The Hockey Show: Talkin Cawlidge Hawkey With Bucci

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Speaker 4 Hello, welcome to the hockey show. My name is Roy Bellamy.
My co-host is David Drorki, who works for the hockey news. He is not in studio.
He is on assignment, and that assignment is family vacation.

Speaker 4 Ethan is in the shipping container in the EP chair. Rosie is not here.
She is still doing March Madness.

Speaker 9 Yeah, let's be clear. I'm not the one on vacation, by the way.
My wife is on vacation. I'm on dad duty.

Speaker 4 Oh, you're on dad duty. Yes, you are.

Speaker 9 I am not on vacation. No, you got two kids.
I'm working double duty right now. I'm still working, and I'm doing all the dad stuff as well.
So let's just, you know,

Speaker 9 does it look like I'm on vacation? I mean, I'm surrounded by toys, but this is my home.

Speaker 4 No, I'm at work. So it looks like you're on vacation.

Speaker 1 Awesome Zoom background, by the way, Dworky. Awesome Zoom background.
Top notches.

Speaker 4 That's some fake books in there, you know, like Ronan Farrell. Today we have John Bruchikross from ESBN to talk about the NCAA men's hockey tournament.

Speaker 4 For those on DraftKings Network watching today, you can watch that on the Love Matar Show YouTube.

Speaker 4 Just go to playlist and find the hockey show folder.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 2 Gentlemen,

Speaker 3 what an honor.

Speaker 3 It's kind of stuff I live for right here

Speaker 10 this time right before the game and I can see the heart going.

Speaker 3 My heart's going too. I was always like

Speaker 8 one of those race horses at the Kentucky Derby, you know, before a game.

Speaker 10 Like, you can tell. I mean, they got a little sweat.
They got a little sweat coming coming down you can see the see the heart pumping snot bubbles snot bubbles coming out I mean

Speaker 11 you guys are

Speaker 12 thoroughbreds man and coach was hitting me with this story about the bow and arrow and got me I mean that's why that's where the heart's going right now man he got you got me pumped up right there so hey Let's go draw the arrow back.

Speaker 4 I just feel that. I feel that strong.
That's strong. Like,

Speaker 12 right there, right?

Speaker 3 Draw back as far as you can.

Speaker 4 Aim

Speaker 10 and release.

Speaker 4 Take your freaking shot.

Speaker 3 Man, it just gets me right there.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 4 And don't worry.

Speaker 12 Win on three. One, two, three.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 8 The guys leading that hunt tonight.

Speaker 12 Starting at left wing, Harkey.

Speaker 12 At center, Lundy. At right wing, Liser.

Speaker 12 Defense, Minty.

Speaker 13 Helly.

Speaker 12 helly, and in that, Dasty.

Speaker 2 Go, Ducks.

Speaker 8 Get a freaking win, all right?

Speaker 4 Let's go get this thing.

Speaker 4 Go get after him.

Speaker 4 Get after him. The hell? Get after him.

Speaker 4 Get after him. Too bad in us, huh?

Speaker 9 I am

Speaker 9 confused.

Speaker 1 My takeaway from this, how good are those Ducks jerseys?

Speaker 4 Oh, boy.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Big up

Speaker 1 Ducks this season.

Speaker 4 Love them.

Speaker 9 I'm still caught up on snot bubbles and

Speaker 9 then he became Rudy for a minute. We're going to go inside.
We're going to go outside.

Speaker 9 I'm just like, I'm sitting there like, I'm a player on that team. Like,

Speaker 9 is Robin Hood walking in? Like, what's happening?

Speaker 4 I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 9 That didn't work for me.

Speaker 4 The Chargers players get that every day. So think about them in that situation.

Speaker 9 Were they in the playoffs last year?

Speaker 4 I don't remember, man.

Speaker 1 Yes, Justin Herbert threw four interceptions, but we don't talk about that.

Speaker 4 Okay. Well, we don't talk about that here.
This is a hockey show. We talk hockey.
Speaking of which,

Speaker 4 we go from an actual coach.

Speaker 1 They lost 5-2 to Carolina that night.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, that didn't work. But we go from a good coach to a good coach that probably made a mistake here.

Speaker 4 Check out this video here. We got Devils defenseman Jonathan Kovacevic.
He answered a

Speaker 4 post-game question. It was innocuous.
It was just regular hockey speak that you hear from these players, just like any other NHL player. Uninteresting and dry as possible.

Speaker 4 But the Devils, head coach Sheldon Keefe, apparently didn't like the answer that Kovacevic gave. So this is what he said.

Speaker 14 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,

Speaker 14 yeah, obviously the results are tough, but we're in a fight here, and we're not going to back down.

Speaker 15 Kovacevic just mentioned to us that he thinks the team kind of needs to have that playoff mentality going down the stretcher.

Speaker 9 Is that something that Cobra Sevick just needs to play better?

Speaker 4 That would help. Six, five.

Speaker 4 Damn.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 that's not cool.

Speaker 9 That was surprising, right? Coming from Sheldon Keefe?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 9 That was a little bit surprising. I haven't seen him rip a player like that in the media.

Speaker 9 Maybe I'm not remembering that something happened in Toronto, but

Speaker 4 we need to have a playoff mentality is something that anybody would say in that situation. Like, I don't understand why you would have a problem with that.

