The Hockey Show: Talkin Cawlidge Hawkey With Bucci

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Terms apply. apply hello welcome to the hockey show my name is roy bellamy my co-host is david drarky who works for the hockey news he is not in studio he is on assignment and that assignment is family vacation ethan is in the shipping container in the ep chair rosie is not here.
She is still doing March Madness.

I'm not the one on vacation, by the way. My wife is on vacation.
I'm on dad

duty. You're on dad duty.

Yes, you are. I am not on vacation.

I'm working double duty right now.

I'm still working and I'm doing all the

dad stuff as well.

Does it look like I'm on vacation?

I'm surrounded by toys, but this is my home.

I'm at work. It looks like you're on vacation.
Awesome Zoom background, by the way, Dworky. Awesome Zoom background.
Top notch. That's some fake books in there, you know, like Ronan Farrell.
Today we have John Butchegras from ESPN to talk about the NCAA Men's Hockey Tournament. For those on DraftKings Network watching today, you can watch that on the Lutton Tau show YouTube.
Just go to playlist and find the Hockey Show folder. Now, earlier this week, San Diego Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh stopped by the Anaheim Ducks locker room to give a pep talk and announce the starting lineup.
And this is how it sounded. Thanks, Coach Crow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gentlemen, what an honor.

This is incredible.

It's the kind of stuff I live for right here.

This time right before the game.

And I can see the heart going.

My heart's going too.

I was always like one of those racehorses at the Kentucky Derby, you know, before a game.

Like, you can tell.

I mean, they got a little sweat.

Got a little sweat coming down. You can see the heart pumping.
Snot bubbles. Snot bubbles coming out.
I mean, you guys are thoroughbreds, man. And coach was hitting me with this story about the bow and arrow.
I mean, that's why the heart's going right now, man. You got me pumped up right there.

So, hey, let's go draw the arrow back.

I didn't just feel that.

I feel that strong.

That's strong.

Like, right there, right?

Draw back as far as you can.

Aim and release.

Take your freaking shot, man.

It just gets me right there.

So, go out and play as hard as you can, as fast as you can, as long as you can.

Keep your wits about you and don't worry.

Win on three.

One, two, three.

Win.

Okay.

The guys leading that hunt tonight.

Starting at left wing, Harkey.

At center, Lundy.

At right wing, Leaser.

Defense, Minty.

Helly. And in net, Leeser.
Defense, Minty. Helly.

And in net, Dusty.

Go Ducks.

Get a freaking win, all right?

Let's go get this thing.

Go get after him.

Get after him.

What the hell?

Get after him.

Too bad on us, huh?

I am confused.

My takeaway from this, how good are those Ducks jerseys?

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Big upgrade on the Ducks this season.

Love them.

I'm still caught up on snot bubbles, and then he became Rudy for a minute.

We're going to go inside.

We're going to go outside.

I'm just like, I'm sitting there.

I'm a player on that

team like,

is Robin Hood walking in?

What's happening? I don't know.

That didn't work for me. The Chargers

players get that every day.

Think about them in that situation.

Were they in the playoffs last year?

I don't remember. Yes, Justin Herbert

threw four interceptions, but we don't talk about that.

Okay. Well, we don't talk about that here.
This is a hockey show. We talk hockey.
Speaking of which, we go from an actual good coach. They lost 5-2 to Carolina that night.
Oh, yeah, but that didn't work. But we go from a good coach to a good coach that probably made a mistake here.
Check out this video here. We got Devils defenseman Jonathan Kovacevic.
He answered a post-game question. It was innocuous.
It's just regular hockey speak that you hear from these players. Just like any other NHL player.
Uninteresting and dry as possible. But the Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe apparently didn't like the answer that Kovacevic gave.
So this is what he said.

You know, we're in a fight, and hopefully that, you know,

gets us in that playoff mentality, you know, 10, 11 games out,

and we carry that into playoffs. So, yeah, obviously the results are tough,

but we're in a fight here, and we're not going to back down.

Kovacevic just mentioned to us that he thinks the team kind of needs

to have that playoff mentality going down the stretch. Kovacevic just needs to play better.
That would help. Damn.
Damn. Yeah, that's not cool.
That was surprising, right? Coming from Sheldon Keefe? Yeah. That was a little bit surprising.
I haven't seen him rip a player like that in the media. Maybe I'm not remembering that something happened in Toronto, but...
We need to have a playoff mentality is something that anybody was saying in that situation. Like, I don't understand why you have a problem with that.
There's clearly something deeper there. You know, maybe this is like getting into the Torts Cam York territory.
We'll get to that at some point. But I mean, that seemed like there was something there.
That did not feel good. It's been a frustrating year for New Jersey, right? And they're kind of limping to the finish line.
Literally limping. Literally limping with all the injuries that they've suffered in the past, what, two months or so.
Right now, they're seven points back of Carolina and they're fine in the division because Ottawa's in the Atlantic so they won't catch them there but uh it's it's been a frustrating year and it just seemed to all bubble over in the moment you know I was listening to uh 32 thoughts last week and they were talking about this and Freach was kind of saying that people were hard on Keefe about how he wasn't hard enough on his players in Toronto and and then now he takes a shot at his players, and everybody's mad at him for being hard on his players. So you can't have both.
It's got to be one or the other. So we'll see how it affects them going down the road, but certainly some interesting comments there.
David mentioned John Tortorella. He got fired yesterday.
The Flyers fired him, and the Flyers ended up, the day before, I should say, and the Flyers ended up winning the very first game with Tortorella, not behind the bench. Isn't that always happen, though? Isn't that always the case? Yeah, it does.
It does, doesn't it? And Mitch Kopp scored, too. Everybody plays hard for the new guy.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, we knew the Flyers were going to be bad, but really the man said that after the Toronto loss, actually, because they beat the Canadiens, after the Toronto loss, he said, really not interested to learn how to coach in this type of season.
That's where we're at right now. I mean, Daniel Breer, their own manager, he said that this is a recent thing.
This came into his head recently. Like, okay, we're going to have to let this guy go.
But we knew the Flyers were going to be bad. This is a rebuilding season for him.
I thought that they had a little bit of promise coming into the next season, but I guess Daniel Breer thought that they should go in a different direction. This is kind of the typical torch track, isn't it? Where he overachieves with the team his first two years, and then by the third year, everybody's sick and tired of him.
There's been problems with his star rookie all year, where Mitch Koff, you know, everybody was like, oh, look, Mitch Koff scored in the first game without Tortorella. Of course he did.
So it kind of seems to be that track. Somebody called Torch the Stan Van Gundy of hockey, where every time he coaches, he seems miserable, but he just can't stay away from the game.
Torts is a really interesting character. I'm sure he'll be on a bench somewhere in the NHL coming soon.
Yeah. Well, he seems miserable because of his interactions with the media and because the negative ones get overplayed so much.
I don't know if it's fair because he looks like he supposedly I've never met him in person. But, you know, people say he's a great, great guy.
He's a great hockey guy. So I don't think it's fair to just judge him on that.
But, man, like this, it sounds like there was like some incident that he had with one of his players because Cam York was benched. He dressed.
He didn't play any of that win over Montreal. Was it the other night? And Mishkoff, by the way, what did he hit the post on an empty net for a hat trick? It's been a rough year in Philly.
Hopefully they get some stability moving forward because they do have some really good pieces there. But, yeah, it's been a rough time.
And finally, I'm going to continue my streak of laughing at the New York Islanders until they do right by me and people who don't want to see races get second,

