldn't have to be eligible for a performance bonus because you're not paid in the playoffs. Your team is paid basically money based on where you finish in the playoffs. So if you end up
Speaker: say, for example, winning in like the Stanley cup, going to the final and you are a final, it's not a final player. Um, your team will get a certain amount of money, like depending on where you finished, excuse me. So players do get paid players do get paid in the post -season, but it is really performance based on where your seating is for the final, uh, final rounds. Yeah. So he's not eligible for any of the money. If they're, if that team wins, it rallies back and wins a Stanley cup. He does, he does not receive any of the funds that I would get.
Speaker: A double whammy. A whammy. In terms of the other series that I mentioned, New York and Carolina. Carolina looked dead in the water.
Speaker: down 3 -0 to the New York Rangers who were 7 -0 in the playoffs. And all of a sudden now the lead is 3 -2. Carolina has won the last two games to stave off elimination. The two teams don't play again until Thursday, the 16th.
Speaker: Sorry, those are choking noises everybody. Yeah, it's good. Thank you get that gift of Tookie choking that uh, no, I get you Miller gift man. I
Speaker: Carolina won game four, four to three, to avoid the sweep. It took a late power play goal for Brady Shea. And then last night, 4 -1 for Carolina at MSG. Four goals in the third period for the Hurricanes to win the game.
Speaker: It's just weird, right? That's the only way I can describe it. It's just really weird for a team to have looked so dead in the water at that stage to now be able to kind of bounce back. And I'm not quite sure from the outside looking in what the issue is for the Rangers. Well, this is the second year in the years this shit's happening. Yeah.
Speaker: or second year in a row, what'd I say? Second year in a year? Second year in a year. Yeah, second year in a row. Didn't they blow 3 -1 to the Devils? Am I tripping on that? Like last year, it wasn't that, it went to seven and I'm pretty sure they blew a 3 -1 lead. Am I tripping on that? Maybe it was only 3 -2, but... Last year, Rangers and Devils, the Rangers were up 2 -0.
Speaker: Devils tied it at 2 -2. OK. New Jersey won it in seven. Yeah, so OK. So not quite. But I mean, hey, you're up 2 -0, and then you. Yeah, I don't know, man. The Rangers, this would become a little bit of a concerning thing for them, especially if they lose the series in this fashion, which do not count out Carolina.
Speaker: I know we like to make fun of them and troll them because they'd fucking deserve it for getting swept in three straight conference finals. I want to see them come back so they can get swept in another conference. But for real, like.
Speaker: Oh man. I would, I think if anyone deserves to be humbled so far throughout these playoffs, it's the team that has had the easiest road so far, which is Rangers, you know, sweeping a team that had a negative 37 goal differential. That's so nuts. Then getting, you know, having a three Oh lead look and pull is now you've lost two straight. Now there's some doubt.
Speaker: Carolina like I'm looking at numbers and obviously numbers don't tell the whole story but it's like they haven't gotten great goaltending at a Freddie Anderson Which any leaves fan will be like what Freddie Anderson's not? consistent in the playoffs who knew I Don't know like I just Aside from like labeling it pretty simply is like Carolina's a really good team with a really really good coach and of course They're not gonna go down easily
Speaker: It's like, yeah, I mean, of course, but again, a three nothing deficit to the Rangers. You would expect the Rangers to be able to cap it off. And, you know, you never say never like it could go seven and the Rangers could still win it. But at the same time, like that's, that's tough.
Speaker: You know, especially for New York, like that ability to put a series away, put it to bed against a really tough team, that is often the sign of, OK, this team is ready to take that next step. Yeah. And if you let that go to seven, maybe the confidence is a little bit shaky, because we'll talk about it in the other Eastern matchup. I have a suspicion one team is going to cap it off pretty soon. I'm intrigued, though. It might be. Thirteen more minutes. It might be the series I'm intrigued the most by at this stage, New York and Carolina.
Speaker: Yeah, and it didn't seem like it was going to be that way. That's that's the craziest part. I thought I really thought Dallas and Colorado was going to be the most interesting, the most back and forth just because of. Especially because of how the series started off, Dallas blowing a three nothing lead and then nearly blowing a four goal lead. And then now they're just finally back to being able to shut someone down. I want to go back to the West.
