[MUSIC] Yeah, obviously phenomenal historic season. We tried everything we could. I don't know many shots he had tonight, but he was given his all in. I'm just going to start 34 seconds left in the game, which was pretty fitting for the type of season that he's had for it to regular season to come to an end like that. He's just played, he's played so tremendously. Wow, I know obviously there's been a lot of focus on the pursuit of seven balls. But in that you kind of lose sight of just how well he's played. I wanted it for sure, but it just wasn't meant to be. And for myself, as we look forward, I'm going to turn the page. And the most important thing is the team and the team success and making sure that I'm pulling my leg and doing what I can as a leader on this team. And individually to help the team and especially as we go into the full season. So that's where my focus is at, and I think that's kind of where my mind sits. And out all year, I mean, as far as getting prepared for the spring here. So it would have been nice, but it wasn't meant to be. And now I'm looking forward to getting started here on Saturday. [MUSIC] Good morning, fan, morning show sports at 5.9 in the van. Badad has run gutting sports at 5.9 in the van. Sorry, I already said good morning. But good morning again. Hey, buddy, you should never enough. Good mornings in my world. Good morning, yeah, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Good morning. Rough morning for the Matthews family. They were into it. God. They really wanted it. First time we heard it, explicitly said from awesome Matthews that he wanted it. I think that was pretty apparent, though. It would have been weird if he's like, I've been holding this in the whole time. I didn't care, I didn't care. I got to be honest, I didn't care. I didn't care one bit. Roll back the tape. What was the quote? Sheldon keeps saying, well, you were not, it's not our focus. Yeah, okay, no, I'm not. Sure, 12 shots later, Austin Matthews stuck on 69 goals as the season comes to a close in 6-4 loss fashion in Tampa Bay. Smart by Matthews though, with all those shots and no goals to get the shooting percentage back under 20%. So now I can't just talk about the outlier season. Yeah, Noah was like this right there in line with his career averages and shooting percentage. I was so happy you brought that up because much like most stats in the world, I think, that'd be interesting to know. And then don't bother to look it up. I did think as he was just peppering shot after shot after shot last night and he had the what, five or seven, I don't know, we always seem to have a disagree about shots at the end of the period. It was seven in the first period. I think they landed on seven attempts, five complete shots. I don't know. It doesn't matter. He was firing from everywhere. Yeah, he was a shot after shot. He was Davidson Steph Curry. And that's fine. But I did think to myself, I'm like, I wonder what him not scoring in these last couple games does to the shooting percentage and like, yeah, it's actually better somehow? Maybe. I mean, if you believe in such things that like now he's due to score, right? I did. Sort of kind of. I also had that thought last night. It's not how it works. Yeah. And like that's not true. But I did think to myself, I'm like, oh, he's going to be so due by the type of Saturday rolls. I apply my own sensibilities to these things and I can tell you that like when I hit the ball super well on the range, I don't think, oh, yeah, I'm going to kill it on the golf course. I'm like, Oh, well, there goes all my good swings. I've told you my thought on this. Like, I don't even like take it practice swings because like, what if I waste the good one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I would very much be thinking that if I were Austin Matthews that all the goals are going to come in the postseason because God forbid you have two consecutive games where you don't score a goal for a guy that had an eight game goal scoring streak. Yeah, that is, that is a drought in his world anyways. So it's all over meaningless games. All of them, right? Yes. But a four game losing streak, which matches the career long for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Some ugly hockey, man. Like it must be said, and I understand again, nothing to play for. Same for the lightning, lightning playing factually a man short. Um, it's not like they look great either, but I don't know, how do you, how do you feel about the last week of games for the sleeve steam? I think that you have to have proper perspective for it. I think you understand that they were playing with the goal in mind that, Hey, guess what? Like if the playoffs end up going poorly, we will sit back and look at why were you playing with that goal in mind? But it was pretty clear what the goal of this team was the last three four games and it wasn't pick up two points. It wasn't make sure the systems are really locked in. It was yet thirty four above sixty nine. That was all you needed to do in these, in these three four games and you didn't do it. That was the focus of it and you failed. You failed. That was the one thing you want to do. Well, okay. The last week of the season was a spectacular, no, it was a spectacular. Now the thing I loved about this is our boy who again, like just, I hope he's able to find some pants in Boston, Luke Fox, doing journalism last night, asking Sheldon Keith exactly that about the four games. And he says, I couldn't even tell you what any of the score was in four games. Yeah. And it's like he was in the intermission of the Panthers game. He was looking at Bruins tape. Yeah. Great. Like I understand where we're at here and I understand what Keith is doing because you don't want to be, you don't want to be ringing panic. Like we can do that and we can have these conversations and man, if you're Brad Marchon, you're probably sitting there going, Jesus, leaf struggling, like they'll be playing these games in the media the next couple of days. But if you're Keith, I understand why he's going to say that, but yeah, this is not good. I don't know that the momentum carries over or anything on those lines. Like if the Leafs have the exact opposite game last night, let's, let's remove Austin Matthews from it for a second. Let's say he doesn't score, but they have the game, the lightning have last night and the score line is the exact same, but Matthews doesn't get one of those. I don't know that we're sitting here saying, Oh, the Leafs are really rolling. So I don't know that you can do the other side of it as well. I suppose, and maybe when Sheldon Keith said we're thinking about the posies and not individual statistics, he was talking about making sure everybody's healthy. But if he was at all talking about, Hey, making sure our game is in order, like that ain't happening at all. And I understand like part of that is just personnel, like they don't have their playoff personnel. They don't in