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Swell & Swole - Tougie's Take Podcast (3/15/24)
152 Plays1 year ago
- The Fella's return to talk about the NHL Trade Deadline, the disappointment of Star Wars Battlefront and more!
- Subscribe to the podcast YouTube channel!
- Check out our Discord!
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Transcript
Introduction and Technical Recap
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome, everybody, to another edition of the Two Keys Take podcast. We're back again. It's us, the guys, the fellas reunited for the first time. Well, and what feels like longer than about a week, week and a half.
Personal Anecdotes and Friend Group Dynamics
00:00:12
Speaker
The last episode was great because Endo lost power 50 minutes into it. Oh, yeah. And we lost all of his audio and all of his video. But he's here this time endurance. How are you?
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm tired dude. I just got back from painting a bedroom and it was great because it was my mom and I being passive aggressive with each other so you know it was great.
00:00:40
Speaker
That sounds awful, actually. Yeah. It was actually pretty good. We were relatively quiet, but she tried to teach me something or give me advice or whatever. I'm just like, shut up. I haven't slept. I'm here painting a room. It's really hot in here. There's no light because we're doing the ceiling. And it was just like, I don't want the advice. I love you. But please stop. I just wanted to get this done kind of thing.
00:01:05
Speaker
That sounds terrible. Yeah. I agree with Sin. That sounds horrific. Care to go now. Yeah, that's a way to view it.
Gaming Industry Critique
00:01:14
Speaker
Sin, I would ask how you're doing, but our first topic of the day has to do with something that I know has been a big source of frustration within our big friendo group chat. Mm-hmm. Please tell me your thoughts on Star Wars Battlefront. Oh, my God.
00:01:34
Speaker
Okay. All right. They re-released the classic collection of Star Wars Battlefront. It's basically the first two games now with servers back. Something that we had way back in the day, of course. It's a freaking mess.
00:01:52
Speaker
The servers were awful to start off with. You cannot party up with your friends to join lobbies together. The only way you can maybe play with your friends is create a private match and then just search the name of the match that you created and then all join. But all you can do is instant action, just playlists of maps. They don't have online for galactic conquest, any sort of co-op so you can't play the campaign online.
00:02:37
Speaker
they update they quote unquote updated all the graphics except your FPS is limited to 30 if you're playing online so it's not updated whatsoever yep yep your FPS is updated limited to 30 all the textures were updated but they didn't compress anything so the the two games
00:02:44
Speaker
with your friends.
00:02:57
Speaker
are like 70 gigs of space, whereas in the past, I think it was like a total, it was less than 10 gigabytes of space for the two games on their own in the passes, like the classic versions of them. It is, it's not a remake, it is a scam cash grab.
00:03:15
Speaker
And I don't like how my refund goes through because this is bullshit. And the only reason I got that was in the hope that you could play Galactic Conquest online. Why else would you get that game? Why not just play the modern battlefronts? Because all they are is just ha ha, you know, blaster go burr online. So why not just play those fucking games if you can't do any of the cool game modes that was in that game online? It's it's literally a copy paste.
00:03:44
Speaker
that takes up too much space and costs way too much. Just buy the originals. Buy the fucking originals. They're like $20 combined anywhere. And you have the same experience besides, oh, we can't play online. Who the fuck cares?
00:04:03
Speaker
It's funny how you mentioned compression and all that and how games now are just bloated out like a motherfucker. Like the new Call of Duty game is like 120 gigabytes at minimum. At least now with some games you can like install like the campaign or the online with the online is like 100 gigs and it's like the campaign's only like 30 gigs of like space. But my favorite was when the Xbox One launched.
00:04:30
Speaker
Titanfall was a launch game for that game. And they found out that Titanfall was one of the biggest size for an install for a game. And they found out that the reason why the install was so big is that they used uncompressed audio files. And of all the space, it was just all audio files. And people were like, are you serious?
00:04:57
Speaker
I have been watching this this vaunted group chat that I mentioned, because obviously, the reason why we haven't been here for the past little bit is your boy got COVID finally. And, you know, as much as people are like, Oh, it's just the flu. That's still not really conducive to good, good quality for someone who talks for a living. Yeah.
00:05:27
Speaker
So, we miss some time, basically. The flu still sucks. Yeah, I was gonna say, as if having the flu doesn't suck, as if not being able to breathe properly doesn't suck. Yeah, people die of the flu. We went from people die of the flu to, oh, COVID's just the flu. Right.
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's fine. Yeah, don't worry. It's great. People are great. I've had some fun interactions on Twitter during that time. But I had been paying attention to this and I'm like, oh, this is going to be sin rant worthy because we were looking forward to this game and the idea of like, oh, shit, we can play this game like we wouldn't have to do it through like parsec or anything like that. Like we can actually play it and to see it be.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yet another game that's going to go down as a massive disappointment. Like, it reminds me of the GTA collection. Like, apparently that's been fixed up recently. Yeah, it was GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas that they remastered, which it's really. They just have the AI. Yeah, it was an absolute disaster at launch. They were memed to death for the rain effect.
00:06:40
Speaker
That was literally, it just looked like a PNG that was just constantly cycling from the top of the screen to the bottom. And unfortunately, this Battlefront thing seems to be the same thing, and it's just kinda...
00:06:55
Speaker
Another sad sign of a trend, right? Yeah. They're all like, I'm sorry to cut you off, but all they're doing is nostalgia farming. That's all they're doing. They're hoping, all right, millennials and shit, they love nostalgia. They got money now. They're all in the working class. We're just going to keep farming their nostalgia. That's them. They're in a fucking field just, and we're all, we're all planted there.
00:07:20
Speaker
our heads above the soil barely above the soil because so many people live in paycheck to paycheck and they want us to give what the you know the hard earned little money that we all have to get the nostalgia fix and then it's literally worse than the originals in a lot of ways it's like
00:07:38
Speaker
All you can do is play online, and that barely works any of the time. You didn't update anything. Like, there's no new ops. In fact, they took away options. You can't invert your fucking look anymore. That was a thing in the base game. How do you take away features from the base game and not add any? Like, not adding any is bad enough. Like, you should at least add some more customization options, like for some of the offline modes, like Galactic Conquest. Maybe I want one where all the battles are long. Let me increase the reinforcement count. No, we're actually just going to take away options from it.
00:08:08
Speaker
Sid, you play sports games, you're used to that, come on. But Sid, do you remember back in the day Star Wars? I remember Chewbacca. I am used to it happening in sports games. I just don't want it to happen to those things that are near and dear to my heart. I want a company who actually cares about something to come back and try to make something cool or add things that people want. Think about all the feedback to Battlefront 1 and 2, the reboots.
00:08:38
Speaker
people like, where's Galactic Conquest? Where's Galactic Conquest? Oh, the second one, oh, we have a story mode. Where's Galactic Conquest? And Aspire Media couldn't look at all that and be like, hey, maybe we should do a little bit of work instead of putting it through an AI machine and add some things that people want the way this thing actually has replayability. I hope they're getting kicked in the ass with refunds right now.
00:09:05
Speaker
And I hope I get mine. You know who owns Aspire Group? Embracer Group. Embracer Group is basically the company that buys every single game studio and gives them the squeeze of death. Once you're basically acquired by Embracer Group, you are basically on you're on death row.
00:09:24
Speaker
The amount of studios owned by Embracer Group that have closed within the past three months, I'll say it this way. There have been more layoffs from Embracer Group companies either being sold or having to go independent in the past three months than the entirety of layoffs in the last year. So at all 2023, there have been more layoffs in the past four months than there have been in 2023. It's ridiculous.
00:09:53
Speaker
Like gaming's gaming hitting a bubble and it's the bubbles popping and development costs are too high Money's being thrown around different places is all about reallocating funds Like um, the the development team who made saints row, they're gone They're just gone now like volition got shut down. It's crazy looking at that one Yeah, they um, embrace your groups Wikipedia page is fun because um, well not fun, but uh, they have
00:10:23
Speaker
A section listing the subsidiaries that they have. Which includes like THQ Nordic and people like that. Deep Silver who are known for making... I remember Deep Silver. God, what was the name of the fucking zombie game?
00:10:40
Speaker
I don't know. They made Homefront Revolution, which was a fantastic game. But that was another game that was fucked on on release. I think that was Deep Silver who made a Homefront Revolution. I think it was a great game. But in the beginning, when it first launched and when I first got it, the game wouldn't save. Yeah. Sucker Punch games also embrace a group of acquisition. They own a lot of stuff.
00:11:05
Speaker
They now have a list of nine studios since 2019 that they have either divested or outright closed in just the last five years alone, including this month, Saber Interactive, who they acquired just a few years ago.
00:11:25
Speaker
They were known primarily for quite a few different games. They did the Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition on 360 back in the day. Maybe not the craziest studio in the world, but still it's another example of like, hey, we're going to buy the studio and you're out of a job. See you later.
00:11:45
Speaker
Another one is Toys for Bob. They were in the filming for a long time. They worked on the Spyro Reimagined, Crash Bandicoot, Remasters and all that. They went independent because they were going to get the tight squeeze from Activision so they bought themselves out of their contract. And yeah, like right now if you are a game developer,
00:12:05
Speaker
Uh, it is a scary time because there are so many layouts happening. There are a bunch of layouts from Microsoft and then they had a presser like a, like a week after being like, well, you know, the future of Microsoft is like, we got one more console coming out and let, wow. Look, we migrated everyone over to having game pass core game pass ultimate. So our numbers for people with game pass went up. It's like, yeah, you just reassigned everyone gave him a different title. Hmm.
00:12:29
Speaker
Like if we had a gaming podcast, I could just go off completely on all the stuff because it is, it is, it is a rough time. I couldn't because I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. I just like playing games and I like having fun and I like. Yeah. Yeah. Don't look behind the curtain. Do not look behind the curtain. I don't plan to because I know it's going to depress me.
00:12:47
Speaker
Oh man. It makes so much sense when you realize like why things are the way they are and why consumers are getting pissed because of quality of games and just TLDR, just a lot of mismanagement, a lot of mismanagement. And then when you try to manage everything, you realize, oh shit, we need a bigger budget. Then you don't get a bigger budget. And then for instance, repeat. You know, who never pays for it is the people at the top.
00:13:16
Speaker
No, no, they get all the good stuff. They get all the bonuses and all the money and all the workers and everyone get fucked. Exactly. Correct.
Music and Social Media Trends
00:13:26
Speaker
So thank you for listening to our hockey podcast. But yeah, I knew that was going to be a fun little warm up discussion. And like I said, it is good to be back now that I can speak for more than three seconds without feeling like I'm going to die.
00:13:43
Speaker
That's a fun time. And yeah, hey, video games, you try to have fun where you can. MLB, the show came out last night. We started up a franchise on that. Got to bring back these bad boys for road to the show. Yeah, I still need to get some of those. Oh, yeah. Play that your control free condom slots. Let's go, baby. Oh, yeah. Cock rings. That's what it was. The cock rings.
