[MUSIC] >> Fan morning to sports at 5.9 in the fan, Dan Ennis, Frank Gunning, and back what I miss. Doing a good time. >> Yeah, it's fun, me and Rubes snuck in probably more golf than we should. >> Talked. >> No such thing. >> No, that's true. Talked very little Blue Jays on Friday, a little less somehow. >> On Monday, but yeah, it was fun. I missed you though. >> Yeah, I missed you too. >> Good morning. >> Good morning to you. >> I think I should let you know this, I wanted to stay true to us in ending the show with good morning. >> Yeah. >> But I would have felt dirty doing it with Rubenoff. >> You told him to sit on the sidelines? >> No, I didn't tell him anything. I just, as I was rapping the show every day, I'd say, and Ben's not here, so I'll say it to myself. >> Good morning. >> That's good. >> Yeah, at least you told him that like you're not a crazy person, it's like this is. >> I kinda, in hindsight, I wish I didn't give that much context even to him where he's just like, you are a crazy person. >> He like it would have just assumed as much anyway after talking to me for three hours at that time of day. >> Yeah, well, good morning. >> And good morning to you. >> I missed you. >> Yeah, I missed doing the show. >> I told him about the power chair. I told him that I was in it because of French. >> Hold on, did you sit in this chair? >> Yeah, I have to. >> Okay. >> Not only am I the age here, but as friends, like again, Mike Francesca, he informed me, apparently I'm doing nothing here. I'm not in the power chair or the age here, but yeah, I gave him a little radio school on that. We talked about all that, so yeah, but I missed you, and I gotta be honest. It's fun to drive the bus. I didn't get to do a big sexy intro because by the time Monday rolled around, nothing big and sexy had happened. So I didn't really get to do one, but yeah, it was fun. I missed you, and I'm very happy to be sitting over here, Ben. >> I love you. >> Ben, I didn't say that. I just said I missed you. >> Yeah, you did. No, you factually did that, we didn't make that clip up. That's not AI, you said that. >> Maybe it is, who's to say? >> Yeah. >> Who's to say, but I'm so happy to have you back and just get to sit here shouting from the rooftops as opposed to keeping this thing on the rails. >> Okay, well a lot has changed since I took my couple of vacation days. Blue Jays are back in a big way, cuz they picked up their biggest win of the season. I'm not gonna pepper as many expletives into my analysis of yesterday's win in Baltimore as John Schneider did. But the Jays, as you will recall, a season ago in their horrible record against the American League East, most of that was built on the three and 10 record they had against the Orioles. >> This year though, one in O undefeated, perfect, never lost after a 3-2-10 inning win where they only had nine available players as the flu bug. George Springs had this illness what multiple times now or is this a different illness? Anyways, he and Justin Turner and Danny Janssen said with a back, like everybody's either hurt or sick, including Jose Barrios, who was like touching goat even start that game. I mean, he was unreal, two innings of relief from Jordan Romano, I mean, we had the Dalton Varsho home run to tie the game, we had the Dalton Varsho response, you should get credit on the positive end of the ledger as well. When you steal a home run, essentially a two-home run game for Dalton Varsho and Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Boba Shett, combining to get on base eight times. So this is a long sample sport, right? We play 162 games, probably over six months, and it's silly to look at the micro of even a single game or a week's worth of games, but kind of inside with Josh Schneider on this one, the way things have been trending for this team, considering how you could easily have seen the wheels completely come off during this three-game series, and it's just one win, and if they face play in the next two games in Baltimore, if there is any, because there's rain in the forecast, yeah, things could have gotten, and I know this is hard to believe, worse for the Blue Jays, so much needed victory yesterday. I don't want to derail the wonderful job you did setting up this topic, but if you just started the show like that, that was a big sexy intro, you did so well, that was good, like you roll your eyes and tut, tut me at them, that was great. I agree with all that. The idea of you had your best starter on the mound, you're not going to have better chances to win games in this series, that's not to say Kukuchi can't perform, or you can't have a chance with, I think it's bouncing, getting the start and the other, the final game of the series here again. Whether, whether allowing it here, but I think you look at what you got, what you get out of burrios or what you expect to get out of them, and that's the one you had to get, he's your stopper, he's your guy. He goes out there and he gives you a great outing, Adley Rachman aside, but I feel like a lot of people are going to say that during Adley Rachman's Major League life. That was a gutty win, and I think