third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chances in

the NHL. They got screwed

just like the Panthers have been screwed

on a goalie interference call.

And we're going to play the video here.

This is

not great.

This is against, I believe, Columbus.

And yeah.

Yeah, he was outside of crease. I don't really think that was goaltender interference there.
But I'm going to tell you why I think it was. I don't know if we have the angle, but there's an angle from behind the goalie where you can see as the shot's coming.
And what we just saw right there for those watching on YouTube, that was in super slow motion. When this was happening in real time, when the contact between Paul Mary and Merzlikens happened, the puck was being released at the point, at that exact moment.
So even though in slow motion, it looked like Merzlikens, like, look, here's the replay. Right here is where the defenseman, I'm not sure who it is, is shooting the puck.
So the puck's traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling. By the time Merzlikens has a chance to reset himself, the puck's already halfway to the net.

So I understand why that shouldn't have counted.

It just doesn't look good in the moment.

And good on Roy because it's bad for the Islanders.

Yes, I'm laughing at them regardless of what happens here.

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Ha ha.

Ha.

All right, it's time for Wins and Fells of the Week

presented by Jägermeister.

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Drink responsibly. David, your win of the week.
My win of the week, we don't have to go too far away from South Florida to get there, just a little bit up the coast to Tampa. It's Nikita Kucherov, who is a dark horse for the Hart Trophy this year.
I don't know if he's going to get a lot of votes, but he's having an amazing season. The other night against Pittsburgh, he got checked into Alex Nedeljkovic headfirst, lost the tooth on the goalie mask, which I don't know if I've seen that happen before.
That's pretty interesting. But then what does he do? He comes back, he goes out into the ice where they're scraping, you know, the commercial break thing, and he's like looking with his stick, he's looking for his tooth, trying, that's such a sad thing when you're trying to find your own tooth in the ice.
It doesn't look like he ever finds it, but what he does find about five minutes later was the back of the net when he scored a power play goal. And I think what was like a six to one victory or something over the, over the penguins as Tampa's rolling right now.
But I just thought that was a cool thing all around. He gets his tooth knocked out by the goalie helmet, goes looking for it because of course he did.
And then he scores a goal because he's Nikita Kucherov. Win of the week, by far, good on Nikita.
Probably should check that shovel because it's probably in that shovel with the scraper. The ice crew definitely got it in his pocket right now.
That tooth is on eBay for sure. I love Dworky saying that's such a sad thing when you're looking for your tooth as if that's something that's very relatable to all of us that's a very exclusive to the greatest hockey players in the world problem uh my win of the week is a video with sound here of a dad who brought who created a portable gore horn go ahead and play that Oh no! A Milwaukee drill? Where did you buy that? Why did you buy that? Don't do it, no, no, no.
Don't, no, oh my God, don't. Fino, don't do it.
Do remote control on it so you can do it. Aye, no.
Milwaukee drill. Where did you buy that? Don't do it.
No, no, no. Oh, my God.
Don't. No control on it.
Hi. Vito.
You can take that with you and scare people. That's badass.
That's nuts. I love.
Oh, man. That's a recipe for trouble.
I'm showing up with that thing to Claire's game whenever she starts playing hockey. There you go.
She scored. Yeah.
No. I'm going to piss off everybody.
Ethan. My win of the week is Alex Ovechkin, and not because he's six goals away from breaking the all-time goal record.
My win of the week for him is because of this incredible act of sportsmanship that we saw last night against the Minnesota Wild, where they lose to the Wild. It's a tough loss for them.
And he goes to the bench as his teammates are going into the locker room. This is captain type stuff.
Ways everybody out there to shake the hands of old rival Marc-Andre Fleury. Those guys did some incredible battles back in the day when it was them and Pittsburgh going at it.
And to see the respect that they have for each other, there's been respect for Fleury all over the league this year. To see that kind of respect from an old rival like that, it's just as cool as it gets.
So hats off to Alex Ovechkin for that one.

All right, Fails of the Week. David?

My Fail of the Week comes from the Hughes Bowl on Monday between New Jersey and Vancouver.

Jacob Markstrom, former Panthers goalie, had one of the most real reactions.

You're talking about realness, Ethan.

After giving up what was the game-winning goal in the shootout to Jonathan Lekromaki Markstrom popped up he took his baseball, his hockey stick like he was Babe Ruth with a baseball bat and just cracked it against the post it was awesome to see to the point where they were making fun of it on the NHL on TNT broadcast they got Darren Pang who's famously a formerL goalie, but he's shorter than me. He's like 5'7".
They brought him like a little miniature goalie helmet, goalie stick to crack on the post. There we go.
Oh, that's cold. Hanson Carter with a Michigan State jersey.
Oh, my God. So credit to Markstrom for being real.
Credit to Pang for getting razzed on it.. Just a lot of fun all around.
My fail of the week comes from Bruins and Kings. This is the official's fail.
Goalie fights. We need more of them.
Jeremy Swainman and Darcy Kemper had a chance to do it. And they go to center ice.
Gloves, blockers, sticks down, masks down, and broken up before they even get together.

