Simmer and Gabby 11

[00:00:13] Speaker A: Greetings. Welcome to a simmer and Gabby. Rob Simpson, along with Bruce Boudreaux. I'm here in the. Not really in the hockey cabin. You are back in the hockey bar. Attaboy. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah, this is where we are here. Now, I'm not here often, but if we ever have people over or something, we got the big screen tv and we can watch stuff in this room here. It's so crazy. I got a fully stocked bar. I don't even drink, but it's been there for years. [00:00:44] Speaker A: Well, it's good. You gotta entertain guests, gotta have options. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:49] Speaker A: You're going to a Hershey Bears game on Sunday evening. I'll be going to a Seattle versus Columbus NHL game on Sunday evening. There's football. There's a lot going on, but of course there's a lot going on in that western race. Kings hit a bit of a skid. Is it just a natural thing? [00:01:08] Speaker B: Well, I don't think it's mean. I'll give Tod his first year. They weren't very good, but the last two years that they've made the playoffs, they've been a really tough out and they play really hard. And they started out the same way. Like they were saying, okay, listen, we're ready for bigger things. We don't want to lose out in the first round. We're ready to be a conference final or Stanley cup team. And I really did think they were going to. I mean, I'm watching them as we speak today, but I think it's more than just a little bit of a skid. I think something's definitely wrong in Denmark, and it has nothing to do with the coaching. I think some of the players just don't look when I'm looking at the. Watching the games on tv that they're playing with the emotion that I'm used to a Todd McClellan team having. So I don't know what's going on, but I think they've got a game as we speak. I don't know when this is going to be played, but they're playing St. Louis and Nashville, two teams that are closest on their trail to being in the playoffs. And I think when they've only won two out of 14 or something, or two out of 15. Now these become must games. And I mean, before a much needed break that the Kings are going to need. [00:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's not like they're utterly dinged up like some of the other clubs have gone through. I mean, young Quentin Byfield has been a day to day guy, a little bit Victor Arbison's on IR and they got a backup goalie on IR, but otherwise it's a healthy team just trying to figure things out. One team that's unhealthy in one very important spot is speaking of teams that has slid, and that would be the Minnesota wild, one of your former clubs. They've lost a couple in a row. They're well back, I think six ish back of the wild card spot with a bunch of teams to climb. And I just point to Jared Spurgeon. He's only played 16 games this season. I remember Dean Evison was there talking to me or I was talking to him about Spurgeon, his value. This guy might be one of the more underrated players. You had him for whatever, four and a half years. [00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah. You know what? For a guy that's five foot seven and 160 pounds, I mean, there's a reason they made him captain. He's a leader. I mean, when he's healthy. Before this year, he was playing 25 plus minutes every night. You can put him on the power play, the penalty killing. He was a 40 point plus guy, or 40 point guy plus. And he's one of those guys that if you're in the locker room and things aren't going well, he's the one talking to you. He knows people really well. I think he's extremely missed. More for the everyday captaincy matters as well as the on ice stuff that you miss from him. And it's too bad because they've really had to scramble on defense. They've had quite a few injuries, quite frankly. Jonas Brodin has been hurt, don't forget. They don't have Matt Dumbbell, which has always used the. Since I got there and before, Minnesota's strength was defense. And the guys that when I got there, that made us one of the best defensive teams in the league. When you look at it. I mean, you had Marco Scandella, Matt Dumb, Jared Spurgeon and whoever else, I'm forgetting right now, but you had all those protein and Ryan Suter, you had that main set of defensemen. And now, granted, Brock faber is really good, but you're missing those guys, I think, and I really believe that that's the court of their winning and that's why they're not winning right now. [00:05:18] Speaker A: And the other thing I think you pointed out weeks ago right here, know Philip Gustafson has not been the same Philip Gustafson. It was a tough, tall order to continue what he was doing last season. Of course, Mark Andre Frey has been a little bit dinged up, although he did pass Patrick Wa for the second most wins for a career in the NHL. But, yeah, there's just little issues there. And just to clarify as we speak right now, Minnesota's six back of the wild card positions, which are shared by the Kings and predators at 53 points. Blues are one back, kraken are three back. [00:05:51] Speaker B: So the crack, if you put it in simpler terms, almost, they got 35 games left in their season, and to get to the 96 point stretch, they need at least 25 wins. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Right? [00:06:08] Speaker B: And 25 wins out of 35 games coming down the stretch is a really, that's going 25 and ten. I don't know what percentage of hockey it is, but I got to believe it's over 700 and it's doable. Of course, you can get hot and pull an Edmonton Oiler thing, but, I mean, it doesn't get happened very often. That's why we're talking so much about the Oilers. [00:06:34] Speaker A: All right. And just to check your math and to be even more specific, because they're actually up to 49 games now, if you're referring to the Wild, so they have 33 games left to get the 96 points. Well, to get the 95 points, they'd need 24 wins. So you're still looking at 24 and nine. So pretty much what you said. But if you want to get real specific, same kind of thing, 25 and 1024 and nine. That's what the wild are looking at. Anybody below that, forget about it. And there's a big gap. Anaheim is eleven behind Minnesota, and then anybody above that, well, they can get away with a little bit less than that percent. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Well, I think that's why Seattle is still in the mix, because there's a whole bunch of teams right there. I mean, the problem is when you look at it on paper, it goes, oh, we're only three know we're right there one good week. But it's the amount of teams that are there, too, that they're not all losing all the time. So somebody's gaining on you if you don't continue to win, and that becomes the problem. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Yes, and the Blues have won four in a row, and they have two games in hand on the Nashville Predators. At the other end of that spectrum is the wild and crazy Edmonton Oilers, a 16 game winning streak as we speak. I mean, you've had winning streaks, you've had outstriaks. You come into teams, Vancouver, Washington, wherever. The feeling's got to be incredible. But you just ride the wave and hope you don't pick up bad habits. Getting loosey goosey. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Well, you never feel like you're going to lose. That's the one thing. You never feel like you're out of it. I mean, I'll go back. I was playing with the Baltimore skip Jacks in the American League when we set the American League record of 16 in a row. And I think it's been broken by Norfolk John Cooper's team, but I'm not sure. But every game we played, we just thought we were going to win. And when we broke the record, I remember we were playing in Binghamton and we were going to Hershey the next night to play. So I think the owners of the team were on the bus. There was a little bit of champagne flowing. I think we lost the next game, but then we won five after that. And I really think if we were really into it on that game in Hershey, we probably would have had a 22 23 game win streak. But it's amazing. You can come into every game and you think you're going to win. We won 14 in a row in Washington one year, and it didn't matter if we were down five one in the third period. You just knew it was going to happen. And same thing. I was lucky enough to win twelve in a row in Minnesota and eleven in a row in Anaheim. And you go at home at night and you pinch yourself, what's going on? We're winning these games. How do you keep the team going? There's different approaches all the time. I was heard the other day from somebody said, well, I just let it go and you don't say anything and everything else, whereas I always took the approach when you're winning as the time to criticize and you never get satisfied. And when you're losing, you show mistakes, but you build everybody up. So it all depends on how you are and who you are. But I mean, those streaks. The one thing I always used to say is when we get to eight, nine or ten, you're in rarefied air. Enjoy the thing. Because not everybody wins ten in a row. When you get into double digits, it's something so special. You walk like you're a little taller. You don't feel the ground, you feel special. And who knows? If they had a better start, they'd be right up there, obviously, looking at the president's trophy. But right now they're doing something really special. And I think the big test for them is Vegas. Vegas might get some players back after the break, and Vegas still wants to be. If you look at where Vancouver is, and they might win the division, safe to say. But then the second and third place team are going to be Vegas and Edmonton. So you're not only playing to keep the streak alive, you're playing for second place, you're playing for sort of like, hey, boys, like, if you're Vegas, you're saying, hey, slow down. We're still the Stanley cup champions and you got to go through us. Or if you're Edmonton, you're going, move aside, boys. The big train is coming through. [00:11:21] Speaker A: Well, here's the interesting thing. Edmonton has five games in hand on the Golden Knights. Five, and they're six points. So that right there is like, well, if they win, if they go three and two, they're tied or they're ahead of. [00:11:41] Speaker B: See, you can look at it that way, or you can look at it. If I'm Vegas, let's win the next game we play against them. They'll be eight back, and they have to win all five just to get two points ahead of, you. Know, it's, I think, perception. It's how you look at things and how you bring things to the group that makes them either feel good or feel bad. But here's the saying I always use. Like, when I'm playing or when I was coaching, is the difference between a rut and a groove. It's the same thing, but it's exactly the opposite meanings. So, I mean, if you wanted to be in a rut or a groove, and I'll use the example, sorry, I'm rambling on maybe a little bit, but if you're two, one and one in your previous four games and you lose the next game, you're going, oh, man, we've lost three out of five, or we're under 500 in the last five. Or if you win the next game, you've only lost one game out of the previous five, and you're doing pretty well. You're on a pretty good roll. That's how I used to present stuff to the team. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Well, you also used to say, win the week. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah, win the week was always important because short term goals are an awful lot easier to achieve than long term goals. If I would come in and say, like any team that I took over in midseason, if I said, hey, we're 16 points behind a playoff spot and we got to win the next ten in a row, you'd be going, yeah, but if you just keep winning two out of three, you can show it on graphs, on maps, on everything, how you could easily catch up to that team. [00:13:26] Speaker A: By the way, just for fun. The Edmonton Oilers, they also have four games in hand on Vancouver. So not that they're going to catch. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Them, but they think, no, it's not over. But you don't think Edmonton would like to have those three games over they had in the first ten days of the season against Vancouver? Of course, I don't know if their season series was over yet. I haven't checked. But if it is, their season series would have been over in October, which is really strange. But I'm sure if Edmonton plays Vancouver, they're really looking forward to that next game. [00:14:06] Speaker A: I'm pulling it up right now. While I ask you the next question, I want to circle back to the injury issue sometimes, and maybe you can kind of relative make this relative to long term short term when you have a short bench. The Seattle Kraken just went through a stage where they had a short bench. They're playing down a man essentially. They had so many injuries, a little rash of people sick or dinged up. Is it safe to say it's maybe good in the short term because guys like the ice time and you get a short bench, maybe you have more concentrated talent, but over the long run, guys are going to run out of gas. By the way, the Oilers and Canucks play on April 13. That would be the third to last game of the season for Vancouver and the game is in Edmonton. So who knows if the way things go, it could come down to that. But what about short bench, long bench and for how long? [00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, I think for a game you can do it. You might get away with it for two games, but at the same time, anything more than that then means you're playing players more than you want. If you had three games in four nights and you had to play a short bench all three games, that's where more injuries are susceptible because more guys are. Instead of playing as a forward, you want to play in a perfect world under 20 minutes a night. As a coach, you'd like that. But if now your star players or your better players are playing 23 24 minutes a night and they're becoming a little more fatigued, and when you're fatigued, injuries happen. So I mean, it can get done and you can rally them for a short period of time, but for a long period of time, there's no chance. It's the same way, Robin, as if your star player gets injured. I always say in the short term everybody pulls together and makes up, but it makes up for the loss of a star player in a very short term. But over a long period of time, you're definitely going to miss them or him. And then it really affects you. [00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, let's move on to our favorites. And this is a layup for you, I'm assuming. I didn't even think about it when I threw the number out there, but we're doing number eight, sort of a layup. [00:16:24] Speaker B: But you know what? I've been lucky. I've probably coached what I believe are the two best number eights in the history of the game. Two of the three best. Two of the three best. Okay, but I'll pick. And over Timu Solani only because I had him at his peak, whereas I had Timu at the end of his career. But Alex Obeskin to me is just a special breed. I was so glad to see that he scored a goal last night. It's only his 9th, but we all keep waiting for him to all of a sudden get 14 goals in eight games. Something stupid like that. But I'd never seen a guy that could score, not at will, but score so often with the shot doing the same thing. And everybody knows where he is, everybody knows what he's doing, and yet he could still score. I mean, the year he won the heart trophy with me when I was coaching them and he had 65 goals, he had games. There was one game, he cut his leg wide open for 20 stitches in Ottawa. And we were playing in Montreal the next night. So I mean, he looked at it and going, you're thinking there's no chance he could move because it's on the inside part of your thigh or up top. So if anybody hits it, stitches are going to open. He says, no, I play coach. I play coach. And then he gets four goals and I mean, you just sit back there and you watch him on the bench. And at that point in time, I'm watching Montreal. They used to use Mike Coma Saric as the shutdown guy against him and him beating him for four goals and it was, everyone was coma Sarak. And you could see Coma Sarak coming to the bench going, oh my God, how can I stop this guy? But that was Alex back in the day. And when and if he ever retires, you're going to see highlight films of him for years and years beyond that. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Hopefully he gets there. I hope he gets there. Maybe picks up somewhere ten more this season in the second half and then throws up a 25. Or next year he'll get a little. Like you said, he's going to keep going. I think he'll just keep on going. [00:18:38] Speaker B: And it's bitter for me because my two favorite players are Gretzky and oveskin. In my history of knowing people and sort of admiring them, you want them to break it because the excitement of doing it would get so much national attention. Then you don't want them to break it because it's Wayne Gretzky. So, I mean, it's going to be great either way. And I hope Alex starts the score. So who'd you pick? [00:19:13] Speaker A: Well, first of all, the other thing about the grade eight that impressed me is how quickly you learned the language English, because I remember having to do, I was in Boston doing the Bruins games, and I had to do a live tv walk off with him as a rookie. And I'm like, why the hell? I realize he's like the young star with Sid, but what the hell? So I learned spaciba, which is thank you in Russian. He got a big kick out of that, but otherwise, he could hardly speak English. I go, this is the craziest walk off ever. I think it was like a year later. I'm like, holy smokes. Like, he really worked hard at it. [00:19:42] Speaker B: Well, let me tell you something. Every time I was criticizing him, he said, I don't understand. But anytime you wanted to show him a good play, he go, yeah, look at the defender. He goes this way and that way. And then you said, alex, you got to back check a little more and go, well, I don't understand, coach. [00:19:59] Speaker A: Don't understand. All right. My eight is the third one that we were off referring to, and that would be Cam Neely. Just an absolute beast. He had 50 goals in 50 games, not team games, so it doesn't officially count. It was 50 goals in his personal games the year he was coming back from the knee or the rehabbing season. Like you, a movie star, Cam Neely, you were in slapshot, playing for the presidents. Yes. [00:20:30] Speaker B: Hyannisport. [00:20:31] Speaker A: Hyannisport, presidents. He had a speaking part, of course. He was in dumb and dumber. He played Seabass. And every time I see him, which is at least once a year, I say, kick his ass, Seabas, because you just have to. And he doesn't mind. But Neely was just a force. It was the consummate power forward. And I'm sure you have probably. Let me think, how much would you have overlapped? No. You would not have overlapped. [00:20:53] Speaker B: No. He was in the middle from the time I was definitely playing in the minors to the time I coached, he was in the. But his career was. He could have been like. And he was a superstar. But I mean, he could have been like an all time great scorer, but like Bobby Orr and the great bruins in front of him, those knees took a beating and that's the way he played, though. But you know what I remember about Cam Neely, and I think I'm right here, is the night that he got benched in Toronto. Kevin Stevens with Kevin Stevens. And if you look, I remember talking to somebody a couple of weeks ago about this. When you look at Kevin Stevens, he was sort of laughing and know this on the bench, but when they panned the camera to Cam Neely, it looked like if he could have killed the coach, he would have killed the Steve Casper. Yeah. And they were teammates at one point. Mean, it's crazy what you have to think you have to do sometimes as a coach, but you got to know who you're going to do it against. [00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah, he was a scary individual. And by the way, Darren McCarthy and Claude Lemieux patched things up. There was a documentary about McCarty feeding them in the big March 98 or 97 brawl in Detroit. So they patch things up. I'm not sure you want to. I still pretty sure we're not supposed to bring up olf Samuelson's name around Cam Neely because that was the knee. That was the jump. [00:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:37] Speaker A: I think the murder might still be on his mind. I don't know that for sure. I don't want to put thoughts or words into his head. But he was not happy with. [00:22:48] Speaker B: And that's why I think it was almost his. It probably happened a couple of years later, but it was injuries like that and to Bobby Orr and that they changed the rule that you can't go low and hit a guy anymore. Because in hockey, it's not like football where almost everybody wears braces. Like, especially on the mean. Unless you tore your knee ligaments before, you didn't wear braces. And back in the day, you'd just get it taped up and if you wanted to go low, you could really damage somebody. And guys got reputations for that. And once you got that reputation, they were coming after you and you had to watch out. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Well, you and I will both be in Toronto during all star festivities. I'm not sure we're going to run into each other. Hopefully we will, but it might prevent us from cranking out one of these. So we'll leave fans with this entertainment for this week and I appreciate it and hopefully I do run into you. Have fun there and enjoy all the hockey action. We got a break coming up. A lot of teams have got like ten days off. It's ridiculous. [00:23:58] Speaker B: It's actually killing me because I don't know what to do when I'm not doing something. I'm looking now there's only two games on today, there's one game on tomorrow and I'm going and then I think the Kings are the last team that plays before the break on the 31st. So it's going to be strange because now there's only one football game left. Baseball hasn't started. And sorry for the listeners out there, I'm not watching too much basketball these days. So come on. The Cubs and watching the Bears and that's what I'll be doing. [00:24:37] Speaker A: Hershey Cubs in the juniors and Hershey Bears in the American Hockey League. Hey, it's good hockey. [00:24:43] Speaker B: I agree. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Thanks, Gabby. [00:24:45] Speaker B: Are we done already? Holy geez, you're making it easy. Okay, you have a good week. Talk to you soon. [00:24:53] Speaker A: You too.