00:14:10
Speaker
Surprised you forgot what you would deem them. But oh, yeah, the cockpit. Sorry. Yeah, I'm I don't know. Like, I'm excited for MLB, even though it's a yearly sports game. But to that same point, it's like you have the yearly sports titles that are like, hey, how don't we have this that we used to have? Is it on game pass again? Yes, it's not.
00:14:31
Speaker
It's not. Yeah, I was going to say it's not out yet on Game Pass, but it is going to be. So when does it come out? Nineteen. Yeah. Oh, fuck you. I'm just going to wait. Like it's not. I'm not paying for that. Yeah. If you pay 40 dollars now, you get it. Plus a bunch of pre-order bonuses and everything. Don't care if you're on the show. That's all I play. I don't even play franchise on that. Dude, I just play home run derby. That's all I do. Literally, I just have shirts that just me playing home. My name is not when I hit dangers. I'll pick out the hit dangers.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, very well recommend waiting for that but God yeah, I don't know. I'm too busy wrapped up in sports games and what the hell they're gonna have not that I wasn't looking forward to Star Wars, but This is what it is. We'll have to parsec pals at one night and
00:15:20
Speaker
Relive relive the glory days. Yeah, all I need is yeah, it'll have to it'll be like split screen Which does kind of suck, but yeah, well, that's the problem. There's no other way. Yeah Thanks. Yeah, thanks for ruining another good thing Oh You bitch anyway Obama
00:15:44
Speaker
Is there anything else you guys wanted to discuss after our little bit of time away? No, let's get into your questions. Move this thing along. There you go. So, the first one comes from 1cynicalblues. This might spark a debate. It probably won't, but let's see. What is the most overrated ACTC song? Thunderstruck. All of them. I'm with Sin on this. Yeah. I think it's all of them.
00:16:13
Speaker
I grew up listening to a good amount of ACD, seeing my dad's a relatively big fan. A month or so ago, my wife and I were playing through all the old rock bands, at least most of them that I could find. We were both always more into Guitar Hero than Rock Band, but we played through all the Guitar Heroes, so I'm like, fuck it for Christmas, rock bands.
00:16:34
Speaker
And we played through what was essentially a big track pack for ACDC. Dude, I had that. I had that. I was it was fucking it was it was like, oh, sweet ACDC. And I'm like, I fucking hate this. It was bad, man. Yeah. Like they they are so guilty of almost every song sounding exactly the fucking same. Yeah, yeah.
00:17:04
Speaker
especially when you play them all back. It's like a pokey, pokey crowd. I don't think there's too much discussion to have. I think, yeah, just ACDC is not for me. So the best part about that track list is that was live and recorded from a tour they were going on at the time.
00:17:26
Speaker
So it was like an 18 track list of just the entire thing. I mean, you got a code and you got an actual copy of the game. So you could like put it into your your rock band pedals for the future. But if you just play the standalone disc and, you know, I was like, yeah, I'll give it a try. And I don't know how long you can take fucking rolling thunder for rain and just going off like 100 percent. You have to be like, I can't. I can't.
00:17:56
Speaker
I mean, the funny thing is, like, you're not wrong. Like, that's just, that's what it is. Um, it's good for meme quality, but yeah. Let there be rock. It's like an eight minute song. Yeah. Yeah. Next question from AJ. What is one current fad or trend that you absolutely hate?
00:18:17
Speaker
video games trying to capture nostalgia. Yeah. Let's just go with that. Cause like when I'm thinking about all the youth trends, I don't, I don't, that doesn't bother me. I've never, I've never become dancing in public.
00:18:31
Speaker
I don't care. Who the fuck cares? People get mad at that. What are you doing with your life? Why do you care what other people are doing? If you're cringing at someone else's, you're insecure. No, for me, it's going to a concert.
00:18:50
Speaker
And then the one viral, the one, like the one song that this band is known for, like from TikTok, goes viral. People pay attention, they're all on their phones when the song's playing. And when the song's gone, they're just, they're just not paying attention at all. They don't give a fuck. I'm like, that's like the worst.
00:19:06
Speaker
That's what people do, though. I mean, yeah. Yeah, not everyone's going to appreciate all the musicality. That's just how it goes. That's why pop music exists. It's not complicated. It's not it's not tremendously amazing music, but it's simple. And that's what connects with the basic person. Fucking normies.
00:19:26
Speaker
There were a few moments, you know, with me having been at TD Garden on Wednesday for another. Again, I went to a freaking AW pay per view on the third day, a freaking TV taping on Wednesday. Yeah, I'm ready to be home, as I've said.
00:19:42
Speaker
There were there were a few moments and I have literally like pictures and videos of this on my phone Where like someone was making their way to the ring and I could look like I'm the type for the most part where I'm just like, okay I'm in the moment. I'm enjoying it, but then I'd look down Everybody's like this. Yeah, just filming. It's just like man Who cares? Like I take a few pictures and a few videos here and there for nostalgia's sake but
00:20:12
Speaker
That's what people do nowadays. And I talked about this too on Twitter. When I was down in Greensboro for my flight home, I ran into numerous wrestlers in my terminal who were catching their flights back home. I didn't get pictures with any of them, though. There were a couple that I talked to, including
00:20:32
Speaker
I wrestled by the name of Lord Lo for five fucking minutes. I got to talk to this guy like a human being because we were both in line at Starbucks. That's the best. That's a better experience than having a picture with someone so you can show people the reason why I got to talk to him for five minutes. This big motherfucker ordered three dozen egg whites. Hell yeah. And they thought he was joking and only gave him a dozen. And he's like, no, I ordered three.
00:21:03
Speaker
So I got extra time to talk to this guy before other people were like, it's him! And then ran over him like, can I get a picture? Can I get a picture? And I just kind of like, have a good day and walked away. Yeah. Because that's just what you do. But yeah, so much of it now, whether or not it's running into someone at the fucking grocery store or the airport or going to these events, is what can I put up on social media instead of just being like, yeah, I was there and I enjoyed it. It's like people feel the sense of like, I need to prove I was there, damn it. And it's like, dude.
00:21:33
Speaker
You could have just tweeted that story that Warlow ordered like fucking three dozen eggs Fucking ghast all over here. Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's like all right He told me about his lack of an ACL and one knee his fucking hamstring injury and the other and he ordered three dozen egg whites
00:21:54
Speaker
Too many leg drops, brother. Oh, Chad. That's just Chad behavior. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I only got one working knee. Give me some fucking egg whites. Basically. Give me all the whites, brother.
00:22:09
Speaker
My actual answer for this question, by the way, what's the current trend or fad? It's not even necessarily current because people have always done this. Ever since there have been cameras to film, even if it's fucking camcorders back in the day, fucking with people in public for the sake of content.
00:22:26
Speaker
Oh, that's the number one for me is Anybody where it's it's just a prank bro culture and just I got fucking with people or if you know It's at a fucking grocery store and making an employee's day They're more difficult for the yucks like that. That's the shit that's just like, you know if someone's like fucking tick-tock thing it's kind of a similar thing to it's it's that and
00:22:55
Speaker
the people that film in a gym and they're, you know, they're doing their, their fucking poses instead of actually working out and someone walks in front of the camera and they're like, can you believe how rude this person was? Yeah. It's a tie between those type of people and that type of content that fucking drives. Oh man. You're a big fan of Joey Swole.
00:23:13
Speaker
I don't know who that is. Okay, so he's like the guy who like whenever like people have an issue with the people with the Recording everything there. He's kind of like defending them in the way. Okay Yeah, he's feeling like the good guy in this situation where he's like, yeah You can record and everything but just you know Be courteous and let people do their thing if they're not doing anything wrong like whatever like that kind of thing He seems like a pretty swell guy Swell and swole swell and swole. Yeah just like Wardlow
00:23:42
Speaker
Wardlow. Yeah, I'm with you. Any sort of, any sort of, like, I don't care about any trends as long as they're not, like, hurting others. That's me. So I'm with Yatugi on the whole, the prank culture has gone way too far. Like, there's some where it's, like, in good taste and stuff like that. Another thing, one thing that I don't know how to feel about is the publicized doing good deeds.
00:24:09
Speaker
I gave this homeless guy a lottery card that was actually a winner or I set it up with this guy and gave him a bunch of money and stuff. I don't know if you guys were, there was that one content creator who did that a long time ago and then ended up putting the guy up in an apartment and stuff like that. But then you learn that he put him in an apartment, the lease is only under his name, the bank account that he gave him, he tracks everything he purchases and it's just like,
00:24:35
Speaker
It's like, I don't know. If you're just doing a good thing, like just do it. You don't like Jimmy beast. You don't like, you don't like what Jimmy beast and the, and the beast thing that he's done for people. Not after I heard that fucking interview of him on the podcast where he considers dates to be a waste of money for him because he's, he's always thinking about is the hours that he's spending at the date. And there are hours that he's not making hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he does give almost all his money away, so. No, no, he gives a small fraction of it away, Endo. He gives a lot, he gives a lot of money away. Sure, yeah, he gives money, but the fact of the matter is he's doing that to make money at the same time. I mean, how are you going to have money to give? You don't have to make money.
00:25:22
Speaker
Well, see, that's the whole debate over this, right? Is it exploitative on his part? Yes. Yes. Is he doing good with it? Yes. Is he doing it for the right reasons? Who the fuck knows? There was the whole thing where, I think it was earlier this year, because the only time I ever really hear about Mr. Beast is when I watch Philip DeFranco's weekly news show.
00:25:50
Speaker
basically like he went into a Walmart after hearing like hey a bunch of kids being like I'm trying to get these but they're not in this wall so he went to this Walmart discovered a bunch of them were in the back and was like yeah can we get these can we get these put up outside to sell so that was a whole conversation is like
00:26:11
Speaker
trying to tell people to do their job for the sake of his product, but also while it's helping out the store because I don't know. I don't know where I where I side on that because I certainly see since point in regards to. It's a conversation of OK, are you doing it for the right reasons? Does it matter as long as people are getting the help? I I don't know. I think to me, it just it just it's just a symptom of a much larger problem.
00:26:41
Speaker
is that he shouldn't be necessary. Mr. Beast should not be necessary in a functioning society. And yeah, it should be a luxury and not something that people are desperate for. And that's what that's what rubs me the wrong way is that he's using people's desperation for content.
00:26:59
Speaker
Um, he, you can be altruistic and not get anything in return. Therefore he is not truly altruistic because he's, that's his whole shtick is to make money. And again, that's just that. And I, before I heard that podcast interview, I did think it was doing good things. But then when I hear that he doesn't, he considers dates with his girlfriend as wasted money in the fact that he's not making what he could be that fucking grind set mentality. Like that's just that I don't think he's a good person.
00:27:27
Speaker
because of that, like you can't have that mindset. You're missing out on life. I can't disagree. You know, I can't. That's just gonna continue to be a conversation surrounding that guy and people like that, where it's like, okay, reasons behind it and so on and so forth.
Wrestling Recommendations and Cultural Reflections
00:27:47
Speaker
Our next question from Hawks. What is one pro wrestling match that you think people should go and watch? Doesn't have to be your favorite, but one match that you think people should see?