The lamest thing you can possibly do is break up a goalie fight.

Swayman's already got his helmet off.

They're ready to go at it.

There is no reason that fight should have been broken up.

Yeah.

And the tail of the tape, 6-3 versus 6-5, that would have been a nice little bout there

if they had gone through.

But the linesman decided

yep, no. Dworky, you ever been in a goalie fight?

What's that? You ever been in a goalie fight?

Have I been in a goalie fight? Once.

It didn't go well for me. Oh, no.

But whatever, you get caught up in the moment.

I got in a lot of goalie skirmishes.

I was a little hothead on the ice. I was an asshole.

I knew that everybody had my back as the goalie, But, yeah, didn't go good. For short guys, you know, short guys like to be scrappy on the ice, right? Well, Mike Vernon.
Mike Vernon is a short guy, and he went out, and he went toe-to-toe with Patrick Waugh and did okay. So I really have no excuse.
By the way, anniversary for that. It was this week, right? It was the anniversary of the game in Detroit between the Avalanche and the Red Wings.
Yep. To recap that, by the way, it was Chris Draper.
I was about to say Malice at the Palace, but that was the Pistons Pacers. That's my bad.
Yeah, Pistons Pacers. But to recap that the year before in the conference final, Chris Draper was boarded by Claude Lemieux and shattered his jaw.
Gone. Oh yeah.
Exploded his whole face. Yeah, and the Avalanche...
Such a cheap shot. ...endend up going to the Cup Final that year.
Dino Cicerelli said, can't believe I shook that frigging guy's hand. It sucked the next year.
Brawl City, everybody fighting. And then the Red Wings went to the Stanley Cup Final and won.
So, yeah, that was a rivalry of the 90s, and we all missed that. Ethan, your fail of the week.
All right, my fail of the week is Matt Rempe. Oh, Lord.
This guy features in fail of the week seemingly every time, I feel like. But he deserves it this week.
Tanner Janot here and him going at it for a scrap. How many times have I told you guys this guy isn't actually good at anything? He's bad at hockey.
He's bad at fighting. He gets penalties pretty much every time he's on the ice.
He gets his ass whooped here by Tanner Janot just like he does every time he fights. Ends up on his ass.
Tanner Janot actually picks him up off the ground and is like, let's go, buddy. You're not getting out of this easy.
Yeah. Fail of the week.
Matt Rempe, always a fail of the week. Now he's on the injured list and won't be seeing him anytime soon.
I mean, he's like the Islanders for me at this point. Yeah, the two of you.
You're anti-New York bias. It's showing.
Oh, my goodness. All right.
For those on DraftKings Network, we have John Butchercross coming up next. You can watch that interview and the rest of the show on the Levittard YouTube page.
Just go to playlist and find our folder. We got every episode in that folder.
So we got John Burtigras coming up next to talk about college hockey. Folks, listen up.
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The NCAA Men's Hockey Tournament has started, and you can find all the games across the ESPN platform, the family of networks. And one man who will be prominent on said platforms, it's John Butchergross, who joins us now.
We're going to talk about the Frozen Four. Let's go through the matchups here because last night was absolutely crazy.
Cornell upset Michigan State. Game winner with eight seconds left in regulation.
Boston University defeated Ohio State. So the big reds, they're going to face the Terriers tomorrow.
Western Michigan got past Minnesota State in double overtime. And UMass with a stunning, and I mean, this is a stunning overtime victory over the Minnesota Gophers.
The Gophers had to change goaltenders in the middle of the third period. Immediately gave up a goal off the faceoff, switched goaltenders back because there's an equipment issue, and that was two goals in a minute and a half, and then a tripping call was missed in overtime, and in transition, the Minutemen scored, and they will play the Broncos tomorrow.
Today's matchups, Maine versus Penn State, UConn versus Quinnipiac, Boston College versus Bentley, and Providence versus Denver. Denver is the defending national champions.
So, John, why don't you give us your thoughts on what's going on in the tournament right now? Yeah, let's start yesterday, Roy. First of all, thanks for having me on the hockey show.
I like your cute little cartoon caricatures with their hockey helmets. It's lovely.
Thank you. Thank you.
Love it. Love it.
But yeah, Cornell yesterday with that big, shocking win. I thought Michigan State was the most dependable team to get to the Frozen Four.
Play a pretty simple style. Really good goaltender.
Well coached. But, you know, Cornell was going at the right time.
They had a little inspiration. Their coach announced his retirement before the season, Mike Schaefer.
So every game could be his last. So sometimes that can carry a team emotionally.
A little extra effort. Every inch of the ice is protected, and they got the job done.
Western Michigan had a really good year this year, 30 wins. I think Pat Fershweiler, their head coach, could be an NHL candidate for a few teams if they're looking for a fresh start and a good coach who obviously can inspire people.
He took over for Andy Murray. You remember that name for a long time, NHL head coach for the Kings.
He went to Western Michigan. Pat took over for him.
He's done a great job there. They squeaked by Minnesota State.
So yeah, really exciting day. And BU with an 8-3 win over Ohio State.
Sometimes those hockey games go sideways. So that can happen, especially in the tournament when everyone's wired tightly and then things don't go your way and it just kind of collapses.
And so that can happen. forward to it beautiful day here in new hampshire i have the number one overall seed boston college eagles ryan leonard washington capital fans are excited about him uh he was their eighth overall pick a couple of drafts to go will likely win the hobie baker for best college hockey player we'll get to see him in person today at a nice small intimate rink here in manchester Manchester playing Bentley, which is just located outside Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts.
First time they've ever been here at Bentley, and so that's always a fun story to watch them. And then you mentioned defending champs, the Pioneers.