Speaker 9 There's clearly something deeper there. Where, you know, maybe this is like getting into the tortz Cam York, you know, territory.
We'll get to that at some point.

Speaker 9 But, I mean, that seemed like there was something there. Like, that did not feel good.

Speaker 1 Been a frustrating year for New Jersey, right? And they're kind of limping to the finish line. Literally,

Speaker 1 literally limping with all the injuries that they've suffered in the past, what, two months or so.

Speaker 1 Um, right now they're seven points back of Carolina, and um, you know, they're they're fine in the division because Ottawa's in the Atlantic, so they won't catch them there. But

Speaker 1 it's been a frustrating year, and it just seemed to all bubble over in the moment.

Speaker 1 You know, I was listening to 32 Thoughts last week, and they were talking about this, and Friedge was kind of saying that people were hard on Keith about how he wasn't hard enough on his players in Toronto, and then now he takes a shot at his players, and everybody's mad at him for being hard on his players.

Speaker 1 So, you know, you can't have both. It's got to be one or the other.
So, we'll see, you know, how it affects them going down the road. But certainly some interesting comments there.

Speaker 4 David mentioned John Totorella. He got fired yesterday.
The Flyers fired him, and the Flyers ended up

Speaker 4 the day before, I should say, and the Flyers ended up winning the very first game with Totorella not behind the bench.

Speaker 9 Doesn't that always happen, though? Isn't that always the case when it's

Speaker 4 yeah, it does. It does, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 And Mitch Kopp scores.

Speaker 9 Everybody plays hard for the new guy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 4 I mean, we knew the flies were going to be bad, but really, the man said that

Speaker 4 after the Toronto loss, actually, because they beat the Canadian's, after the Toronto loss,

Speaker 4 he said, really

Speaker 4 not interested to learn how to coach in this type of season. That's where we're at right now.
I mean, Daniel Breyer, as zero manager, like,

Speaker 4 he said that this is a recent thing. This came into his head.

Speaker 4 recently like okay we're gonna have to let this guy go i mean but we knew the flights were gonna be bad this is a rebuilding season for him.

Speaker 4 I thought that they had a little bit of promise coming into the next season, but I guess Stan Brear thought that they should go in a different direction.

Speaker 1 This is kind of the typical Tortz 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.

Speaker 1 There's been problems with his star rookie all year where Mitchkov, you know, everybody was like, oh, look, Mitchkov scored in the first game without Tortorello. Of course he did.

Speaker 1 So it kind of seems to be that track. Somebody called Tortz the Stan Van Gundy of hockey, where every time he coaches, he seems miserable, but he just can't stay away from the game.

Speaker 1 Tortz is a really interesting character. I'm sure he'll be on a bench somewhere in the NHL coming soon.

Speaker 9 Yeah. Well, he seems miserable because of his interactions with the media and because the negative ones get overplayed so much.

Speaker 9 I don't know if it's fair because he looks like he supposedly, I've never met him in person, but people say he's a great, great guy. He's a great hockey guy.

Speaker 9 So I don't think it's fair to just judge him on that.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 He didn't play any of that win over Montreal, was it the other night? And Michkov, by the way, what did he hit the post on a empty net for

Speaker 9 a hat-trick?

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 4 And finally, I'm going to continue my streak of laughing at the New York Islanders until they do right by me.

Speaker 4 And people who don't want to to see racists 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.

Speaker 4 And we're going to play the video here.

Speaker 4 This is not great.

Speaker 4 This is against, I believe, Columbus. And yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was outside of Crease.

Speaker 4 I don't really think that was goaltender interference there, but

Speaker 9 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 like you can see as the shots coming.

Speaker 9 And that, what we just saw right there, for those watching on YouTube, that was in super slow motion.

Speaker 9 When this was happening in real time, when the contact between Paul Mary and Merse Leakins happened, the puck was being released at the point, at that exact moment.

Speaker 9 So even though in slow motion, it looked like Mers Leakens, like, look, here's the replay. Right here is where the defenseman, I'm not sure who it is, is shooting the puck.

Speaker 9 So the puck's traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling. By the time Merse Leakins has a chance to reset himself, the puck's already halfway to the net.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 4 Yes, I'm laughing at them regardless of what happens here. Ha ha.
Ha ha ha.

Speaker 4 Ha ha.

Speaker 4 Ha. All right, it's time for wins and fellows of the week presented by Jaegermeister.
Serve it code or don't serve it at all. Jaegermeister, damn, that's code.
For more, visit jagemeister.com.

Speaker 4 Drink responsibly. David, your win of the week.

Speaker 9 My win of the week, we don't have to go too far away from South Florida to get there. We're just a little bit up the coast to Tampa.

Speaker 9 It's Nikita Kucharov, who is a dark horse for this heart trophy this year. I don't know if he's going to get a lot of votes, but he's having an amazing season.
Oh, he bought it.

Speaker 9 The other night against Pittsburgh, he got checked into Alex Nadelkovich headfirst, lost the tooth on the goalie mask, which I don't know if I've seen that happen before. That's pretty interesting.

Speaker 9 But then what does he do? He comes back. He goes out onto the ice where they're scraping, you know, the commercial breakdown, and he's like looking with his stick.