00:27:57
Speaker
So, originally when I read this, and obviously Sin won't have an answer for this, but as I read this, it was my thought of almost like the question of if you had to show a non-wrestling fan a match that you think
00:28:10
Speaker
would get somebody into it, or they'd be like, oh, okay, I'm not into it, but I can see why people like it. What would that match be? And I can't have an answer for Endo, because Endo's already a wrestling fan, right? If he is. Sin at least gets a laugh out of wrestling meme culture. And I understand certain references, like, you have a great appreciation, as do Endo and I, for Macho Man, Randy Savage, Dragons, and Skyrim.
00:28:41
Speaker
I also have a great, great appreciation for the wrestlers themselves. Like I love listening to their interviews and listening to them top shop about like, you know, wrestling and things like that. I have a great and I still would love stone gold to this day. Just like, yeah.
00:28:58
Speaker
So it's tough for me to be like, okay, if I could show sin one match to just be like, promos are great too. I can just watch all the promos, especially the funny ones. Who was that Jay lethal when he was fucking just mocking, uh, fire all the time. And they were like two dogs back and forth barking. He was doing the walk.
00:29:29
Speaker
And you can tell the whole time Rick Flair was trying so hard not to break because the impression was so fucking good. See, I don't think I'd even have a difficult time with you to just be like, hey, check this out. And you'd be like, okay, I get it. So, God, I...
00:29:44
Speaker
I don't know, because like for the longest time, it depends on the person. That's that's my official answer, right? It depends on the person. When I met my wife, she hadn't watched a second of wrestling in her fucking life. And now since over the past four plus years, she's gone to events and has had a great time. But, you know, she went to an event last June in Boston for AEW entitled Blood and Guts.
00:30:14
Speaker
Um, that is something, obviously, she never thought she'd be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go watch this fucking spectacle of a weapons-based match.
00:30:24
Speaker
That obviously wasn't the type of match where I'd be like, hey, wrestling, check out Darby Allen trying to kill himself on a match by match basis. You know, it was it was it was the and actually what got her to kind of pay attention a little bit with CM Punk's return like initially to AW when he first went there. And it was it was the promo. It was.
00:30:47
Speaker
you know, seeing just this guy, and how he commanded a crowd of 15,000 people plus. And I would be I'd be more likely to show somebody a promo over a match and then even match it depends on the type of person. For some people, it would be
00:31:10
Speaker
Mick Foley, Undertaker, Hell in a Cell and the spectacle of that. For other people, it would be OK, here's like this crazy athleticism or a match with even like Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair. Ric Flair's retirement match just because of like the emotion behind that match could be a good one. I'm sorry. Sweet Chin Music.
00:31:33
Speaker
I'm sorry, I love you. Or it would be something crazy fucking athletic. You know, I went to revolution earlier this month and it was Will Ospreay and Kenosuke Takeshita, which was in terms of like modern wrestling athletic feats. It's tough to find something more
00:31:57
Speaker
you know, exemplary of that style than that. So it depends on a lot of different factors. So I can't possibly name just one match because that's wrestling. It is a variety show in and of itself.
00:32:13
Speaker
And for some people, it's going to be the story, the characters, the talking more than it's going to be about the in-ring side of things. And for others, they just want to watch this crazy athletic display of simulated combat.
00:32:28
Speaker
I love the South Park episode about wrestling because the whole time it's just them talking and then Vince McMahon shows up and he's like, these are the best wrestlers I've ever seen and all they do the whole time is every time you think they're going to fight, they just go into another talking thing. It's the best. Such a good parody of wrestling. And you took my job. He took his chair. He took his chair.
00:33:04
Speaker
Our final question is Hockey related. Oh, let's go get us into the new thing I was gonna say is there anything else non hockey related that somebody wanted to bring up before? Over half an hour into this we actually not hockey on this hockey podcast
00:33:21
Speaker
Let's get someone someone asked me about my reaction to the creative Dragon Ball Z Akira Toriyama passing away Are they just assumed that you are because you're black?
00:33:41
Speaker
I'm just saying. Is that worse than the jokes I made about the meme templates last week? No, I think I've insinuated liking anime before. Dragon Ball Z was a massive part of my youth. I didn't realize at the time that Dragon Ball
00:34:03
Speaker
Weirdly enough it likes like instill a bunch of stuff about about like, you know persevering and being there and That one fucking fucker keeps wishing for Fucking panties for for the second Dragon Ball, so you wish for anything you want I want panties and he just gets panties is like even Shenron like dragons like why the fuck are you doing this? He gets through his wish and the dragon was a scatter loader again, but yeah, Akira Toriyama was very influential not only for
00:34:33
Speaker
Dragon Ball Z, but also I think Dragon's Quest as well. I think he had a head in that as well, too. His passing was very unfortunate. A lot of these manga artists, they work themselves to the bone because they always want to get as much projects as they can done as soon as possible. And these guys all pass away in their late 60s when they still have tons of life left in them. So it's unfortunate. Everything that could be said about Akira Toriyama
00:35:00
Speaker
has already been said so it's an unfortunate loss to you know manga and anime itself someone who's influential and could possibly have more possibly could have had more ideas to go through hopefully they do stuff in his honor and hopefully they fix the roll back in fucking Dragon Ball fighters too because I swear to god that shit's broken as hell I can go off about that I will not I am
00:35:29
Speaker
was never a big anime fan or a Dragon Ball fan, but it's one of those things where you can't have grown up around nerd culture or with an interest in nerd culture and not have understood the importance of the Dragon Ball series.
00:35:47
Speaker
Oh, man, dude, it is it was like the first time they've ever it was the first time in a manga or in a writing of art that they talked about like spirits and stuff like that. It was the first time ever. It was that like influential. And he had a bunch of other stuff and all that and, you know, controversies with Mr. Popo and all that stuff.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's great. I generally think Dragon Ball did have such a bit. It's had a massive cultural implication. You have, like, prime ministers and presidents of countries, like, honoring Akira Toriyama and mentioning Dragon Ball itself. Like, Japanese sign language. Talk about Dragon Ball. It's the kamekameha. It's the actual kamekameha for sign language.
00:36:32
Speaker
This represents Dragon Ball. It's crazy. Like the amount of influence that that series has had on the world. It's insane. I will say my appreciation for Toriyama comes from his involvement in Chrono Trigger. Having designed the characters for that. I mean, especially to like you. It's so simple, but you will always be a legend in my mind.
00:36:59
Speaker
For in a game about time travel, creating a character called Frog, who is a frog, but he's also a knight from the middle ages.
San Jose Sharks Scandal Discussion
00:37:14
Speaker
Nice. Just for that. Just for the fact that you have a frog that carries a broadsword. Legend. That's all you needed to do. He could have left it at just that, and I would have been a fan.
00:37:29
Speaker
Let's get to that hockey question here. Comes from Bouncy. What do you hate the most about being a fan of your team? It can be anything from the team itself, to the fans, to the location. It can even be something as minute and inconsequential as I don't like the shade of blue that my team uses. Now, really, really quickly.
00:37:50
Speaker
Because we do have a kind of subject to talk about. Yeah, that's my sins sins least favorite thing about the San Jose sharks right now. Well, I'll just read this from the San Jose spotlights Brandon, I believe. San Jose sharks sued for child sex abuse cover up. Again, you can find the full article at San Jose spotlight calm.
00:38:15
Speaker
But a recently filed lawsuit claims that shark sports and entertainment covered up a junior sharks coach alleged grooming and sexual abuse of child hockey players Jesus That is going to be the serious answer for sin Yes, because the details of this of this lawsuit and the allegations that are out there are horrific The
00:38:44
Speaker
I guess the one thing I could say, right, is because we've kind of talked about how repeated instances of stories like this coming out have kind of affected our fandom of hockey. The thing I'm excited about right now in regards to stories like this is that we're still hearing about stories like this. It honestly kind of felt like when the Kyle Beach story broke that it was just going to be like, all right, nope, nope, we're never talking about stuff like this. Literally, Chicago. We're moving on. We're not talking about that.
00:39:12
Speaker
But you're still seeing stories like this being talked about. You're still seeing the Calgary Flames renounce the rights to a former draft pick after he was found guilty of rape in Finland. It still feels like progress is being made in regards to stories like this. But we didn't really have a great time to kind of bring up and acknowledge the fact that this was going on. Other than to take this question and be like, well, here's the serious answer. Yeah.
00:39:42
Speaker
I said, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that particular story at all, but I figured that was our opportunity to at least kind of acknowledge it. No, yeah, I do have some thoughts on it and it's pretty disgusting. Yeah, especially the whole cover up part of things. I always thought that my organization would be not the ones to try to cover something up, address it, deal with it properly. And yet. Yeah, this whole thing happens and
00:40:13
Speaker
I'm going to talk a little bit about what I think is going to happen just from an objective standpoint. This wasn't an NHL player, so we don't know what the NHL itself is going to do. It's still within the Sharks organization. They should and probably will face some sort of punishment. The precedent for which is what, $2 million? Yep. But I expect that our organization is the one that's going to have the book thrown at them.
00:40:39
Speaker
That's just how I think, because the precedent doesn't matter with the NHL, and now that this has happened once again in their league. So all the memes about, oh, the Sharks are doing, they, Macklin, Salabrini, welcome to San Jose, you know, here's a sexual assault thing. And that means we're, you know, we automatically get the first pick. I wouldn't be surprised if they take our pick away. And I wouldn't
00:41:01
Speaker
I wouldn't oppose that. It sure would fuck us over for a long, long time, but you don't cover shit up like this. You address it and you take care of it. That's what pisses me off the most is that this happened in this Junior Sharks organization, which has been such a supposed great thing for our city and for hockey in general, and you have a fucking predator there, and then you try to cover it up. Did you learn nothing?
00:41:27
Speaker
Did you learn absolutely nothing from Chicago? Or maybe that's the problem, is that Chicago did what they did, faced minimal punishment, and some asshole executives decide, okay, well, maybe it costs us some money, but this is horrible, just an absolutely horrible situation.
00:41:50
Speaker
and needs to get dealt with. It just sucks and pisses me off in a lot of things. It's just depressing. Like I said, I highly recommend everybody check out the full article, again, on San Jose Spotlight from March 8th, but it does go into details of
00:42:14
Speaker
Junior Sharks player's parents complained to the organization that this guy was a creep. Quote, the program supervisor raised these concerns to management at least five to 10 times during the span of five years between 2018 and 2023.
00:42:36
Speaker
those kind of institutional protections that always seem to be there. And it's not just a hockey thing, right? Like we saw this at Penn State with that whole fucking controversy and all of that shit.
00:42:54
Speaker
You know, the frustrating thing is that obviously this still happens and that these people still have this era of protection or like, oh, I can get away with this. No problem. The positive spin out of it is that you still have reporters who are like, no, I'm going to talk about this. This is happening. We're going to continue to shine a spotlight on this bullshit to try. Yeah, I hope Rick. I hope Rick Westad starts to get in on this because it needs to be brought to light and he's the one I trust the most to do so.
