Simmer and Gabby 8

[00:00:13] Speaker A: Greetings. Welcome to Simmer and Gabby. Rob Simpson, Bruce Boudreaux, it is Vancouverhockeyinsider.com and how the heck are you? [00:00:24] Speaker B: I'm doing good. Weather is a little iffy right now, but other than that, a lot of hockey on these days and today football too, so it's a good day for me. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Heck yeah. Let's talk about number twelve before we get started, our favorite number twelve or our choice of a number twelve for today. Who would that be for you? [00:00:45] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you wanted to talk a little bit about the Minnesota Wild. So with me, the one player I had that was number twelve, that was one of the best players of this generation, was Eric Stahl. And I had him for three years. He had one, I think maybe two bad years at the end of his career in Carolina. Then he got traded to New York and I don't think he was happy being a third line guy or a left winger. And we put him back into his natural spot as the first line center. And I think he got 21 his first year, 42 his second year, and over 20 his third year. So his career definitely wasn't over. And he was a really good player for me, could do an awful lot of things. And I think it really hurt us when we lost him in the first game of the playoffs both to St. Louis and in Winnipeg, and obviously a. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Phenomenal player that helped win a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes way back in 2006. He was incredible. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, he had everything. I think the second pick overall. I had the non luxury of my one year in the American League when there was a lockout. He played for Lowell and he was just a beast at 18. And you just knew this guy was going to be a star. And he was, and he's had a great career. Very close to being hall of Famish. I don't know if it's quite hall of Famish because he didn't win any awards, but he did play on the team, Canada, win a Stanley Cup. He did get 100 points. He played over 1000 games. I don't know if he got 1000 points, but I would guess he did. So it's close, but a very good hockey player and a good person. [00:02:38] Speaker A: Speaking of number twelve, who are hall of Famers, here's a ten second clip from Patrick Marlowe. I talked to him at the hall of Fame festivities a couple of weeks ago and I would think, and I'll ask you this after you watch this, that he is a lock, considering he passed Mr. Hockey for most games played of all time, 500 plus goals. Yada yada yada. Hold on a second. Here's Patrick Marlowe after playing in the Legends game, just two more. One, you're here playing in the Legends game for the hall of Fame weekend. Dude, I don't need to tell you, you're pretty much a lock next see we'll see. Is that something you try not to think about yeah you try not to think about it but a lot of people bring it up to me so I hope if it happens, it'll be great. Yeah. [00:03:26] Speaker B: Sorry. [00:03:27] Speaker A: No, that's okay. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Start practicing your ski. [00:03:30] Speaker A: All right. There he is, gabby patrick marlowe, what do you think? [00:03:34] Speaker B: Well, I think anytime you're the player that you played the most games in the history of the national hockey league, that's something that gets you in automatically, let alone getting 500 goals, let alone playing 22 or 23 plus years being on great teams and again another one that was played for team Canada international competition. I would tend to think that he was a locked just with those numbers. [00:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah first year like Ryan Miller who showed up at the legends game who's been waiting already. Some of these guys show up and play in that legends game during hall of fame weekend kind know it's like let their presence be known. And as you just mentioned, I don't know if Marlo really needed to do that, but it was a pleasure to. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Chat with know every time you bring up one of these mean you can go down a list and there's some amazing, especially the low numbers amazing players that played at these positions that we could have chosen. I mean Jerome Mcginlo is number twelve. Yvonne cornwire was number twelve. These guys are great. I think Corn ya is in the hall, anna ginla is in the hall. I'm pretty sure. Or if not, he's going to be a first chance he gets. There's many great number twelve, I tend to think, of the guys that I have a little bit of association with and Eric stahl was just one of those guys. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Well, when you mentioned stahl, I brought up having had the conversation with marlowe, but my initial number twelve now this is going way back. [00:05:14] Speaker B: Sid Abel, well, yeah, he was one of the best with the Detroit red wings and in the early all the they won three cups in a row. And Sid Abel was the cornerstone between with how and I don't know if ted lindsay. Lindsay or Leswick or one of those guys. Yeah. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Unbelievable. And then went on to become GM of the Kansas City scouts and he was actually before that he was the last ever full time player head coach in the national hockey league with. [00:05:51] Speaker B: And wasn't his line like anytime you get a line named after you I think wasn't that the production line back then? So, I mean, you know, you're in pretty good company when you're in that line yep. [00:06:04] Speaker A: With the Abel Howe. And then, I think the first or second interview I ever did on the radio at a high school radio station in Michigan, sid came in. It was Ed jockman, and then a few weeks later, it was Sid. And he came and he smoked up until he walked through the door, sat down, did a 15 minutes interview, and then smoked smoking again. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Back in the day, that's what they. [00:06:28] Speaker A: Did, but lived the 82. And at that point, he was a really well known popular broadcaster doing Red Wings games on the radio and television. But Sid was quite a guy. All right, let's jump into you mentioned you brought up the wild and your time there, and I just want to get into this season for them. It's been a wacky one. And Dean Evison, who I think took over directly from correct. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Yep. [00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah, they show him the door after a season that know, Jared Spurgeon's played a grand total of eight games for him this season. They go through a losing skid and an emotional departure for him and GM Bill Garrett. What do you think? [00:07:12] Speaker B: Well, the emotional that to me, that's just a well written story. But the difference you can tell when you are known or not known, where it's known that you are on thin ice, or that there's the potential of getting mean in the Minnesota locker room. Everybody's walking around, like, with their head down. No one's know. They know that there's the stress on the coach, whether you like them or, uh so everything is negative around a team, any team, Minnesota, whatever. And for the most part, I think the Vancouver situation was a little but. And then when you change coaches, everybody's got a fresh start, so everybody's in a better mood automatically. And that's why you see almost every time there's a new coach that there's a bump, there's a bump, there's a positive disk, there's a jump in your step, there's all of these things that go on. And, I mean, I think Minnesota is getting that now. Do I think they got a better coach? I don't mean I don't know if behinds is a better coach than Dean and Bob. I don't think they've changed much in the look on the penalty killing, except they're being a little bit more aggressive. But, I mean, it's that jump in attitude that gets teams off the little slide that they're on or the big slide that they're on and the negativism that comes with it, whether it's a broadcast, whether it's a blog, whatever, there's always negative stuff associated with it. So now everything is associated with it is positivity. I mean, they're beating Chicago three nothing again today. So they're well on their way to their third victory in a row. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And they're winning in the division, which is important. They beat St. Louis. They beat Nashville. I think you were pretty ticked off, pissed off when you first heard this, though, right? [00:09:16] Speaker B: Heard what? The dean got fired. Yeah, well, I was ticked off when you're saying all of a sudden you can't coach anymore, the coaches don't change sometimes. The reason you get fired a lot of times is what I've just mentioned. But I don't think he changed the system. A lot of it is the same players. The goaltending wasn't as good as the previous year, the defending wasn't as good the previous year and their star players weren't playing as good as the previous year. Now is there a reason for that? I don't mean not in this case, I have no idea. I'm not really too in tune with the Minnesota Wild on a day to day basis. But when your goalie the year before is at a 935 save percentage and this year you're at an 870, that's quite a difference in opportunities. Goaltenders can make coaches look great or make them look not so great. In this case I was ticked only because I thought that they were trying to pin all this on the coach and a lot of it has to be with the players. But at the same time you can't fire we all knew what we signed up for when we did this and you can't fire 23 players. So I mean somebody's got to go because owners don't like sitting there and watching people badmouth their teams and they don't like seeing empty seats. So I mean they had to make a move at this point and so far it's been successful. [00:10:52] Speaker A: You were there, you were in Washington, you were in Anaheim. Anaheim pretty quiet. And then of course you went to Vancouver and you got the real taste of the Canadian market. Where would you slide Minnesota in there? The state of hockey. Obviously it's part of the culture, it's a pretty progressive area state and all that, but in terms of hockey it's ingrained. So where did you kind of find that pressure level compared to maybe the others? [00:11:16] Speaker B: Well, I didn't find any too much pressure because I was surprised when I got let go and I didn't see any wasn't. Now, if this had happened at game eight of the start of the season with a new GM because it was the third GM in my tenure there, then I would have been surprised. But I wouldn't have been surprised because I felt pressure in game eight. But we were on an eight three and one run. We were a top ten team from the 8th game of the season. So I was a little surprised that it happened in late February. Matter of fact Valentine's Day in February. So I mean usually if you're going to get fired, it's going to be around Thanksgiving or early December at the latest January, but