Speaker 9 He's looking for his tooth, trying that.

Speaker 9 That's such a sad thing when you're trying to find your own tooth in the ice.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 And I think what was like a six to one victory or something over the Penguins as Tampa is rolling right now. But I just thought that was a cool thing all around.

Speaker 9 He gets his tooth knocked out by the goalie helmet, goes looking for it because, of course, he did. And then he scores the goal because he's Nikita Kutrov.
Win of the week by far. Good on Nikita.

Speaker 4 I probably should check that shovel because it's probably in that shovel with the screw.

Speaker 9 The ice crew definitely got it in his pocket right now. That tooth is on eBay for sure.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's a very exclusive to the greatest hockey players in the world problem.

Speaker 4 My win of the week is a video with sound here of a dad who brought who created a portable gold horn. Go ahead and play that.

Speaker 4 Oh no. A Milwaukee drill.
Where did you buy that? Don't do it, no, no. Don't know.
Oh my god, don't. Vito.

Speaker 4 You can take that with you. And scare people.
That's badass. That's nuts.
I love.

Speaker 9 Oh, man. That's a recipe for trouble.

Speaker 4 I'm showing up with that thing to Claire's game whenever she starts playing hockey.

Speaker 4 There you go. She scored.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 No. I'm going to piss off everybody.
Ethan.

Speaker 1 My win of the week is Alex Ovechkin, and not because he's six goals away from breaking the all-time goal record.

Speaker 1 My winning 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.

Speaker 1 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 Mark Andre Fleury.

Speaker 1 Those guys did some incredible battles back in the day when it was them and Pittsburgh going at it.

Speaker 1 And to see the respect that they have for each other, there's been respect for Fleury all over the league this year.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 All right. Fails of the week.
David.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 He's talking about realness, Ethan. After giving up the, what was the game winning goal and the shootout to Jonathan Leckermachi? Modstrom popped up.

Speaker 9 He took his baseball, his hockey stick like he was Babe Ruth with a baseball bat and just cracked it against the post.

Speaker 9 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 former NHL goalie, but he's shorter than me.
He's like 5'7.

Speaker 9 They brought him like a little miniature goalie helmet, goalie stick to crack on the post. There we go.
If you're watching on YouTube,

Speaker 9 oh my God.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 credit to Markstrom for being real. Credit to Panger for getting razzed on it.
Just a lot of fun all around.

Speaker 4 My fail of the week comes from Bruins and Kings. This is the officials' fail.

Speaker 1 Goalie fights.

Speaker 13 We need more of them.

Speaker 4 Jeremy Swayman and Darcy Kemper had a chance to do it. And they go to center ice, gloves, blockers, sticks down, masks down, and broken up.
Like before they even get together.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and a tail of the tape, 6'3 versus 6'5, that would have been a nice, nice little bout there if they had gone through, but the linesman decided, yep, no.

Speaker 1 Dworky, you ever been in a goalie fight?

Speaker 9 What's that?

Speaker 4 You ever been in a goalie fight?

Speaker 9 Have I been in a goalie fight once? It didn't go well for me.

Speaker 4 Oh, no.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 Because I knew that everybody had my back as the goalie.

Speaker 9 But yeah, didn't go good.

Speaker 4 For short guys, you know, short guys like to be scrappy on the ice, right?

Speaker 9 Well, Mike Vernon, remember, Mike Vernon is a short guy, and he went out and he went toe-to-toe with Patrick Juan, did okay. So I really have no excuse.

Speaker 4 By the way, anniversary for that. It was this week, right? It was the anniversary of the game in Detroit between the Appalachians and the Red Wings.

Speaker 9 Yep.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 to recap that, by the way, it was Chris Draven.

Speaker 9 I was about to say Malice at the Palace, but that was was the Pistons Pacers.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 9 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 9 Exploded his whole face.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and the Avalanche

Speaker 4 ended up going to the cup final that year. Dino Cicarelli said, I can't believe I shook that freaking guy's hand.
It sucked the next year. Brawl City, everybody fighting.

Speaker 4 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 fellow of the week.

Speaker 1 All right, my fellow of the week is Matt Rempe.

Speaker 4 Oh, Lord.

Speaker 1 This guy features in Fail of the Week seemingly every time, I feel like. But

Speaker 1 he deserves it this week. Tanner Geneau 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.

Speaker 1 He gets penalties pretty much every time he's on the ice. He gets his ass whooped here by Tanner Geneau, just like he does every time he fights, ends up on his his ass.

Speaker 1 Tanner Genot actually picks him up off the ground and is like, Let's go, buddy. Like, you're not getting out of this easy.
Uh, yeah, fail of the week, Matt Rempey, always the fail of the week.

Speaker 1 Now he's on the injured list and uh won't be seeing him anytime soon.

Speaker 4 I mean, he's like uh the Yollanders for me at this point.

Speaker 9 Yeah, the two of you. You're anti-New York bias showing.

Speaker 4 Oh my goodness. All right, for those on DraftKings Network, we have John Butcher Gross coming up next.
You can watch that interview and the rest of the show on the Levittard YouTube page.

Speaker 4 Just go to playlist and find our folder. We got every episode in that folder.
So we got John Bertragas coming up next to talk about college hockey.

