Sportsnet 590, the fan. [MUSIC PLAYING] There's little things inside the game. I don't think, you know, but that's what makes a difference. And at this time of year, you can't make those mistakes. You can teach, that does. It's up on the wrong side of the game. You know, outside of those mistakes. The flow of the game, everything. Right there, we have our chances. And we don't make good on them. But there's too many mistakes, little mistakes, like that two-on-one penalties. Careless with our stick, that kind of stuff is not good enough. Yeah, not too much. Good enough on Saturday night. It is the fan morning show Sportsnet 590, the fan. Ben Anis, Brent Gunning. Good morning to you, Brent. Yeah, I'm sure. You were talking to me before we came on the air about your newfound real life perspective. Yeah. You're not in sports funks as long as you used to be. But no, they're back into your sports funks. As I was telling you, but the reserves are still easily tapped into, like I think before, Sports Funk was just my natural way of living. And now I-- It's Funk. And now, it'd be a good name for like-- Yeah. Either a band or like a really late night show in 1972. It feels like a segment we should be doing. I don't know what it is. But there's like a funky bass on it. Like, I'm out, I'm out now. Time to have her sports funk. Now, now. OK. Yeah, that's perfect. Tender, after the least, gets smoked in game one. Yeah, there's perspective there. But the second I sit in it for even five minutes, it's just all the way back. It's like, yeah, I'll go home today. Five minutes. And I'll try three hours. No, well, no. But I mean, it's like, I literally just like-- some people are like, I don't want to go swimming. I just want to like dip my toe in the water, maybe read a book. It's like, I might as well just jump in the pool. Because the second my toe gets a little bit wet. I'm all the way back to it. Well, here we go. OK, so we mentioned it in the lead up in the preview of the series that, hey, game one feels very important. But don't you remember game one against the lightning last season? Yeah. Seven, three loss. But after two games of the series, the Leafs had a positive goal differential because they won game two, seven to two. All right, how's that doing as far as cold comfort for you? Zero. Because I don't think that's happening tonight. Unless Jim Montgomery is going to descend from the heavens and say, you know what, Swamin, I need to take tonight off. That feels like the only path to a seven, two, or anything remotely approaching positive goal differential for the Leafs. Not say they can't win tonight, not say it can't be a solid game. But it feels borderline impossible to imagine a world where the Leafs charge back with a five-nothing win or even a four-one win or something approaching what we saw on Saturday night. OK, I'm going to make you do the hard part of analyzing game on first before we get to the easy part, which is like breaking down how the Maple Leafs struggled in many certain areas. And with part of it is most concerning. A lot of meat there. Let's start with, hey, what are the positives? Are there positives you can pull from that hockey game? Yeah, this is maybe not where I was intending to start, but I think it is informed that that's the first place my mind goes. And it's a lot of what I was saying last year before I got hurt in the playoffs. I like Matthew Nice. That guy is not unafraid of the moment. And I think part of it is that he is still a young kid. And I don't say that to take expectations off of him, but I say that to mean there's still a healthy amount of-- I wouldn't even call it fear. But it's like there's the right amount of a governor on him. You see Max Dolmy right away starting the game. He's slashing Marshan and like, I kind of loved all that. We'll get to that in a second. But it felt like Knives was able to do the right thing of having enough emotion, trying to finish his checks, but not getting sucked into too much. I really liked Knives game. If I'm going to pick one thing, one player who I saw and liked, that's the thing for me. I loved what I saw it. That's good. I'm glad we started here, because it's so obvious. And it's so easy, again, to do the other part of it when you lose 5-1, when you give up a couple of power play goals against, when your goaltender doesn't make a single save, it's easy to point at the things that you struggle with. When you went 0 for 3 on the power play, but yeah, if you're going to be optimistic about it, and why not, again, recent history, just 12 months ago, losing 7-3 for the Lightning. And that was a Lightning team that you lost to in Game 1 before you'd even won a series, right? That's true, different team now. And so now you have, at least in the reserves, the idea of you winning a postseason series, it's not the beat. Do you think when they go to those reserves, they're like, right, Ryan, oh, crap, right, Luke? Oh, man, he's not here either. Watch the game nerd, like just, like, the numbers aren't the be-all end-all, but the 5-1-5 numbers-- Big chart night. We're beneficial. I mean, the 5-1-5 shot attempts for and against would account for the three posts. The Bruins hit in the first period. At least a couple of posts themselves, including Austin Matthews and a wide open cage. I don't think you should count on Austin Matthews missing a wide open net too often in this series, but, yeah, the 5-1-5 numbers, part of this is score effects, especially in the third period where they controlled the 5-1-5 shot attempts, 23 to 3. But, yeah, that wasn't a game that, like, if you took the goals out of it, which you can't-- Wow, they count. Where they didn't look like they were blown out of the water. Factually, they were, because here's the thing. Here's where we can get into the negative side of things. You know, the biggest differentiating factor for me? Moving into the series? Yeah, I actually remember it. I thought those words were ringing around in my brain. I'll let you say it. But just so you know, I would spend too much time thinking about your defining factor during game one, 'cause you were right. It's, again, we call it hockey for some reason when it should just be goaltending. Like, it's goaltending. Yeah, I asked the Colorado Avalanche who we'll get to as well. Like, it is goal-tending. Yeah. Okay? And sometimes, but sometimes the best goal in the league, Connor Hollibuck, let's say it seems to win. Weird how that works. Like, are you right? You're right, but it's like sometimes that happens too. Well, also, did you see the goal right before? Where it's like, ah, okay. But they finally held on, but went like 30 seconds left. It was awesome. I mean, there are some weirdo goals that that gives you. And everything about that. That game was made of weirdo. That's all it was. Anyways, the Leaf game wasn't necessarily made of weirdo. You know what it was made of? A team built on goal-tending. And they need to be, they need to have good goal-tending to win, because this is not a team. And again, five-on-five