sometimes in February when the team's going good. I was a little surprised by that, but that was the only time I wasn't surprised in Vancouver. I knew it was going to happen if we didn't win the cup in Anaheim and I knew the summer before that in Washington, if we didn't have an incredibly good season like we'd had the previous four, the same thing wasn't going to win the cup then something bad was going to happen. [00:12:39] Speaker A: The second part of that, though, for me in Minnesota, when I say pressure is in the market, you mentioned Mike Russo at one point, being a great writer when we were chatting a couple weeks ago. But how constant is it? In other words, how much of it. [00:12:53] Speaker B: Is people were good. People are so nice in Minnesota. That's why they call it Minnesota nice. But quite honestly, I didn't hear a lot of there was no buzz in the papers about me leaving or me getting fired. There was no talk like, on, well, if they lose this game, he's done, because we weren't losing. We were doing pretty well. And, I mean, we had just finished winning in Dallas on a good team. We lost in a shootout to the Rangers the night before. And that was I probably wouldn't have got fired if we hadn't won the shootout. But, I mean, we had lost to Florida in that run where they scored a goal in the last second on a double deflection. That was an accident. So it wasn't like there was anything negative to be looking at when that happened. So I think that's a different scenario than when you're a playoff team every year and you're mired in 31st place. People are going to talk. And the only thing is, because Minnesota is situated where Minnesota is, it doesn't get any outside media attention or as much outside media attention as, say, a New York, a Toronto, Vancouver, or anywhere. It's okay, it's done, let's move on type thing to the next person. [00:14:19] Speaker A: They have just four players. You talked about goaltending, we talked about injuries. They only have four players with a dozen or more points, so they're not getting a huge contribution depth wise right now. How good is Kepor Soft for you? [00:14:33] Speaker B: I never had him. When you've seen, you know, what, he was in the organization for three years, and everybody kept talking about, bruce, you're going to ever love it when this guy gets here. He's great. He's this, he's that. And he went, well, I really will. But it didn't happen. But the one thing I've coached against him, and he's got incredible edges, he's got a great release, much like Kucherov's. He's got a nose for the net. I mean, all of these guys, these Russians or these superstars that come over and they don't have to be Russian, but, I mean, they've got some incredibly skilled offensive talent. They're a little bit lacking in the North American game defensively, and it takes a couple of years for them to get to understand that. But, I mean, offensively, Kapressov was as good as there was. But he's one of those guys that's not big either. He's only about 510. So when you first see him, you're sort of taken aback. But how good can this guy be? But his quickness and his agility and just his all around awareness on the ice when he's got the puck is pretty incredible. [00:15:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And you mentioned it did take him a little while to get here because he played Russian juniors and then worked his way up to the KHL for a season. And I remember and you were there, too, at least once, probably a couple of times at the Traverse City rookie Tournament that Detroit hosted. Minnesota was always there, and I remember every single year, their broadcaster and their PR guy, we think Caprastop is going to show up this year, but you got to see this guy. Okay, great. Next year, same thing in September. Oh, this career Capra guy is unbelievable. Next third year. Okay. Is this kid ever going to show up? And then he obviously showed up and. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Became the well, I had the same situation in Washington, like when we drafted Kuznetsov. I mean, the first thing George told me is he's not going to be able to come here for three years, which was the same situation as it's it was a great pick by the Wild. I mean, Brent Flair was the AGM, probably doing with Chuck doing those picks, but they won't get credit for it. But they made some really good picks for the Wild back then. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Yeah, and he ended up winning, obviously, the Calder Trophy. And he's off to the races, and he's one of the four guys, obviously, with plenty of points. Actually, Zuccarello is the leading scorer for the Minnesota Wild at the moment. I want to stay out west and talk about your other former team. Recent former team? Vancouver Canucks. They beat the Calgary Flames last night. They pick up Zidor off in a trade, and they seem to be going for it, as I put it in that regard, trying to bolster things a little bit. What'd you think of moving bevillier clearing some cap space, bringing in another big defenseman for a team that already leads the league in. [00:17:43] Speaker B: You know, I think Zidorov is a big move for them. Mean in reality, they picked him up for two draft choices, the third and which I mean, are hit and misses at the best of times with those guys. So you get a big, solid defenseman, and I think anybody and and Vancouver is not mean to win in this league in the playoffs, you need big defensemen. And I think he fits the bill. I think the shocking part was how they got him for so cheap. But moving