Simmer and Gabby 10

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Greetings and welcome to a simmer and gabby. Rob Simpson here. Bruce Boudreaux there. I've moved from the hockey lodge to the hockey kitchen, and apparently that's where Bruce is as well. [00:00:17] Speaker B: Hi, I'm in the hockey bar. [00:00:19] Speaker A: Oh, nice. The hockey bar. Some early cocktails? [00:00:23] Speaker B: Well, it's just a better place to watch. I'm not drinking. Believe me, it's more for show. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Hey, believe me, there's some gms and coaches that might be wanting to have an early cocktail. How about the Leafs and the Vancouver Canucks from Saturday night? Holy smokes. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a tale of two games. I think the one thing, unless you watched Vancouver a lot, you've got to realize that they come out of the gate 100 miles an hour, and when they get a lead, they keep the lead. So it's hard for me to understand when a team isn't ready to play them because they're coming out, at least initially. Four lines ablazing and they score that first goal, and then they make you make mistakes and playing catch up. And they're a tough team to beat when they get the goaltending like they got last night. [00:01:23] Speaker A: Demco, the key to everything, by the way, those early goals, two of them for Niels Hoaglander. It seems like maybe Vancouver's patience has finally paid off, because this was a kid who was trying to figure out the 200 foot game for a couple of years, a kid who had hot potato hands when he got near the net. His first couple of seasons just was all over the map. Are we starting to see signs of maturity there? [00:01:47] Speaker B: I really think you are. You know what? He's got all the skill in the world. He's fast. He doesn't mind hitting. He just had to learn how to play. I remember having a meeting and saying, I thought that my first year that the American League would really help him a lot. And I think when they finally got around to sending him down, I think it has helped him a lot. When you have a fourth line guy that can score potentially 20 goals this year, you've got an advantage over most every team. [00:02:24] Speaker A: On the flip side, the Leafs, three games and four nights, they head into Seattle on Sunday. That team's kind of going through a flu bug right now. But the Leafs long term, without Jake Muzzin, John Klingberg, couple of guys they had on their blue line that aren't mean. Is it that big of a mess? What's your. [00:02:49] Speaker B: You know, unfortunately, every team sometimes goes through it when they have these years that now Muslin has been missing for a year and a half. So, I mean. I mean, I really can't call him being a miss. Klingberg was only there for ten games or so, or 15 maybe, and his numbers weren't very good at that point. So, I mean, can we call that a miss? I don't know if we can either. I just think they're not operating on like, it's an eight cylinder car and they're going on four cylinders right now. It seems like I look at the comparisons in last night's game. The Leafs get all their points, usually from the top six forwards on their team, and their bottom six have not been too productive as of late. And where you get Vancouver, other than the power play goals, all their goals were scored by bottom six forwards last night. What I've said and tried to do in the coaching department is balance four lines. Because if you can get four lines going on a consistent basis, then what happens is if one line is not going one night, you at least got three lines that can go. I think with the Leafs right now, if you've got your top six and three of them are having a bad game or a mediocre game or an average game where they're not scoring, they're hard to find goals from the other guys. [00:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially when John Tavares has his longest pointless streak since he was a New York Islander. He's up to seven games without a point. I kind of bring up Muzzin and Klingberg just because I realize these are longer term things, but these are still bodies. These are still guys that were brought in with expectations, know you have to maneuver around. They're on long term injury reserve and you have to figure out alternatives. And this is Brad Treleving's first year as GM in Toronto. So he will have an opportunity moving forward here shortly to kind of put his own identity on this club because a lot of free agents in that blue line core, it's going to turn out here after this season and maybe one more with a couple of guys that it's going to be Morgan, Riley and then a whole new however he wants to build things out. [00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah, you know what? I just look, and I don't usually compliment them too much, but Vancouver management, they've done mean. I think getting Zidora from Calgary was a steal. I think Carson, Susie, I had him in his first couple seasons in Minnesota. I knew he was going to be a good player, but he's good. Tyler Myers is slotted in the right spot now. They got Philip peronic basically for know. And that's turned out they've, they've fixed their, uh, their defense corps. They've got six different guys there since I was there and that was only a year. I mean, it's not an impossibility to do for Brad. I think there's enough good defensemen out there that can fill spots and fill holes for you. You just got to slot them in the right spots for them. I think Vancouver has done that. And granted, vancouver's got a guy that stopped 44 out of 47 last night too. That helps as well. But I think that it's a job that Brad can't wait to get a hold of and start doing in July of next year. And he's probably looking forward to it. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah. One other thing as it relates to d, and I've noticed it more lately and I noticed it last night. Are we seeing d holding up the f one? I guess more substantially. Are we starting to see that interference and it's being allowed. It seems like we're seeing that first forward in as being kind of interference. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Like when they dump it by them, you're saying, and they go by, they are making bigger routes. I saw it last night a couple of times to interfere. And unless what's going to start happening is now, forwards are going to start embellishing a little bit more when they go around them, I think to create the power play, but it's like everything in time. Once you give it an inch, they start taking a little bit more, a little bit more and a little bit more. I think that's where they're finding that the forwards, if you're playing the dump and chase game, the defense are interfering a little bit more than they were when they initially set the rule out, I think. [00:07:51] Speaker A: And there's a hell of a lot of dump and chase. It's like a volleyball game sometimes for a lot of teams that are less talented. So they're just trying to set up a four check. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah, they want to create the four check. And the other thing it does every coach in the league, probably every league around that is an adult league. You're sitting there and you're going, if we get it deep and we get the puck behind their d, then they've got to go 200ft to score. And if we can defend and make them go through everybody, it's a tougher game to play. So turnovers are what kill you. Every coach will tell you that. So, I mean, getting it deep is paramount. [00:08:33] Speaker A: I'm just wondering if this is some kind of subtle attempt to prevent hits from behind, because we're seeing a lot of that rearing its ugly head lately. And I'm wondering if the league's kind of saying, okay, back off on interference calls because we're going to try to slow down these forwards as they're coming. [00:08:47] Speaker B: Into the well, that I don't mean, you know what I used to think Brian Burke had? I thought that was a good rule that he says because you go in so hard against these guys, being able to wrap your arms around them and just take them into the boards, that would be the only thing allowed. But obviously if that becomes, then you start saying, well, what's the distance that they can grab them from and everything mean? I can understand that the league not wanting to try it, but I mean, it certainly would stop you from a lot of the hits from behind. [00:09:26] Speaker A: Okay, we talked about Vancouver on top of the Pacific. What about the Winnipeg jets on top of the central division? [00:09:33] Speaker B: You know what I think if they win by three goals or less in their next game, or they allow three goals or less, it'll be the longest streak in history of them doing statistics as far as it'll be their 36th game in a row where they've allowed three goals or less. And to me that's such an incredible feat. Incredible feat that, you know, when you're doing that and I think they've done two or less, I can't remember the number there. But I mean, it's a lot of those 35 games, you're in every game. It doesn't matter who your roster is, you're in every game. Excuse me. Sorry. I think it looks fabulous on Rick. Bonus. I know he's had some success in Dallas. He took over midterm at one time and they went to a couple of years ago, went to the finals. But I mean, he's one of those guys that takes over his last place clubs a lot in his career and it's been tough record wise. So to see him do what he's doing right now and to see what the Winnipeg jets are doing, I couldn't be more pumped up for him, by. [00:11:01] Speaker A: The way, is Connor hellebook, Thatcher, Demco Central and these are two american goalies, by the way, for future international competition considerations. [00:11:11] Speaker B: 100%. I mean, you don't think those two guys are not the next Olympic goalies for the US? It's amazing how they're developing them and they're the two best goalies in the NHL right now. And they prove it night in and night. It's. It's good on Winnipeg and it's good on Vancouver. But I will tell you that if you don't have goaltending, no matter how good you are, it's a tough road to hold. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. All right. Sort of an elephant in the room for fun here. Patrick wa back in the coaching ranks. I'm showing the video. I'm going to be showing the video here. [00:11:58] Speaker B: I'll tell the story after you show. [00:12:00] Speaker A: The video, but you can tell the story. It's going to be over my face so you can talk about it as we look at it. This is he with Colorado, you with Anaheim, and he basically is trying to. [00:12:16] Speaker B: Push the, well, it was his first game coaching in the NHL, 2013 October, and he had just come, I think he'd won the Memorial cup the year before in junior, or at least his Quebec team was very good, was in the championship. And I mean, a lot of times back in the days you intimidated a lot. Like when you had a win, a winning team and you put all your tough guys on, just sort of really sort of discipline these guys and show these guys. Well, we were losing six nothing in Colorado's home opener. We scored a goal with 5 seconds to go. Jacob Silverberg, I won't forget it, scored the goal. So we lined up at center ice thinking it's just a routine. I think I left the same guys on. I had Silverberg and some other person at center, just two regular guys on defense. And he throws out five. Tough. I mean, I'm looking, I'm