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Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 who will be prominent on said platforms is John Butchergras, who joins us now. We're going to talk about the the Frozen Four.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Boston University defeated Ohio State to the big Reds. They're going to face the Terriers tomorrow.
Western Michigan got past Minnesota State in double overtime.

Speaker 4 And UMass with a stunning, and I mean, this is a stunning overtime victory over the

Speaker 4 Minnesota Gophers.

Speaker 4 The Gophers had to change goaltenders in the middle middle of the third period, immediately gave up a goal off the face-off, switched goaltenders back because there's an equipment issue.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Today's matchups, Maine versus Penn State, Yukon versus Quinnipiak. Boston College versus Bentley, and Providence versus Denver.
Denver is the national, the defending national champions.

Speaker 4 So, John, why don't you give us your thoughts on what's going on in the tournament right now?

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 4 Honestly, thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 16 I 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.

Speaker 16 Play a pretty simple style, really good goaltender, well coached. But, you know, Cornell is going at the right time.
They have a little inspiration.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 Every inch of the ice is protected. And they got the job done.
Western Michigan had a really good year this year, 30 wins.

Speaker 16 I think Pat Firschweiler, 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's obviously can inspire people.

Speaker 16 He took over for Andy Murray. You remember that name, 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.

Speaker 16 They squeaked by Minnesota State. So So yeah, really exciting day.
And BU with an 8-3 win over Ohio State. Sometimes those hockey games go sideways.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And so that can happen. Today, looking forward to it.
Beautiful day here in New Hampshire. I have the number one overall seed, Boston College Eagles, Ryan Leonard.

Speaker 16 Washington Capitol fans are excited about him. He was their eighth overall pick a couple of drafts ago.
Will likely win the Hobie Baker for best college hockey player.

Speaker 16 We'll get to see him in person today at a nice small, intimate rink here in Manchester playing Bentley, which is just located outside Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 They played 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.

Speaker 16 Providence finally back after a 2019 appearance. That's when they lost in Buffalo in the frozen four.
And so they're back. So Providence, this is the 8-9 matchup.

Speaker 16 So mathematically, it's the best, closest matchup. But I really like that Penn State Maine game.
I think that's the best first-round game we have. That's in Allentown.
The place will be packed.

Speaker 16 Obviously, it's close to Penn State. Big advantage.
for Penn State. Little disadvantage for Maine.
They're a number one seed. They got to basically play a road game, but they travel well.

Speaker 16 They should have a couple thousand fans there themselves. So 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.

Speaker 1 Poochie, I've got a million questions for you. There are a million ways I could go, but I'll start here.

Speaker 1 BC has this star-studded line that basically carried the Americans to the World Junior Championship this year, right? But they also have the,

Speaker 1 you know, the tragedy of Johnny Goudreau is affecting them as well, just like the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Calgary Flames.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 But yeah, the last time they won the national championship was 2012. That was Johnny Godreaux's amazing year in Tampa, in Tampa, Florida.

Speaker 16 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

Speaker 16 they lost another member of the family as well. 40-year-old dropped,

Speaker 16 died of a heart attack. So they have

Speaker 16 three initials on their uniform, and it's been on the board there.

Speaker 16 We did a really good, we did a nice hour-long feature, hour-long show on pre-seeding the tournament and previewing the tournament with really good E60 features, beautifully done.

Speaker 16 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 ESBN Plus.

Speaker 16 I highly recommend college hockey fans and hockey fans to watch it. Feature on Jimmy Sungarud, feature on Trey Augustine, feature on Denvers

Speaker 16 as well. And it's a feature on the Godreaux brothers and Tony Bose and

Speaker 16 how they're honoring them this year. So, yeah, that gives you an idea.
There is a cause for sure for the players. And they feel it.
It's emotional.

Speaker 16 And don't forget, they lost last year in the national championship game to nothing to Denver. And if they win today and Denver wins today, that's our rematch here in Manchester on Sunday.

Speaker 16 So it's right there.

Speaker 16 The other problem facing a team like Boston College and other teams that have NHL prospects, do they have one foot out the door?

Speaker 16 You know, as soon as Boston College loses, Ryan Leonard will be a Washington Capitol two days later playing for them, you know, and he's going to sign a contract.

Speaker 16 He's going to get his big rookie bonus. He's going to start making his 800 grand a year, although there's only a couple paychecks yet left this year.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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 um so you know that's that's the big challenge with these hyper you know talented teams you mentioned you know obviously leonard james hagin 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 um but yeah that that's the issue with same with denver and zeeb bullion who will be in minnesota's lineup as a big-time defenseman so that's the issue with these young teams and why a team like Cornell, an older team, and Bentley even, an older team, you know, this is it for them.

Speaker 16 This is the highlight of probably their hockey careers when these other prospects had the NHL to kind of get distracted by.

Speaker 9 You kind of led me perfectly into what I wanted to ask you about because you mentioned like Leonard, you know, with BC with the Capitals, Perot also at BC with the Rangers.

Speaker 9 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?

Speaker 9 Who do you think would be the most pro-ready if they were to make that decision?

Speaker 16 Leonard and Booiam. Leonard more so because he's a forward.
Booam a defenseman. That's hard.
A 19-year-old defenseman coming right into the league.