They play Providence, who hasn't been here since 2019. This is the 10th year anniversary of them winning their first and only Natty in 2015 against Jack Eichel and bu in 2015 providence finally back after a 2019 appearance that's when they lost uh in buffalo in the frozen four and so they're back so providence this is the eight nine matchup so mathematically it's the best closest matchup but i really like that penn state main game i think that's the best first round game we have that's in allentown the place The place will be packed.
Obviously, it's close to Penn State. Big advantage for Penn State.
A little disadvantage for Maine. They're a number one seed.
They've got to basically play a road game, but they travel well. They should have a couple thousand fans there themselves.
It won't be like a 95-5 or 90-10 crowd, but it still should be 80-20, 75-25, but that's a really exciting first round matchup. Pucci, I've got a million questions for you.
There are a million ways I could go, but I'll start here. BC has this star-studded line that basically carried the Americans to the World Junior Championship this year, right? But they also have the tragedy of Johnny Goudreau is affecting them as well, just like the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Calgary Flames.
So the way that a lot of NHL fans are kind of, you know, we're all Blue Jackets fans this year. Is that the same kind of thing for BC? I don't, maybe for them personally, but maybe not quite with the fan base.
Obviously, Johnny hasn't been there for 12 years when he played Matthew 11. But yeah, the last last time they won the national championship was 2012.
That was Johnny Gaudreau's amazing year in Tampa, Florida, that amazing goal that he had late in the game that punctuated that win. Obviously, he and his brother Matthew, just awful, the saddest hockey story, just imaginable this past summer.
And they lost another member of the family as well. A 40-year-old died of a heart attack.
So they have three initials on their uniform. And it's been on the board there.
We did a really good, we did a nice hour-long feature, hour-long show on preceding the tournament and previewing the tournament with really good E60 features, beautifully done. Probably the best college hockey telecast has ever been done because of the E60 strength behind it and we did a beautiful feature on it it's on ESPN plus I highly recommend college hockey fans and hockey fans to watch it feature on Jimmy Snogarude feature on Trey Augustine feature on Denver's uh as well and it's feature on the Gaudreau brothers and Tony Bosa and how they're how they're honoring.
So, yeah, that gives you an idea. There is a cause, for sure, for the players, and they feel it.
It's emotional. And don't forget, they lost last year in the national championship game 2-0 to Denver.
If they win today and Denver wins today, that's our rematch here in Manchester on Sunday. So it's right there.
The other problem facing a team like Boston College and other teams that have NHL prospects, do they have one foot out the door? You know, as soon as Boston College loses, Ryan Leonard will be a Washington capital two days later playing for them, you know, and he's going to sign a contract. He's going to get his big rookie bonus.
He's going to start, you know, making his 800 grand a year. There was only a couple of paychecks yet left this year.
But so that's the problem when you have these teams like that. I get it when you're 19, 20 years old.
They always say, I'm not thinking about that. I'm compartmentalizing.
But I know I would have thought about it when I was 19 years old with zero money in my checking account. So, you know, that's the big challenge with these hyper, you know, talented teams.
You mentioned, you know, obviously, Leonard James Hagan is going to be a top five pick in the draft this summer, so he can't go anywhere. Gabriel Perot is a Ranger first-round pick.
We'll see if he goes. I think he should come back one more.
That's the issue. Same with Denver and Zeev Booiam, who will be in Minnesota's lineup as a big-time defenseman.
That's the issue with these young teams and why a team like Cornell, an older team, Bentley even an older team. You know, this is the business for them.
This is the highlight of probably their hockey careers when these other prospects have the NHL to kind of get distracted by. You kind of led me perfectly into what I wanted to ask you about, because you mentioned like Leonard, you know, with B.C., with the Capitals, Perot, also B.C.
with the Rangers. You've got Jack Devine at Denver.
You know. Panther fans are always asking about him.
Who do you think about this crop of talent, who do you think would be the most pro-ready if they were to make that decision? Leonard and Booiam. Leonard more so because he's a forward.
Booiam, a defenseman. It's hard.
An 18-year-old defenseman coming right into the league. These guys are big, strong men in the corner.
He's offensively dynamic. He's absolutely a sensational player to watch.
He breaks people down like few hockey players do. I always compare it to Allen Iverson crossover dribble.
He breaks people down like he's on tennis shoes. Rasmus of Buffalo, Quinn Hughes of Vancouver does it.
Obviously, Kael McCarr, that they can break people down one-on-one. He can do that.
And so he's in that kind of class offensively. Defensively, it'll be a little tougher.
So I would say Ryan Leonard, to go to a good team, they can pick his spot, pick his slot where he can maybe be comfortable. And so he would be the one that we're going to see in Washington's lineup as a depth guy.
We'll see how, you know, they might realize, you know what, he's kind of, you know, he plays a different game in college, gets a lot of breakaways, little Pavel Bure center ice logo hanging around to get those little cherry picking, you know, try to get those plays. Got to play a little more honest 200-foot game in the Stanley Cup playoffs for a Stanley Cup contender.
So he'll need to make that quick adjustment. I think he can.
He's wired for this, and I think he'll be the guy who makes the biggest impact right away. But over time, there's plenty of people who will make their presence felt in the NHL.
You guys mentioned a couple of names from the finalist list from the Hobie Baker Awards. So let's go over the entire list for best hockey player in the country.
Zeeb William and Jack Devine from Denver. Aiden Fink from Penn State.