Bovillier the day before was a real big mean of mean probably only were able to do this deal, quite frankly, if Corey Perry hadn't have gotten into the problem that he got into, because when his contract was up, that allowed Chicago $4 million. And Bovillier hadn't really panned out in Vancouver. I mean, quite frankly, he had two goals, and both of them were in a ten one victory against San Jose. So, I mean, to move him and to move somebody up, whether it's from the minors or just give another guy a chance, I don't think was a big stretch. So it was a stroke of genius, I thought, for their management. I mean, it made their team better, and it made their team bigger and made their team stronger. So, I mean, that was really positive. [00:19:11] Speaker A: Did you hear anything about the Leafs were actually gunning for both Zidorov and Tanev somehow? [00:19:18] Speaker B: I've heard. And if you were Brad Chaliving and you had both of them and you knew exactly what they were, certainly if you believed that they were good players, you'd want them on your team. And I think he wanted just they didn't have that luxury, quite frankly, of being able to move a player. And I don't know if Calgary really wanted a player at that mean for Tanv and Zidorov, they probably would have had to move $7 million or close $6 million at least. And I don't think they were either ready to calgary was ready to take on an extra 6 million, or they wanted a 6 million. In Calgary's world, everybody looks at it and say it wasn't a great deal, but that opened up their money. And, I mean, maybe now they can go ahead and sign Hannifin, maybe they can sign Lindholm, and that's what that ability is going to give them. And at the same time, if Zidorov was going to walk after this season, then they got the assets they wanted to. So, I mean, we'll see how it all pans out. [00:20:30] Speaker A: And the Leafs could still be in the TANF deal. [00:20:33] Speaker B: I mean, the Leafs could be yeah, of course. I definitely think they need a right handed defenseman. Who that right handed defenseman is, I don't know. But I know that when Calgary had Tannev in the lineup in the last couple of years, there were a better team than without him, especially if you look mean. Last night, Oscar Kellington was I mean, I'm thinking the other move that Calgary made was, okay, we have to move this guy because Skellington or yeah, I don't understand that. Know, he's on LTIR, and when he comes off and he had a great year previous to last year, and when he comes off, they're going to have to find the cap. So they just moved the cap space, and they got so and they got some assets to begin with, and they got rid of a guy that didn't want to be mean. I think it was a win in the end. Win for everybody. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Bring up a good point about killington and the pronunciations, because often in a distant past, it was always Czech guys whose names were completely different than the way they were spelled. But the killington to Shillington, he's Swedish, and I still haven't figured out how we get there. And I keep forgetting to ask, besides picking our favorite numbers early on in these podcasts, I also like to sometimes go down memory lane with you a little bit. And one thing that I've had written down for probably three weeks and I keep forgetting to get to did you not play seven or nine games with the Chicago Blackhawks? [00:22:05] Speaker B: Seven. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Seven. And you had a yeah. What was that like? Obviously you're a Leafs guy, true blue organizational, all the way through for the most part and then here you are. What the hell went on there with. [00:22:17] Speaker B: Well, I was pretty well aware of all the mean when I first started Dallas in the Central League or Toronto, and Chicago shared a farm club that I was on. So I got to know all the blackhawks then. And then when I became the first time I became a free agent, chicago came and signed me. But I mean, again, it was a farm club. I was in their farm club with Edmonton and in Nova Scotia. So when I got called up I was in my thirty s at the time. So I mean I knew I was there for a depth guy, but they gave me a title they're representative to Nova Scotia in the Miners in 86. Don't forget there was no internet, there was no social media as we know it now. So Nova Scotia and Chicago was a long ways away. So if they wanted to get some different answers then from Phoning, the Nova Scotia Edmonton oiler coach, they would phone me to see if our players were playing, if our players were getting enough ice time, if our players were doing this. So anyway, I was having a pretty good year at the time and they called me up especially. It was good, it was around Christmas time and played seven games and the one game I had a six second shift and scored a like Bob Polford. This is old school. Like if you were fourth line a lot of times and he didn't know me, they wouldn't play mean. I thought I played really good when I was up there. Matter of fact, when I got sent down, Pulley said, I know I should have played you more, but that's just the way I am and blah, blah, blah. So I said, yeah, no problem. But what happened is we had a delayed penalty in St. Louis and nobody jumped on the ice. So I jumped on the ice, went right to the front of the net, al Seacord gave me a puck, I put it in, then that was it. He wouldn't put me on anymore. So, I mean, that's the story of my hockey life right there. [00:24:33] Speaker A: Remember who the goalie was for St. Louis? [00:24:36] Speaker