the lineup, but I mean, you said it in the outset, things go poorly in the first round. I mean, he's fired anyways. If if Leafs bow out in whatever fashion against the Boston Bruins, Sheldon Keith is out, but one of the like after we get through the minutiae of what happened in this first round, we will absolutely be talking about what happened here the final week of the season and wondering whether that had some carryover effect and wondering if Sheldon Keith, you know, either was pressured into it or however it came to be that he had his team looking as sloppy and disorganized and as like honestly kind of a joke in these little house hockey games, meaningless, got it, got it, got it, got it. But like that hockey team played, I don't know, not like an NHL franchise, the last four games of the season. Yeah. And I'm not going to pretend I've been watching Boston with the finals, but it's like they've lost three of their last four heading into this, they lost to the Senza their last game of the season. So I think that I think that this is the beauty of what we do is that in both markets, we'll be sitting here having the exact same conversation about this is the reason why. And it's like both of you did that thing heading into it. So something's got to give you had a modicum of post season success, right? Yeah, it's a it's a little different. And I guess you do. Well, I mean, you can make you go back to last year though, you go back to last year. It's like who had more playoff success and you know, Boston's, which is a crazy thing to say, but it's true. And Boston, like we think of them as this unchanged core, but the team from two, three years ago, even is night and day versus the team that you see there now. So yeah, I think that it's just as fair to, I'm not saying these aren't fair questions to have about those. Yeah. It's just both teams are heading into this series with the exact same questions. Yeah. I think it's one thing to have a team that's uninterested in the results. Like maybe the Bruins were, although apparently in the third period, like they really came on. Turned it on against the senators, whatever, they'd scored one goal of the final two games. Again, just like, let's live in a world where that was the Leafs. It's like, oh, great, you, you sat around for two periods, then you turned it on. We would not be sitting here singing their praises unless it's really a Samsonov and then we do. That is weird how things work. It's just. And I get it like, hey, they, they, Kucharov wanted the, the hundredth assist and he eventually gets it. Although like he scores the goal first and he's like, no, stupid. You have to assist. When I saw Kucharov get his hundred, I was just like a rationally mad. Oh, so he gets his thing, the guy who doesn't care about anything and is the LTIR merchant for many moons ago. So he gets his cookie, but to the thing, it's like, yeah, the thing was, I mean, it's also the heart trophy. So any point helps, right? It's true. In the goal, but yeah, it, it just, she needed a goal. That's five of five goal. Now, I think he is now surpassed Cody CC down. So you can't, it's hard to like force an assist, right? Like that's a tougher one. And it just, it looks more blatant when you're, when you're every pass, they've been trying. Well, yeah, but they're forcing a goal, right? Everybody's trying to pick up the assist, but the, we know who's taken the shot. Yeah. It's different when you're looking for your 100th assist and you're like, hey, somebody else score, right? And you're trying to set up somebody for a tap in it's, again, I said it was untoward against the Panthers and again, it just, it felt unto, it's like weird when TJ Brody scores his first goal in a hundred years, um, like over a hundred games on a delayed penalty. And he's like, sort of cheap. I'm so sorry. Matthew's was on the ice and he's for the six on five. You know, Tavares gets the light one and he's like, I don't know, I guess so sorry. I don't know. It's said, this is very strange and again, this is, it's probably all going to be meaningless, but it's just, it's to be doing it this way for not just one game, like this multiple games where it finished this way during the regular season. Yeah. It should be, and we will talk about the season as a whole and whether it was a success or not. It should be the number one discussion we're having. Instead, it's like, well, here was the stated goal. And it was stated after the fact, but implicit with the actions that were taken on the ice. And all we were doing in meaningless games was trying to have that happen. And we couldn't pull that off and it's going to be, man, you want to talk about the punch line that this team might be. If they bow out in the first round of the season, it's like, yeah, well, these guys obviously didn't care about the playoffs. All they cared about was getting awesome Matthews is 70 goals. Yeah. That's just a different flavor of the punch line. And they'd become like, let's say, Austin Matthews hits the 70 goals, then the punchline is like, even with the 70 goal center, they cannot escape from the first round. There's no version of the Leafs losing in anything, like, I mean, honestly, in the second round, there's, as we, as we discovered last year, there is a path to ridicule and a second round loss as well. But the Leafs lose the first round. There's no path to it. Like let's just say again, they were rolling and they didn't care. And Keith was a, was a bad guy and he sat Matthews down and said the only thing that matters is we're saving your goals. That stick is too hot. And guess what? Still ridicule. And they lose the first round. And we would have done. As in, hand up. That would have said. Of course. Well, he, he just killed their spirit. Yep. He, he wouldn't let them have their cookies. Yep. And so they were mad. It's the Leafs that they are, they have reached full blow and like cowboys status of there's no way that this thing ends where you go out. That was good. Respectful season. See you next year. It's just outside of that happening in like a conference final or something. I don't think we're there. So yeah, I like, I saw the same thing as everyone else last couple of games. If he gets 70, I think we're all having a, I mean, feels like this goes the same. But if he has 70, does it not feel like the tenor takes a completely different conversation of, okay, they did prioritize something. But they got it done. And now they feel like they accomplished their goal, yada, yada, yada, it didn't happen. It did not happen. And I could play the flip side of it. Yeah. Hey, about this. Let me try this on for size. Yeah, sure. Matthew's not motivated by this. Like, yeah, he's like, ah, that was frustrating. And I think, I mean, when do we find out the finalists for the heart trophies that after the post season is middle of the post season? I don't know how this works. The NBA does it. The NBA does it. Of course. The NBA in the middle of the post season where Dirk