Matt Godowski from Army. Isaac

Howard from Michigan State. Ryan Leonard

from Boston College.

Ayrton Martino from

Clarkson. Liam McClinsky

from Holy Cross. Jimmy

Snuggerud from Minnesota. Alex

Tracy from Minnesota State.

Some unreal names on

that list. Oh, my God.

So you have any thoughts on any of the names that we haven't mentioned yet, John?

Yeah, I think the votes are due after this weekend's games,

and there'll be a final three.

So whoever gets the three highest vote totals become the final three,

and then they go to the show on the Friday in St. Louis

in between the Frozen Four games,

and they'll have the half-hour show on NHL Network. And then they'll unveil the winner.
And I'm pretty sure the top three is going to be Leonard, Booiam, and Howard. It might be Snuggaroo.
It would be close. Hobie Baker likes when people come back for their third year like Snuggaroo did.
Obviously, a heartbreaking loss last night in overtime game they should have won against UMass. The grandfather played for the Gophers.
The dad played for the Gophers. And one of the stories that we did on that East 60 show on ESPN Plus was just trying to – they also had heartbreaking losses in the tournament.
He was hoping to be the first Snuggaroo to finally get it done. This team is stacked.
Minnesota has the most NHL players on it, future NHL players. We might see six next week.
Renzell with the Blackhawks. Snuggerwood with the Blues will probably play.
Oliver Moore might be playing for the Chicago Blackhawks as well. They are loaded up and down the lineup, but Snuggerwood couldn't get it done.
It might be Snuggerwood Howard, but I really do think it'll be Howard Leonard and William. I do.
And I do think that Leonard in the end will win the Hobie Baker.

Hobie likes goals.

He has 29 to leave the league.

And all these stats keep counting.

So, you know, he's the current leader.

And so these stats count right to the end of the tournament.

So I think Leonard will win it Friday, which makes me interesting.

Like if BC doesn't make it, he goes to the Capitals.

Like he might not be able to be at the ceremony, which kind of stinks. I get know but maybe they're off that day i didn't check their schedule um but maybe they can zip him in zip him out uh to you know to get that picture next to the hobie big it's a cool trophy you know the names were starting to win it recently are like nhl guys to you know carol mccarr jack eichel it's a it's a cool trophy to win again much like heisman trophy it's a cool one to have forever.
So I think Leather will win it. The Frozen Four, the actual semifinal is April 10th, and the national championship is April 12th in St.
Louis on ESPN2 and ESPN+. Before we move on to the NHL, I want to give a shout-out to the women.
Wisconsin won the national championship on the women's hockey side, and Lele Edwards, I see you. All right.
Ohio. Ohio in the house.
Ohio. That team was loaded.
What a game it was to win, to tie the game on a shootout and then win it. What a game.
That legendary performance by Mark Johnson. And who wants it when he called it? Who wants the penalty shot? Raise the hand.
Go out and score. That was great television as well.
Mark Johnson, 1980. Yeah, he was the best player on that team.
Had a really good career, too, in the NHL. Almost a point-per-game guy.
I did a column on ESPN.com a few years ago, and I give my top 20 all-time American-born players. And at the time, I had him like 19 because of the Miracle on Ice, because of his success in college, and a solid NHL career, almost point-per point per game ed mark johnson and my top 20 all-time born usa players two goals in that russia game right big one he had the big one late in the period right he was their best player throughout the tournament and now amazing women's coach at wisconsin just piling up the national championships you mentioned team usa layla edwards is now joining team usa as they go out to play in the Women's World Championship.
So good luck to Team USA. Layla Edwards is now joining Team USA as they go out to play in the Women's World Championship.

So good luck to Team USA. She can fire the puck.

Unbelievable how she can fire the puck.

She's going to play defense on that team, Roy.

She's normally a forward for Wisconsin, but they're going to put her as a defenseman,

so she's pretty versatile.

So it's basically Dustin Bufflin.

That's right.

Good call.

I like it.

Yeah.

You have been on Alexander Oveskin Watch as we transition to the NHL now. And I was looking up the exact date that you predicted that he would break the record.
And originally, you said he would break the career goals record in the spring of 2026. Originally.
And then you updated it. You make a bunch of them and then you just when did he say this because i was watching a canadian broadcast the other night i can't remember the game but on sportsnet or tsn they had somebody on who said it around 2015 or 2016 as well we have cleared this up i wrote my original espn.com column column saying I think Alex Ovechkin can break this record in February of 2010.
He came to ESPN to shoot one of those This Is Sports Center commercials, the Russian spy one. Top five all time.
I'm coming up with my list right now. Great spot.
And so at the time I was writing my hockey column for .com once a week i did it from 01 to 2017 about 16 years a lot of work paid me like 500 bucks a week it was i was so underpaid um so i figured you know what i can i can ask him a few questions i'll kind of you know piggyback on this little shoot i heard he was coming and i just i brought it up and he looked at me like i had 10 heads because he's 24 years old at the time he's been in the league for four years. But my point was he had such a big, broad foundation.
He got off to a great start for goals. And he just looked like the kind of guy who was going to get hurt.
Like LeBron, never got hurt. And then here we are.
And then, yeah, then 2015, I think that's when David Amber first mentioned it to Elliott Freeman. Hey, ask Obi about the record maybe.
And so we've texted, me and Ray Ferraro have texted Elliott to clear up because it's right on the interwebs. You know, Butcher Grasso, Ovechkin, Gretzky, it'll come up there.
And I kind of forecasted each age from 24 on when he could break the record. I was very reasonable in my projections, you know, like when he was 36.
Well, Brett Hall had like a 39 goal season. So why can't he age 37? Phil Esposito had like 38.
Well, he could do that. That I was kind of historical comparisons all the way to age 40.
And I actually reached the point where like, holy crap, this guy's going to score like a thousand goals. Forget the record.
The record was never a question to me. I thought it was more less likely, you know, it was more likely he would score a thousand than he would not break the record.
And I'm still going to stick with that if he decides to play three more years. He's going to get a thousand goals.
So yeah, 2010 was the original column. And then yeah, then I made a few predictions about when.
And yeah, I think I deleted all those tweets that were wrong and saved the one that was closest. What did you think of what happened

last night, Roy, in Minnesota?

When

Ovi called basically the entire

Caps team back onto the ice

to honor another legend

retiring after the season,

Marc-Andre Fleury.

I don't know

why I was surprised by that.