Speaker 16 You know, that's these guys are big, strong men in the corner. And he's offensively dynamic.
He's absolutely a sensational player to watch. He breaks people down like few hockey players do.

Speaker 16 I always compare it to like Alan Iverson, you know, crossover dribble. He breaks people down like he's on the tennis shoes.
You know, Rasmus Lane of Buffalo,

Speaker 16 you know, Quinn Hughes of Vancouver does it. You know, obviously Kale McCarr, that they can break people down one-on-one.

Speaker 16 He can do that. And so if he's in that kind of class offensively, defensively,

Speaker 16 it'll be a little tougher in him. 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.

Speaker 16 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?

Speaker 16 He's kind of, you know, he plays a different game in college, gets a lot of breakaways, little

Speaker 16 Pavel Burre center ice logo hanging around to get those little cherry picking, you know, try to get those plays.

Speaker 16 Got to play a little more honest 200-foot game in the Stanley Cup playoffs for our Stanley Cup contenders. So he'll need to make that quick adjustment.
I think he can. He's wired for this.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Zee Booyam and Jack Devine from Denver, Aiden Fink from Penn State, Matt Gadowski from Army, Isaac Howard from Michigan State, Ryan Leonard from Boston College, Erton Martino from Clarkson, Liam McClinsky from Holy Cross, Jimmy Snuggerood from Minnesota, Alex Tracy from Minnesota State.

Speaker 1 Some unreal names on that list. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Oh my God. So you have any thoughts on any of the names that we haven't mentioned yet, John?

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think the votes are due after this weekend's games.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And they'll have the, you know, 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.

Speaker 16 It might be Snuggeroot. It'll be close.
You know, Hobie Baker likes when people come back for

Speaker 16 their third year, like Snuggeroo did, obviously, heartbreakingly lost last night in overtime, a game they should have won against UMass. The grandfather played for the Gophers.

Speaker 16 The dad played for the Gophers. And one of the stories that we did on that E60 show on ESPN Plus was, you know, just trying to.

Speaker 16 They also had heartbreaking losses in the tournament. He was hoping to be the first Snuggeroo to finally get it done.
And this team is stacked.

Speaker 16 Minnesota has the most NHL players on it, who future NHL players. We might see six next week.
You know, Rinz Dell with the Blackhawks. Snugger with the Blues will probably play.

Speaker 16 You know, Oliver Moore might be playing for the Chicago Blackhawks as well. So they are loaded up and down the lineup, but Snuggerude couldn't get it done.

Speaker 16 So it might be Snuggerud, Howard, but I really do think it'll be Howard, Leonard, and Booium. And I do think that Leonard, in the end, will win the Hobie Baker.
Hobie likes goals.

Speaker 16 He has 29 to lead the league. And all these stats keep counting.
So, you know, he's the current leader.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 Like he might not be able to be at the ceremony, which kind of stinks. I get it, you know, but maybe they're off that day.

Speaker 16 I didn't check their schedule, but maybe they can zip him in, zip him out to get that picture next to the Hobie Bick. It's a cool trophy.

Speaker 16 You know, the names who are starting to win it recently are like NHL guys to, you know, Kerala McCard, Gat Geigo. It's a cool trophy to win.

Speaker 16 Again, much like Heisman Trophy, it's a cool one to have forever. So I think Leonard will win it.

Speaker 4 The frozen floor, the actual semifinal is April 10th, and the national championship is April 12th in St. Louis on ESPN 2 and ESPN Plus.

Speaker 4 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 Leila Edwards, I see you. All right.

Speaker 16 Ohio in the house. Ohio.

Speaker 16 That team was loaded. What a game it was to win, to tie the game on a shootout and then win it.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 9 Mark Johnson, 1980.

Speaker 16 Yeah, he was the best player in that team. Had a really good career too, in the NHL, almost a point-per-game guy.

Speaker 16 I did a column on ESBN.com a few years ago, and I gave my top 20 all-time American-born players.

Speaker 16 And at the time, I had him like 19 because of the MirroCon ice, because of his success in college, and a solid NHL career, almost point-per-game.

Speaker 16 I had Mark Johnson in my top 20 all-time-born USA players.

Speaker 9 Two goals in that Russia game, right?

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 4 You mentioned Team USA. Leila Edwards is now joining Team USA as they go out to play in the Women's World Championship.
So good luck to Team USA.

Speaker 16 She can fire the puck. Unbelievable how she can fight.
She's going to play defense on that team, Roy. She's normally a four for Wisconsin, but

Speaker 16 they're going to put her as a defenseman. So she's pretty versatile.

Speaker 4 So it's basically Dustin Bufflin.

Speaker 16 That's right. Good call.

Speaker 9 I like it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 You have been on Alexander Oveskin Watch as we transition to the NHL now.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Originally. And then you updated it.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah, you make a bunch of them, and then you just go one more.

Speaker 1 When did he say this? Because I 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.

Speaker 16 We have cleared this up. I wrote my original ESPN.com column saying, I think LS Lovechkin can break this record in February of 2010.

Speaker 16 He came to ESPN to shoot one of those This is Sports Center commercials, the Russian spy one where he's got a lot of five.

Speaker 4 Yeah, top five all coming out of the room five to sports center.

Speaker 1 I'm coming up with my list right now.