going, what's going on? I'm not thinking anything of it. Even still. We drop the puck. The puck comes over to their bench and it ends and they start yapping at Matt. And Matt pushes him back. It becomes a little bit of a scrum there. Now in, if you, if you're looking at the video, Corey Perry's got the water bottle and he's squirting him with the water bottle and Wa comes over and his eyes are rolling in the back of his head. I can't even see eyeballs. And he comes and he starts knocking on the glass and like as if he wants to fight me. And I'm going, what's going on? You started all of this stuff and I'm trying to pull the guys back and Corey's still pouring water on everybody on the bench like a goof. But it was pretty funny. But it was a scary part because the interesting thing is the next game we went into Colorado, the first thing Corey did was went out and checked the glass on his side. Of the bench to make sure it was strong enough to hold everything up, but it was years later. It's a funny thing at the time. I was a little worried, though. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Had the horn sounded? Yeah, the buzer had gone over okay. That's what I thought. By the way, Corey Perry's name popped up here. They're talking about Edmonton adding that element to that team. That's the talk. [00:14:46] Speaker B: Well, he could always be added on the second unit of the power play. He wants to win so bad. Edmonton is now in a position where they think they're good enough to win. I mean, you win 1213 in a row and you win eight in a row previously, your team's doing pretty good. I think they won, what, 21 out of 24? So all of those things add up to if I'm Corey Perry and you've got ability to go somewhere and you're not going for a high price, Edmonton might be a team that you want to go and potentially win your Stanley cup because three out of the last four years he's been in the finals, so he's definitely good luck wherever he goes. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And he's the type of player they could use, of course. [00:15:33] Speaker B: And he knows his role now. It's not like he's won the heart trophy, even though he did it in 207, I think. But he knows his role has changed and this is what he does. [00:15:47] Speaker A: We'll talk next time in the next couple of weeks here about possible trade deadline stuff instead of getting into it right now because we still have some time because we hear about Koozie moving out of Vancouver, potentially Kuzmenko and Gensel and other names coming in and there's other teams that are going to be looking. So my last thing for you before we get to our favorite number, 30 ones, is, off the top of your head, the most impressive team in the east. [00:16:14] Speaker B: Oh, you know what? I don't really know a most impressive team right now. I mean, New York, the Rangers have fallen back a little bit, have not played as well. I mean, Carolina from Christmas on know been very impressive, quite frankly. Florida's had the big streak. Now they've come back. I think Tampa's won four in a row and they're starting to look better every mean they have to if they want to be there. Until last night, Pittsburgh was on a really good roll and they've been impressive. That's in the mean in the Atlantic. Boston just keeps, uh, I keep looking at their lineup and I don't think it's anywhere near as good as it was whether it's last year or the year before, but they keep going and they keep winning. They play the same way all the time and they're a team that no matter if they're not on or they play the same way. So they're very difficult to beat. I don't understand why more teams don't copy the way they play. But anyway, in the east, again, like I say, florida's lost a few in a row. So in the Atlantic, Detroit was on a very good role. They're very impressive until they're lost. They met the I think the team that is the most impressive in the east right now is Carolina. The other teams that you expect jersey, I mean, I don't know what's the deal with them. And the other teams are win one, lose one teams. But those teams that I mentioned I think are the teams to beat right now. [00:17:54] Speaker A: See that? I knew I was putting you on the spot because it's so jumbled and there's so many ups and downs among maybe the top five, six, seven teams that the consistency factor is just not there. You don't have that kind of a Canucks jets thing going. [00:18:10] Speaker B: Know, and out west. It's mean when you have those teams that they're allowing no goals every game. They're playing the same way every game. The only question I have about those teams are come playoff time, can they get 10% better? Are they playing like this is what happened to Boston last year. Boston was playing at the best they could play all year long. And when it came to playoffs, when Florida upped their game 1020 percent, Boston couldn't match that 1020 percent because they were playing at 100% all the time, which is a great testament to the. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Coaching of the Bruins and of course just playoff experience stuff. We've seen every team that ends up winning a couple of times go through it. Detroit in the 90s, Tampa went through it. They lose before you win. And a couple of these teams will be getting into this for the first time in a while. So they're not going to have that experience. And they don't have cup winners necessarily scattered throughout their roster. [00:19:08] Speaker B: 100%. [00:19:10] Speaker A: All right, Gabby, your favorite number 31 in history? [00:19:13] Speaker B: Well, you know what? You limit it a little bit when you have 31, I think because not every team in the days gone your had a 31. But I was reading up on this and the first number 31 was probably in about 1957. Bobby Perot was a goaltender, but when you talk 31, there's two guys that stick out. I'm only going to say one, just in case you say the other, but I'm going to say Billy Smith from the islanders. I don't know if that was your guy, being a New Yorker and all that, but I wanted to hit him. You know what? I met him many times on the golf course, and I couldn't believe when I saw him how small he was compared to how big he was. While he won four cups with the Islanders. He's in the hall of mean for a mean. It was a great tandem with him and chico resh in the net, but Billy Smith was fiery. He would just as much want to. He was like the Ron Hextall of the generation before. He would rather fight you if you came near his crease. But, boy, I remember going near that crease and having my legs nearly ripped off their hinges and stuff. So, I mean, I have to give it to him. I don't know who yours was, but there's only one other guy I thought. [00:20:47] Speaker A: You would pick amazingly or remarkably enough, and I didn't think you were going to go with him. I also had Billy Smith, and part of this is I hated the Islanders at the time because they were mean, they were great, and they were frustrating because they just kept winning, of course, four straight cups. There's nothing to like about them. He was an ass when it came to, like you said, chopping guys. He just was, like, symbolic of the team. They had the big bam bam, Dave Longevan on the blue line. I mean, they were pretty. And Clark Gillies was an absolute terror. [00:21:22] Speaker B: You know what? The one thing about all those teams in the skills of the Canadians winning four cups in a row and the Islanders winning four cups in a row in Edmonton, but they all were loaded with tough players. Yeah. I mean, they had guys know Montreal, you kept thinking of them as the flying Frenchmen they used to call them. But at the same time, they had, whether it was Jill's Lupian or Mario Tromblay or Lambert or Ghani, all of these guys, if you wanted to put know and the defense, the Savards, the Lapointes and that, and Robinson's, they could mix it up. They didn't have to, but they were big. And you can look at the islanders and they had the same kind of things from the Bobby Neistrom's, the Gary Howard's, the Dennis Potbens, the legends. Nobody wanted to screw around with those guys. They were tough. Yeah. [00:22:18] Speaker A: Two things pop out also is, I guess part of me misses that element to the game as it gets further and further away from us 100% made me think of Billy Smith because I was like, God, wouldn't it be fun to just see an insane. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Was there another guy that you were thinking of? I'll tell you, the other guy I was thinking of. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Go ahead. [00:22:36] Speaker B: The other number 31, would have been Grant Fury for me. Yeah. I mean, another hall of Famer. But at the same time, you know what? There was so many games where he would win eight, seven. But very much like Jerry Chevers, if he had to make that save when he already let seven in, he had the mental capacity that he could do it and he just wouldn't be. So down. A lot of goaltenders now you let four or five in and all of a sudden they're lower than low and they can't play anymore. Grant Fury was one of the greats that didn't let that bother him. [00:23:10] Speaker A: All he wanted to do was win by the smith. The other the capper. For me, that changed my opinion of him. You talk about him being a small little guy. I think it was a Hall of Fame Legends game. I'm going to say seven, eight, nine years ago, and he was the best player on the ice and he played the little Legends game as if it was game seven, cup final. He was like, amazing. [00:23:35] Speaker B: That's what those competitive guys, that's why people are in the hall of Fame, that's why people have lasting careers in anything, is because they're so competitive. They don't want anybody to beat you. That's why me and my wife don't play games anymore, because I used to cheat if I was losing. If we're playing Scrabble, I would steal tiles off the tile to make the right words because I couldn't stand losing, even to her. [00:24:05] Speaker A: My gal mostly kicks my ass in cribbage and it pisses me off. She's like five games ahead. I can't get the win total to catch up, and it just bugs the you know what out of me. [00:24:15] Speaker B: But that's the way it goes, right? [00:24:19] Speaker A: The way it goes. Vancouverhockeyinsider.com seattlehockeyinsider.com and we'll tell you about some other places coming up soon. You can also check this out at Simmerpuck, YouTube, and we're on all the audio services, Apple and Amazon and all that good stuff for the simmer and the Gabby Gabster. Enjoy the week of hockey action and great job as always. We'll talk to you very soon. Thank you very much. [00:24:46] Speaker B: Well, you know what? Thank you, Rob, and you too. But I think it's going to be a great game tonight. If those people check in the Seattle Leaf game, you got an angry leaf team, and probably a lot of media people are going to be around that game to see how that goes. And Seattle's had a little bit of rest after their two game, little bit of a slide after their winning streak. So to me, that should be a very interesting game tonight. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Absolutely. Three games in four nights for Toronto, especially coming off a bear last night and then some flu bug for Seattle is the intangible on that side. So a little bit of going on there behind the scenes, but it'll be fun. Thanks, Gab. [00:25:25] Speaker B: Thank you. You have a great day. Close.