Niewitski is like bows out in the first round. He's got a hoist is his MVP trophy used to do it so well though when it's like LeBron's getting it at home before playoff game like, oh my God, could you imagine that they gave we don't use the rocket at home ice like before puck drop against three. Yeah, we have to wait for bid. We have to wait for some celebrity who has like a passing knowledge of hockey. What are you? We'll learn that loves hockey. That's true. He's gonna be there. Okay. He's the host. I don't know. I just feel like I feel like he's poking around. He's like, if you need me. I'm here. Oh, he is very there. Yeah. I could see a world where awesome as is like, okay, I didn't get my thing. I get, you know, I'm going to win the rocket obviously and that was pretty apparent all season long. But I guess I didn't get to my 70 goals. I'm not going to win the heart despite my continued pleading. He might not even be a finalist. I guess it possible that this is motivating for him. I want to answer that question, but you did say something on the final on finalist thing. I think that that was changing. I do. I think that was enough that he is now dropped off a lot of ballots. Oh, dropped off? Yeah. I do think they're not not getting to 70. I think there are people that had it as a nice route. Ma'am, we've done. How many? I feel like the kucharoff thing is the thing that like, I think people are coming around to the idea despite the gap in point between him and the second place finisher on the lightning that people are like, okay, but the power play merchant stuff like the like being he's a barely a plus player. Yep. On that team, I think kucharoff is the guy that has had a narrative shift over the last couple of weeks. I just look at the history of, I can't think of an NFL example of this, but I think of the history of the other three major sports, Austin Matthews reached 60. He got it. Yeah. Triple crown season in baseball. I'm totally blanking on you. I got it. Got it. And then Russell Westbrook, the like triple double season. Yeah. Got it. So generally speaking, just like when you reach that threshold that becomes so undeniable, I don't think one goal that we all would have immediately discounted because they were just force feeding it to him should be enough to change people's minds one way or another. But I think that that if you were somebody that was going, oh man, I got to put him on. He's got 70 goals. Look at the lead. That gives you if you were somebody that was wavering and you wanted your Frank Sierra Valley and you want to get your Temi Panerin in there on your ballot so bad, okay, then that gives you all it's wrong, but that gives you all the permission you need to do that to take him off and leave him or pump him down or however you want to free. Yeah. I mean, this is the wrong. This is the center of the hockey universe. But yeah, I mean, there's at least 50% of the voters who are not going over these leaf games, the final ones with the fine tooth comb and at the end of the season are just going to be looking at the final counting statistics. And I guess for them, yeah, 69, 8, 70, I don't, I don't think it's right and I don't think it's everybody, but you can't tell me there. I don't know. But 200, 250 people that, I don't know, 10, 15 of them are thinking about that round number in there. It's just like human nature. How many conversations have we had about this where the round number of it all keeps coming up by really, I really do think that it's going to be that could be enough to kind of tilt him off of being a finalist, which like, if that's the case, can you tell him tomorrow? Like do we have to wait until the season's over to then find out? That he's not a hard finalist or whatever. Yeah. I don't think, you know, finishing the season on a two game goalist route is a, is a concern for a guy with 69 goals and a million opportunities to score those goals in meaningless games. William Neelander, I'm like, maybe of a different opinion, he finishes with 98 points and stuck on 40 goals for forever, which is very good and tied his career high, but had a chance to set new career highs seemed like 100 points was a given, like we were putting them on pace for like 130 points in the time, man. Yeah. And he's looked frustrated at times. He hasn't looked like the same player. I mean, he has been a guy historically has, has played some of his best hockey in the postseason. But if I was going to look at a, a final couple of games in the season concern, it wouldn't be the guy that finished with 69 goals, it would be the guy who's stuck on 98 points. Yeah. Neelander is the guy who has cooled off the most. You mentioned it though. He's also the guy who trying to think with the exception of maybe Morgan Riley, he is the guy who has the longest leash because of playoff performance and, but it's not also not like he's a three point a game player in the postseason either. No, but he has been the guy that has had the, the, and part of this is what he's been up until this season is he's been the guy who has had the least drop off of those guys. The expectations are higher for him. Yeah. He's not 65 point, 75 point, William Neelander. Pontus Homburg's going to be the center to set the postseason. Yeah. That's changed the expectations of that a bit. Neelander's cooled off in a big way, but I think that because of what he has done in the postseason in the past, I think he's the guy who has the longest leash there. But yeah, like you can't, you cannot sit here and say it's not concerning that a guy who, when they were giving him the big contract that he got was on pace for 130 some odd points, he didn't manage to eclipse a hundred. That is a massive sea change. Now there's a million things that go into a part of it is the lineup machinations and to your point, he's basically playing on a, on a third line that he has to drive by himself. But that's okay. Like you're making over $11 million next year, you're allowed to drive it by yourself. Maybe even you should be encouraged to. So I look at it and you have to have to be discouraged by what you've seen. But I honestly, I'd be hard pressed outside of Morgan Riley to find somebody that has, that has a longer leash in terms of what is expected of them in the playoffs. Yeah. And, and all of it is irrelevant starting Saturday, which is a late start to after eight o'clock. I saw that. You didn't like that? I thought that works better for you in your childcare situation. Well, see, but I get to be mad about everything. So like, yeah, in theory, it's better for me. We don't have to wake up on Sunday. No, no, no, but that's not. I mean, you do because you have a young child that wakes up at like four in the morning. Yeah, I got to get him. I get to get him. I get to get him to eight. Push-ups getting ready for ball hockey to dominate, but the, but I, I just, it's the Leafs. It's hockey in Canada. It's the first game of the playoffs. How dare you make me wait that extra half hour or