Speaker 16 Great spot. And so at the time, I was writing my hockey column for dot com once a week.
I did it from 01 to 2017, about 16 years, a lot of work. Pay me like 500 bucks a week.

Speaker 16 It was, I was so underpaid.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 He's been in the league for four years.

Speaker 16 But my point was he had such a big, broad, you know, foundation. He got off to a great start for goals.

Speaker 16 And he just looks like the kind of guy who wasn't going to get hurt, like LeBron, never got hurt. And then here we are.
So, and then, yeah, then 2015.

Speaker 16 So, I kind of, I think that's when David Amber first mentioned it to Elliott Freeman. Hey, ask Ovie about the record, maybe.

Speaker 16 And so, yeah, we've texted me and Ray Ferraro have texted Elliott to clear up because it's right on the interwebs, you know, Butcher Grosso-Betchkin, Gretzky, it'll come up there.

Speaker 16 And I kind of forecasted each age from 24 on when he could break the record.

Speaker 16 I was very reasonable in my projections. Like when he was 36, well, Brett Hall had like a 39 goal season, so why can't he? Age 37, Phyllis Fosito had like 38.
Well, he could do that then.

Speaker 16 I was kind of historical comparisons all the way to age 40. And I actually reached a point where like, holy crap, this guy's going to score like a thousand goals.
Forget the record.

Speaker 16 The record was never a question to me. I thought it was more less likely.

Speaker 16 You know, it was more likely he would score a thousand than he would not break the record. You know, and I'm still going to stick with that if he decides to play, you know, three more years.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And I, you know, I think I've deleted all those tweets that were wrong and saved the one that was closest.

Speaker 9 What did you think of what happened?

Speaker 9 Was it last night, Roy, in Minnesota?

Speaker 9 When

Speaker 9 Ovie called basically the entire Caps team back onto the ice to honor another legend who's retiring after the season and Mark Andre Fleury, I thought, I don't know why I was surprised by that.

Speaker 9 I guess maybe because Ovechkin doesn't, 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.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 16 I've always thought he's done a good job really assimilating himself right from his rookie year to the NHL, even America, even the culture, even like, you know, he would do in local ads as soon as he became a capital.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 You know, they were just so serious. Of course, their lives were terrible.
They, they were, you know, they had to just play hockey around the world.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 So they would trade with the Americans to get some blue jeans to wear. It was a tough existence.

Speaker 16 You know, it was kind of, and, and so, and the players seemed to reflect that just in their, in their countenance and their expressions when they first came to the NHL.

Speaker 16 But then over time, it kind of changed. And Oveska 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

Speaker 16 Patisov first coming over and those guys. He was really out there and he just kind of embraced it all and being goofy.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 9 So to them, it didn't have any kind of impact.

Speaker 16 That slowly changed. And you saw Ovekton'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.

Speaker 16 He really has endeared himself completely to the NHL now. And

Speaker 16 all countries and all players from all countries do that now. That wasn't the case initially in the NHL.

Speaker 1 Bucci, before we get you out of here, you mentioned that this is Sports Center commercials.

Speaker 1 Okay. I fell asleep and woke up to Sports Center every day growing up.

Speaker 4 And these I love that shirt, by the way.

Speaker 16 That's like Atlanta Braves combination Gator shirt.

Speaker 1 It's a Gator's shirt, baby. So I put together my list of top five This is Sports Center commercials really quickly.

Speaker 1 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.
Yep.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 1 OLI outside looking in.

Speaker 1 As I mentioned, Florida Gators, Steve Irwin with Albert the Alligator.

Speaker 4 Really good.

Speaker 4 All right, number five.

Speaker 1 David Ortiz trying on a Yankees hat, and Wally the mascot walks by and gets mad at him.

Speaker 16 Agreed.

Speaker 4 Peaky good.

Speaker 16 Peaky good.

Speaker 1 Number four, Scott Van Pelt.

Speaker 1 His cubicle is right next to LeBron James, and he steals LeBron James' chair.

Speaker 16 Simple, clean, good.

Speaker 16 More simple, the better.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Number two, the inspiration for this list, Alex Sovechkin, the Russian spies.

Speaker 4 Jay.

Speaker 1 And number one, this is far and away the greatest.

Speaker 1 They're in the cafeteria. Arnold Palmer walks up,

Speaker 1 pours an Arnold Palmer. I can't say that word either, Lucy.

Speaker 1 And then they whisper to each other, that was awesome.

Speaker 4 I know.

Speaker 1 Greatest business sports centers person.

Speaker 16 I would just add, follow me to freedom, Charlie. Follow me to freedom.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's great.

Speaker 9 That's a good one.

Speaker 16 Jay Harris with the New York Jersey Devil mascot. Numbers

Speaker 16 going down.

Speaker 16 gets out of the elevator.

Speaker 16 I love the Vampelt Thesaurus one when the guys come in, in use 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'm sorry i like that one too i love the ov one too so yeah it's i've done about i did about 12 to 15 of those they went with shaq where he walks up the tree and he pulls down the the human mascot

Speaker 16 you think he's getting the kitten out of the tree and it's actually the the human size mascot who looks like a baby in shaq's arms and that was i did that with stew and that was a great memory a great day being around those guys So yeah, those are fun.