shot attempts. The total shot shot on goal in the hockey game. They needed Jeremy Swamman to be good. Jeremy Swamman was good. Ilya Samsonov, don't give me this like, ah, it's okay. He wasn't, he wasn't what cost him a game. Okay, sure. Factually, I guess, when you only score one goal, can't, hard to say that the goalie caused you the game. Ilya Samsonov bad, like bad, not good. In no way was he good yesterday. That's the number one concern for me. Because the other stuff, you're like, ah, you can squint a little bit, you can, it can change on a dime. Hard for me to imagine the Maple Leafs get the better goal-tending in the remainder of the series. Yeah, again, the only way I can see that happening. And I should preface all this with this guy's good too. But Jim Montgomery's just getting in his own head and saying, all right, here's Almark, which ain't happening tonight. It's just not, I mean. You're gonna see him in the series. I dude, I, I could easily see a world where Swamman goes to an Owen Boston and Almark gets at least one of the starts in Toronto. I can start. You'd be absolutely insane. Yeah, I know. The initial comments made me pretty bullish. I think that he's Swamman starting game too. Oh, no, Swamman starting tonight. But I do think they, I, remember what happened last year? They went, they went, uh, Almark, Almark, Almark, and then they had to go to Swamman in game 70 yet and started one. They're not gonna put themselves in that, in that spot. So I don't, but that's the thing. The only way you get the better goal-tending is Boston's goal-tending capitulating right now. Now I will say I am a little bit of a believer and this isn't gonna help him tonight. And Ilya Sampsonov has to have a good game tonight to get the net for game three, what I'm talking about, but I can see a world. Sampsonov feeds off that crowd. It can go both ways, but let's just go game script. The game starts the exact same way, but it's at home. And I know insane 'cause apparently you're not allowed to do this, but he makes a save on a two-on-one for the first shot of the game. - It's a nice shot, though. - Okay, sure, it's a nice shot. You still stop it. You got a two-on-one, you save it, build in Shanton Sammy. He is such a weather vane in terms of the way things are going. Like when things go bad, they spiral on him, but when things go good, he starts to build on that. So I'm not ruling it out, but Sampsonov would have to go into the reserves of the best we've seen of him. We've seen it be good in the playoffs, like it matters, but it is such an elite, you know, top 5% of what he's capable of, and it feels like that Sunday morning coffee for these Bruins goal-tenders. And there's no knock on that. One of them won the Vesna last year. You could, you know, he's not going to, but you could say that Swamin has been Vesna-like in the 40-some-odd games he's played this year. So there's no knock on getting out goal-tended by those guys, but you have to find a way to keep it somewhat close. At least didn't lose that game strictly because of Elyse Sampsonov. There's a million other things, but man, I am such a believer in game script and especially, especially with this team. And maybe this team isn't supposed to be this team anymore. Maybe Reeves is here, and Dolby's here, and Bertuzzi's here, and it's supposed to feel different. And maybe this is me and not them. But boy, oh boy, it felt pretty familiar when John Beacher snaps at home on the first shot. You give up five minutes into the game. I mean, first shot of the game, first shot of the second period. Yeah, go in the net. It's not what you want. Now that we're here, though, let's just get this out of the way. Yeah. Elyse Sampsonov is going to start game two, but would he be your game two starter? He would. I think if you go to wall, you create a sense of panic. Then you're going back to Sampsonov, if it doesn't go well. If you lose both games in Boston, and Elyse Sampsonov was what he was last night, let's say he's no good tonight. I don't think that's necessarily going to happen. Well, let's just live in the doomsday scenario. It's Leafs, after all, why wouldn't we? He's no good. You go to wall, it's a reset, you're at home. It doesn't feel good, but oh, you lost two games on the road. Surely that's never happened before in a playoff series. Of course it has. The postseason series hasn't even started until a team loses at home. God. I mean, that's generally the NBA, but still you beat me to it. I was like, well, who was going to get to say it first in the playoffs on this show? And you win bingo. Circle gets square. But yeah, I just look at it and think you've got to go back to Sampsonov tonight. It's not that he deserves it, or earned it, or anything along those lines, it's just this is the best path to having two capable goaltending options for what is, hopefully, at least longer than eight day playoff run here. So you've got to go Sammy tonight. And then if it doesn't work, you go wall in game three. Yep, no, this is it. Because if you-- yeah, I mean, it's a two-parter. You're right about the panic thing, right? If you start doing crazy wild things, you really go counter to what I think was the overriding post-game sentiment from the Maple Leafs players. It's like, it's fine. It's not good. We didn't play very well. But it's just one game. We've been here before. We can bounce back. If you're going changing goalie, your actions are not matching the words. And secondarily, Ilya Sampsonov doesn't start tonight. You've lost him for the series. I truly believe that. Like, there's-- you're done. Like, if Joe Wall looks incompetent tonight, you're finished. Like, you are-- We're at the Marty party. No, we're literally having the Matt Murray conversation if that was the scenario that played itself out. But no, you start him tonight. Have to. And if it goes poorly, if it's the same game script, even though there's no obvious, obvious goal, it's not-- and even if you only score one, but you-- it's another five-one loss playing out exactly the same as game one, Joe's a wall starting game three. There is no question about it. Lisa only scored one goal. You may have noticed. I did. I was very aware of that. Yeah, you got it. It was like surely one of the massively paid forwards. No, it was David Camp. It was the fourth line who also allowed a five on five goal in this game, which we can get to as well. It's now what? Eight straight playoff games in which the Leafs have failed to score more than two goals. Austin Matthews, the core four dudes, they had some struggles in the five game series against the Florida Panthers. It had carried over into game one. It was the number one prerogative for Brad for a living this offseason. It was-- I think number two. One. Yeah, OK, snod, there was snod. But I mean, he's at, he poured over the tape. The first three guys he signed were, oh, I guess, Klingberg, Mert, Domie, and Revo. Yeah, but you see, sure. But also, like, with an offensive defense, right? I don't recall, like, Tyler Bertuse, your