Speaker: unless either of you have anything else to add about Rangers and Hurricanes, but I want to go back to the West, which is where we start to get into the conversation of the NHL doing NHL things again. And I guess I can kind of tie the two remaining series together that we haven't talked about yet. Every year,
Speaker: All season long and in the playoffs, we have the conversations about the standard of officiating being shit, the Department of Player Safety being shit, right? Happens every single year and it is what it is. For a good amount of this year, I've tried to have that mindset of just like, look, it is what it is. I'm tired of having the conversation. We've said that numerous times about multiple different topics. And it's just, let it be, it is what it is, whatever.
Speaker: However, as I've discovered over the past couple of days, there is a limit to that attitude and that mindset of just trying to accept it for what it is, when the level that you're like, I can become accustomed to adjusting to this horse shit being at a level seven. When that level goes up to a 12 out of 10, which is what we've seen in these playoffs over this round especially,
Speaker: It's, it just takes away so much from the hockey. And look, I thought the Boston Bruins were gonna lose in the first round of the Leafs. I said, whoever moved on from that series was gonna get pumped by the Panthers. The Panthers are up three to one, right? It sucks enough to see. You got them right where you want them. Yeah, it sucks enough to see your favorite team losing. Like that can already kind of like take a bit of a hit, even if the rest of the series are good.
Speaker: It's worse when you can't watch other interesting series to escape the bullshit that you've seen within the own series of your favorite team. And that's what's happening. That's what this Vancouver Edmonton series is. You gotta watch this Colorado Dallas one, man. It's somehow the least egregious officiated one.
Speaker: Well, yeah, because Rangers Hurricanes, you got Jacob Trubo throwing elbows left and right. Oh, yeah. But he's shit pumped when he's on the ice. And I'm so fucking happy to see that. Finally, we can put to bed. The big physical defenseman is good at defense. No, we can't because, you know, some right handed big hitters going to get five mil this offseason. Hell, yeah. Get paid. OK, crime.
Speaker: The whole Truba thing, I've gone over that just Rangers fans vehemently defending him. It's like he's a primary example of the Department of Player Safety's egregious failings. Yes.
Speaker: again whether or not it's the the fucking elbow that let him go and nearly head first into the boards he tried to elbow I think it was Kuznetsov as he was scoring as he was scoring he realized he wasn't gonna make contact and he was hundred percent throws an elbow out there just to try to make any bit of contact whatsoever and he has been
Speaker: encouraged to do so because he hasn't been punished for it because they fucking suck at what they do more on that in a second as we talk first about Vancouver and Edmonton because as I said there's a lot going on in that Florida Boston series and in my mind I'm like okay Vancouver Edmonton I'm really intrigued by this series Vancouver it wasn't the most convincing series win over Nashville
Speaker: at all after a surprising regular season though they get out of the first round and it's like okay here's your first real test it's Edmonton no disrespect to Nashville but you know it's Nashville like in terms of teams that made the playoffs
Speaker: They were what second from the bottom third from the bottom in terms of like, okay, who would you have been surprised the most by winning the cup, Washington, and then it's either Nashville or the Islanders, depending on where you rank people and goaltending and blah blah blah.
Speaker: And for the series, Vancouver, you have Sheloffs and Goal. You're down to your fucking third goalie. It's crazy. Going up against Conor McDavid, Dry Sidal, et cetera, et cetera. Vancouver has a two to one series lead at this point, which is crazy. Like you had the crazy game one comeback. Edmonton tonight, if I'm not mistaken, is game number four. And Edmonton is going to be rolling Calvin Pickard.
Speaker: in goal. Instead of Skinner. Well, yeah. Skinner has a 796 save percentage.
Speaker: Again, it's an incredibly intriguing series for that reason, right? Because Stuart Skinner has looked really good at times, and then, you know, especially against like LA, like he, you know, shut the door. And it's like, oh, shit, okay, Stuart Skinner, is he, is he finally here? Is he finally the guy? And he has struggled immensely in this series. I'm looking at bringing up his game logs here in the playoffs.
Speaker: And since shutting out the LA Kings in game number four, 33 out of 33 stopped. Game five, where they eliminated the Kings, he had an 857. 18 out of 21 stopped. Allowed three goals in that game. Not a great performance, but they got it done. In the three games in this series against Vancouver, game one,
Speaker: Five goals on 24 shots for a 792. Game two, which was a win. Three goals on 19 shots for an 842 save percentage. And then game three, four goals on 15 shots for a 733. He's been horrific in this series so far. Need safe. That's bad for even Ishmael, man.
Speaker: And you look at this series, right, and how it's gone down so far, the goalie change for Edmonton, and that should be the talking point, right? It's like, man, the goaltending and what's going on in this series, it's crazy, like Vancouver might do this, is Edmonton gonna blow it again?