00:43:20
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. To kind of lighten the mood, do you have something just dumb about the sharks where you're like, I fucking hate them for this? You're gonna have to give me a chance to think on it. You guys go first with yours and then I'll circle back.
00:43:41
Speaker
That's supposed to be your team. Oh, I don't know. Do both. Oh, yeah. Your your e-sports team is fucking clowning, by the way. Jesus Christ. Your e-sports team is such a fucking clown. Oh, those fucking guys. I can't believe how they got that. First of all, they weren't that good. Second of all, atrocious, atrocious behavior from them.
00:44:04
Speaker
your top player is chirping someone because they, because they're losing a GWC. Meanwhile, the reason why he's in Cancun and he's not playing GWC games because he lost his GWC games. And then you turn that to a whole entire thing where you're like, Oh wow, where's this guy? Oh, he's in Cancun. Oh, we're going to drop some merge or whatever. I wonder how well they knew Aaron Fesh. Cause no one understood why they, cause entourage was in the running to become SGA gaming. Why the hell didn't you go with entourage?
00:44:33
Speaker
And their thing was, apparently, we like their potential more, especially for content creation. Fucking sucks. Entourage is at least funny. Yeah, there's no branding at all on their... I like to talk about, oh, we're going to grow the people as like content and stuff like that. None of the merch that they have for SJ Gaming has any of their players representing on there.
00:45:00
Speaker
And it's funny because one of them, one of the guys was like trying to turn back and be like, Oh wow, I got merch. It's like, that's like me posting my merch and on those that CA, by the way, have some new designs over there and being like, Oh wow. But my name, mine has my fucking name on it. What does yours have? Nothing. You get like 10 cents of the profits from that and you get a, you can buy a hat that's bit in it from a crack head and fucking San Diego Pier. Like what the fuck? San Diego. I don't know, man. I don't live there.
00:45:28
Speaker
Clearly, San Diego is closer to Anaheim in LA than it is. Whatever. I meant San Jose. And now what do you what do you as a Leafs fan try to pick one thing that you don't like about the Leafs? Um, I don't like how our fan base likes to victimize either a person or an entity. Elaborate.
00:45:55
Speaker
How do I explain this? Nick Kiprios is still going at Cal Dubas for shit that literally is not his fault. Yeah, it just is insane. Every time I see a Sports Night article, it's like, oh, Nick Kiprios, I'm like, I'm not reading that. I'm not reading that shit.
00:46:14
Speaker
I ain't reading all that either. Sorry, either good for you or sorry that it happened. Like I don't, I could not give a fuck. So you're the, you're the Eric Carlson of this podcast being like, ah, they got nothing to talk about up there. I don't know if you guys saw that. He was asked about, so there's like rumors that you could go back to Ottawa and he's like, yeah, the Canadian media has got nothing to talk about. Essentially like he's not wrong.
00:46:39
Speaker
He's not. The Canadian media pumped the tires for the Sens after they got Giroux. It's like, oh, it's going to be great. We're going to take it next year. It's going to be amazing. And then this year happened. And everyone's like, oh, wow. We didn't plan to, you know, we didn't try to plan the parade. It's like I've recedes, man. Mark the thought. Jesus, psych you, my thought. Christ.
00:47:07
Speaker
My least favorite thing about the Boston Bruins is probably the fans, some of them. I think we could all say that like the worst part. There's a bad section of fan for any sports team. That's just. Oh, yeah. My least favorite part of the Boston Bruins is still how they thought they could get away with signing Mitch Miller. Let's not forget about that.
00:47:34
Speaker
Want to keep that out there as to. And then they swept the the bio underneath the table, just kind of like, oh, it's fine. Not even a mutual agreement. It's like, oh, we're going to buy him out. So we still get all the money for signing bonuses and all that. It's great. You know, seven dollar water you bought a big business. Yeah. That's contract money right there.
NHL Trade Deadline Analysis
00:47:54
Speaker
Sure is. Yeah. How do you feel? Sin, your least favorite thing about the sharks. Yeah.
00:48:05
Speaker
Uh, we keep trading with Vegas. That's probably my least favorite thing right now. Well, you know.
00:48:13
Speaker
Let's uh, oh god, we did have a couple other things to talk about, but you know, we can get to those afterwards. Let's get to talking about the NHL trade deadline, because we haven't gotten to do that yet, and it's been a week now, and the dust has been able to settle a little bit. You know, we're starting to see, okay, positives, negatives to these deals. I'm perfectly fine with starting with the San Jose Sharks, who have officially been eliminated for playoff contention, by the way.
00:48:37
Speaker
And right now, currently lead the tank bowl for the number one odds in the draft lottery. They are two points behind Chicago, although the Sharks do have a game at hand. San Jose in the month of March were, they were busy. They were busy around the trade deadline. They moved Anthony Duchler and a seventh to Tampa for Jack Thompson and a third.
00:49:01
Speaker
They bizarrely acquired Klim Kostin for Redeem Schimik and a seventh that went to Detroit. I like that pick. It gets Schimik's contract off the books. Yeah, he was in the AHL, but you never know. Like, you keep, yeah, Klim Kostin, you never know. Like, that's just another one of those wild card players. Like, yeah, he's probably a solid bottom sixer, but hey, look what Zetterlin did. He was playing, you know, we thought he would be like a third, fourth liner, but like, he's been pretty decent middle sixer.
00:49:30
Speaker
They moved Nikita Hotjuk who was a part of the Timo Meijer trade with New Jersey last year to Calgary for a fifth round pick. They gave a seventh to Buffalo for goaltender Devin Cooley. They moved Koppel Kokkinen to New Jersey for a VTech Vanna check and a seventh and then the big one.
00:49:50
Speaker
They acquired David Edstrom in a first round pick in 2025 from the Vegas Golden Knights for two thirds and Tomรกs Hurdle on 17% retained salary over the next six years, is it?
00:50:06
Speaker
Sin, how are you feeling about the San Jose Sharks post deadline? Yeah, I posted a video with like my whole breakdown of what I thought that trade was, my feelings on it at the time. Now I have, there's a couple of things I wish. I wished for their 2024 unprotected pick because they do have that.
00:50:24
Speaker
Um, instead we get the 20, you know, the 25 unprotected, uh, which is fine. You know, it's, they probably wouldn't have given us the 24 unprotected simply because they're in the second wildcard spot right now. And if something terrible happened, you know, they're mad. They want that pick to either trade it or draft someone so they can trade them.
00:50:45
Speaker
So yeah, it's okay. Edstrom looking pretty decent again. He has a 30 second, so it's basically a second rounder. I don't like it. If you're retaining 17% for that long, you better get more back.
00:51:01
Speaker
You didn't have to trade him right now at the deadline. There could have been a bigger market for him in the off season with more teams. And we just keep everyone just keeps helping Vegas. Like, yeah, it could work out. Maybe Vegas falls off a cliff in twenty five. Highly doubt it. And.
00:51:21
Speaker
Yeah, the thing that bothers me most about the retention, it's not the money amount. The length does kind of suck, but the fact of the matter is we now have zero retention slots. Correct. And that is lasting through the entirety of next year.
00:51:35
Speaker
That's not great because now you can't be a broker for trades. You can't retain on like a one-year deal at the deadline next season for someone. It really kind of limits you. That's the one thing that bothers me. The return is okay. That's a hard contract to move. Like, Hurdle is amazing. I think he's obviously a great player. Fact of the matter is he's a 60-70 point guy.
00:51:57
Speaker
And he was making eight mil. That's not exactly that. He's also playing on two reconstructed knees. So you want to get out from under that contract for sure. Sucks to help Vegas in the process, but at the same time, eventually their luck will run out. Like we thought it would happen already. They keep finding ways, but eventually all this is going to catch up.
00:52:17
Speaker
If it catches up in that 25 season, tremendous for us. Look what's happening with Pittsburgh right now and their pick. They have to make a tough decision. Give us the pick if they're in the top 10, which they are right now. They're like, what, sixth or seventh worst? Actually, they just beat us, so they might have crept up a little bit more.
00:52:34
Speaker
You know, it's, I like it. It sucks. Hurdle. Hurdle was like the face of the franchise now, essentially, and he's gone now. And a lot of people were pissed about it. And you know, I get it, but at the same time, this is what it is. Hurdle's not young anymore. He's 29 or 30. Holy crap. Time creeps up on you quick. And I think it's a smart move to get out from under the majority of that contract, especially considering the term and getting back assets that you need for this rebuild.
00:53:03
Speaker
At least you'll have Logan Couture, who acknowledged that his contract is essentially untradeable. I don't think we have Logan Couture anymore, man. I think he's going to retire. That injury that he has is brutal. I mean, he just keeps having setbacks after setbacks. It sucks.
00:53:22
Speaker
Now you mentioned Vegas, obviously, you know, inherently there with the Sharks. Golden Knights are currently in the second wildcard spot in the West. They are only four points above Minnesota with the game at hand. They went for it again at this deadline. They picked up Anthony Mantha from the Capitals for a second and a fourth.
00:53:41
Speaker
They, of course, found a way to get Noah Hannafin in a three-team trade involving Calgary and Philly, and then the Tomasz Hurdle deal. There are a lot of people rooting for the Vegas Golden Knights to miss the playoffs, obviously. Never say never.
00:53:58
Speaker
based on the current standings in the situations. Obviously, there was a lot of talk with Vegas about, oh yeah, awfully convenient, the Mark Stone injury. And you had Kelly McCrimmon, the GM of the team, come out and say, to even insinuate that we're having players fake it is...
00:54:16
Speaker
Ridiculous. I don't think they're going to fake it. I think they're I think they're just making them wait longer to come back than they would be. Right. And we had that conversation right in regards to what used to be versus what it is now. And it used to be that players would just go.
00:54:35
Speaker
and they'd get to the playoffs and they'd be dead. And you'd be like, what the hell is wrong with this guy? And in the injury list would come out and it'd be like, oh, he shouldn't have been walking, let alone playing a professional hockey game in the playoffs. Now, because this LTIR loophole was left wide open in the aftermath of other franchises, taking advantage of it, they said, all right, bet we're going to exploit it better than anybody else. So now it is Mark Stone.
00:55:02
Speaker
go get the rest that you need and come back for the playoffs. And because of the salary cap situation and how it's different in the playoffs, yeah, we can go out and benefit not only from you getting healthy, but from getting the help that can still see us probably make the playoffs.
00:55:20
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't think it's a matter of people thinking Mark Stone isn't actually hurt, but it is a matter of them taking advantage of it. And yeah, Mark Stone might be good to go with two weeks left to go in the season, but you can kind of be like, no, he's not. And that's the thing people probably have an issue with. But same time proven. And right now, you know, the installation and the protection is there from Vegas to be like, no, he's still not 100 percent. So we're going to keep him out.
00:55:49
Speaker
Mm hmm. It's not what works. I want to talk about Toronto as well. I know Endo is currently shoving a bagel down his throat, which is okay. But the Toronto Maple Leafs currently third in the Atlantic. A lot of talk about them and what they did and didn't do at the deadline because their moves were acquiring Ilya Lebuchkin atrocious. Joel Edmondson.