hour? I know. I know. I know. But you, I wasn't even going to mention it. I've been seeing it. I've been looking at it. You didn't have to comment on it. No. See, you said a thing. And what I learned about myself this morning is that when someone says something around me, that is a, that is obviously there's no other way to take it than them asking me for my opinion on the matter to be swayed. Not correct. Okay. You know what I think about that? Let me tell you. Yeah. Anyways, game one on Saturday at eight o'clock. So that's, that's it for the regular season. Was it a successful one? All things considered, Toronto Maple Leafs finishing third in the Atlantic division with a record of 46, 26 and 10, 102 points, seven points back in the Bruins who had 109, eight points back in the Panthers, but four points up on the lightning. They finished with a goal differential of plus 40. I know the regulation wins thing was a, was a real bugaboo. They finished with 33, just the same number as the Buffalo Sabres. But regulation and overtime wins, 41, just two back in the Bruins and one back of the Tampa Bay Lightning finished the season, of course, on a four game losing streak, third time they've done that this season. And that was tied for the longest of the season. Brent Gunning was this regular season, a success understanding that it's all irrelevant. Yes. But like, just in regular season terms, was it a successful regular season? Thank you for throwing in that caveat. Cause that is like the only thing that matters and you're right to point that out. Yeah. Okay, well, this is not some slam dunk start, you know, treating yourself like a baseball team, popping champagne bottles, cause you survived it. But I think given the expectations that this team had for itself, given the fact that they had no NHL goal tender for a month and a half, I think that, and given the fact that this was supposed to be a little bit of a reset season with the new GM that I think finishing, I'm just looking at it by points percentage, 10th in the league. That's exactly where they were supposed to finish. I don't look at it as some rousing success, but it is a, it's like a B minus B to me in terms of a regular season success. Where are you at? Yeah. I think it's a little higher than that, honestly, because yeah, you can't just gloss over the fact that their number one goalie was not just like demoted, like he's obviously not wavers exempt. He was put on waivers. Like he was available for all takers. Like you wanted a Neelius Samsonov could have had him, anybody could have. And then when he returned to form, I'm sure there were some teams that were maybe kicking themselves that they didn't do that. He is gone. I love devils. Their big free agent defenseman played 14 games poorly. Boy, boy do I remember non factor. You had two other forward off season acquisitions that were uneven, if not looking like disastrous fits to start the season. You did galvanize like this team became, I mean, it must be said, this a near decade long generation of Leafs teams, not a lot of like likable teams, like I know the individual players and like, if you're into skill, that's, it's basically, let's just, let's just put a really fine point on it, basically since the NASM cadre trade, that was the point of inflection for like, yes, and there was a coalescing of, of what seems like chemistry. Yeah. This team, you know, at the beginning of the season, watched him at the little guns, ankles get caved in by Brad Marchand. Accidentally, of course. Yeah, the GM had to step into the locker room. They also had a hinge point where their number one defenseman was lost for half dozen getting well, five games. Five games. I mean, the initial suspension was six, but not, I don't know, it just seems like a hundred years ago. But it was the hinge point in the entire season. Yeah. Thank you, Ridley Greg, for sacrificing your head. And then you had the seven game winning streak where everything seemed to come together. And now it wasn't perfect, but I will say considering all the things, considering the spotlight that's always on this team, considering the narrative that surrounded this team, considering the pressure on the head coach, understanding that, yeah, the stakes for him come the post season are very high, but the stakes during the course of this regular season were super high as well. They go out on the, on the Western Canadian road trip where things are very uneven. And there's a very real possibility that he does not return as head coach of this team. He survived all of that. I think it was a very successful regular season. Now, when you have a 70, near 70 goal score and you have all the talent on the, you have, you know, half of your salary cap tied up into four forward, the expectations are always going to be high. But yeah, going into the season, considering the roster they had, considering where they started, I thought it was a very good season. Yeah, I'd agree. I mean, I'm not, I don't blame you for this because you, you ripped off so many kind of checkpoints there. Can I add just one more little log of kindling to the fact that I don't think this is kindling. I think this is a big old log. Mitch Barner, everyone's favorite number this year. You played just 69 games, of course, yeah, it's like that guy has been how many, and this is the beauty of having, you know, we can talk about what Tavares is now, but let's throw Morgan Ali in there. There's a beauty of having, and let's not throw Morgan Ali in there. This the beauty of having three superstar forwards is that they're supposed to buoy you for any given period of time. William Neelander, well, I mean, we can't give him credit for the beginning of the season because awesome Matthews did have back-to-back hat tricks to save them in the first two games of the season. But Neelander carried them for long stretches, Matthews carried him for long stretches. And you know, I don't completely absolve him of this, but also just weird year for him. It never really had the Marner month where everything's just clicking and everything's going. There were little fleeting moments, and I think he had a hat trick this year. So I don't want to say there were never games like that, but normally each one of these guys has a month where they're basically the NHL player of the month and they're just unstoppable. You saw it from Neelander. You saw it from Matthews and never really clicked that way for Marner. And as you said, you know, that this is a, this is a fault of the way the team is built, but not having a guy who takes up, you know, 10% of your cap or whatever it works out to for Marner and missing him for that amount of time. And then even when he was there, he just wasn't quite Mitch. He wasn't, and 85 points in 69 games, another great season for him. But I think even he would agree, he never kind of had that transcendent stretch that we usually see from him. Plus you did, you know, you found some things out. You found out the Bobby McMans