Speaker: But that's not necessarily what's being talked about. Like, how many people are talking about the fact that Leon Dryseidel has eight points in three games, that McDavid has five in three games in this series? How many people are talking about Brock Besser and JT Miller both having five points, or Elias Lindholm doing great, Zadorov doing great for the Canucks?
Speaker: That's not necessarily the conversation I'm seeing. The conversation I'm seeing, aside from people chirping at one another on Twitter, the conversation is in regards to officiating in the DOPS. And that encapsulates what is wrong with this fucking league. You have a team in Vancouver
Speaker: Crazy good season better than anyone expected Going up against the best player in the world. Dreyseidl's top five minimum for fuck's sake Like there is immense star power in this series all Canadian matchup. You're guaranteed a Canadian team in the final four And it's all overshadowed by
Speaker: Cross checks to the fucking kidneys, to the neck. It's highlighted by high sticking calls that draw blood that there's no call at all, actually. But they sent him off the ice because he's bleeding. That made no sense at all. Excuse me, your blood is a little dangerous for this ice surface. Never mind the fucking piece of carbon fiber that hit you in the face. Mm hmm.
Speaker: Well, are we going to bring up Kelly Sutherland or has that go ahead? You just did. Go ahead. Good. OK, now and. This is going to pick at some wounds or maybe offend to you a little bit, but Kelly Sutherland was the official in the Stanley Cup finals in 2011, where Marcia was able to speed bag the city and spaces without college.
Speaker: Ridiculous, but it's the playoffs. Why not? It's funny, but it's also ridiculous. So the fact that Canucks are remembering this shit 13 years later and being has been out of shape out of it lets you know just how long this bull crap has been going on. Kelly Sutherland is from British Columbia.
Speaker: So again, I heard it said by one of the talking heads, I forget who, like he's in a no -win situation or whatever. Like, you know, like because you either got fans calling you biased because you're from that area and then you have to work twice as hard. And that's what he's doing. It feels like he's trying to make up for the fact that he's from BC. And look, why? Just call the game.
Speaker: Like why, why do, and the reason is it's like, why are optics so important? Because that's what the NHL sells. They sell optics. They don't sell a competitive sport. They sell optics. They sell rivalries. They sell, I mean, just go look at it. You can find it. Look at the, uh, no, not Gregory, colon Campbell email to Mike Milbury about, you know,
Speaker: like what the NHL is trying to sell. And it's very clear what they're trying to sell when the officiating's continue to be like this. They try to sow the seeds of rivalry by continually letting things go unpunished and making the players feel like they have to police themselves. The NHL wants this. It's so fucking clear they do. And anything that they say otherwise is negated by all their actions. Yeah.
Speaker: Like in Vancouver, I'm 100 % in support and in your corner, if you want to throw fucking mailboxes through windows and finger banging on that street. Oh boy. I'll never do it the way I first did it. God, you know, BC is funny because nothing, nothing gets you going like a burning turned over car. Yeah.
Speaker: So like I said, this series in general is incredibly interesting. Like the Canucks swept the regular season series. They're up to one now. But again, like there's so much, right? Like the high -sticking that wasn't called Carson Suzy especially, but the Canucks being like, all right, fuck it. Let's try to injure Conor McDavid at the end of the game because that's what this is.
Speaker: It just has totally sapped my intrigue in the playoffs, for the most part. And again, it is tied in to the Bruins Panthers, right? Now, again, I stated what I said before. I picked the Panthers to win the series. I thought it would be done quickly. Bruins win game one. They look pretty good. Panthers win game two, game three, and...
Speaker: You know, at that point, and again, two dominant games, right? Like the Panthers won 6 -1 and 6 -2. In this series, the Panthers have outshot the Bruins to shit. Because the Bruins... I turned it off at 4 -2. Yeah, so the score lines in this game, 5 -1 Boston, 6 -1 Florida, 6 -2 Florida in the first three games. Good God. And in game four was a 3 -2 final. We'll talk more about that in a minute.
Speaker: The Bruins have still played a very, you know, quality over quantity style, much to the frustration of a lot of Bruins fans, especially given that they got booed on home ice on a power play for not literally fans were chanting shoot the puck. And I get the idea of quality over quantity, but at the same time, man, it's it's the playoffs.
Speaker: And that often reads as being too cute. When so many goals are scored by just throwing it into the blender in front. And look, I'm only a fan, right? But Sergei Bobrovsky, do you need the highest quality of shots to beat him? Is it a matter of, well, if we throw a lot of pucks on, his confidence is gonna go up. I don't really understand how they're reading the situation.