max Domie, getting silky votes, right? Like, oh, no. Sir, guys, that are going forward that thrive in the offensive zone. Brad for a living poured over the tape for the postseason last year and was like, yeah, you know, these guys, they get this rap of being porous defensively. It was really just their lack of offensive punch in those five games against the Panthers. That was the problem. Well, through one game, we're back to that old saw. And specifically now that the guy who scored 69 goals during the regular season, feel like it's funny. We were having a little chuckle about him wrapping up the season on a two-game goalist route. But now it's like, what? Part of me? Yeah, I mean, Matthews, if he goes one game without a goal, I don't think anybody's sitting there saying he had to have one last night. If he goes goalless again tonight, we're having this very different conversation. If we're going to talk about secondary scoring for this team, this is probably as good a point as any. And this isn't an excuse, but it has to. You're allowed to mention this. The guy who was, I believe, their second leading point-getter, who nearly finished on 100 points this year, just up and vanished from lineup right before the playoffs. Yeah, but like, if we're going to talk about a lack of goal scoring and offense, you know, that kind of goes part and parcel. Bobby McMahon, he was one of the guys we were talking about. And look, the Leafs didn't not score a goal and they didn't get two or three goals in that game because Bobby McMahon didn't play. But those are key cogs, like specifically, Nielander and McMahon. That is, depending on lineup configuration, at least one top six-winger in there. If not two, McMahon's the guy who's supposed to provide some of that jam as well. And again, like, this isn't, oh my God, they didn't have Bobby McMahon. Who could expect them to get two goals? But Nick Robertson's supposed to be break last in case of emergency instant offense. Not, all right, here you go. Game one of the postseason, you're in. That was not how this was supposed to go. So yes, point the finger at Matthews and hey, he had the good luck that he missed the net on. I'm sure he had haunts him in his sleep boy. Certainly haunted me. Mitch Marner didn't see a ton from him out there at all. Mitch Marner. John Tavares, you know, it's like the expectations have shifted, but if Nielander's not going to be there, you need capital J, capital T, JT, John Tavares. You don't need 65 point John Tavares. Mitch Marner had two shot attempts at five on five. Was the lowest rated forward in individual expected goals, okay? I, like, we don't need to start here, but God, it was for such a right, a lightning rod player in a moment with no Nielander, where you feel like, okay, this is really going to be your chance to thrive and jump. And again, hey, Austin Matthews could have had the moment too. Max Domi could have had a moment not taking penalties and actually contributing on the score sheet in another way. So I don't want to put this all on any one of those guys, but, man, for Marner to have that game, especially with everything we talked about, and, you know, it was the, I think the thing that's most frustrating about the Marner of it all, is that it finally felt like there was a postseason that, of all players, it seemed impossible, but he was kind of going in under the radar. He wasn't the marked man. It wasn't the guy who had that game under the radar, too. And he's still there. And he was just avoiding radars at all, at all points. But you felt like that was a time where, okay, finally, all the spotlight is not on him. You could just go play hockey. And, you know, you needed a big game from him last night. You needed it from a lot, or sorry, Saturday night. You needed from a lot of guys. So I don't want to make this just a Marner thing. - Sure. - But God, when you're missing your other, I guess not yet, but soon to be $11 million winger, you needed that guy to be special. And he wasn't special. He was much more pedestrian than special. - Yeah, you needed him to be special, and you needed him to be special on special teams, as well. Which was, boy, okay, I guess if you're just going on five on five goals, leave still lose the hockey game, 'cause they gave up two. - Yeah. - But they gave up two power play goals in an empty netter. And they didn't score on a power play. I mean, the game is entirely different if they score on that four on three to start the second period. - Yeah, we're probably not having the conversation about the first shot going in, even, like it's just funny how those things work, right? - Yeah. - So the idea that you can flip the switch on a team that looked like a joke, the last four games of the regular season, and there were reasons to understand why they looked that way because of the lack of import, and the ones not stated goal, but implied goal of getting Austin Matthews goal number 70. Okay, the other part of flipping the switch is the power play, which has been, man, we had that brief glimmer during the seven-game winning streak where Morgan Riley departed for five of those games, and Timothy Lillegrine was running the 5-on-4 operation, and I'm not saying that's the number one reason why it had success because they tried that again when it started going through the cold spell, but no, it's been months. It's been months. So it's one thing to be not so good on the penalty kill, which kind of makes sense, right? Like they just don't have the personnel, and part of that is goal turning, yeah. And maybe that's gonna impact the availability of TJ Brody for tonight's game as well to get another penalty killer in there. - It's like the penalty kill, you wish it was better, but like it makes sense, right? It's boy, you should really think about making some roster moves this offseason to try and address that area of need. The power play makes no sense. It makes no sense, and it should be the biggest weapon this team has on special teams, but for whatever reason, come the end of the regular season and come the postseason, it just, it melts down. It's non-existent, and it was on Saturday. - I'll go one further. You mentioned the start of that second period in the four on three. That is where, like, if the belief of the problem with the least power play, and if you, by the way, have the answer, Maple Leafs, I forget what the exact address is of Scotia Bank, but just start yelling it outside of Maple Leafs Square, and I'm sure someone will hear it. So if you have the answer, that's great. But I think a lot of part of the problem is overthinking, or it's looking for the perfect play, and overpassing, when you have a, not to say these guys haven't practiced four on three all year, they have, but it's not, like, especially this time of year, practice time is so limited, the idea that Sheldon Keefe is like, all right, Newlander, you're out of this four on three drill, okay? We're just gonna go with these guys. They should have been able to just play and not overthink it, and