00:56:15
Speaker
NCAA prospect Cade Webber and Connor DeWar from Minnesota. Big Dick! Big Dick D! Let's go! This does not read like a team. That feels like this is our chance. Let's go for it. Which is dumb. I mentioned this before I got cut off and I lost all my audio. Yeah. Earlier in the beginning of the season, hopefully my power stays on this time.
00:56:46
Speaker
In the beginning of the season, there was doubt in the leaves. There was an interview that I saw that I read. There was an interview that I read. It was an article. And they basically said the lines of, they don't feel confident in this group to go all in. Hence why they still have their first this year. Yeah. This is going to be how fucking this group take it in their process of going.
00:57:16
Speaker
They've got the skill, they've got all that, they've added some grit. I think getting two defensive defencemen. One who was statistically one of the worst defensive defencemen in the fucking league. No offense Lebuchkin, you had a great run with the Leafs two years ago. But you know, two years is a big difference.
00:57:43
Speaker
You have Edmondson, who I don't think he's played a single game with the Leafs, I'm not sure, don't quote me on that. But I believe he hasn't played a game yet, so why didn't you grab him? And then you have Kael Dewar, who has like the most blocks. He's played two games. He's two games and it's been how many? How many? It's been like a week?
00:58:03
Speaker
I mean, they, yeah. They had them, they had them before the deadline too. Um, and then killed the war, uh, who has the most blocked shots at a very defensement, but he's just big. He's a center. No. What's the war? The war is a center, dog. He's a center? Oh my God. All right. I'll take over the Leafs chat since I know more about your team than you do. He's like six eight is a center. Yeah. So who the hell are you thinking of?
00:58:32
Speaker
They picked up a defensemen. Kade Weber, who's still in the NCAA. He's huge. Kade Weber. He's fucking huge. He's massive. That boy is fucking... That's what I'm talking about. War. Yeah. He is huge. He can't fucking skate.
00:58:52
Speaker
You can't fucking escape though. Yes. Tangibles. He's a big guy. He has the most blocked shots out of anyone in the league. Apparently he can't fucking play defense, but he just blocks a bunch of shots. That's what people have been saying. It's like, Oh, we could, we could, we could build him into a second line, a chiller, or the guy who just goes out and tries to break, uh, Giordano's block shot record. So what you're saying is Brad for living has a type.
00:59:23
Speaker
Yes. They were really bad moves, though, considering that now you have to scratch Simone Benoit and then you lost Lagos into waivers for the sole purpose of keeping
00:59:38
Speaker
a right-handed shot in the lineup who probably should have been the one who got scratched. So there's a, once again, complete disconnect from the coach to upper management and the coach needing certain things in upper management, mostly Brendan Shanahan at this point. I'm not going to put everything on for living's feet because he was put in a no-win situation. Yeah, it's a surprise. And then surprise, surprise, he didn't win.
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, here's the thing that perplexes me the most. You gave up like six draft picks to get those guys. Why was that okay to do? And why is your first off limits? Like this, this is the problem with Toronto is number one, they fall in love with their prospects, especially the fans. And number two, they're not willing to go all in when you have
01:00:29
Speaker
three incredible players in their prime, and another fourth one who's making 11 million. Like, so... Yeah, it's even worse, man. So their cap situation with the forwards. It's fucked! So right now, on Cap Friendly, they have 15 forwards listed, making 59.7 million confirmed. That's fucked!
01:00:54
Speaker
Next year's salary is already a 55.5. And that is losing the 8.5 million combined of Bertuzzi and Domi. Because you have Austin Matthews going from 11.6 to 13 and a quarter. You have William Nylander going from 6.9 nice to 11.5. Overpay also.
01:01:18
Speaker
Oh my God. We look at the success of the Vegas Golden Knights and we say like, Jesus, they can't keep getting away with it. The Leafs. I might be wrong. We might be wrong. Who's to say? But do you really envision Joel Edmondson and Ilya Lebuchkin being the missing pieces?
01:01:38
Speaker
for this team to make it past Boston, Florida, the New York Rangers or Carolina Hurricanes in the first round. They're not. Nope. I mean, again, I mean, you sacrificed people. Like you could be cost you six draft picks in a depth defenseman. And what did you get? Two depth defenseman. Yeah. Nicholas Robertson is still a fucking leaf. So so straight trade him.
01:02:08
Speaker
Trade fucking Fraser Mitten. Do someone Easting Cowan, because he's apparently gonna be a fucking great player who's gonna have no fucking room. The big problem is- Trade him to the sharks, a la Barabanov. Oh yeah. You know, I'll give him a, that's a free pass to get a better career. Dude, do right by the players, Endo. Come on, give them all to San Jose.
01:02:33
Speaker
Oh man, dude, honestly, fucking, I don't even know, man, anymore. That's okay, because I do. Yeah. Like, it's just fucking annoying, man. Like, there's just so many incompetent moves, because it's like, if you're gonna go, go for it. Like, the reigning Stanley Cup champions just pulled off a bunch of fucking crazy trades at the trade deadline and said, you know what? We're in this.
01:03:00
Speaker
That's the difference. That's the team that wants to win. We talked about the Vegas high rollers. That team is always going to be in a win now fallacy. And that's going to shake up the league. And it should shake up the league. But no one wants to do anything about it. They're just going to let Vegas get away with LCIR stuff and perfect cat management. I fucking wish the Leafs did that. That's the crazy thing.
01:03:25
Speaker
That's the craziest thing to me, is that Vegas in a second wild card position is more willing to go all in than the Toronto Maple Leafs who are third in the Atlantic division. That's horrendous misunderstanding of the situation by Leafs management, from president to GM to everyone. And you can tell because Keith scratches Simone Benoit, which is probably, that's their fifth or sixth defenseman, period.
01:03:55
Speaker
Like he's better than Giordano. He's arguably as good as Brody. And you scratch him because you need Mr. Right Shot Timothy Lilligrand in the lineup just because he's a right shot. This is giving memories of Mike Babcock and his disgust with the management. He's like, you know, just give me someone who could play right. Give me someone who could shoot right.
01:04:20
Speaker
And I feel like poor Sheldon Keefe is screaming with these actions up at management to be like, what the hell are you doing? Like, why weren't the Leafs in on Noah Anafin? Why? Why? The price was too high for Chris Tanev.
01:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's absolutely stupid. If you have Matthews, Nylander, Marner under contract, you should be going for it every year because now, like I said in the last episode, is they're now stuck in a situation where you have to essentially take a year off next year until Tavares comes off of that 11 mil and then the whole plan is what? He's going to take less money? Why? No one else there has taken less money.
01:05:01
Speaker
Why should he? He already took less money to come to Toronto initially. He left two million per year on the table to two other teams. Send them back to the Islanders. Send them back there, have them play there. They don't need to hide.
01:05:20
Speaker
Where's he gonna play? Cause he's got, Toronto's gonna be like, we want to have him cause he's a good local homeboy and have him back here. And he wore pajamas with the leaf logo on it. Pajamas. Do you remember pajamas? I remember pajamas. I remember pajamas through Crete. Bot those at fucking honest Eds. Yeah. Is there a point to this one? No. Okay.
01:05:43
Speaker
So I did want to say about the leaf. So it's like the frustration isn't just within leaf's nation. It's it's from people on the outside looking into because it's like Jesus Christ. Shitter get off the pot already. They're wasting it. This guy commit to winning or don't. Like you have a guy who might have 70 goals and you're fucking like, eh, we're going to keep our first hitting me. The price isn't franchise mode, man. You can't have anything you need.
01:06:12
Speaker
And if there's any team that can afford, like, we always hear about, oh, the Leafs have so much money. They're the richest team. MLSE's got fucking bank, dude. But they don't utilize it. They don't spend it. Oh, they don't. If Vegas can afford to be like, yeah, let's bring in this guy, this guy, this guy will pay this guy, this guy, and this guy. That, that's the, like, that should be the Leafs. Like, the story should be the Leafs abusing LTIR trying to force
01:06:42
Speaker
the league into changing to more of a soft cap, as Leafs fans have been dying for, so that MLSE, one of the richest frickin' organizations that own a team, can utilize that money, and they win cup after cup after cup. Hell yeah. They're not even willing to game the system right now, even though there's a clear-cut example of someone doing it better and having won the fucking Stanley Cup last year. You wanna know why?
01:07:07
Speaker
MLS knows the entertainment business. Oh, okay. Fine. Fuck you. MLS is entertainment business. They make their money off of, they make their money off of the games themselves. Why? They are the only arena in the NHL where they make more money off games. If you fucking play more playoff games though, Endo. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They don't think of it like that way. They don't, they don't care about, they don't care. They're badly managed. Oh yeah.
01:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, you haven't noticed that. No, because they just got a new guy coming in who does crinkly fingers and just kind of seems gone, by the way, that new guy that they brought in from where the hell is he from? You worked like for some like phone company or some shit, but he has like a man. I can't remember his name. He has a background in other sports business. Shit. Anyway, he just joined MLC. And yeah, I think Shanahan is. Oh, the guy. Yeah, the guy who is like the new CEO or whatever president.
01:08:05
Speaker
I think so, yeah. The new MLC. Either way, but I think he like was in base. No, I don't know where he was. I thought he worked for like some phone company or something before. I believe he worked for Bell. I'll double check right now. Yeah, so there should be a lot more people feeling the heat and making moves based on that. And I, you know, Shanahan.
01:08:29
Speaker
Again, I think he's the main, he should be the main one feeling the heat because, you know, they've gotten rid of GM now because he didn't want, because Shanahan made the executive decision not to trade Marner because he knew Dubas was thinking about that, considering it before the, uh, the, the clause kicked in and he, you know, axed that essentially in the best way that he could. But yeah.
01:08:55
Speaker
all as well in Leaf's Land. Oh, okay. So he has been the CEO of Rogers Media, team president of Toronto Argonauts, and the president of TSM. Oh, they brought him in? Yes. Oh, he's also president of the PGA European Tour. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so he knows about sports and how to run like leagues and et cetera, so forth. He's a good guy to get brought in, and
01:09:21
Speaker
If, if, if the current group, including Shanahan doesn't, doesn't do the right things, like this is, this to me was, was the, was the death knell for Shanahan. And hopefully maybe even for true living too, is that you don't, you don't go all in when there's playoffs tickets on the line, when there's playoff concessions on the line, press boxes, all this other stuff.
01:09:46
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's the whole organization needs a complete overhaul. And hopefully that guy starts to do it for that organization and starts making them a lot more shrewd because, again, the Leafs just continue to be in this in between situation where they can't figure out what kind of team that they are. And they're legitimately wasting three incredible talents and a generational goal score, the best goal score since Ovechkin, the one who is going to surpass
01:10:15
Speaker
Gretzky's record if Ovechkin doesn't, or he's going to surpass Ovechkin's record. There's right now, no doubt in my mind, because he's now scoring at a higher rate than Ovechkin was. And what a mustache.