Speaker: Um, there was some, uh, chimpiness to say the fucking least in the first three games. I mean, David Posternock fought Matthew Kachuk. I mean, that's pretty straightforward game for houses close to the Alex Simmons fight is we're ever going to see.
Speaker: He didn't quite slap, but that man could not get a fucking grip on Conchuck's jersey. And then Conchuck did his usual, I'm going to hit you when you're down. And I really want to like him, but every time he does shit like that, I'm like, come on, man, like, grow up. Yeah. Along with everything that we mentioned from the Oilers Canucks series, game four is where the playoffs, for me, have just jumped the shark. Like I said last night, I went from being incredibly interested
Speaker: in the Carolina, New York series to just be like, I don't want to watch hockey tonight. Same thing with Dallas and Colorado. It's like, I just don't want to watch hockey tonight. And it's primarily due to what we saw in game four. Like the Bruins are up to nothing in the first period. And you start to think like, well, shit, maybe things will go all right. Panthers get one back in the second period and it's like, okay, well, we'll see what happens here.
Speaker: The Sam Bennett goal in the third period. Oh, wait, that's crazy. He was playing. He wasn't suspended in the aftermath. Sorry, I know it's worth bringing up in the aftermath of him concussing Brad Marsh and to the point where he's probably going to miss the rest of the series, even if this somehow goes seven, the most clear cut
Speaker: Check Punch, you will ever fucking see, except if you're the NHL, who apparently admitted to not even seeing one of the replay angles of this that makes it clear as day, which I refuse to believe that if they're gonna come out and say we don't look at every angle available, then you're fucking incompetent.
Speaker: Right, and that's where I'm at right now. It's either you are so fucking incompetent, why am I investing my time when I have this ridiculous backlog of shows to watch with my wife or whatever? Why am I investing this time watching your product if you're either that incompetent or you are a bold face lying to me? As a consumer of your products, why am I dedicating my time here? Why? The NHL.
Speaker: is the most incompetent major sports league in North America. And that is fucking saying something when you have the NFL and all their fucking bullshit officiating that's gone on over the fucking years. When you have the NBA and people will be, oh, it's turning to remember that when Jordan used to get hacked by the Pistons and that was real basketball, like you have that attitude too. And then over Major League Baseball,
Speaker: with their fucking umpire situation and all that shit. The NHL still takes the cake in terms of just being the most incompetent fucking sports league. And it's so frustrating because all you have to do is call the fucking rule book. But no, we do game management. And while we can't do this, we can't do that. And then
Speaker: You get Sam Bennett punching Brad Marchand in the face. And again, I said this much on Twitter. Brad Marchand's gonna garner no sympathy. He has been one of the most consistently dirty players, not so much in recent years, but he earned his reputation
Speaker: outright for being one of the most consistently dirty players in the league, year in and year out. No one's going to have any sympathy for him. Like about, yeah, I'm just going to, I'm going to cut you off there. I can't remember the last like blatantly dirty thing Marchand has done in the last like three to five years. If like you might have, I know people are going to point to the Lilligan thing. I do not see a slew foot there and I
Speaker: I don't know. I don't have any reason to like Marsh Ant. In fact, I've hated the Bruins for a very long time up until very recently when the Sharks weren't competitive and I didn't care that the Bruins kicked our ass. But yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen him do anything blatantly dirty. I understand it's going to always follow him, but there's a hell of a lot of bias of him from his 20s and he's just not that dude anymore. He's still a shit. He's still a rat.
Speaker: He's good at it, but I don't see him really doing anything like all these crazy dirty things. Maybe he's sneaky dirty, but I don't know, man. So you get Sam Bennett doing this, which was very similar to what he did against Matthew Nyes on the Maple Leafs last year in the playoffs. You know, Sam Bennett transformed his career from being fourth overall pick, you got to be top line center, whatever, to being
Speaker: one of the league's premier rats. You know, and the Panthers have a couple of those guys, they got cousins, Matthew Kachuk has that side to him. And you're incentivized to build a team like that. Because you know how things are going to be called or not going to be called in the playoffs. To the point where Sam Bennett's tying goal
Speaker: Tua T fits the description of what should be gold tender interference and everybody knows that. He cross checks Charlie Coyle into Jeremy Swamin and then scores, they reviewed it and still just, nope, don't worry about it, it's fine. And then the Panthers three minutes later, sick goal from Sasha Barkov, what should have been a 2 -2 game is 3 -2 and the Panthers hold on to win.