I guess maybe because Ovechkin

he's not in the spotlight for more than his goals record a lot right now, but I mean, just for the kind of guy he is, that was just so cool to see. Something that we probably, you know, I mean, when do you see those kind of like generational type guys come together like that? I thought that was just spectacular.
I've always thought he's done a good job, really assimilated himself right from his rookie year to the NHL, even America, even the culture, the culture even like you know he would do in local ads as soon as he became a capital he was goofy you know when i when the russians first came into the league actually going back to miracle on ice you mentioned mark johnson how dour they were you know they were just so of course their lives were terrible they they were you know they had to just go play hockey around the world none of them had anything remember the famous story they would trade vodka for blue jeans and lake plastic because they couldn't get any blue jeans so they would trade with the americans get some blue jeans to wear it was a tough existence you know it's kind of and and so and the players seem to reflect that just in the in their in their countenance and their expressions when they first came to the nhl but then over time it kind ofchko was the first one. He was a goofy – like there weren't goofy Russians in the 80s.
You know what I mean? The 70s and the 80s and the early 90s when Spatisov first coming over and those guys. He was really out there and he just kind of embraced it all and being goofy, never took himself seriously, understood like Arnold Schwarzenegger that, you know, my English is going to be perfect, but I'll try and I'll laugh and I can laugh at myself and just the whole game.
And he kind of learned the, and then the Stanley Cup has grown to become the trophy in sports. It used to be the gold medal.
The gold medal is still very huge. Don't get me wrong.
But back in the old days in the NHL, 70s and 80s, the Europeans couldn't wait to lose. They could go back home and they weren't getting paid in the playoffs.
So to them, it didn't have any kind of impact. That slowly changed.
And you saw Ovechkin's reaction when he won the Stanley Cup. And that shows you what the value of the trophy means now and the accomplishments.
So I agree. He really has endeared himself completely to the NHL now.
And all countries and all players from all countries do that now. That wasn't case initially in the nhl boochie before we get you out of here you mentioned that this is sports center commercials i've been i fell asleep and woke up to sports center every day growing up and these i love that shirt by the way that's like atlanta braves combination it's a gators shirt baby so uh i put together my list of top five.
This is SportsCenter commercials

really quickly. I scrambled.
So I might have missed some of my favorites, but this is what I came up with off the top of my head. I want to run it by you.
All right. OLI, outside looking in, as I mentioned, Florida Gators, Steve Irwin with Albert the Alligator.
Really good. All right, number five.

David Ortiz trying on a Yankees hat and Wally the mascot walks by and gets mad at him. Agreed.
Sneaky good. Sneaky good.
Number four. Scott Van Pelt.
His cubicle is right next to LeBron James and he steals LeBron James' chair. Simple, clean, good.

More simple the better.

Number three, Scott Van Pelt a big

feature on this list. Stu Scott

and Scott Van Pelt

warming up before the show and they

rip off the suit.

Number two, the inspiration for this list,

Alex Ovechkin, The Russian

Spies.

And number one, this is far and away the greatest. Number two, the inspiration for this list, Alex Ovechkin, The Russian Spies.
Okay.

And number one, this is far and away the greatest.

They're in the cafeteria.

Arnold Palmer walks up, pours an Arnold Palmer.

I can't say that word either, Lucy.

And then they whisper to each other, that was awesome.

I know.

Greatest, this is SportsCenter.

Oh, good. I would just add, follow me to freedom, Charlie.
Follow me to freedom! Oh, that's great. That's a good one.
Jay Harris with the New York Jersey Devil mascot. No words.
Going down. Gets out of the elevator.
I love the Van Pelt thesaurus one. When the guys come in, it's the steroid era and like performance enhancing as a writer and they found this thesaurus in his desk and he tries to run and they tackle him i like that one so i love the ov one too so yeah it's i've done about i did about 12 to 15 of those there was shack where he walks up the tree and he pulls down the the human mascot the tiger yeah that's a good you think he's getting the kitten out of the tree it's actually the the human size mascot mascot who looks like a baby in Jack's arms.
I did that with Stu. That was a great memory, a great day being around those guys.
Yeah, those were fun. We don't do them anymore.
They're really expensive to do. They were part of the budget cuts originally.
Now we kind of make some new ones. We do it in-house and do it ourselves.
But that was amazing. It was like a movie set.
There There'd be a hundred people, really talented directors. And we'd make a lot of, make up a lot of stuff.
In fact, the Adrian Peterson one, where I call Van Pelt bedwetter, Hey, bedwetter, we just made that up. And that was one they ended up using, not the real scripted take forever to plan and shoot.
It was just that one. Let's try this.
So a lot of those, we would do the one they scripted and then say, let's try this. Let's try this.
And I bet that was the devil's one with Jay Harris. And let's just try this.
You just walk in the elevator. You ask if he's going up and he says no, and you hurry up and get out.
And those were some great memories. Finally, Brent Marchant is playing tonight for Florida.
Yes. So he's going to be on the second line with Mackie Samuskevich and Sam Bennett.
There's a three-way tie in the Atlantic Division right now. Toronto has first place based on the third tiebreaker with regulation and overtime wins.
Panthers are in second and Tampa is now in third. They are in third because they played one more game than Tampa and Toronto and Florida.
So how is Brad Marchand's addition to the Florida Panthers going to affect this first place race for the Atlanta division? Yeah, he just gives them a big jolt of energy late in a long, long, long NHL season. The players will be excited during warm-up.
Warm-up will have a buzz to it. Marchand will be flying around the ice.
No, he's not a Stanley Cup contender. Remember, he's only won one.
It was 15 years ago. He's a young kid.
It'll mean a lot this time as well

as he's toward the end of his career. So he's just going to bring energy.
And obviously,

the on-ice stuff, the grit, the playmaking, just a good hockey player. But I think overall,

energizing the room. And that's the difference between the NCAA hockey tournament that we

started talking about in the NHL and why the Panthers are the favorite, because it's not one

to do. player but i think overall energizing the room and you know that's the difference between the ncaa hockey tournament that we started talking about in the nhl and why the panthers are the favorite because it's not one and done you have to beat them four out of six times or four out of seven times that's hard and that's why they're the favorite amongst those three home ice doesn't really matter in the nhl we see the history of it it's 50 50 home and road uh records it does kick up a little bit for the home team in Game 7,

a little more of an advantage.

But otherwise, you can win in the road.

Players enjoy it. They like that us-against-them mentality,

as the Panthers have shown in their last few years here on their Cup run.

So, yeah, he'll add a lot.

And they are the favorite to get back to the Cup final for the third straight year.

And they need that.

