Um, what was your reason at the time why you wanted to come sign a long-term down here?

So it, it was-- Luckily for me that summer, I think, like, the UFA D-men were, like, me, Seabrook, Bo Flynn, there might've been one other guy, and all those guys had signed with their teams during the year, and I was kinda, you know, the, I don't know, I wanna say the biggest name left.

And I didn't wanna re-sign in New York just 'cause, you know, I saw the team kinda going down a little bit or guys were leaving.

Uh, I can't remember exactly what it was.

And then, uh, my best friend at the time was working for the Panthers, and that whole year, all he would talk about was this kid Barkov and this kid Ekblad, 'cause they were young.

Uh, they, it might've been their first year the year before.

So, you know, not like household names yet, but, uh, you know, he was just telling me, and then Huberdeau and Trocheck, he was telling me about all these young kids they had coming up.

Wow

Is he staying at your house now during, during this first week of press? What's going on down there?

[laughs] No, I'm sure he's staying at his brother's place.

Uh, yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people are hating on the, the no move or the no trade clause, but I think it's one of those things when you become a, a UFA and when your time comes that you can get one of those because your first, what, five, six, seven years, the team has all the control over you.

And then I think if you play long enough in the league, you, uh, establish yourself as a, you know, a, a regular NHL player or an all-star, whatever it is, I, I believe that you should get a no move clause.

And, uh, you know, these guys are getting it.

Teams are handing them out like candy.

They were a little harder to get back in the day, right, Army? Like- There wasn't many guys, but, uh, yeah, it, it, it's unreal.

It seems kinda off to me.

You're up again, Daniel.

I'm up again.

All right.

I'm going to go another date in history.

December 15th, 2015 at 2.16 p.m., Ryan Whitney tweets out, I really want to start a podcast about hockey, trending topics, life in general, need a partner, at biz nasty question mark.

And we got the one and only rear admiral here with him who hopped on.

And it's not because I'm on chicklets now.

Yeah.

They weren't the best conference finals.

Not the best, right? We get a sweep, and then we get a five-game series.

You wanna see those go a little longer.

I have been really down on Carolina, but they...

Uh, I've totally switched my tune on them, the way that they play.

Um, you know, I, I once said I wouldn't watch them if they were playing in my backyard, but I'm kinda, I'm kinda in on them now, the way that they play, the way that they've galvanized each other, came together as a group.

Their coach is unreal, Rod, Rod the Bod.

Like, what was his take on the whole thing? It's gotta be so weird.

Okay.

Um, so it, yeah, it all kinda depends.

But it also is too, like, you gotta realize, like, a lot of the, uh, along the...

I know this one was on the glass, but a lot of the times along the boards y- you can get crazy bounces c- especially now during playoffs 'cause it's hot outside in a lot of these, uh, in, in the places that these games are b- being played.

There's 20,000 people in there, all the body heat, so the ice kinda gets chippy down there.

So it can take some crazy bounces.

But the, the NHL does such a good job now with the ice and everything, it's usually pretty, pretty dialed in.

Yeah.

OK,

with letting it dry enough where it's good and not too wet out there.

I think you could do an eight minute, eight to nine minute intermission and get the guys out there.

But you know what? We'll ask a guy who's still playing in the league right now who is a back-to-back Stanley Cup champion.

Matthew, what do you think about overtime? So Titus wants overtime to start.

No break, just a gong go off, and then you guys.

So

the cleaning of the ice is massive.

Give me the best two goalies in the East and the best two goalies in the West.

West.Best two goalies in the East, I'm gonna go...

You, you gotta go Vasilevskiy in there, um, you know, with Tampa.

He's got the track record.

He's won.

Uh, he, he's huge.

He can play the puck really well.

... looking forward to?

I wanna hear everyth- all your thoughts on the game.

I, I just rewatched it.

Um, eh, I, I'm gonna rewatch that game.

I've never rewatched a hockey game more than once.

I've already watched this game twice.

I will watch that game probably, realistically, 20 times.

It is so amazing, the fact that the guys were down here, we were all watching it here at my house all together, and the fact that they came out with that game after b- getting up early, being on the ropes for basically two periods, they got outplayed.

Right

I love that phrase, nail gun.

Yeah.

So in...

Our best defenseman at the time, his name was Ed Jovanovski, who was crazy tough too, but he was our best D-man, making like the most money.

They get into a fight in practice and Gratts just, like, grabbed him and just took like 10 punches to the face.

We're in the locker room after and I'm like, "Why didn't you swing back?" He goes, "I hit him, I go to the minors."

(laughs)

Dude, we i- we had a kid, uh, in New York.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah, very fair.

And I don't even know if it's, like, a depth thing, 'cause e- every team's deep and has good players, and there's so many good players in the league.

I think it's more...

Like, I, I give a lot of credit to Sasha Barkov.

Like, if someone on his line goes out, they can bring a guy in from the stands and he, he's gonna look like he's been playing on his line all year.

It just goes to show how good Barky is and, um, you know, just a true hockey player where he just, all he wants to do is make people around him better.

But is there a world where you're like, what if Connor McDavid just like plays out of his mind, and, and that, that could be it?

Do my best work there.

(laughs) Uh, the, the Panthers, uh, when you look at what it is that is the pain of the Edmonton Oilers, and I put behind it as well the pain of Toronto stinking when they wanna be what invented the sport in, in big games.

The suffering that McDavid had not winning against Florida last year when, in that sport if, if you do have the best player on the ice, come back from down 3-0.

Edmonton's pain must be kind of unbearable as far as sports pain goes.

How does that make them better this year? Yeah, the, the thing that scares me about them is it's, you know, the old school, you know, start of a DVD, championship DVD, and I can just see it now of like Connor McDavid flipping out in the locker room last year about how they need to be better and, you know, they'll be back in this situation.

So, it does scare me when the best player in the world, and I, I personally think he's the best athlete in the world right now, um, when he's on a mission the way that he is and, you know, at the end of the day he knows for his legacy, uh, to win one, uh, especially in hockey, it, it's so much...

It means so much more to win a championship for your legacy, uh, than any other sport, I think.

... paint a picture for me where we keep Sam Bennett next season.

Is that, is that a correct assessment? 'Cause it seemed like something, like, how does that happen?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it shoulda never got to that point.

Uh, William Carlson, he's, he's, he's one on three, dumps the puck in, I think there's eight seconds left at the time where he dumps it in.

And, you know, th- it's one verse three, and he ends up somehow getting to the puck and just throwing it to the middle, and luckily, Reilly Smith was there.

So, at that point, it's kind of just panic time, because, you know, everyone's- y- you count down the mental clock in your head and you guys, every guy's probably like, "Oh my God, there's one second, two second." And then you're kind of just, you know, panicking.

You don't know where to go.

So I'm sure the goalie did the same thing.

Uh, w- what's going on, and is there a fix?