Speaker: The Florida Panthers are a great fucking team. Made it to the Stanley Cup final last year. They could very well get over the hump this year. They don't need the extra fucking help that they are getting. I wonder if Cole Campbell's kid has anything to do with that team still. That's also been theorized. But like I said, it's not necessarily a matter of, oh, my team's losing. I'm upset. I'm mad. It's just more like, man, I'm cool with them losing.
Speaker: Again, it's one thing to have your team losing. It's another thing to see bullshit like this as well. Yeah. Like you may very well have still lost, but like at least lose in a cool way. Like I'm going to be real with you. I hated the fact that the Sharks won an overtime gaming as St. Louis Blues, even though all I wanted them for them to do was go up too well in that series with a blatant fucking hand pass. Number one, because I knew we were going to get shit for it.
Speaker: And number two, I knew the Blues were going to take that shit personally. And they did. They headshot us for fucking four straight games and kicked our ass out. And they also outplayed us. But yeah, they also should have been fucking punished for some of those headshots, but they weren't going to call it because that one time we got a hand pass in our favor. Like that's how the league works. And it's fucking stupid. And that's what the Blues did. Like I've mentioned over the past five years that 2019 Blues team a lot. They.
Speaker: They played the style that the Florida Panthers are playing, but the NHL encourages teams to play in the playoffs. I've joked about it a lot over the last couple of years, like Craig Berube, former enforcer, right? This is a guy that towed the line and oftentimes went over the line in his playing career.
Speaker: I found it 80s, 90s towing the line. So, you know, that fucking line is Scott Parker jumping over the plexiglass to try to get out of Nashville player. I found it rich that Craig Baruban 2019 complained about officiating, but it worked. It outright worked to his benefit. And yeah, guess who's coach of the Florida Panthers? Yeah.
Speaker: Like I said, I found it rich that a former goon complained about officiating or whatever, but again, it worked. And that's another aspect of this that I'm fucking sick and tired of. Is constantly, oh, is Don Sweeney? Is Jim Montgomery? Are they gonna throw officiating under the bus? Are they gonna do this? Are they gonna speak out again? That shouldn't have to be a thing.
Speaker: That shouldn't have to be a thing. Craig Berube, if he felt like he was getting wrong by coaches or whatever, shouldn't have had to do that. And the Bruins in this instance, it shouldn't be on Don Sweeney to be like, yeah, the officiating fucking sucks and the league's a joke. Because the league shouldn't be in a situation anyway where that should be expected of a GM to have to call you out on your fucking nonsense.
Speaker: Like, it's just... I did like what he said, though, about the refs should be, you know, coaches and GMs have to get out in front of people and talk about bad plays and what went wrong. And why don't the officials? I'm surprised he didn't get fined for that. Like, that seemed like, speaking of towing the line, like right on the line of what the NHL would take offense to. But maybe they didn't find him because they knew the blowback in their face would be so awful. And it'd prove him right if they did find him, probably.
Speaker: But he's right, no matter what. I'm just bummed. It's not even necessarily about the Bruins losing, because like I said, I expected it, right? And I keep reiterating that point, because I don't want this to come off as salty Bruins fans. No, Kevin Bacon wasn't in full use. But like I said, I can't even watch other series to escape this fucking bullshit. Like, you have a fucking rule book
Speaker: fucking call it and even then when you have the ability to replay things or review them after games to be like yeah that was a suspendable hit or yeah in the moment everyone can tell that shouldn't have been a fucking goal you still fucking get it wrong like so often we're not seeing who the best team is
Speaker: And we've said that throughout the regular season because this happens to fucking everybody because the standard of officiating that the OPS is fucking shit. Like the effect that they have by oftentimes, in this instance, not doing anything is fucking massive. Like the impact on a game -to -game basis in every fucking series. Like it's just, I want to know what team is the best at hockey.
Speaker: This isn't hockey. This is the NHL. It's supposed to stand for National Hockey League, but I kind of view it like the WWE, where once upon a time, it stood for World Wrestling Entertainment. And of course, World Wrestling Federation before that. Now they just call themselves WWE. That's what the NHL is. You're not the National Hockey League. You're just the NHL. That H stands for fucking whatever. It doesn't stand for hockey.
Speaker: Because the hockey's secondary to all the fucking bullshit that goes on, and it just sucks. Like, so many times, for so many fucking reasons, over the course of this podcast's existence, I have joked about it like, yeah, this is a show that's documenting my... documenting my... documenting my... interest being murdered by this league.