01:10:28
Speaker
I guess that's. Yeah, no, I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, I think you and I, from the outside looking in, shared those frustrations, like, even though I'm rooting for a team in the Boston Bruins that very much could end up going up against the Leafs, I'm still frustrated. I'm like, what the hell are you doing at the Bruins? There are only two moves for Patrick Maroon and Andrew Peake. That's it. It's not like the Bruins went for it either compared to what I was hoping they would in terms of trying to make things happen, because, yeah, you should at least they didn't trade Omar.
01:10:59
Speaker
They fucking tried and I don't understand. I hope one day we learn who the hell that what the return was going to be from Los Angeles. Pierre-Luc Dubois. That's my fear, is that who it was going to be? Yeah. Because it's like it wouldn't have been Fiala. It wouldn't have been like maybe Philip Denno, which I would have been pumped about. Yeah, solid.
01:11:26
Speaker
Like, that's all I can imagine. It's like, OK, who would I want from the Kings as a Bruins fan? I wouldn't even want Kevin Fiala for Allmark. No. Give me, like, Philip Danno-plus or Adrian Kempe-plus. They wouldn't give up the Quentin Byfield. No. I was just like, what the hell was that deal even going to be? Danno would have been such a good piece for the Bruins. But like, I don't think it's worth trading Allmark right now. He's still got another year after this, right? So that's the time you trade him. Yeah. Yeah. You keep running Sway.
01:11:55
Speaker
Swamark. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Allmark's got one year left after this, and Swamin's an RFA at the end of the season. And literally, we've talked about this for years, because obviously, you and I joked about, oh, trade Swamin to the Sharks. He's the future now. Yeah, they're on rails. It's OK. You let go of Allmark now that he's on the wrong side of 30.
01:12:18
Speaker
and then you give Swamin the big money and there you go. Like there's almost no doubt in my mind at this point that Linus Allmark is going to be on a new team next season. Yeah. Keep him for this run and then that's it. You move on from him. Unless something you kind of have to sign. Yeah, you have to sign Swamin and he's probably going to take that Allmark money. Right. And especially too like if you're not going to utilize the strength of your team in the playoffs because
01:12:40
Speaker
You're stupid. Like you have the ability to rotate and you didn't fucking use it because, oh, nobody else does. You didn't utilize one of your fucking strengths last year and you got embarrassed by the Florida Panthers. We'll see if they do it this year. Then, yeah, there's no point in spending eight and a half million dollars on two goaltenders if you're only going to have the one guy come time anyway. So just have Swamin be the guy and spend that money elsewhere. Yep. There you go. Boston Bruins.
01:13:08
Speaker
I don't think too many Bruins or Leafs fans are overly happy with how things went for them. A lot of Sharks fans are pissed about how the deadline went. But I understand the necessity for it. It hurts because they helped Vegas. Oh, yeah. I think I think that's the worst. The part that pisses him off the most is like hurdle moving is almost stomachable. But the fact that he's on Vegas now and so many people are conflicted like we can't cheer for these guys now. Like first, we can't cheer for hurdle like six years in this on this team.
01:13:38
Speaker
I might. I don't know. I'll feel really dirty, though. In terms of other teams, because obviously we can't go super in depth with every team because it's not that much to do, but I did. I did want to go through. You have a team like the Anaheim Ducks who sold off some bits and pieces. They got a first round pick from Edmonton in a deal involving Adam Henrik and Sam Carrick.
01:13:58
Speaker
Good, which is really good. Yeah, you know, you're not a playoff team. You sold off some parts here and there. I mean, you know, you didn't panic and move Zeigress good. God, if they still do that, though, that doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't. I don't know why. I don't know why he's like so universally like hated now and like chagrined by so many people in Michigan. So weird. Who the fuck cares? It's good for the sport. Old people shut up.
01:14:26
Speaker
Torts didn't like rap music in the locker room. No one cares about his opinion. There you go. Arizona.
01:14:34
Speaker
There were a lot of talks about them not getting enough back for some of their guys. Again, on the out is... Look at how much Dumbo cost! Fucking nothing! Yeah, so Dumbo, Zucker, Stetcher, and two-sevenths out for a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Terrible. Atrocious. They did the right thing, getting rid of pieces, but Jesus Christ, they cut nothing back in return. They also have no defensive core for next year. Did you know that? Yes.
01:15:04
Speaker
Not a serious team I'm getting off of the bandwagon of the Arizona coyotes and and wanting them to be a success because Management clearly doesn't fucking want them to be and they still haven't figured out the arena deal and they're there honestly at this point Embarrassment and the social media person went did did the fucking Batman thing They they they didn't die a hero and now they're the villain. They're just being annoying as shit on Twitter and like I
01:15:30
Speaker
You can't keep talking shit when your team can't keep getting an arena deal done. Sorry. And I'm sorry to deke, but at this point, I'm not saying move the team. I'm saying do fucking something, get something done. They cannot be this hard. And you're embarrassing yourself in the league. I think my favorite thing about the the Yotes admin is that they had the audacity to tweet out rent free and everyone went, you don't pay your fucking
01:16:01
Speaker
And in the same week, two of their players, and I think it was Logan Cooley and someone else, didn't pay their utility bill, so they lost Hydro. They're like, oh, why do we have any water? Oh, shoot. And everyone's like, it's a culture. They associate there, just not paying your bills. I was looking at the coyotes defensemen that are under contract for next year. Now, I'm not including RFAs. I'm only including people who are actually under contract next year.
01:16:32
Speaker
20 year old maverick lamaro 21 year old prospect maximilian zuber uh 24 year old ahl defenseman montana onyabuchi what a name shark's legend great name face puncher and
01:16:49
Speaker
Shea Weber, boy. Shea Weber still under control. He's like, he's, he's there like highest paid player or at least second highest paid player. Keller beats him. Okay. But he's the highest. Keller doesn't even beat him. Oh God. Who is it? Is it Dotsuke still? No. This is not a professional team.
01:17:21
Speaker
Oops, all cap wheels. Oh, boy. God, the Buffalo Sabres, I do want to talk about them because they are a story out of nowhere. They are now only three points back of the second wildcard spot. Granted, they're on sixty seven games play. The Islanders are on sixty five, but they have been making a really strong push as of late.
01:17:48
Speaker
And it's behind some interesting moves at the deadline. Again, they fetch the seventh round pick from the Sharks for Devin Cooley. They get a fourth round pick for Eric Johnson from Philly or to Philly. They sent Kylo Pose under the Florida Panthers for absolutely fucking nothing. Kylie Chalene in a seventh, a conditional seventh. It could be a fifth if the Panthers win the cup. But the biggest deal
01:18:11
Speaker
Was the one for one sending Casey Middlestadt to Colorado for Bowen Byram? Byram has been outstanding since coming to the Sabres. He has five points in four games. Makes sense because he's getting the ice time.
01:18:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah, exactly like he's not behind that top pairing of tapes in the car. He's getting a chance to kind of be the guy. Cap Friendly has their depth chart as him playing alongside Rasmus Daliin. And holy shit, wouldn't you know it? That's working out really well.
01:18:44
Speaker
Maybe just maybe the streak is finally over for Jeff Skinner and the guy's gonna get to play in a goddamn playoff game now that he's 31 years old. I hope they make it man. I hope they're somehow able to squeak in because Detroit is right now and it's a big part to do with Larkin's injury and motherfucker that injury might cost me round one in the playoffs in my fantasy league.
01:19:05
Speaker
Oh, it's been a close match. That and Vegas not winning and getting good goaltending. I picked up the two goaltenders because I thought it was guaranteed win. Anyway, um, like comic book guy from the Simpsons.
01:19:19
Speaker
I don't even know who that is. I don't even know who that is. I didn't want to talk a little bit. Since we mentioned the avalanche, can we can we hop over to them for the deadline? Yeah, because I wanted to move moving out Ryan Johansson, obviously, to bring in Casey Middlestadt. That is that that's the that's the linchpin essentially for all their moves at the deadline to be possible.
01:19:48
Speaker
But there's so much subtext when it comes to the Ryan Johansson trade. Do you guys remember the Devon Taves interview where he said, I think some of the guys in this room think they're playing well and we're not playing good enough. Do you guys remember that at all? He was essentially calling out Ryan Johansson. There was apparently a large rift in the locker room and it all was centered around Ryan Johansson.
01:20:13
Speaker
Other funny subtext is Philly acquired him, immediately waved him. Yeah. He has the same agent as Cutter Gotye. And it was, this was quote unquote from, I think like someone interviewed Philly and they're like, yeah, this is in part due to the personal relationship with the shared agent, the Cutter Gotye and Ryan Johansson.
01:20:35
Speaker
I was surprised behind the scenes involving this these trades. So and really quickly, I want to make note with the that situation to the flyers essentially have been stated like Ryan Johansson apparently has a hip injury.
01:20:54
Speaker
that the Flyers have since claimed that they were not aware of once this deal happened. Oh, to me, that almost sounds like that's their way of being like, that's why we have them in the minors. You can't claim that we're doing anything nefarious. But with Ryan Johansson, the whole thing is if a player is injured, you can't send him down.
01:21:13
Speaker
Well, I think that's a whole part of the thing is like being like, well, we didn't know what you were hurt, but you're still in the minors. And there's this whole thing about it. That's a violation. That's that's a violation. CPA. You know, if you didn't disclose disclose and they'd that's all that's on him and his agent. Yeah. Yeah. With Ryan Johansson. The Nashville Predators not all that long ago, kind of cleaned house.
01:21:42
Speaker
They got rid of Matt Duchain, they got rid of Ryan Johansson, and they were sitting there claiming that it was like a leadership issue, that the locker room culture wasn't right. They get rid of these guys, they bring in Ryan O'Reilly, and a lot of people are like, what the hell are these guys doing? But now you see how the Ryan Johansson experience went in Colorado. Matt Duchain, we haven't really heard anything. He seems to be a good fit in Dallas, now that he's not the guy.
01:22:10
Speaker
But from the outside looking in, you can really only read this as Ryan Johansson has the tag of locker room cancer within hockey.
01:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, to the point where Philly brings him in, like you said. And again, the deal was for Colorado, they acquired Sean Walker in a fifth round pick from the Flyers for Ryan Johansson and a first round pick that is top 10 protected in 2025. So Colorado somehow is a bottom 10 team. Philly will get their 2026 pick. But yeah, it's just the idea of Colorado said we need to shake up here.
01:22:46
Speaker
Hence, moving Curtis McDermott to New Jersey, the middle staff for Byram Trade. They bring in Brandon Duham from Minnesota, Yakov Trennan from Nashville, and move Ben Myers out to Anaheim. It feels like a power play from the leaders on that team, the Nathan McKinnon's of the world, the Devon Taves, whoever else, to be like, this isn't fucking good enough. Should've ate more fucking chickpeas, Johansson.