just let Raw, natural talent. - 'Cause they have it. - Morgan Riley, John DeBarras, Mitch Marner, 69 goal loss to Matthews. No, it doesn't, I don't care who the three guys are killing the penalty. It could be Sedano Chara, Patrice Bergeron, and a literal wall in net as the third guy. You should still find a way. So that is the, the, the power play struggles as frustrating as they are. I think you can at least understand how, and it's not understand that you're accepting of it, but you can at least maybe get behind the rationale of an overthinking, or the systems aren't right, or whatever. When it's a four on three, just the four best players on the ice in that moment, you have to find a way. And this is the thing about playoffs, is we do this in regular season games. We do it with the, to go back to where Marner first got hurt. He misses that, or he doesn't take the shot on the open net. That would have tied the game, and then the Bruins win 4-1. The playoffs have so many more of these inflection moments in the game. They score on that four on three. We're having a completely different conversation. Maybe still about a Leafs loss. It doesn't mean they win the game, 'cause they score on that four on three. But it is a completely different game we're talking about. Momentum swings are so big, especially in a building like that. You could have flattened the crowd, and then they kill it, they score minutes later. - Oh, Bruins are brewing the three posts they hit in the first period, it's a tie hockey game yet. No, it's, it was the game. It felt like not scoring on the four on three. Part of it is, you have, they also allowed a couple of power play goals against. Actually, you know what, I want to go back to something you said about the power play. - Sure. - And yeah, just looking to fire it on that and not looking for the perfect play. I mean, to me, that's the entirety of this team's scoring issues when it comes to the post-season. And I go back to the six games against the Lightning. How many of those things, I mean, we're having conversations about Vasilevski being beatable from the point, but like it was, yeah, it was, shoot through the screens. Look at the two goals, two of the five goals, two of the four goals against Ilya Sampsonov on Saturday. What were those? Those were like innocuous looking shots through screens that he had trouble seeing, bodies in front. Yeah, I mean, to me, the number one reason why this team has trouble scoring in the post-season is because they continue to look for the perfect play. - And I think the reason why it's so frustrating is because unlike, unlike the penalty kill, where we can sit here and we can be frustrated about it, but we can also sit here and look and say, all right, Patrisse Bergeron and walking through that door. So they know Charing walking through that door in terms of elite penalty killers. Okay, we understand the roster construction issues that it's not an excuse, but it's just a fact of life. Even if the Leafs said, okay, we have to get out of this overpassing. They have the personnel to play just to get it on, like if they wanted to, there's no reason, especially with William Neelanderdon in the game and who knows if he plays tonight. Well, you can't have a Bertuzzi and Tavares, net front Matthews on the flank, Marner on the other, Mo Up top, and then just filter pucks, filter pucks. Another thing is, it's not that you want Austin Matthews to be like a screen tip guy on the power play. I'm very capable of that. Very good, big body who can eat contact. And again, you don't want him just sitting there, eating cross checks in the back. That's not the best utility of Austin Matthews, but guess what? If him and John Tavares like find themselves swap positions, both of those guys are capable of doing the other job. So it's just, that's why the power play stuff continues to be so frustrating. And it's been a building narrative going all the way back to like when Tyson Berry was playing power play minutes for this team. I guess I would give that number one unit, another shot on the first power play attempt. Like the idea that it's like you have to keep those guys, you have to keep that personnel group together for a power play that has dropped from second in the NHL to what like they barely inside the top 10 by the end of the season. To me, I'd be, you do whatever you can to win a hockey game. And it doesn't matter. I mean, for Sheldon Keefe is losing his job, but they lose in series. So yeah, you throw whatever you think could work at the wall. But yeah, I mentioned the penalty kill and then giving up two power play goals against. This is also something that this is familiar territory for Leaf fans that you come out of the gates in a postseason series with some guys that are excited about the postseason. And look, we're a physical version of this team now. And I mean, they can barely drop the puck for the opening face off of the hockey game because Mastomi and Brad Marchand hilarious, both refs. Like, I've seen the linesmen come over and be like, hey, boys, you know, you do this. I imagine this actually just like an impression of you in the house. Hey, boys, cut it out. Yeah, knock it off. You've seen that, okay? I cannot recall. And this, again, this isn't like, this is like a minute thing, but it's not. This isn't linesmen coming over to talk to these guys. This is both officials in the game. One, it's like, all right, this is a gun. I imagine you and your wife, it's like, all right, I'll talk to the one you talked to the other. It's like, you just got to divide and conquer here. But I've never seen that. Like, I've seen guys join to start a game, but the idea of, oh, okay, it's not guys drawing. It's you and it's you. We better get it. Yeah. So not a surprise that one of those guys would take a penalty. And it ends up, Max Domi with the slash to the wrist of Brad Marchand. Of course, Leafs give up a power play goal. I mean, I think the other example that cost the Leafs in this game is not something that puts them on the penalty kill hits the Ryan Reeves trying to double up on the Joel Edmondson hit. It's like, we just need one guy hitting the guy is good enough. Like two is probably unnecessary, especially considering it sends a two on one the other way. But we had number of examples. I don't think the Matthews penalty getting is too high as part of this. But yeah, just again, too excited to geeked up for a postseason game, I guess. Okay, it was weird, weird line. I'm in a draw, but I remember somebody asked, like, I think it was Sarah Nurse. It was some P.W.H.L. player. And it was why, like, could you ever see a world where you guys are not wearing cages and you're wearing, and the problem is is that they're just so used to wearing cages. So their sticks are up there at times. This isn't like they don't know how to play hockey. It's just like you hit somebody with a cage. It's very different than hitting someone in the face. It looked like the Leafs had been playing college hockey for the last four years with