and NHL player. Yeah. And you paid them. And you found out, see them all Ben was an NHL player and you paid them. And I think you found out that Nick Robertson's an NHL player, whether that's for this team or not. Like I think you found out that Nick Robertson, if the job is to shoot it in the net for him, it seems like that's going to be, should I give him Matthew some pointers on the, the niche that he's going to carve out 14 goals in 56 games playing like a minute and a half a game. I got, I think you found some things out. I think you, you established, yeah, what, what some of these depth players are. And I think the biggest development was, was Bobby McMahon and it'll be a shame if, you know, Kelly Yarnkrok gets into game one and Bobby McMahon doesn't and then like, we're in a tough spot where it's like a Michael Bunting situation is like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And maybe Bobby McMahon doesn't get into a postseason game. I wouldn't worry too much about that. Yeah. Cause like if they lose, then they can just mess it up. You're going to lose the game. And that might have been dumb in retrospect also to like not put the good player in because the, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't want to mess with the vibes. But yeah. He broke it. Yeah. Put him back in. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, no, I think that those are huge developments on an individual level as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the, the Benoit and McCabe one that those are, you hope going to pay dividends for years to come. But where would they be? I mean, McManus, slightly different story. And I think you can see a world where if he doesn't have the emergence he does, that's more run for Nick Robertson. And you know, we've had that conversation a million times, but they're not, they're not dead in the water. If Bobby McMahon doesn't have this, you know, breakout year that he had, they are without Simone Benoit. Yeah. If, I mean, you know, again, like we give Brad your living all the credit in the world for what Domie has turned into and Bertuzzi really seeming to be playoff bird at the perfect time. That's that, but for a cap strap team and guess what? All the good ones are those are the moves that I won't say when you cups because it's still going to be your absolute best player, but those are the moves that allow you to stay afloat, finding your Simone Ben was for nothing. The ducks didn't want him. So like for all the credit, Dubis got for bunting and man, like think about where they would have been if they didn't have him at 900 K for the last two years, where would this team be? You know, it's weird because there was a time after the deadline where it seemed like maybe he was going to be the odd man out with the deck chairs and shuffling them with the deep hairs. But you cannot take him out of the lineup right now. The way he's performing, it has just been the ultimate piece of found money. And then to lock him up so that you don't have to worry about what happens should the Leafs win around and somebody's dying to pay him 3 million a season or whatever it is. Yeah, a lot of responsibility on that pairing. See more Ben while Jake McCabe going to be the shutdown pairing. Having said that, very real possibility that that is a ruseous, ruseous, regularly head and that's not Simone Ben was fault. Like if Simone Benoit cannot be number one shutdown pair on a cup champion, there's a lot of people to blame for that. One of them though is not the milkman who could have been had by anybody after the ducks said no thanks. No, he's very much a Dante from clerks. Like, I'm not even supposed to be here. Yeah. Do you? We were talking about this with Gorge yesterday. Does it not feel, hey, and again, like if this team like heaven forbid run goes somewhere, like yes, Matthews and Marner and Newlander and all the guys are going to, but does it not feel like McCabe and Benoit are going to be like co-mares of the city by the end of it? Oh yeah. Like they're just a guy. I mean, Bertuzzi told me there's a lot of, there's a lot more of those characters on the team. Well, Jake McCabe already looks like playoff hockey. What is he going to look like after a couple of rounds maybe or one round or a game, another game? I'm like, oh, please don't laugh at me. Yeah, that's, yeah, he looks like playoff hockey. I have one more. I have 60, 69 goal question for you. If I just set the number for Austin Matthews career in a single season, 68.5, over or under? I think he does it again. You do, eh? You really do. I think this is, this is not the career high for Austin Matthews. I really don't. I think, yeah, part of that is maybe we get expansion again during his career. But I just, I think he can score more power play goals for sure. He led the league in post and cross bars. Yeah, he had over, I think he, well, he was 20 a couple of games ago. He broke Sam Coast record for it seemingly a month ago, that for again, like, we have records for post in the season, we're remarkable. I did. What did you say? Did you answer your own question? I didn't. I wanted to know what you did. I was sitting here thinking, well, it's ridiculous for me to say it. But you may, honestly, the thing that tipped me, expansion. Yeah. If we get expansion in the next two to three years, well, Austin Matthews is still like capital A, capital M, Austin Matthews, then yeah, I think it's very much in play. I also set the line at that. I do think it's like plus 500 for over though, or like, plus 325, something. Well, sure. Yeah. You got to get some odds there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because as much as the shooting percentage has come, come down, it's no longer 20%, it's still a career high this year. But it was a career low last year, so maybe maybe that's just things evening out a couple of seasons. Anyways, do. Because he didn't score in two straight game. Absolutely. 100, well, and he's riding a five game, at least, goalless streak in the post season. Right? Did he score in game six? I can't remember. He wasn't a game seven. So, like, that's that I have. Yeah. I can tell you how many games he's scored in. Can I tell you? Would you like to know? Yeah, go ahead. Do you joke? Zero. It's like he hasn't scored in a game six. Can I say my thing? Go ahead. Score in game six. John Tavares. He dropped one knee, and it was beautiful, and I closed my ass in picture right now. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's the only... It's all I got. Nice. Post season. It's all I got. It's all I got. All right. When we come back, Blue Jays had a nice homestand, and a nice series against the Yankees. Could have been great if not for a bullpen meltdown because of some unavailable arms, and one guy that was made available that clearly seemed not ready for Major League Baseball. We'll get into that. And more next. The fan morning show continues. Ben Ann is Brent Gunning. Sportsnet 5.9 to the fan. Hey, it's Aylish for a fire. And I'm Justin Cuthrey. Join us as we discuss the most important sports stories of the day and tee up the biggest games of the night. It's the fan pregame. 