01:23:12
Speaker
I like it, though, from a container like Colorado to recognize, OK, this isn't quite right. They were proactive in trying to fix the situation here because they'd love to win another stand the cup, obviously. Absolutely. You locked down the car, you locked down McKinnon. Your window is still very much open. By the way, how underpaid is my car? Phew. Good God. What a piss off all these fans. Here's the money. Kale Mccarr.
01:23:42
Speaker
is making for three more years after this, $9 million against the cap. Unbelievable. And he's better than everyone besides Matthews. Yeah. On defense too, they're only paying the bond taves $4.1 million this year. It goes up to seven and a quarter next year. That's still underpaid. What? Yes. They're so good. Dude, Joe Saki just whipped it out and plopped it on the ice. For the forwards. Correct.
01:24:12
Speaker
Mikko Ranton only has a contract through next year. He's making nine and a quarter. And Nathan McKinnon's new deal, eight years, 12.6 started this year.
01:24:22
Speaker
It wasn't that long ago, really. It's been talked about a lot. Now, granted, their GM right now is Chris McFarland, who took over for Joe Sackick. But it wasn't all that. Yeah. Is he president now or something? Yes. OK. He's still running. He's still running, right? Let's be honest. People were talking about this team as like, oh, God, the leadership, do they know what the hell they're doing? What is Joe Sackick doing? That was a narrative not all that long ago. And now it's.
01:24:51
Speaker
But Joe Sakic's a fucking genius. Chris McFarland takes over to follow along. Very similar to what Tampa did with, you know, Steve Iserman moving on. But it's still his team that was finding success. You know, Chris McFarland has to shake that off. He is the guy that signed Nathan McKinnon and Devontae to these extensions and stuff like that. So I mean, he's very much had his fingerprints on this team at this point.
01:25:15
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, there's no denying. I think people are confident in the not only the leadership on the ice, but off the ice as well. See how quickly you can shift that narrative, Toronto, if you just do stuff, if you stop sitting on the fence like Humpty Dumpty, because you're going to have a great fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men won't be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
01:25:42
Speaker
It's beautiful. That's a good one. You're goddamn right. Just to breeze through some of the other teams, Calgary got rid of Noah Hanifin, got rid of Chris Tanev, maybe not the craziest returns, but it was very obvious. Like, OK, it's time to move on from certain pieces. At least we can stop listening to the hem hem and on the media about not moving anyone. Yeah. Eight points out of a playoff spot for Calgary. You pretty much know what it's going to be this year.
01:26:11
Speaker
Carolina who are very much in a playoff spot at the moment Second in the metro trying to compete with the New York Rangers for that top spot and Yeah, they they went for it. I mean they were involved with two deals for the Leafs, but the big moves They go out and acquired Jake Gensil
01:26:29
Speaker
From Pittsburgh replacement and Evgeny Kuznetsov from Washington, Kuznetsov on 50 percent retained, only cost a third round pick from the caps who were desperate to get rid of that contract. And of course, picking up Jake Gensl from Pittsburgh. There was a lot of talk about the return. It was Gensl and Ty Smith, who's just kind of what he is. He's a 7-8 at this point. From Michael Bunting, Vasily Ponomarev, Cruz Lucious, Billy Koivin and two picks, both conditional.
01:26:57
Speaker
I don't think it's a bad return for Pittsburgh because I like Penomarev a lot. And the other two prospects that we mentioned aren't that bad. We've seen what Bunting can do. If you're Pittsburgh, I mean, who knows? Maybe they end up re-signing Jake Gensler, right? I don't think you can properly label that as like, okay, good deal, bad deal. Yeah. For Carolina though, they're showing that ambition.
01:27:19
Speaker
Interesting we haven't talked about Florida and New York yet, but we've seen ambition From quite a few teams and go figure Carolina showing that ambition as a team that have cup aspirations tend to do Toronto Chicago
01:27:42
Speaker
Only made one deal. Anthony bovilliated Nashville for a fifth rounder. They didn't have much to do, let's be honest. It just shows, like, yeah, like, what could you get for Tyler Johnson? Call him Blackwell, Zaitsev, Jared Tenorty. Yeah. And they've pretty much made their bet where, like, the veterans that they signed for more money than they should have for multiple years, like, they want them to stick there and be mentor roles. So, like, Chicago's just going to stand pat. They weren't the team to, like, be making major moves at this deadline.
01:28:11
Speaker
But Florida was. Yeah, we're going to get to them in a second, too, because Columbus, there's not much to talk about. I thought I killed the segue right there. You did. Fine. I was already on Columbus's page. They moved Jack Ross to New York. They didn't have much for expiring. Let's talk about Florida, then. I kind of viewed them as a bit of a main event because... Oh, I thought we were getting to the main events, my bad.
01:28:32
Speaker
They kind of went for it. They brought in Vladimir Tarasenko for pennies on the dollar because that's the only place he really wanted to go. So Ottawa was fucked. They acquired Kylo Pozo for nothing and, excuse me, also pulled off a minor deal to bring in Magnus Helberg as a depth goalie.
01:28:50
Speaker
But to bring in Tarasenko and Okposo for the middle six, maybe even a bottom six for if you have Kyle Okposo on your fourth line, you're fucking looking great. Florida is going for it again, and they get that depth that they kind of ran out of by the time they made it to the Stanley Cup final last year.
01:29:07
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and I like Tara Senka for them. He's a lot more than a goal scorer as he's kind of listed as like, he's not really afraid to get into the dirty areas either. Uh, Tara Senka, I mean, think of him on the blues, right? Like he came from, uh, that, that sort of organization. He's, I think he's, he really fits with Florida's game. I think I'll pose old, you know,
01:29:29
Speaker
He's more of a depth piece. I think there's a condition on the pick, like he has to play a certain amount of games. Yeah, that's the only one that kind of makes me maybe a little bit nervous, is like, do you want to break up that amazing fourth line? Which is like, what is their fourth line? Cousins? That's sweet. The answer's fourth line at the moment, at least according to Cap Friendly, is Jonah Gadjovic,
01:29:58
Speaker
Sharks legend. Sharks legend. Kevin Stenland and Ryan Lombard. A lot of grit. Oh, I guess because there's on the third. Yeah. Their third line is Cousins, Luat-Storin and Okposo currently. Oh, okay. Okay. So, okay. Yeah. I was thinking of it because like their fourth line was pretty good. Yeah. Okay. So that, that.
01:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, and even just to read off the rest of their line, second line for Hagee, Lundell, Kachuk, Hopline of Tarasenko, Barkoff, Reinhardt with Bennett and Evan Rodriguez both dealing with some injuries right now. So what an embarrassment of riches to have Kachuk on your second line. Yeah, 74 points in 66 games. Second only to Sam Reinhardt, who is a pending UFA. So Florida knows, oh, fuck, we we got to try to make something happen here. So.
01:30:47
Speaker
Dallas, they got their guy in Chris Tanev. That's about all that they did. Second place currently in the Central, very much in the mix with Colorado Winnipeg. They've done more, maybe, maybe not, but they at least did something. Detroit's only move was the Klimt-Kostin-Schimmick swap, which
01:31:08
Speaker
It's, you know, it kind of shows that like, okay, like the Larkin injury, we're not really sure where we're going to be, what we're going to do. Yeah, they can't. I think it's a smart move. But I still like if I'm a Red Wings fan, and I see them kind of plummeting right now, I'm like, God.
01:31:24
Speaker
Look at some of the low prices for some of these guys. Could we have done something? Yeah, but I think the Red Wings fans are are pretty rational with what they are. It's like they were happy how they started the season off, but they is like at the same time. It's like, yeah, maybe we overperformed. I think, you know, the whole Larkin injury and then them tanking kind of to me reads like, OK, we might need to maybe a deeper farm system because what do we have to plug those holes? There's not they didn't have enough to
01:31:51
Speaker
to, you know, they're, they're essentially bail. They're having to bail instead of being able to plug the leaks. So yeah. Edmonton finally did something. They actually got some depth at the deadline. We talked about the Henrik and Carrick pickups. They got Troy Stetcher from Arizona. So
01:32:08
Speaker
Good on Edmonton, actually. It's not the crazy amount of ambition. I really like Adam Henrique, but at least they're trying to not waste Conor McDavid and Leon Drycidal. That's a very novel concept. They're doing more than Toronto now, which we, wow, we didn't think you would ever say. You can kill me, dude. The LA Kings did absolutely nothing.
01:32:36
Speaker
a little bit surprised. They're kind of in that red wing situation, except they're still in a playoff spot. I think, you know, you kind of look at them. It's like, well, we don't want to sell because clearly we showed earlier we were good enough to actually do something, but we also don't want to buy because
01:32:53
Speaker
you know this we might not have the roster that we need. And like I said you can pretty much go down the list of most teams and like okay kind of give that general grade like Minnesota they didn't do much but they probably weren't likely to do much given that they're currently on the outside looking in Montreal didn't do much they got a pick for Jake Allen
01:33:15
Speaker
cool. You know, they didn't really have too much else to get rid of. Nashville strangely kind of bought, but also they're currently in the top wildcard spot in the West. So I kind of respect Nashville being like, we're just going to hang around and see what happens.
01:33:34
Speaker
The Devil's obviously sold a little bit. The Islanders did absolutely nothing. I think it was the fourth straight year that Lou Lamorello has done nothing at the trade deadline, which is hilarious because it's the most Lou thing ever.
01:33:51
Speaker
talked about Ottawa, not really doing that much. I mean, like I said, we can pretty much go through every team here, but the only two teams I think that really stand out to me now that we haven't really talked about yet, aside from like, you know, Seattle trading, Wennberg to New York, the Rangers are one of those two teams alongside the Pittsburgh Penguins that I wanted to talk about. Ando.
01:34:21
Speaker
Your thoughts on the Jager bobblehead heist? Because the only talk about Pittsburgh right now, they get rid of Jake Gensl, their 25th in the league. Like everything right now for the Pittsburgh Penguins looks terrible, and it is only further encapsulated by this bobblehead controversy. Endo, your thoughts?
01:34:47
Speaker
I think it's funny. I think it's absolutely great how literally nothing, nothing in Pittsburgh can go right right now. Whether it's a giant work or, or, or whether it's a work or a shoot, I don't really care. The idea of like, I think the idea of the bobbleheads just kind of not going to like Pittsburgh, but imagine if they all go to like different teams that he's played on would be hilarious.
01:35:16
Speaker
I even replied and said, have you asked the traveling Yaggers where they are? They probably might know. They have all the shipment or whatever they took it and had to take it from them. That'd be a God tier social media post and narrative that the traveling Yaggers took it from them.
01:35:36
Speaker
Imagine. Yeah. Zinn, any thoughts on the yag or bobble-head ice? The penguins just continue to go down in flames. No, I just would like to celebrate one more time that the penguins are in a rough spot with which pick that they're going to give the sharks. A reminder for those who have somehow forgotten. Yeah, how could you? I mention it every chance I get.
01:36:03
Speaker
August 6th, 2023. Jeff Petrie, Casey the Smith, Nathan Legare, and a second to Montreal. To San Jose, Mike Hoffman, Mikhail Grandlin, Jan Ruta, and a conditional first. And Pittsburgh, get Eric Carlson, Dylan Hamiluk, a third, and Rem Pitlick. It is a top 10 protected pick for the Penguins this year.