how much stick work there was. I understand how you get your stick up so much. It's like, I understand it's a game. Tom Wilson tried to maim and kill Noah Gregor when he got his stick up. These things happened in the game, but it was just so jarring to see so many, you know, the dummy slash is what it is. It's like, I actually like wish I could have gambled on that now that I think about it. It's like, that was the most obvious thing in the world that he was going to take an aggression penalty at some point in that game. The high stick stuff drove me nuts. It's just you've all been playing in the NHL for a handful of years now. This isn't even a Matthew and I situation where it's like, okay, while the guy was in college hockey a week ago and your stick gets up, nobody notices, no, it's just so jarring. And that's not a, I think the frustrating part about it as well is that that's not like an execution thing or you weren't, it's just get your stick down. What are you doing here? So yeah, the penalties frustrating, frustrating. The dummy thing, just let me get my little gripe in here. It's like, of course that's penalty, of course, but you're going to call that slash every single time. No, you're not. Brad March on looking at the ref shaking his hand and then go hand right up. It's gamesmanship. It's at its finest. It is frustrating that the Leafs seem to never be on the right side of the gamesmanship and all this. I thought they were for a second with William Neelander. I was like, Oh, what's happening here? They're playing coy and obviously, obviously he's going to play. Then he didn't. So there are no games we should to be had there. But it just seems like they're always on, you know, if Boston would have came out and wanted to play that aggressive physical game, it seems like, okay, well, that's what we're doing. We're playing hockey here. It's like, and this isn't say the refs had it out for the Leafs or anything along those lines. It's never. And I'm not absolving the refs and all this at the same time, but the Leafs just never seem to be able to find the right side of that line. It's like there was the one game against Vancouver before they left for Sweden and the NHL said, Oh, that's too powerful in a lickser for the Leafs. We can't let them have it. They just never seem to be on the right side of these things. I'm putting some of that on them. This isn't just a like, Oh, the big bad officials are out to get the Leafs. But they got to find a way to be on the right side of that. I mean, spin zone would be that there at a point in the game, power play opportunities were for one. They end up five, three. You can't do the marker thing though, because it's like, yeah, you high stuck three guys in the face. Those don't, those don't even count, in my opinion. I get it. I will say like human nature is, Oh, yeah, Leafs got, they were short handed a lot in game one. Oh, the same crew, maybe, you know, it's a, it's a whole bounce back in game two. You think. I'm just saying, I don't think that the mind of an official, I think it's like, Hey, you can't for again, I think he was a mark man going into the two, but I think it's like, okay, this guy's a marked man. Oh, look at that. He hit someone with this car. All right. Well, they don't go well. He did the thing we expected the mark band to do. We better not watch him. I think it like trains eyes on him further. And I've joked about this heading into the series, Edmondson, for whatever reason, is on the other list. He's like, he is, he is on the guest list. It's like, Oh, right this way. Let me get that velvet rope for you. Please cross check Pat Maroon in the back as many times as you would like. There's just, there's guys that are allowed and there's guys that not that aren't. And for whatever, I don't know what the rhyme is, what the reason is part of it is max dummy being maxed. Oh, me. Like we're not going to be blind to that. But when you know you're maxed on me, you got to play the game in a different way. And we all love the emotion. We love the passion. God, that video we put out. Oh my God. It's like, I was it was who made that video? It was not like because I was talking the Leafs released a different video. So I was talking about this with my wife. It's like, I think he has like a guy. Like I think he has like a, like a, like he went to like a, whether he has like somebody or the agency has like a creative person in house or whatever, because Revo put one out as well. Now he like tagged the person who who did it, made it for him, dummy didn't, which makes me think either like, I don't know, like Max has a buddy who does that stuff or the agency or something. But yeah, I appreciate it. That was a good one. God. With my, my child watching that video. Oh my God. I know back as I was in there, as I was watching it, I was wondering like, what is he going to end with? Yeah. And then the banner. It's like, oh, well, keep keep that banner around because we're going to need it next race. Yeah. I also, I don't know if we're, we're making newspapers still, but I was, I was thinking if I was, if I was in charge of the sports section front page on Sunday and I meant to check this, it would have been the image of Timothy Lillegrine being thrown over the boards by Pat Maroon. And it would have the headline would have stand pat. And yeah, I would know it would have been. Yeah. Leafs dumped in Boston. Oh, that's good. That's good. Right. I, you know, like no free ads, but yeah, Toronto Sun, they're usually very good at this kind of where I was going, but I, I didn't check. Maybe they did that. This is politics, but I do just remember they're two best ones ever. And this is not a insight into my political beliefs. Just makes me laugh. It was when Kathleen, when God elected, it was welcome to hell. And then when she got reelected, it was just welcome to hell. The sequel is what it was. Very good. Great job. Toronto Sun. Not the, I mean, the biggest story going into this thing, the most bizarre story, but the most on brand story may beliefs play eight seasons without a game missed by William knee lander. Non-COVID have to throw that in because I can miss games here in COVID, but it's like, you know, you have to sniffles and get thrown in the boot log. Yeah. So the less. I don't, I don't. That's the matter. Be despite the fact that it was your favorite season on record again, it's just like people could only talk to me on the golf course and no one was allowed to come to my house. Pretty good. We don't need to belabor the point. The only thing that mattered for the Leafs really last month of the season, but specifically the last four games is keeping everybody healthy. They lost Bobby McMahon and unfortunate play and it feels like, well, he's definitely not going to play tonight in game two. Kelly aren't Croc didn't play in any of those games, but he was injured well before when the games mattered more and he looked okay in game one. Jim Neeland, according to reporting, was not dealing with anything during the regular season. The