6 p.m. Weekdays on Sportsnet. Sportsnet 5.9 to the fan. And wherever you get your podcasts. Goshmen at a hundred pitches right now, peeking back at Soto delivers 101 on the day. And it's a swing and a miss strike three scream from Goshman as he spins off the rubber. He allows one but holds the Ford after that. Pain judge to strand Soto, you know, really just, I guess, the mentality more attack mode. Being more aggressive at guys, obviously throwing more strikes. I mean, I know I've walked, you know, three guys, but I like I was still attacking the zone really the whole game. And yeah, I thought we did a good job of mixing and, you know, obviously my last outing against these guys was a little different. So, you know, I was looking to pitch a little better and, you know, was happy. Fan morning, show Sportsnet 5.9 to the fan. Ben and his friend. Got a good job. Josh Santos. That's the only thing that mattered from the Blue Jays game yesterday. It's all positive. This is Kevin Gossman. Return to form getting through five innings, six strikeouts, one earned run as Blue Jays rotation. Yes. Again, like not afraid of the regression monster. Now it's like the last full time through the rotation, everybody's good now. But yeah, that's part of the story. I think the overarching one is blowing a two run lead in the ninth inning, unable to sweep away the New York Yankees. They finished the Homestand 6 and 3, which could 7 and 2 would have been great sweeping the Yankees. And it was right there on their stick and they frittered it away. Yeah, it is funny how much one game can change it, right? Like 6 and 3. That's fine. That's good. Good job. Shake your hand out on the butt. Go get back to work the next day. Seven and two. You're really doing something sweeping the Yankees that would have had such an impact to it. You feel like we had conversations about this last year, like finishing series sweeps. It's not the time for for now, but it's like, you know, you do want to pick up the odd sweep here or there again, you'd rather when you'd rather worry about winning two or three all the time than sweeping occasionally. But yeah, you would like to have seen it bullpen, man, it is a it's been a work in progress as the years gone on just because of the guys who haven't been available. They work Ramano in not yesterday, but the day before it's a little sketchy. They work Swanson in yesterday doesn't go particularly well. Maisa, another rough outing there. Yeah, the the pen, I think with the bullpen, you obviously have to be careful before kind of making two sweeping generalizations. But yeah, not a good night for the pen by any means. No, I still think the bullpen agrees good and no Jimmy Garcia, not available after working two consecutive days, and we didn't know at the time I was at the ballpark yesterday. I was like, where is Chad Green? Like, isn't he on this team? And it turns out that he was dealing with the shoulder issue, which apparently is not a big deal the day off today. They hope he's going to be available for the start of the series in San Diego tomorrow. And Tim Maisa, that's a tough spot for him, like as much as he can face all cameras, like he's generally supposed to be in there against lots of left handed hitters and Aaron Judge, I guess if you're going to talk about awesome athletes being do, he was really, really do. >> Mm-hm. >> And yeah, tough spot for Maisa to wiggle out of. The guy that stands out though, yeah, tough spot for him to be in too. Eric Swanson, I will say like I do this thing in sports a lot where I'm like, hey, what did you deserve there? Blue Jays deserve to lose the second game of that series, like that tight rope walk by Jordan Romano with not his best up in his first major league outing of the season. And he has some line drives that could have easily, like the Alex Verdugo turning on the inside slider could have very easily been a game tying home run. >> First catch, yeah. >> Yeah. So I do think on balance, the Blue Jays only barely deserved to win two out of three. So it's not like an unfair result. But to the point about Romano looking the way he did in game two of the series and then Eric Swanson, like right out of the gate looking like he didn't have it as he was just laying in the meatball splitters that were not splitting. And John Carlo Stanton deciding that that was like it was tee time for him and just smashing a home run into the second deck in left field. What was the impetus to get he and Romano up as quickly as humanly possible? Because like the results were not, they were not overwhelming in Buffalo. Like maybe they looked at the stuff that they were showing in the international league and said that that's Major League caliber. It did seem like there was a real push to get them into this series. And as a result, a guy that was throwing 102 last we checked had to be optioned in Nate Pearson. I understand also Mitch White was DFA, but like Mitch White, and now Bowden Francis was also warming in that game of things got really out of hand. But no, Nate Pearson was the one guy we were like, yeah, and we'll see him again, although you can't for another whatever now nine days because they have to be down for 10 days or I guess eight days. But yeah, that was a guy that you probably could have used in that situation. And I think Eric Swanson eventually will be fine. Yeah. But just like I was a kind of curious about throwing Jordan Romano right back into a tight safe situation against at the time the best team in baseball, kind of a curious spot to put Eric Swanson in, but you were out of options because no Chad Green. Yeah. The, the, I think the reason I think you hit the nail on the head as to why they rushed these guys up here is that the, the pen was just getting taxed to a point. Now Pearson is the obvious one that I think you would have much preferred him in that spot. Obviously given the way, given the way things played out, but yeah, I think that's why those guys are up here is that the pen was just getting taxed to a point and yeah, you could have kept Mitch White, I suppose, but you know, that's not like, are you feeling much? Yeah. Okay. I find that Mitch White maybe being out of our lives forever. That's all we all, the fleeting moment where he thought he dated Margot Robbie for five minutes. Yeah. I bought into that. I know. I imagine being so good looking that like, it's plausible. Yeah. I was like, okay. Maybe. God, what a world, uh, not the case. But yeah, Pearson's the guy that you would have much rather had him in that spot. I feel very different about Swanson last night than I did Romano two nights ago. You know, for anyone who didn't hear it, it's like, I think he's your closer. You had a close situation, he's back on the roster. You put him in that spot. Like, I do think there's something about