Speaker: And now here we are in the middle of the playoffs, and I went from being so fucking excited to just being like, what the f - what the fuck was this past weekend? The fuck was that? And now it's like, cool, there's hockey on tonight. I'm probably gonna watch Ruins Panthers on my phone while the wife and I watch something on fucking Netflix.
Speaker: And that sucks. I want to be excited about hockey, but I can't be because that's not what this is. At least from the NHL perspective, I can be excited by the PWHL. I'm very excited by the PWHL. To be honest, there have been some really, really good playoff games so far. Yes.
Speaker: You know, fucking Minnesota got a big win against Toronto and what looked like a pretty damn packed house in Minnesota, which good for Minnesota. Finally getting a team that can do something in the playoffs because Lord knows the fucking wild can't buy for a while now. Yeah, so man, just I don't know. Like I'm so. Just bummed out by all this shit in a time where I should be excited to watch hockey and I'm just.
Speaker: It's so sick of it, it's so frustrating. Again, the directive for the officials, nope, we can't call the rule book, then why the fuck is it a rule? Nope, we can't get this right upon review. Nope, we didn't see that review angle, otherwise we might have done something. Just fuck off. Hey guys, freaking news. Excuse me.
Speaker: Jacob Truba has won the Mark MSCA NHL leadership award. No. No, no, no, no. Lead by the elbow. You're fucking joking. No, I'm not joking. No. This is a direct tweet from the NHL account on Instagram.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true. I just like him. Truba has been awarded the Mark Messier and it's a leadership over twenty twenty three twenty four twenty four. He best exemplified great leadership qualities to his team on and off the ice this season. No, I don't see it on on Twitter. No, it's it's there. All right. It's there where he's breaking. I just put it in our chat. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah. He's a leader. The funny thing is like Jacob Truba off the ice does seem like a really good dude on the ice. He's dirty as fuck. But again, he's incentivized like fuck it. Like, you know, I sit there and I call out Jacob Truba for being an elbowing fucking asshole. Why not?
Speaker: They're not gonna suspend you. They're not. Why would they? And if they do, you can rightfully put up a fuss about being suspended because, well, what about all these other examples? So then Rangers fans are like, well, we're getting fucked here because that didn't happen. And yeah, you are getting fucked and they got fucked and everybody gets fucked. Fuck you. Give the NHL money. The end. I don't like the NHL. I want to.
Speaker: Well, no, I I like I want to like the hockey that the NHL plays. It's hard because the NHL can't get out of its own way. It's absolutely insane that he gets that award. Hmm. I don't know what else to add, to be honest. Like I said, I'm just he's been ass like.
Speaker: I'm just frustrated by the state of the NHL like I said at a time like this it's like I have more interest for the first seriously for the first time since like 2010 and even then I had an immense interest but like not even like this is probably the first time ever
Speaker: been like die -hard Celtics fan for a while, right? Like I grew up as a die -hard Celtics fan. I saw them win in 2008. I was interested for the next couple of years. And then once they started moving on from Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, my interest dipped. I'm more interested in the NBA playoffs right now than I am in the NHL. And that's probably the first time in my life that's ever been the case. Aside from, you know, lockouts and the NBA was the only option.
Speaker: That sucks. Like as a fucking diehard hockey fan, that sucks to be like, yeah, I have more interest in the NBA right now than I do the Stanley Cup playoffs. And that's fucking crazy. But that's the case.
Speaker: So anyway, um, time will tell how much longer this is a hockey puck. Do we have any viewer questions? No, I didn't even put the fucking mark out there. The only thing, what we could talk about is, uh, do you see the NHL 20 Fords coming to Xbox cloud? I don't know if that, I don't know if that'll, yeah, apparently, um,
Speaker: They're adding NHL to NHL 24 to the Xbox cloud gaming option. What is that? Which makes which makes me wonder if because we discovered that way of being able to do co -op PC only with two players, right? Is how we discovered that basically through parsec and then Xbox screen sharing stuff like that. I technically sin and I could play franchise mode together, but it's only the two of us. So this would give us the told on
Speaker: I don't know if this would give us the ability to do more than two people. No, it won't. So what it does, the way the cloud works is that it basically runs it on a virtual Xbox. So it wouldn't be the same way that we do it over what we're doing. We found a roundabout way of connecting together on the consoles. So what it does is there's a service center in near the closest city to you, and it basically connects to a series X in one of those servers and runs it that way.