B: No, I don't. I can't remember the goalie. I just know C Cord passed me the puck. [00:24:41] Speaker A: I can look that date up. By the way, you were on fire in Nova Scotia at 30 goals and 36 assists that year. You were a point a game player for Nova Scotia that year. [00:24:50] Speaker B: That was the lowest points I'd ever had, by the way. It was leading their team in scoring, but it was the lowest I'd ever had. So, I mean, I was frustrated with my ability there because the next year I think I signed with Springfield and got 120 points and kept getting 100 plus after that. [00:25:12] Speaker A: By the way, two years before Nova Scotia and Chicago, was that the Baltimore skip Jacks? As in the worst team in the. [00:25:20] Speaker B: History of no, I wasn't on that team. We were on a team that was actually very good, and I played in Europe that year, and you were allowed to sign players coming back from the American League. There was no December 1 rule back then, so I signed with Pittsburgh and they assigned me to Baltimore, and we ended up losing in the finals. And I think we had the best team. We set an American League record from the day I got there. We won 16 in a row, but we're playing against Sherbrooke in the finals, and Montreal has already been, always been a thorn in my side. And they got two guys that just finished their junior career and came back for the second last round in the final, and that was Patrick WA and Riche, and so pretty good players. And I think eight of those players or nine of those players moved up to Montreal the next year, and they won the I mean, if you'll have to lose to the other time I lost in the finals as a coach, montreal did the same thing. They brought up this guy, Kerry Price, and he beat us in the finals. So, I mean, those Montreal goalies have been a thorn in my side from the beginning. [00:26:41] Speaker A: And your coach in Baltimore kind of a. [00:26:47] Speaker B: He was, he was a legend, a great man. Really enjoyed playing for him. He was very tough, but, I mean, he was one of those old school tough guys, but he was a good communicator. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And originally from the Sioux and kind of sewed his oats in the Toronto area, I believe. As a younger guy. One last quickie. At the end of your career, you played for Fort Wayne Comets, who was the famous broadcaster that was there for Bob Chase. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Bob Chase, he was there 52 years. I mean, I was a big proponent. I didn't know why he wasn't in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He had started with that franchise in the early fifty s fifty one, fifty two. I think by the time he was all done, unfortunately, he's no longer with us. But I think he did over 60 years of Comet hockey. And back in the day, when Am radio was still big, it was 1120 on Woe Woe, and it was one of those stations for whatever reason, you could get it all over the country, and everybody got a chance to hear Bob Chase on the radio. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Whoa, whoa. It bounce like WJ detroit, same thing. You can pick it up anywhere. Pick it up on the bounce. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Amplitude modulation. Yeah. Bob Chase, great point, though, Gabby. Just because he was a minor leaguer doesn't mean he shouldn't be awarded the Foster Hewitt for 60 years. [00:28:21] Speaker B: I think there's whatever, I mean, you know how hard it is to go through the Miners and have a voice that everybody knew like Bob Chase. There's so many people learned from him, including Doc Emmerich was one of Bob Chase's biggest fans. All of those things worked out pretty well. [00:28:47] Speaker A: I was just going to bring that up. Doc credits him with a lot of so great stuff. Gabby, I'll let you go. You got some football and some hockey to take care of. Great job today. And always fun to go down memory lane, as I mentioned, and hear a little bit about your scoring. Man, you were outrageous, by the way. Piled it up. [00:29:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a lot of them, but it was great for me in the minors. I had 6100 plus point seasons, and I would have loved it to have been in another league, but those things happen. Some of us are meant to be minor league players, and there's been so many being in Hershey, so many great minor league players in the day here. So, I mean, that when the six team NHL was around, and these guys just couldn't quite cut the NHL, but were fabulous hockey players nonetheless. [00:29:47] Speaker A: How was your face offs? [00:29:51] Speaker B: I just don't like talking about myself, but I know in 87 when they first started doing them and we had our guy in Nova Scotia saying I was at 73%, I thought I was pretty good. I used to have some tremendous battles in Junior with Doug Jarvis, who became one of the better face off men. But, I mean, it was in the American League, we had some incredibly good face was everything was a competition because there was almost no rules on the face off. You could kick and gouge and spear and everything mean anything. To win the face off was a big deal. [00:30:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Dougie Jarvis, legendary face off, man. So if you're getting after it with him, that's good stuff. All right, Gabby, enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the hockey action this week. [00:30:46] Speaker B: I will, and I'm sure we will talk soon. You do the same with your group down there and we'll see you soon.