that, but I don't feel the exact same way about a set up man. And Eric Swanson, you just had to get him in there. I do wonder and, you know, feel free to tell me like, no, you're reading, you're, you're trying to make excuses for them. I do wonder if there was some element with just like the family tragedy that happened in the beginning of camp that they were like, let's push you forward to baseball, baseball, baseball. I don't think you get a guy up to the big leagues because of that, but I do think there was some element to trying to like, Hey, let's really focus on this, not to say that he obviously wasn't thinking about his family, but, you know, we've all been there. You want to focus on work when things are going, going rough for you. But yeah, I feel very differently about Swanson last night that I did Romano two nights ago. That is not your closer. That is not a guy you had to put in a tough spot right away. I mean, you did have to because you brought him up. So you didn't have Pearson, but if you just didn't bring him up and you had Pearson, we're not having this conversation. Yeah. And you can't predict I suppose the chad green shoulder thing. I think given their druthers that would have preferred to have chad green in their, you know, given their druthers knowing that Eric Swanson was throwing batting practice, probably would have had Tim Aza just trying to shut it down or kind of falafel, honestly. Yeah, yeah, that was it's just a rough one. And it's fine. Like I said, Eric Swanson was a big part of this Blue Jays bullpen a season ago. And that's a field pitch that the splitter and you know, it's not like he was throwing an 89 out there. I saw some 95s, but that's, that's a rough one. And when it's right there for you, you to run lead in the ninth inning against the Yankees team that's scuffling to, to fritter it away like that hurts. Don Varsho though. What's going on? What's going on? Okay. We got to shut it down until we figure out what is going on here with Dalton Varsho. What is going on? Two homers, including one against a lefty, which he did not do once a season ago. Now one of those home runs, there's a lot of stats of that. It's like he didn't do this once all last year. It's a good thing, then probably. >> It was, he and Vlad, like we talked about the Vlad, no home runs until late June. I think it was around the same time for Dalton Varsho too, like that guy did not hit home runs at Rogers Center last year. You know what else he didn't do last year? It was a stat I kept bringing up that was like one of the key differentiators between his first season as a Blue Jays and his final season as a Diamondback is like, I think he hit one first pitch home run last year where he hit, he was the league leader in first pitch home runs his final season in Arizona. In Arizona, one of those home runs yesterday was the first pitch home run. He's gone right now. I already told you that I thought he should be climbing the depth chart over Kevin Kermier. If you're only gonna play one of them and certainly against lefties, that is the deal. They only play one of those guys. I mean, what do you do with, are you, well, I should start here. Are you buying what you're seeing recently from Dalton Varsho? >> To a certain extent, I think the truth of the player was always somewhere in the middle between the guy you saw in the road last year and the guy you saw at home. I am buying the Dalton Varsho can be a competent everyday player for this team. I am not buying that he is gonna work his way back up and hey, I feel free to keep hitting homers and prove me wrong that it's gonna ever have made sense to put him in the cleanup spot or the five hole. I think that as long as we have properly recalibrated expectations for what Dalton Varsho is, then yeah, I am buying it. But I'm buying it as a good 789 hitter who can play great defense somewhere in there. That's what I'm buying when you, this is just in my opinion, the opposite of what we see with Bo where you go, okay, like Bo is gonna normalize. He's gonna start getting his hits. It's like Varsho's gonna normalize. He's not gonna hit four homers or three homers every week, but I think that for a player who everything went so wrong for last year, it can only buoy him that things are going so right to start this year. The offensive bar for Dalton Varsho is not very high. There's no bar. It's just the floor. Can you step over this one inch tile? Yeah, he limboed right under it a season ago, right? Even as bad as he was offensively, he got tons of playing time, played in 158 games last year because of the defense and because of the late game defensive substitutions. I'm terrified of them moving him out of his spot, like just leave him right there, like take the pressure off, just let it all be a bonus, whatever you get out of him offensively. He seems to be comfortable in the moment. It also should be said, so it's so early in the season like these numbers change so quickly. Dalton Varsho at this moment, his OPS is a career high. He's never for a season had an OPS of 768, which is where it's at right now. His second season in Major League Baseball, where he only played 95 games, he had a 755 OPS. Blue Jays traded for him in a season in which he had a 745 OPS playing 151 games, which is not like overwhelming. It's an above average OPS, OPS plus where 100 is league average, he was 108 in his last season in Arizona. I think there are some people who believed that there was more there offensively, but at least the Blue Jays were like, well, we're going to get that offense. If you do get that offense, now you've got a player, right? Like now you've got a player. And then if he can just hold his own against the left-handed pitchers, and yeah, the drag bond becomes a weapon, but if there's- Listen to you. If he could just hunt better. Again, and you go back to a season ago, what a weirdo season it was, if he was just the guy he was on the road at home last year over the whole season, it's not an MVP candidate, but it's a guy who is like a four-win player, maybe playing the defense he can play. And even if he's not that, if he could just revert to being the guy who occasionally runs into one, that is what this team needs so bad. The ability to have some semblance of pop outside of the top four in this lineup, or- Honestly, I'll take it inside the top four, give him the way things have been going. Like, that is the thing about him is that if the power is able to exist at all, it kind of eliminates the ability to need stuff in the other at bats, like, yeah, sure, drag bun to weigh and give competitive at bats, and that's important for everybody. But the ability to have guys on this team, it's, you know, it's not quite your Davis Schneider argument, but he could actually run into one on occasion for a team that needs guys to do that. They've had so much trouble kind of stringing together hits, and if you have a guy that can give you the big one, it is- It's not sea-changing, but for this team, it