01:36:29
Speaker
So we'll see what happens. If they currently stay where they are, they would be bottom ten and keep that pick. But man, that 2025 season might be even worse. I mean, they can decide, but I mean, they're going to decide after the lottery. So yeah, it's like, hey, we moved up or keep it. But then they could be worse next year. I don't know if they will be, but.
01:36:48
Speaker
The last team I wanted to talk about was the New York Rangers, and not even necessarily for the moves that they made at the deadline. The talk about the New York Rangers right now is almost the talk of the entire NHL, and that is one player, Matt Rempe, who has picked up a four-game suspension for elbowing Jonas Seagenthaler of the New Jersey Devils in the head.
01:37:12
Speaker
It is not often that a 21-year-old former sixth round pick with a career high of 31 points becomes the talk of the NHL, but he has. And it's because he's taken... I can only describe it as this. He has taken to the NHL with all of the excitements of a dog that realizes you've taken it to the park. That is, all he has done is just run around like a madman since debuting during the Stadium Series game against the Islanders.
01:37:42
Speaker
He got in a fight with Matt Martin nearly instantly after having seven fights in 43 games with the Hartford Wolfpack. So it wasn't really surprising to see him fight. And he only played four minutes and 26 seconds of that game. But he followed that up with five minutes of playing time against Dallas, which was pretty quiet. So it's like, all right, maybe things won't be too crazy. And in February 22nd,
01:38:05
Speaker
the game against the New Jersey Devils. He racked up 17 minutes worth of penalties in 13 seconds of ice time for braining Nathan Patrick.
01:38:17
Speaker
We'll come back to the devils. But that was really kind of the moment where, oh man, Rempe mania, is it a thing? And if it wasn't before that, it was two days after he brained Nathan Bastian because on February 24th, the day that I turned 30, he went to war, an absolute slugfest with the flyers for Nick Deloria. And that was when people like this guy's insane.
01:38:44
Speaker
But as soon as that hype level picked up, it basically stopped because the very next day, he got obliterated by Matthew Olivier on the blue jackets, resulting in an all-time shiner. And then all of a sudden, the narrative changed from this guy being like, yeah, violent gentleman, make hockey violent again. He fights all the time. What a throwback. He's sick. So all of a sudden, the narrative was, oh, this kid's going to get CTE in record time.
01:39:13
Speaker
Like, the narrative completely flipped. And since then, he has only fought once. He fought Ryan Reeves on March 2nd, and it felt like you kind of got the vocalized concerns that turned into, like, instruction, for rent-based. Because he, all of a sudden, he wasn't fighting as much. He was turning down fights. Until this game against New Jersey earlier this week, where
01:39:41
Speaker
Curtis McDermott, who we mentioned before, recently acquired by the Devils, was going after
01:39:48
Speaker
Matt Rempe trying to get revenge for the Nathan Bastian hit from previous weeks ago. Rempe not only turned down those fights, but then absolutely brained Jonas Seagenthaler and essentially taunted McDermott, who was on the bench as Rempe got kicked out of the game. You had McDermott calling him out, talking essentially about the code and all of this. And now you can't do that. It's a young guy who doesn't get it.
01:40:18
Speaker
Matt Rempe has essentially single-handedly brought back the Enforcer, Goon, whatever you want to call it. Debates. Yep. The night this had happened, I put it out on Twitter, like I blame the NHL for this because of their half-pregnant approach to like physicality in the league.
01:40:35
Speaker
We've seen that for a long time now. They want to hype up the physicality of the sport, but they don't. The reason they don't is because in 2018, they had to settle a lawsuit against former players based around concussions and CTE, and they had to settle for nearly $18.5 million to other players.
01:40:55
Speaker
They love to talk about the physicality of it, but they don't want to talk about it too much because they want to continue to decry that connection between their league, their sport, and CTE. So because of this kind of situation with Rempe, and I know I'm going on a whole spiel here, cut me off at any time, you end up with a player like Matt Rempe.
01:41:17
Speaker
One of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dudes, potentially, of people past and present who would do anything to live their dream of being an NHL player. Hence the fighting, hence the checking. Even if you know the consequences, well, to hell with the consequences, I'm living my dream. So he enters the league, fights like hell, only to be told, calm it down a bit. So what the hell is he supposed to do?
01:41:44
Speaker
Like he likely doesn't have the fully developed toolbox to stick around in the league otherwise. He is there because of the physicality. So you tell him not to fight. The only thing that he can do to provide that grit and that sandpaper that people always talk about is run around and hit people and try too hard to hit people, which leads to bad hits like the Seagenthaler hit or the Bastion hit. He obviously has, Rempe does, personal responsibility.
01:42:14
Speaker
But at the same time I feel bad for the guy because the NHL needs to decide. Are we in a league? Are we a league with goons and enforcers? Yes or no? Because if yes, there can't be this pearl clutching over Matt Rempe if he fights twice in two nights. He's doing his job at that point. You just got to leave it for what it is. And if no,
01:42:36
Speaker
then you need to make that clear because someone like Rempe probably wouldn't have gotten a chance with the Rangers yet because he wouldn't have been able to sandpaper his way there.
01:42:46
Speaker
The NHL needs to make a fucking decision over what this league fully is at this point. And I feel like Matt Rempe and the whole kind of story of what his season's been perfectly encapsulates
Conclusion and Listener Appreciation
01:42:58
Speaker
that. I don't know what the answer is. I just want an answer from the NHL of, okay, what the hell is your sports? And if I am going to watch your league, I need to know whether or not I need to be comfortable with the idea of a 21 year old
01:43:15
Speaker
punching his way down the road to CTE because that's what Matt Rempe was doing. And they need to decide, is that a is that a bug or a feature of this league? Yeah, I just watched the while you were talking towards the end there, watch the Rempe and Olivier fight. Holy crap. That's why knowing how to fight is much better than just pure size because he got absolutely demolished in that fight.
01:43:43
Speaker
Honestly, that's crazy. Yeah, I agree. It's just that the NHL right now is on the fence in a lot of ways when it comes to this where it's like, how do we keep
01:43:58
Speaker
I don't know. We don't know what their plan is because it doesn't seem like they have a plan. And yeah, for Rempe, I think you hit the nail on the head where it's like he doesn't have the tool set, so he feels like he has to do these things. He's got to just throw the body and fight. And if they're telling him to not fight as much, then he's going to have to be more reckless with the body, which led to that suspension and a really bad hit.
01:44:21
Speaker
It's a dirty hit and I'm tired of people trying to say, well, it's not a dirty hit. It's a bad hit. He's not a dirty player. I'm like, he is like you're acting like this is the first time he's laced him up and played hockey. He knows to keep his fucking elbows down. It doesn't matter if it's just, oh, he's new in the NHL. He's been playing hockey his whole life. You don't get to the NHL without playing hockey your whole life and knowing how to make a good hit.
01:44:46
Speaker
Well, don't you like how that flips? And sorry, I know the cut job, but don't you like how it flips when the conversation was, oh, players need to learn how to protect themselves. And then someone's on the receiving end of a dirty hit. It's like, oh, but it wasn't a dirty hit, though. It's just a bad hit. Like you can't. That's a whole another aspect of the whole players need to learn how to protect themselves. Players need to know what type of fucking league they're playing in. Do you need to be prepared to be brained because it is essentially a viable path in this league for someone to punch their way to a profession?
01:45:16
Speaker
Endo. Yeah, I was gonna say about Rampay. It seems like almost every other game that he's played so far this season, there's been an issue with either a hit or having the fight. In the Leaf game when he hit Lebuchkin in his first game coming back to the Leafs after the trade, he didn't return after second period.
01:45:38
Speaker
And then that's when the Reeves fight happened. And even when he was fighting Ryan Reeves, he looked like he didn't want any part of that fight at all whatsoever. I feel like at that point, it was like he knew that one, he had to answer for himself because he injured the player because it's part of, I guess, the code or whatever the fuck you want to call it.
01:45:59
Speaker
But I don't think he legitimately wants to go out and fight every night. I feel like management has talked to him. And not even management, just the fucking doctors on his team have talked to him. I mean, at the end of the day, he is signing up to do these fights and signing up to do things with the answer for certain things he's out on the ice. And I think it is also a factor of, like you said, trying to stay in the lineup because he isn't waiver eligible. So he can get sent down and up as much as he wants.
01:46:28
Speaker
as much as he wants to send him out for. So he wants to stay in the NHL, he'll do whatever he can to stay there, make that big extra money, because the pay gap between the NHL and the AHL is pretty, pretty big. It's essentially times 10, he makes 70,000 in the AHL, 775 in the NHL. Exactly, exactly. Gentlemen, with that, anything left to add about that particular discussion or anything else that we talked about today?
01:46:58
Speaker
I don't think so. This was a good episode. Yeah, we got a mix of stuff in there. It was good to be back, everybody. We thank you very much for still caring enough to listen to our opinions on all sorts of things. We'll be back next week, obviously, too. Like, hey, we're getting closer to playoff time. So the question is going to be laughs. Sessions are going to be interesting as we continue down that road. Endurance. What do you got going on?
01:47:26
Speaker
in the meantime.
01:47:46
Speaker
So check out the website, I have new collections out there. I have the brosala, Def Stair Face, that was actually from, I believe that was from the launch week of NHL 24, when we had that one freeze frame of my player model just looking really fucking creepy. Then we have the Carver Path collection and the Anti-Hockey, Hockey Club collection. And do it, buy those things, take a look, purchase them.
01:48:12
Speaker
It'd be nice if people could buy my merch. Buy my merch, please. Thank you so very much for playing my game. Sin, what are you guys going on? Yeah, I just started a new franchise mode finally after the trade deadline roster update came out. So we're running the St. Louis Blues, a team I've never done on my channel. So I'm excited to do that. It's having a lot of fun with it so far and made some pretty
01:48:38
Speaker
Yeah, pretty big move so far, trying to turn things around. And unlike them, I'm not just going to sit on the fence and hope for the best. We'll put it that way. So come check that series out. In the meantime, I'll be playing a lot of MLB, the show, now that that game is out. A lot of road to the show and Dynasty franchise, call it what you will, on the Twitch side of things. Of course, YouTube-wise, I have more stuff than I can ever possibly freaking upload just because I'm
01:49:05
Speaker
I'd be uploading like five videos a day. So, hey, YouTube-wise, we're not winding down on things anytime soon. We did put out the NHL 04 fantasy draft, the one season challenge on 04, and that did really well. So I'm looking forward to doing a lot more kind of stuff like that, especially moving forward. It's just a lot more fun, I think, to do kind of one off things like that.
01:49:32
Speaker
Every now and then, at least, as opposed to, like, I still love talking about the older games and putting a highlight on the older games. But anyway, more about that in the future. For now, everybody, thank you very much for supporting us here. We will be back next week until then. Yeah, be be good people. Yeah. Yeah. Anendo, go take a nap.