the Maple Leafs are not messaging this in any way. So the mind goes all kinds of insane places, but the idea that this would bubble up a day before game one of your postseason and that he still wouldn't be ruled out on game day. And then nobody even seeing him in the building on game day raises major red flags. And then yesterday on the off day, he was one of the very limited players that did skate. Now, according to Chris Johnson's reporting, he looked a little stiff to start that. There's also reporting again that from Chris Johnson, that at the end of the season, there was no lingering issue. This was not a like guy playthrough stuff unnecessarily because he wanted a hundred points set a career high in goals, there was none of that he is the second leading scorer on this hockey team. He's the reason why you could conceive of three lines of scoring potential on this team. And it's not the and Sheldon keeps right. It's not the reason they lost no game one, but this is not like no offense to Bobby McMahon. This is not Bobby McMahon. This is William Neelander 98.40 goal score, who's lost for game one. Maybe the series, what's what is happening? There are one, maybe two players on this team, more irreplaceable than William Neelander right now. And it's lost to Matthews and John Tavares and not say Marner's not better than him, but Marner plays a wing and if you like you can get around this, but Neelander is the guy you can least of even Morgan Riley, like God love him and playoff Mo and all that. You see what's the record? I don't have it a million and they've never lost is why they've never even a goal is my understanding without Morgan Riley. You can fact check that. Thank you. But with the Neelander, they need them in terms of where, I mean, my mind wandered a million places with this. Well, and you're allowed to honestly because the Leafs, they don't tell you anything. Okay. You're well within your rights. Like we won't do the the baseless speculation too much here because I guess we're we're not journalists, but we have like some responsibility not to be that reckless, but you wish you would hold and had to just like speculation, sounder in them. You at home. Yeah, you're well within your rights because the Leafs aren't telling you and I understand I guess why. We'll talk to Mark Wrecky as part of the blue jackets coaching staff later on and we'll ask him. I want to ask him specifically like what they really think the benefit of this, this cloak and dagger stuff when it comes to the injuries, but yet the mysterious nature of it, the like out of nowhere of it and the mess that's like the non messaging of it, you're allowed to think whatever you want. Yeah, it is really odd. I again, like just like the mind wanders, it's like, did he want to go on the ice for the optional skate yesterday or was it like, Hey, I better get out here to meet to kind of try to assuage some thoughts that people have going on. This is as odd as I can possibly remember. The other thing about this that it's not a part of the knee vendor thing necessarily, but it leads to where our mind goes on this is the way the Leafs handled this. Now I don't, I don't remember them in the past, especially in the playoffs being super forthright with the injuries they had, but Keith made a point at the first availability of the postseason. So like after the Tampa game and the day off saying Brad or he said, true living or whatever he said, but it was coming from the top that there to be no injury updates. Now again, I don't do it unless you remember it differently. I don't feel like the Leafs were more forthright than other teams, but clearly they feel now they need to be more secretive. I don't know what goes, I would love to have an explanation for this. I actually, to be perfectly honest, would love not to have an explanation for this about June because it means the Leafs will be still playing. But the second, if the season ends in this series now, it's like obviously like Sheldon Keith and Marner contract, there's bigger stuff, but it's like the whole, the whole end of season of Yale is what happened. Yeah, a hundred percent. This is the guy, again, Mr. Ironman, only COVID has kept him out, played in all the last games, played a ton of minutes in that Tampa game. And he's tweaked something. He looks stiff. Who knows? It's so, so odd. I think the problem is now, is now that you've made your bed in terms of saying like, hey, we're going cloak and dagger seat, maybe he plays tonight and then this is a non-story and we can all move on. But you know, for teams, they love to limit distractions at this time of year. And is this not a massive one? Every guy, every guy in the room, and again, like I'm a little less certain about how playoff of veils work, if they get to go in the room or if they bring guys out, but regardless, every person who talks to the media now, what's up with Neelander? Yeah. And it's like, they know the answer is going to be, I don't know, I got nothing for you. No, it's a playoffs. We're not saying anything. But it's all these guys are going to be talked about or talked to about now. Yeah. Um, if he doesn't play in this series and they lose the series, you, you know, where I would expect us to get an explanation as to what happened here. I mean, it's, it's, yeah, I assume the thing that happens at the end of everybody's Stanley Cup run where it's like, Oh, I was playing with seven punctured lungs and, you know, yeah, my head was, uh, was hanging by a friend. It's actually Ted Williams. He was frozen somewhere. I don't know how I did this. I, and maybe it's something as innocuous as like he had to sneeze, honestly, and like his, his neck was messed up or a pancake-stuffed impenor style. Wrong. But yeah, the, the mind goes crazy places. How can it not? And, and again, I would never recklessly speculate and I don't even have an open friend to me. But like, tax line 595-9595. If you want to tell me what you think is happening, this is just for my own. I mean, I will not be bringing things to the light today, but I have a feeling you were all very creative out there and I would very much like to see what you all think is happening. Chris Johnson was the guy most, um, with the most information on this thing and indicated that this was not like, because the first thing was, Hey, this is an off ice thing, like on an off day. He did something stupid. Immediately where my head went, right? Like, I don't know, playing a sport or whatever, doing something he shouldn't have been doing. And he said, that's not it, but I don't know what it could be. Anyways, it's becomes less relevant if he plays tonight and especially if the leaves were in the hockey game. Yeah, I just, again, I would love to not get an answer for this until June and it's like such a funny little story, but I have a feeling that in about 11 days, we're going to be just like, answer the question. Yeah. The light'll be swinging. It's like, normally these guys are at a press conference, but it's like they're going to be in an