Speaker: Which means this could be like a theoretical start to like, wow, you can play NHL literally anywhere. And if more people use the cloud service, it would be more data for them to possibly pitch to the uppers at EA sports or EA in general about having a PC port. So like theoretically speaking, this could be a good thing, but I highly doubt people are going to use it. I highly think we're going to use it.
Speaker: Well, um, you guys want to hear me talk about my birthday? Yeah, go ahead. Let's try to end this on a positive because I got nothing. I'm just bad.
Speaker: It was good. My knee is going pretty well. It's actually feeling a lot better. Growing stronger and stronger each day. Yeah, it is growing stronger and stronger. So I talked about this recently. My mom went to England for a couple weeks to go for a little vacation, but she ended up actually doing work while she was over there. Workaholic, all that kind of thing.
Speaker: So my mom got me, uh, she's like, Hey, do you want anything from England? Well, I'm over there. I said, get me a bunch of walkers. If you don't know walkers are the great bread equivalent of lay ships. And that, that stuff's busting. It's bussing. I got the, I was eating the, I was snacking on the sizzling, smoky bacon, smoky bacon.
Speaker: And over here, it's great that even looks like it's made by lays with that fucking it is oh it is oh Okay, that's kind of like how Burger King in Australia is called hungry jacks. Oh Yeah, we discovered that on geoguesser. Oh, man. You don't understand hungry jacks looks fucking sick I don't care what it is. I'm gonna make a trip to Australia and go there and eat it myself. Oh
Speaker: We can plan it together. But I have like 20 bags of that and a bunch of like sweet candies and all that. And there is this baker who makes like, I want to say decade like designer cookies. So he made like a red velvet and Oreo cookie.
Speaker: You made like a green velvet. I'm not sure what the hell that's going to taste like, but it was very, very interesting. So that's basically kind of why I did my birthday. You know, I also went to eat giubi as I usually do.
Speaker: I wouldn't. It looked like a Benny on his, aren't they cooking the food for you on the flip it up onto their hat? Yeah. No, for this one, it's you cook your own food and they give you like top quality, different kinds of meats, like a black pepper Calbi. They had this like miso marinated steak on there as well.
Speaker: Some vegetables as well. Usually I just get the salmon on there grow along there. I've been begging to take guys there Because it's it's a good place to eat Honestly, it's really great. They have a good menu selection. They just have the prices a little bit, but it's definitely worth it. I'm a regular there That's where I usually go. I used to go there before doing sports gamer cast which was a lot of fun. I Thought of a way to end this show
Speaker: the history of the Marc Messier Leadership Award and its prior winners. At face value, let me know if you disagree with the concept of any of these guys winning this award. The first ever winner in 2007 was Chris Chellios. No, that makes sense. He was probably like 65 years old at that point. Yeah, that's pretty... Jesus, he was like 45.
Speaker: 2008 Matt Sundeen. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Jerome Aginla. Absolutely. 2010 Sydney Crosby. Oh, no brainer. No brainer. Zidane Ochara. No brainer. Yeah. Shane Dome. Yep. Daniel Alfordson. Yeah. Afro Swede. Dustin Brown.
Speaker: No. Disagree. Absolutely not. Fucking another elbow god right there. There you go. You landed Hurdle's career. Fuck him. Jonathan Taves. Nope. He knew. He knew. Stop comparing Sullivan to the Taves, please. 2016. Cher Weber, boy. I love it. Oh, Cher Weber. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 2017. Nick Foligno. Yep. Yeah. Foligno, Foligno, Foligno. Foligno! 2018. Derek Englund. I feel like Vegas was new. He was from Vegas. Yeah, I was like, where was Englund at that time? Yeah, Vegas. Okay, okay. Okay, fair. 2019. Wayne Simmons. Hell yeah, Wayne. Talk with Wayne.
Speaker: 2020. Mark Giordano. Yep. Yeah. Patrice Bergeron. No brainer. No, I'm just kidding. Of course. Yeah, of course. Anze Copatar. Absolutely. Oh, man. Steven Stamkos. Yep. Yeah.
Speaker: And Jacob Truba. Jesus. Elbows to the future of your face. Let's see. Can we pick? Let's see how many captains we can pick that we think could have and maybe we should have won this award over Truba. Let's pull up a list of NHL captains. Can you pull that list for the captains, please? All right. Your current list of NHL captains.
Speaker: Or yeah, you can just read them off. For the Anaheim Ducks, they do not currently have a captain. The Coyotes are obviously inactive. Boston Bruins, Brad Marshand. Is he more deserving than Truva? Probably. Calgary, Mikhail Backlund. Carolina Jordan Stahl. Colorado's captain, still Gabriel Andeskog. Columbus, Boone Jenner.