Speaker 16 We don't do them anymore. They're really expensive to do.

Speaker 16 They were part of the budget cuts originally. So now we kind of make some new ones.
We do it in-house and do it ourselves. But that was an amazing, it was like a movie set.

Speaker 16 There'd be a hundred people, really talented directors. And we'd

Speaker 16 make up a lot of stuff. In fact, the Adrian Peterson one, where I call Van Pelt, Bedwetter, hey, Bedwinner.
We just made that up.

Speaker 16 And that was the one they ended up using, not the real scripted take forever to plan and shoot. It was just that one.
Let's try this.

Speaker 16 So a 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.

Speaker 16 You know, 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

Speaker 16 those were some great memories.

Speaker 4 Finally, Brad Marchant is playing tonight for Florida. Yes.
So he's going to be on the second line with Mackie Samus Gavrich and Sam Bennett.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 So how is Brad Marchant's addition to the Florida Panthers going to affect this first place race for the Atlantic Division?

Speaker 16 Yeah, he just gives them a big jolt of energy late in the long, long, long NHL season. The players will be excited during warm-up.
Warm-up will have a buzz to it.

Speaker 16 Marshan will be flying around the ice to know 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

Speaker 16 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 Yankees stuff, the grit, the playmaking, just a good hockey player.

Speaker 16 But I think overall, energizing the room.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 We see the history of it. It's 50-50 home and road records.
It does tick up a little bit for the home team in game seven, a little more of an advantage, but otherwise you can win in the road.

Speaker 16 Players enjoy it. They like that us against them mentality, you know, as the Panthers have shown in their last few years here on their cup run.
So yeah, he'll add a lot.

Speaker 16 And they are the favorite, you you know, to get back to the cup final for the third straight year. And they need that.
You know, it's tiring to do this every year.

Speaker 16 So they need these little bursts of energy that Marshan will provide.

Speaker 4 The Frozen Four is on the ESBN Family of Networks. Guys, enjoy college hockey.
John Britcher Gross, thank you for joining us. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Real quick, want to talk to you about how GameTime is the official ticketing partner of the Dan Lebatard show.

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Speaker 4 Okay, it's time to review what happened this week in Pantherland. And the Panthers had back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday at Washington and back home against Pittsburgh.

Speaker 4 In Washington, not good. They lost six to three, and it was a wild first period.
It was tied three to three after the first 20. But the way the Panthers looked on defense,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And Alexander Obreshkin did not score a goal, but he had two assists.

Speaker 9 Everybody else scored a goal.

Speaker 4 Yeah, everybody else scored a goal, including Tom Wilson, who continues to have a career year. Yeah.

Speaker 9 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.
Just it was back and forth, a lot of rush goals.

Speaker 9 You know, like you said, third or the first period, three goals each.

Speaker 9 I think Washington took three leads, Florida, 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.

Speaker 9 Just very un-Panthers-like. Maybe perhaps a wake-up call for Florida as they were wrapping up that road trip, but yeah, just not pretty.

Speaker 4 Tom Wilson is now a goal away from

Speaker 4 his career high and an assist away from career high.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, that's really surprising.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I don't want to call them frauds because they're good. I don't see them going very far in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 They're kind of like the, I think we talked about this last week. They're kind of like the Panthers in when they won the President's Trophy, where they score, score, score, score, score.

Speaker 1 But when it comes to playoff time, is that really going to be an effective strategy to go deep in the playoffs?

Speaker 4 I i don't think so apologies by the way uh he already has a career high and goal so uh there's that uh but the good news the good news out of that is sam bennett continues to help the pets uh he's helped another pet get uh get adopted through benny's buddies in the humane society of broward uh he had a goal and assist

Speaker 4 uh

Speaker 4 and uh he's five goals away and two points away from his career high in each of those categories. It's a contract year, fellas.

Speaker 9 It is. And remember early on, like Bennett had that huge, 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?

Speaker 9 22, 23, whatever it is, like 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.

Speaker 9 And I really hope as we get towards the offseason that the Panthers and Sam Bennett figure out a way to get something done.

Speaker 9 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 churning along.

Speaker 9 So it'll be interesting to see if they can get something done with those guys as we get closer to the offseason.

Speaker 4 Five goals away and two points away from a career high.

Speaker 4 That's good stuff for

Speaker 4 Benny.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Benny's been really 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.

Speaker 1 And like Dwarky mentioned, Ekblad, I mean, has been just, the defensive leaks in this game are crazy. The defensive leaks since Ekblad went out have been very un-Panther-like.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 So the Panthers complete their six-game road trip going 2-4 and 0. Not good.
Not good at all. They outscored 18-4.
So a little home cooking for them was very much needed. And the Panthers played the

Speaker 4 Penguins. And all three of the matchups have gone past regulation.
Extra hockey. That means more Sidney Crosby for me.

Speaker 1 Hooray.

Speaker 4 Just, what are we doing here, man? Just winning.

Speaker 9 Smile.

Speaker 9 It's all for you.

Speaker 4 No. It's all for you, Roy.
No, no, no.

Speaker 9 By the way. These teams know how much you love the, was it black and yellow, right? That's Pittsburgh, black and yellow.

Speaker 9 So they know how much that you love that. So

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 4 Okay, whatever. By the way, those three games.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 So, 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.