would be a sea change. Yeah, Blue Jays currently, 22nd in Major League Baseball with 16 home runs, that's just more than half as many as the Baltimore Orioles have, who lead Major League Baseball with their 30. So, yeah, is Vlad going to hit some more home runs? I would like to think so. Boba Shedd is going to run into a couple? A loud double yesterday. Sure! Yeah, he was a foot away from a home run, the opposite field yesterday. But no, you need more home run power. That's why I'm very much monitoring what's happening in Buffalo with both the Relvis Martinez and Addison Barger, who are off to great starts. Martinez hit like a 470-foot bomb yesterday. Now where his positional fit is on this team is in question for me. I'm just going on the boxed core stuff. He's played the line share of his games defensively this season after being a shortstop in third baseman for the majority of his career at second base. He's played like 10 games there. He's committed five errors. Well, that seems bad. Not which one. At second base, which is not the most, I mean, that sounds like Chuck Knoblock stuff, which is not good. No. But if there is a positional fit for him, and he, I mean, throughout the, there's never been a question about the raw power, right? Nope. It's been, can he take enough walks? Can he strike out, can he bring the strikeout numbers down enough where you, it's palatable, the played appearances? I don't think anybody has doubt that he has a 30 home run power in the Major Leagues if he gets there. Like, at a certain point, and I, I, I, I send Ernie Clemente and Isaiah Kiner-Felefe have had fine little seasons, right? And they are who they are, although Ernie Clemente had an opportunity to drive in a run by making contact and struck out on three pitches yesterday. But yeah, at a certain point, for a team that coming into the season, clearly there was going to be a power vacuum, has been a power vacuum, the Arelvis Martinez, I don't think is a perfect player or an MVP candidate. I think what he does, though, is hit home runs and this team sorely needs it, there's going to be more of a push, I think, I can tell you just for me, there will be a push for me to find a way for his fit defensively if he continues to hit balls out of the ballpark. Yeah, and again, I'm, I'm, I'm not even going off the box course, I'm going off you telling me the box course, but I'm third hand. I know, but I would, you'd like to think that this is like just, if a guy can play short and a guy can play third, you would think this is just a like uncomfortable and it's like a geometry angles thing that's affecting him five errors is like, that's a lot in, in maybe a lot in 20 games, let alone, let alone 10, I do think you're going to see it. I would just also like to congratulate you because I don't know if you saw it, but I did, I did physically wince when you mentioned Buffalo, because I thought we were going to talk about Joey Votto. I didn't even know if something had happened, I have not been keeping tabs. It's just as soon as you said that, I was like, Oh God, I can't do this again. But hey, I'll happily talk about Martinez and, and Barger to a, to a lesser extent pop. If you have pop on this team, they're going to give you a look at some point in time. I don't know how quick they forced the hand. I don't know how quickly they want to rush to do these things. If they see it as that, I don't know, maybe, maybe so he can get it down to like an error every three games as opposed to every two. Maybe that's what they're waiting for here. So I checked it after 10 games and it was fine. So he hasn't had an error in his last two games. Oh my God, call him up. Get him up here. I don't know. I'd like to see where those errors are coming from. If it's like a fielding issue or throwing, throwing seems hard to imagine, but who the hell knows? Um, anyways, yeah, the, the pitching has looked really, really good. Obviously the Blue Jays are only going as far as the starting pitching. God, where would you be if Kevin Gossman had another stinker yesterday? We would not have been saving it for 654. But thank goodness for everybody's sake that he was able to, to come through with a very promising outing and again, the velocity up there. Last one. Mm. John Schneider tossed in the ninth inning. That was classic. Like I'm going to go get tossed here. Yeah, it was an inconsistent strike zone all over the place. I think the Blue Jays probably benefited more from the inconsistency, honestly, than, than they were victimized by it. But he is very much in the Sheldon Keith spot where it's like, Oh, this is, you got to use everything at your disposal because if it doesn't go well, you're not going to work here anymore. Nope. You, he has to, he has to try. He's got to do something Vlad gets, you know, pinched. It's not a great call to start the AB, but I don't know, like if that's, if, if that call is going to be egregious enough to get you tossed out of games, you won't be watching very many this year. This is part of the arsenal. It's a long season. You get tossed ham full of time. Schneider's probably somebody who kind of tows a little more to that side than somebody who's a little more, you know, laid back. I think it's part of his Zemo. I don't think it, I don't, honestly, I haven't thought it's enough part of the tool belt on the arsenal for, for John Schneider. So I was. You're happy to see it. Encouraged. I do. But if you're in Boone is modern day Bobby Cox. So maybe you looked across the way is like, I don't know if Aaron Boone's been tossed because the Yankees have been so good to start the season. So he wanted, he wanted to get out in front of Aaron Boone. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're actually right. I will say though, if you're going to get tossed, like, and I, I guess it's just like different guy's faces. So good. It's. Yeah. I, it doesn't have to be Schneider, but like I'd kill for a good old school lupinella like nobody kicks any dirt anymore. I haven't seen a hat thrown in a while. I guess it's early days of the season still you got to like build up to that when your team's won seven games and it's, you know, June or something. I guess that's when you have to see that. But yeah, I don't know. I thought, I thought he could have got more of his money's worth that felt like much more of a like, Hey, hey, toss me. Yeah. Don't do that. Bad call. Okay. Aaron Boone has been tossed. So he's tied now for the American League lead with one. All right. We'll, we'll keep tabs on that. Yeah. No, I think anytime you can get the finger right in the umpire's face. Yeah. You're doing your job. Body show look matter. All right. Well, when we come back guy who's always going to be killed, I was going to say so good to be a mad. Yeah. He is. I feel like it's seven in the morning though, maybe be a little chill. Yeah. Hopefully for us. Fingers crossed. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Yeah, we'll be right back. We'll be right back.