It's tiring to do this every year. So they need these little bursts of energy that Marchand will provide.
The Frozen Four is on the ESPN Family Networks. Guys, enjoy college hockey.
John Bruchigrass, thank you for joining us. Thank you.
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Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories, what happened this week in Pantherland.
And the Panthers have back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday at Washington and back home against Pittsburgh. In Washington, not good.
They lost 6-3, and it was a wild first period. It was tied 3-3

after the first 20, but the way the

Panthers looked on defense,

it was pretty much inevitable that

they were going to end up losing that game. And the Capitals shut

them down for the rest of the game.

And Alexander Ovechkin did not score a

goal, but he had two assists.

Everybody else scored a goal.

Yeah, everybody else scored a goal, including Tom Wilson,

who continues to have a career year. Yeah, 30-plus goals now for Tommy W., but you could tell from early on that that was not going to go the Panthers' way that game.
It was back and forth, a lot of rush goals. Like you said, the first period, three goals each.
I think Washington took three leads for it, tied it three times, and then when the second period started, Washington was up five to three before the second period was a minute old. Just very un-Panthers-like.
Maybe perhaps a wake-up call for Florida as they were wrapping up that road trip. But, you know, just not pretty.
Tom Wilson is now a goal away from his career high and assist away from career high. Yeah, I mean, that's really Washington is so weird to me like this team I mean I know they got a lot better they had a great offseason and everybody's really excited about them and everything but Tom Wilson scoring 32 goals and just the way that everything is happening around the Ovechkin chase I'm still sticking on this team I don't want to call them frauds because they're good.

I don't see them going very far in the playoffs. I just think that they're a team that just has a

great regular season and they run into one of these tougher teams in the playoffs and they

struggle a lot to score. I think we talked about this last week.
They're kind of like the Panthers

when they won the President's Trophy, where they score, score, score, score, score. But when it

comes to playoff time, is that really going to be an effective strategy

to go deep in the playoffs? I don't think so.

Apologies, by the way. He already has a career high in goals, so there's that.

But the good news out of that is Sam Bennett continues to help the pets.

He's helped another pet get adopted through Benny's Buddies

in the Humane Society of Broward. He had a goal and assist.
And he's five goals away and two points away from his career high in each of those categories. It's a contract year, fellas.
It is. And remember early on, Bennett had that, what was it, like 17 or 18 games where he didn't score a goal.
The fact that he's still got, what is it, 23 now, Roy, 22, 23, whatever it is, it's been a pretty impressive season. But I think the time that he's out of the lineup, it's never more apparent that the Florida needs Sam Bennett in their lineup.
And I really hope as we get towards the offseason that the Panthers and Sam Bennett figure out a way to get something done. I think with both of their UFAs, with Bennett and with Ekblad, it's been pretty clear

that both of them are pretty integral parts of

the Panthers' machine that keeps turning along.

So it'll be interesting to see if they

can get something done with those guys as we get closer to the offseason.

Five goals away and two

points away from

a career high. That's good stuff

from Benny there.

That's how you play in a contract year, Roy.

If you want to get paid, that's how you do it.

Right now, he's on track to get paid.

There were recent reports from Elliott Friedman

in the next video. from Benny there.
That's how you play in a contract year, Roy. If you want to get paid, that's how you do it.

And Benny, right now, he's on track to get paid.

There were recent reports from Elliott Friedman that the Panthers and Bennett have started talks again.

He said they were really close

when they started talks earlier this year.

It didn't quite come to fruition.

I think with the cap stuff, the way it's going up,

all of a sudden he saw a little more value.