Speaker 4 So, yeah, win games in regulation. And they did not versus the Penguins as the Panthers won 4-3.

Speaker 4 But Alexander Balkov in the shootout, best backhand in the game, just making goaltenders look silly, Ethan.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 Sergei Bobrovsky.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But then Bobrovsky 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,

Speaker 1 the Panthers won. So that was a crazy shootout.
Bob has been absolutely phenomenal recently.

Speaker 1 And it shouldn't be any surprise, right? We all kind of knew he struggled early. It'll be fine.
He'll round into form come February.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 He has been absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 1 He's going to be ready for the playoffs once again, and he's going to have to put the Panthers on, you know, he's probably going to put the Panthers on his back just like he has the last two years.

Speaker 4 This is going to make Dave happy.

Speaker 9 David Robrovsky 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.

Speaker 4 Yes, he is. And this is going to make Dave happy.
He had an assist in the game.

Speaker 9 Yes. Yeah, Dave.
Goalie assist. Goalie assist.

Speaker 4 Sam Reinhardt had two goals in the game as well. The Panthers are going to play Utah

Speaker 4 this tonight.

Speaker 9 Tonight. So weird to say, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. The Utah Hockey Club.

Speaker 1 Four-day break for the Panthers.

Speaker 4 UHC, even though that's not what they put on the graphic in the upper third for the scoreboard, but UHC.

Speaker 4 We mentioned this to Dabucci earlier that

Speaker 4 Brad Marchant,

Speaker 4 hopefully, will make his debut tonight. Confirmed.
Confirmed.

Speaker 1 Confirmed. He's making his debut, Paul Maurice announced in the press conference today.

Speaker 4 So it's looking like the second line, correct? He's going to be in Matt Dukachuk's spot as well as Mackie and Sam Bennett.

Speaker 9 That's right. That's going to be Marshandon Bennett.

Speaker 1 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 Samiskevich,

Speaker 1 possibly Evan Rodriguez on the fourth line.

Speaker 9 Yeah, that's true. Mackie on the top line.

Speaker 4 That's ridiculous.

Speaker 9 You could have Mackie up top. You could have Verhege on the third line or vice versa.

Speaker 1 E-Rod on the fourth line.

Speaker 1 Like, 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.

Speaker 1 Guys like A.J. Greer, Jonah Gajovich, 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 13 It's insane.

Speaker 4 It's a good problem to have being that deep. It's the best problem to do.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Kevin Stanley's coming back.
He's going to get his tribute video.

Speaker 4 That's great.

Speaker 1 His tribute video should just be

Speaker 1 kill the penalty kill yeah correct just play the penalty kill in full the minute 30 where he doesn't have a stick and he's diving head first to try and clear the puck and then bobroski that should just be they don't need to show anything else

Speaker 4 that's exactly right uh the biggest and greatest penalty kill in franchise history straight up uh utah is coming off of a 8-0 beatdown 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.

Speaker 9 And that was a hit on check time.

Speaker 9 Utah, they're basically like, what are they, 10 points out of a playoff spot right now with 10 games to go? Like they have zero margin for.

Speaker 9 They basically have to win out and then hope to get some help.

Speaker 9 I know that after the game last night in Tampa, a couple of guys were talking about like, we really have to like check ourselves if we want to talk about the playoffs.

Speaker 9 Like guys, the playoffs are like passing you by. That time is basically passed for the Utah Hockey Club.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah, not a good problem to have in the opposite end on that one. Sunday and Tuesday, back-to-backs, I should say Holman Homes, not back-to-backs, but Homan Holmes against the Montreal Canadians.

Speaker 4 The Havs are in the last wild card spot in the East. They got four teams chasing them, as we mentioned with Bucci.

Speaker 4 Cole Caulfield dedicated his season to Johnny Goudreau, changed his

Speaker 4 jersey number. He has 34 goals and 29 assists for 63 points.
Nick Suzuki is leading the team in points for 73. He's got 22 goals and 51 assists.
These are new games for the Canadians.

Speaker 9 Monty's having a great year for them, too. Another former Panthers goalie out there to talk about, but it's been fun.

Speaker 9 They've really responded to Marty St. Louis.
You remember when he took over a couple of years ago? It was like toward the end of the season.

Speaker 9 We're like, yeah, actually, he 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.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 1 Panthers, four days off between tonight's game and Sunday's game. But the schedule just loads up at the end here.

Speaker 1 They get that tough back-to-back 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 the rest of the season. It's a brutal stretch, and it's going to be

Speaker 1 three more back-to-backs. Excuse me.

Speaker 4 Three more back-to-backs the rest of the season.

Speaker 1 So they needed those four days really badly.

Speaker 4 Yes, the rest

Speaker 4 is very important. And good to have Brad Marshan on this team now because they need the support because it's going to be a long one for the rest of the season.
So

Speaker 9 it's going to be so weird seeing him in a Panther jersey tonight.

Speaker 9 Even if we're watching this after it happened, it's still weird for you. Like,

Speaker 9 it's going to be an adjustment period for sure.

Speaker 1 I cannot wait.

Speaker 4 Yeah, neither can I.

Speaker 4 For Ethan, for Dave, for Jason, for Gino. My name is Roy Dollamy.
We'll see you next week.

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