Speaker: Dallas has Jamie Ben, Detroit Dylan Larkin, Edmonton Connor McDavid, Florida with Barkoff, Kopitar in LA, Jared Spurgeon in the soda.
Speaker: What the fuck, Suzuki's the captain? Yeah, new Suzuki, captain of Montreal. Yossi in Nashville. He sure in New Jersey. Well, there's Lee for the Islanders. Drew obviously for the Rangers. Kachuk and Ottawa. Katorie and Philly. Crosby in Pittsburgh. Kachur in San Jose. Braden Shen is the captain of the St. Louis Blues. Stamp Coast in Tampa. Tavares in Toronto. Quinn Hughes in Vancouver. Mark Stone in Vegas. Ovi and Adam Lowry in Winnipeg.
Speaker: At least half of them are more deserving. Yeah, like I would say Anders Lee for, you know, helping pull that team in the playoffs. Barkov because he hasn't won it. It's a legacy award, right? Dylan Larkin, whose team fell apart without him. Jordan fucking stall, who's been the captain forever and continues to help push that Carolina team.
Speaker: And I would even, I would choose vacant over a true. The description, by the way, of the Messier leadership award is this awarded for individual who leads by positive example through on ice performance, motivation of team members and the dedication play. I'm elbowing you.
Speaker: and a dedication to community activities and charitable causes. So I'd have to know more charity. He checks one out of three of those boxes, maybe two. Yeah. Sorry, Rangers fans, but you have a scrub captain. What can I say? He puts players on LTIR. That's a good thing for their, for their teams franchises. You know, like, come on. He's doing you a favor. I can cussing your star player.
Speaker: Was it the cancer commercial that got him in? Probably. Yeah. My tweet will be nothing says leadership like charging elbow first into every situation. Elbow through a brick wall for this guy. Bravery defined. Hold on. I got one.
Speaker: gentlemen I think we're gonna wind things down we'll probably be back next week hopefully I'm in a bit better spirits about this stupid fucking league but probably not because you know I just got to get back to
Speaker: Being alright, you know accepting it for what it is Basically, it's just they're making it very fucking difficult right now again Not just in relation to Boston, Florida, but Edmonton Vancouver has been a shit show as well It's just It sucks to you know It sucks to want to enjoy something and you should be able to enjoy it in that way but then you know, you don't get to dictate these things the NHL is gonna operate the way it wants to operate and
Speaker: You know, accept it or watch something else and I'm going to start watching other things. With that endo, what are you? Elvatine endo. Lead by example. The example is a picture of an elbow. Damn it. I got to see that. I'm going to like that shit.
Speaker: Uh, what did I got going on? Uh, nothing much. Uh, just mostly resting my knee, taking a week off of hockey and all that stuff. I might actually stream. Fuck. I'm funny. That's a fucking A plus tweet. Holy shit.
Speaker: Oh man, I'm good. Um, catching on twitch .tv slash endurance M endurance. Um, so funny thing about my birthday as well. I shoot a picture with me as a child as a small little infant. I think that was like a year old at the time of the photo. And there was a lady in that picture and taps was like, so that's mama. I'm like, no, that's my other mom. He's like, huh? You have another mom? Like, yeah, I have two moms, two moms. No, not gay, which is, which is interesting.
Speaker: I'm not going to ask you to explain that because I want to plug something to go ahead. Go ahead. I just started a new franchise mode series, the Utah Mammoth, and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: It's a great way to stay in shape. Tremendous. Yeah. And I, oh man, my voice is still, it's still tough, but I am going to have another series drop in a banner Lord. It's going to be great. And then hopefully I'll be able to stream a few times before I leave. But at this point I'm like, dude, I'm going to be able to stream like seven times maybe, and then just be gone for three months. So I'm like, do I even do it? Cause I can't, I don't know if I'll be able to stream there. Cause her internet's not fantastic. We'll see though.
Speaker: Well, you know, um, in the meantime, I'll still be on Twitch pretty much every night as well. Um, you know, we've been playing, we've been playing some, some retro games as of late. We might be in line for more won't be NHL legacy. Cause holy fuck. Um, but hey, you know, fun, fun times, at least I can find a way to fucking have fun with hockey. It won't be by watching the NHL.
Speaker: Oh, God. With that, everybody, we thank you for tuning in. Sid and I should be dropping a new episode of the Family Guys podcast as well this weekend as he continues to recover. As he just mentioned, for now, try to enjoy hockey if you can. Good luck.