But also, this has been a great relationship. Benny's been really good good here it wouldn't surprise me if they get a deal done at all and they kind of need to he's a very valuable player um and like dworky mentioned ekblad i mean has been just the defensive leaks in this game were crazy the defensive leaks since ekblad went out have been very on pantherlike.
They really need to try and get both of these guys re-signed or else it's going to be an interesting offseason for sure. So the Panthers complete their six-game road trip going 2-4-0.
Not good. Not good at all.
They were outscored 18-4. So a little home cooking for them was very much needed.
And the Panthers played the Penguins. And all three of the matchups have gone past regulation.
Extra hockey. That means more Sidney Crosby for me.
Hooray. Just...
What are we doing here, man? Just winning regulation. Smile.
Smile. It's all for you.
No. It's all for you, Roy.
No, no, no. By the way...
These teams know how much you love the, what is it, black and yellow, right? That's Pittsburgh black and yellow. Yeah, that's correct.
They know how much you love that. I feel like you should just smile and say thank you for this extra access to this generational player that everybody seems to love but me.
Okay, whatever. By the way, those three games, very important in the standings because that would have figured it into the tiebreaker with Toronto.
Right now there's, and we mentioned this with Bucci, a three-way tie in the Atlantic Division. And that tie, by the way, 35 wins in regulation, both Toronto and Florida.
So they had to go to the third tiebreaker with regulation and overtime wins. And Toronto has the advantage on that.
So, yeah, win games in regulation. And they did not versus the Penguins as the Panthers won 4-3.
But Alexander Barkov in the shootout, best backhand in the game, just making goaltenders look silly, Ethan. He is so good at the shootout.
It feels like every time he is in one, it's a shock if he doesn't score. You know he's going to score when he gets into the shootout.
Rhino should have tucked the game away. He beat Jari, but it just went off the post.
His shooting, he's had a little bad puck luck recently. But the star of the shootout for me was Sergey Bobrovsky.
He saved all three attempts and the final attempt against brian russ who had two goals in this game i thought he was beaten i think goldie thought he was beaten but then babrovsky kind of like moved his pad and you saw the puck just sitting in the crease it had not gone in and you were like oh my god the you know the panthers won so So that was a crazy shootout. Bob has been absolutely phenomenal recently.
And it shouldn't be any surprise, right? We all kind of knew he struggled early. It'll be fine.
Go around into form come February. And since I think his number since, I can't remember exactly when, since January, he's got under two goals allowed per game.
His save percentage is up near 930, maybe even over 930. He's been absolutely fantastic.
He's going to be ready for the playoffs once again, and he's going to have to put the Panthers on his back, just like he has the last two years. This is going to make Dave Babrovsky in the month of March, fellas.
Six wins in eight games, three shutouts, 1.50 goals against, and a 935 save percentage. This guy is ready for the playoffs.
Yes, he is. And this is going to make Dave happy.
He had an assist in the game. Yes.
Goalie assist. Goalie assist.
To count for double. Sam Reinhardt had two goals in the game as well.
The Panthers are going to play Utah tonight. So weird to say, right? Yeah.
Yeah. The Utah Hockey Club.
Four-day break for the Panthers. UHC.
UHC, even though that's not what they put on the graphic in the upper third for the scoreboard, but UHC. We mentioned this to the Bucci earlier that Brad Marchant hopefully will make his debut tonight.
Confirmed. Confirmed.
Confirmed. He's making his debut.
Paul Maurice announced in the press conference today. So it's looking like the second line, correct? He's going to be in Matthew Kachuk's spot as well as Mackie and Sam Bennett.
That's right. That's going to be it.
Marchand and Bennett. When you look at these lines, all of a sudden, what these lines look like when the Panthers are at full strength you're looking at either Mackie Samuskiewicz possibly Evan Rodriguez oh yeah fourth line yeah that's Mackie on the top line ridiculous yeah Mackie up top you could have Verhage on the third line or vice versa I mean either way Sirainen Boquist on the fourth line Erod on the fourth line.
I don't know what the hell Paul Maurice is going to do with these lines, but just like the Panthers did last year, where they had five lines they could roll out there if they wanted to, they're going to have five lines that they could roll out there again. Guys like AJ Greer, Jonah Gajevic, and Thomas Nosek, who have been solid players for the Panthers all year long, are going to possibly be on the wrong end in the playoffs.
It's going to be amazing to see what Maurice does and what this team looks like at full strength. Because you're talking about Evan Rodriguez, who led the Stanley Cup Final in goals last year, possibly being a fourth liner come playoff time.
It's insane. It's a good problem to have, being that deep.
It's the best problem. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Kevinland's coming back.
He's going to get his tribute video. That's great.
His tribute video should just be the penalty kill. Correct.
Just play the penalty kill in full. The minute 30 where he doesn't have a stick, and he's diving headfirst to try and clear the puck, and then Bobrovsky.
That should just be – they don't need to show anything else. That's exactly right.
The biggest and greatest penalty kill in franchise history straight up uh utah is coming off of a eight nothing beat down against he lay lost in tampa uh yeah they that was that was bad the panthers last time they played utah was the first matchup they that they had since utah moved from arizona and that was a dominant time win yeah utah they they're basically like are they, 10 points out of a playoff spot right now with 10 games to go? They have zero margin for error. They basically have to win out and then hope to get some help.
I know that after the game last night in Tampa, a couple of guys were talking about, we really have to check ourselves if we want to talk about the playoffs. Guys, the playoffs are passing you by.
That time has basically passed for the Utah Hockey Club. So we'll see what kind of effort they have.
Because having their season end basically with an 8-0 loss in Tampa, it probably killed them. Yeah, not a good problem to have in the opposite end on that one.
Sunday and Tuesday, back-to-backs. I should say home and homes, not back-to-backs, but home and homes against the Montreal Canadiens.
The Habs are in the last wild-cost spot in the East. They got four teams chasing them, as we mentioned with Bucci.
Cole Caulfield dedicated his season to Johnny Gaudreau, who changed his jersey number. He has 34 goals and 29 assists for 63 points.
Nick Suzuki's leading the team in points for 73. He's got 22 goals and 51 assists.
These are mid-games for the Canadiens. Monty's having a great year for them, too.
Another former Panthers goalie out there to talk about. But it's been fun.
They really responded to Marty St. Louis.
Remember when he took over a couple years ago? It was like toward the end of the season. We're like, yeah, actually played pretty well under him.
Well, I mean, look what's happening now. So it'll be fun to see if we can get another Canadian team into the playoffs.
Roy, I know we talked about it last week, but anytime you get the Canadian teams in the playoffs, you know it gets rowdy up there, especially in Montreal. Panthers, four days off between tonight's game and Sunday's game, but the schedule just loads up at the end here.
They get that tough home and home with Montreal, not back-to-back, but Sunday, Tuesday, that's still a tough trip.

And then a back-to-back on Wednesday against Toronto,

and then another back-to-back the next weekend on Saturday and Sunday.

So there's three.

I think they have two more back-to-backs the rest of the season.

It's a brutal stretch, and it's going to be three more back-to-backs,

excuse me, three more back-to-backs the rest of the season. So they needed those four days really badly.
Yes. The rest is very important and good to have Brad Marchand on this team now because they need the support because this is going to be a long one for the rest of the season.
It's going to be so weird seeing him in a Panther jersey tonight. Yeah.
Even if we're watching this after it happened, it's still weird for you. I can't wait.
It's going to be an adjustment period for sure. I cannot wait.
Neither can I. For Ethan, for Dave, for Jason, for Gino.
My name is Roy Bollamy. we'll see you next week.
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Games of consequence in sports starting to ramp up.

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Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.
Hey audience, you know it's that time of year where everyone is debating who the number one pick is going to. Well, let me tell you something that is undebatable.
Who the world's number one vodka is. That is Smirnoff.
And as fun as it is to debate whether or not the team with the number one pick goes pass rusher, wide receiver, quarterback, one thing that we all know is we're going with Smirnoff as our number one vodka pick. Isn't that right, Dano? Smirnoff rules! Smirnoff rules! So while you're over there hosting your draft parties, you know one thing in particular you need.
Well, there's two things that you absolutely need. The draft on TV, that's a must.
But number two, what is it, Dano? Smirnoff! Do you like Dano? Support the people who support us. Smirnoff supports us.
I like Smirnoff. I don't like Dano.
And thanks to Smirnoff, God Bless Football is doing their first ever watch-along live stream

in front of a live audience in Nashville, Tennessee.

Join God Bless Football during round one of the draft on the Levitard Show YouTube channel on April 24th.

More details to come.

Please drink responsibly.

Smirnoff, number 21 vodka, distilled from grain, 40% alcohol by volume.

The Smirnoff Company, New York, New York. Please, 40% alcohol by volume, the Smirnoff company,

New York, New York.

Please do not share with anyone under legal drinking age.

Woohoo!