interrogation room. What a narrative it would be for the guy who signs the $11 million extension has the little struggles right out of the gate, but then looks like his best self and then finishes the season with 10 games of a garbage and then misses a post season series due to mysterious circumstances. Oh, only in Toronto, maybe, honestly, only in Toronto fun stuff. Anyways, as you expect, more Leafs conversation coming up after seven o'clock, but when we come back, Blue Jays with a chance to once again sweep a series and once again, unable to do it, but they won yet another series against the Padres. Defense let him down a little bit yesterday, we'll talk about that and more next, as the fan morning show continues, Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 590, the fan. Sportsnet 590, the fan. And releases the pitch, fastball, chop to third, Rosario picks it up, throws over to second one, back to first, he's out, 543, double play, and that's the ball game. We got about 20 guys on our team sick, I'm one of them, personally, they've said good. We're passing on a good sign of some flexion, which is not fun. Good morning, Sportsnet 590, the fan, Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, pretty good outing considering Chris Bassett is under the weather. Blue Jays club host sounding like my child's daycare, just like yeah, just passing around these infections sinus wise. Blue Jays had a chance to close out the series, not quite as disappointing a finale as the Yankees series at Roger's Centre, but it was right there over the taking, but they lose 6-3 in San Diego to the pod raise, bunch of under and runs in this one. Yeah, which especially hurt me considering I had both Chris Bassett and Joe Musgrove to have at least three earned runs against each shot, that's rough. That's, you know, we don't do this often, that's bad beat. That's a rough beat, because especially the scoring was changed. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, in Shydiviti story, it says three earned runs in Chris Bassett in actuality only has two earned runs. It doesn't make sense. Catchers and inferences an error, but it just gets it's right, doesn't mean you like it. Anyways, Blue Jays continue to win series, which is good, man, like that's not, listen, this is not putting a damper on it, but it's another opportunity to really go on an extended winning streak to close out a sweep instead. They take two out of three, 12 and 10 record, again, like under the circumstances where everybody's sick, that's pretty good. Also under the circumstances, you know, the real reason they haven't swept these series? What's up is because they, like the offensive explosions are five runs or four runs, right? So in the first two games of these series, you need all the high leverage relievers you got. You're throwing them all at the wall that your Jimmy Garcia's, your Jordan Romano's finally able to work on back-to-back days. Those guys are grinding you through some close baseball games with some great starting pitching and just enough offense. But the time you get to the third game of the series, those guys are unavailable. So it's up to the Nate Pearson's now, the Chad Green's on the I.L. and yeah, the Trevor Richards of the world to get you through the final outs of the series. Now, I mean, Nate Pearson's allowed to have a bad outing, but yeah, like those guys are obviously not as reliable as some of the other higher-end relievers on this Blue Jays team. To me, that's the number one reason why they haven't been able to complete these series. I mean, go back again to the Yankee series and the third game of that series. Part of it is we didn't know Chad Green was about to go on the I.L. But yeah, they just, they didn't have enough relievers in that game. No, you're, you're right. It has been something that's run in, they've run into a handful of times. And I honestly, you're right to point it out. I had, I had just thought of that as a, you know, not lack of pen depth, but just running into it. But you're right. A few more games in the, in the early going on of this series where you can just, you know, throw away. We'll use Nate Pearson because he's the guy who ate it last night. It's like, okay, Nate. All right. Five run lead. Go clean up a couple innings here. Let's bleed this thing along. The offensive explosions just aren't there to be had for this team. I mean, you know, I don't, I don't want to go away from the bullpen conversation, but it's like far shows hitting and they still can score more than more than five runs here. If you're going to get offense out of that guy, then, and still not be able to generate more than that. And again, like it's a long season, it's baseball. It's not, you don't want to put it all on, on one guy and I'm certainly not putting it on Varsho. But this was a guy we were talking about. Like he was the black hole of this lineup, but he's completely turned it around and it's still not enough to generate what you need to, to occasionally have an easy night. That's the other part about this as well is just as the season goes on, playing in nail biting games. He can do the thing where, oh, by the time the postseason rolls around, they'll be ready or they'll be done. Just he can't. You don't need every night to be the most stressful night of your life, especially in a sport where you play every single day. No, eventually you're going to burn out your, your high leverage for leavers. I mean, this is the conversation yourself, just playing these intense games. It's, it's good when you're one of the best defensive teams in baseball. If you're going to play these games, but you know what gets magnified when you play these games is the defense. And if you have like one small slip up, again, for a great defensive team, it's going to cost you baseball games because you just, you do not have the offense to overcome it. When you make outs on the base pass, like they do in this iteration of Blue Jays teams, that's going to cost you. It's going to be magnified because your margin for error for error is so slim. All right. Don't bar show. What happened? What? What's going on? Do you know where he ranks in major league baseball, according to fan graphs, when it comes to war? I know you're going to tell me. Yes. 22nd. That's so good. You know, he's tied with Mike Trout. Oh, wow. Yeah. He's tied with Mike Trump. Not even top 20 in war, right? Mm-hmm. Sure. Keeping him afloat all those years. Trey Turner also at one full war at this point in the season. I mean, can he keep this up? If he does, he's literally an MVP candidate because he's going to say good trade if he keeps this up because the defense obviously plays now. I think you can extrapolate the defense to centerfield and he gets dinged a little bit. Like the war would be higher if he was doing the defensive thing that he's doing in center field, but he's capable of doing that. If he's this guy, if he's an, if he has an OPS over 800, you are literally talking about an MVP level player because he's doing it all then. Yeah. Like all the other tools are there. He's a good base runner as well as we know. I don't know if he can keep this up, but here's the number that I would, I would point to if you think he can, it's the chase rate. Last year was 28.1. This year he's dropped it by almost 8 percentage points. He's at 20.6. This is the number one edict for this, these blue jays batters going into this season is to have better, more competitive play appearances, work starting pitchers deeper, get into hitter's counts and then punish the mistakes. That's the key. Punish the mistakes, which Dalton Varshot did on Saturday getting himself into a 3-1 count and salvaging an inning for the blue jays. If he can continue to lay off those borderline strikes and they continue to be called balls, and then when he gets a fastball or when he goes hunting a fastball on the first pitch of an event and park it, yeah, man, you got something there. This doesn't feel quite like just a flash in the pan thing that that doesn't have staying power. There's real numbers to suggest that offensively he's maybe tapped into something here. Yeah, I think the chase rate is a really important stat to highlight there, and I'm of two minds of it. Like obviously the first one is everything you just laid out, but we know that baseball more than any, well, I guess football would take offense to this, but like more than any other sport is a sport of adjustments throughout a long season. We see this all the time where a young hitter will come up and you'll torch the league and then they go, mmm, see that hole? And then they pitch him that way. He has to counter. He has to counter. It's a game of adjustments, and I think that Varsho showing that he is a different hitter now soon, I don't know that it happens. It's happening yet, but soon is going to be pitched in a different way. And is he able to stay within himself having different expectations of himself than he probably had at the beginning of the season? He would never say that. He would never say, I thought it was a bum, and now I remember I'm good again, but you go on a stretch like this, how can you not think, ah, yes, this is what it's supposed to be like. Can he maintain that chase rate as he inevitably should he keep this up gets pitched differently? That's the thing I'm going to look for. But if he can maintain anything close to that, we're no longer having conversations about the disastrous Gabriel Moreno trait, which is, which just that alone. Could you imagine going back? It's not a disaster. It's just like, yeah, it's like, it's not a bad thing that ever happened to you. Like, Oh my God. I'll take that right now. Yes, also, I just want to me a call, but I guess it was fine moving him back up to fifth. Yeah, probably working out. Okay. Yeah, it's okay. He seems to be okay there too. The other reason why you should be disappointed the Blue Jays aren't able to complete these sweeps is because I do think the starting pitching is going to continue to be a strength. I don't know. Will it be as good as it's right now? Like this is the last turn and a half through the rotation. It's been otherworldly. Yareo Rodriguez looks like a real guy. Having Gossman figuring it out, Jose Barrios again, like his maybe the American league Cy Young award leader. We're not out of April yet. I understand. Like all caveats aside, Chris Bassett pitching through the plague, the plague people that's what he said. He's at Jeff's door and gives you a great opportunity to win the baseball game, by the way. And like, Hey, you won. You won two or three. No one's throwing dirt on you, but maybe don't go play Tory Pines as the team is deathly ill. And Turner, Chris Bassett, David Schneider, and I think Big Earn was the fourth guy. Yeah, that's right. Like, I don't care. It's okay for Davis and Big Earn. Hey, you won. You do whatever you want, but it's just like this is the like, Oh, I'm so sick. It's like, okay, well, you're not going to hockey tonight, son. It's like, well, I'm sick for school. Oh my God. I know. I feel like I just touched on you. Oh, you did. Anyways, but yeah, it's all good for the Blue Jays right now, starting a four game series in Kansas City against not your father's royals anymore. Yeah. Maybe they still are. It's early in the season. There's, that'd be George Pratt's. This is not my big brother's royals of like Alec Gordon and that lying Amish kid, lying there in Andrews. Like, my hand was not over the edge. It was right back here, liar. Everything's going well for the Blue Jays at the major league level. Things are going really well at the minor league level, save for the Ricky Tiedemann IL thing. Let's just put that aside. I was going to say that's like kind of the leading item for me. No, no, no. Alec Minow, you even had a respectable start his last time out, five and two thirds, just two earned runs. Give us a, give us a great video of a man getting hit in the ball with a groin as well. The six hits, no walks and five strikeouts on 92 pitches. And the offense is the best in the international league. Right? Like the, the, the weather hasn't gotten great and bisons play outdoors, but Addison Barger, Arelvis, Martina Spencer Horowitz are like the most fearsome top three of a lineup in triple A right now. And Arelvis is just hitting moonshots, Addison Barger taking a huge star turn at the minor league level as well. And Spencer Horowitz, we've seen it. I think I believe he's, he's already a major league bat, but yeah, things looking on the up and up as far as Blue Jays depth is very, very telling. And maybe we've been, maybe people have been getting them. I just haven't. And you're not giving it to me right now. Very telling how little Joey Votto scuttled, but there is. And it's because those guys, like none, because those guys are hitting. That's why if he, if he wasn't hitting or sorry, if those guys weren't hitting, do you not think like maybe a shy and Ben would be like, Oh, there's a story here about, you know, an offense. I'm bad, no, no, no, no, no, no, what's going on with Votto, but there's just nothing to be had. And I think I think a lot of it is the Votto of it all, but I think a lot of it is that those guys are hitting and it's like, that's sorry, Joey Votto. Those are actually sexy new things. Yeah, they're not comparable, but like there's a real William knee lander thing happening with the Joey Votto, like what, what is happening? Let me tell you about a lot about one more. One of those things is more than the other. No, no, no, no. One's more important. Yeah. to you. We'll get back into the Leafs in their quest to even up the series and repeat history tonight against the boss. Yes, that great Leafs history. Repeat it. They won game. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. I know. After losing game one. I said I have perspective and I'm a liar. Our next guest is Mr. Positivity. Gord Stellik Maxis, the fan morning show continues. Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, sports It's not 590, the fan. [MUSIC PLAYING]