sometimes in, in baseball, you know, these things, it's always 101-62 and keep the train moving, and there is an element to that you have to have as a ball club. But when you've been scuffling the way this team has, and when that team has big brothers you in a way they shouldn't, at the point in your life cycles last year, yeah, it's a massive win, and you should be able to, not exhale like if you play a baseball game today, keep it going, but you have to be able to enjoy that one. That's a massive win, and normally I roll my eyes at the Schneider stuff. Normally I roll my eyes at it, I do, but I agree with him there. Like, I roll my eyes at the like, yeah, I'm a man, I'm gonna have a beer after this game. It's like, okay, settle down, we all like to have a pop, but I agree with him. It was a, like he said, big win. This was a huge win, yeah. I feel like he did it the first time, and nobody pushed back on him, and it's not live, so he's like, oh, well now I just have carte blanche to do that all the time. Wrestling promo, got it, done. Which is, yeah, if you don't have to, you know, like we do every day, would we love to pepper in some swears? Oh my God. I mean, I would. I don't know about you, but I think it actually is remarkable how I can just, for five minutes every hour, let them go, and then Mike goes on, and they stop. It's really remarkable. It is, it would be nice to be able to throw him in there, it would feel more natural because that is my natural state of conversation. Not saying it's good, and you kids out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Up at six in the morning listening to Sports Talk Radio, you know, I feel like Don Cherry, yeah, you kids out there. I was gonna say that any kid at six in the morning listening to Sports Talk Radio is on the fast track to doing a lot of cussing in their life. I hate to break it to you out there. Or maybe not. Maybe they're like, he's on the straight and narrow, they're up like getting a good workout in. Yeah, but then they're gonna be a sports fan and inevitably something will drive them to swear. Well, yeah, sports will do that, boy. And they, well, when you've watched what John Schneider has over his brief tenure as a major league manager, but it was good, positive swearing for John Schneider as a depleted squad comes up with the win against, I think, the best team in the American League. So this is where I'm at with this Blue Jays team right now. God, we've been waiting. Okay, so there's very little reason for optimism, even still, right? I ran down the reasons. But this is the number one reason. Vlad and Bo being there, they're normal selves, because whether they're good enough to lead this team offensively by themselves, that's a different question. But they're pretty clearly better than what they've shown through what, a month and a half of this season. Like they both shed is not gonna have a sub 700 OPS. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Hey, it might be actually kind of trending towards where you might imagine him ending up as far as OPS is concerned, although I expect there to be a few more homers in there. Anyway, we'll get to that in just a second. But like the proof of concept with this team was always, and Ross Atkins said, hey, and maybe part of it was just out of necessity because there were no bats out there. We're doubling down on the core. This offense is only gonna go as far as this core allows it to. Which we haven't really seen yet, because we haven't seen those guys perform at their normal rate. Now that Bo's getting hot, Vlad's been hot for a couple of days now. I mentioned those guys combined to get on base eight times. Now it wasn't, I mean, they didn't create a bunch of runs. I think there was just one run scored and no RBI's between the two of them. But that's what you're looking for. Now is the real indicator of this team's ceiling. As long as the pitching stays the same, as long as we got that Jose Barrios, and it was just a one start. Blip in Philadelphia, and he looks like he's back to his normal self. As long as the starting pitching continues to perform the way it's performed this season. And then you have those two guys performing to their normal numbers. The nicked stretch of games, whether it's this series or the next couple of weeks, as long as those guys are performing the way they're supposed to perform. And the pitching is the way it's been performing all season long. Then this is, if they can't win games this way, then there really is no hope. This is the last chance for hope with Vlad and Bo going and the starting pitching doing what it's doing. Yeah, obviously you needed those guys to go because they are the focal points of your offense. You need it, but you also needed them to perform because you needed to see what it looks like before you had your pivot with guys that talented. And again, we can, we can sit here and quibble about exactly how talented they are given, you know, how long ago 2021 was for Vlad. But Bo, there's a clear track record there. But I think you look at it and there's a world where this team would have seen, all right, another good year from Vlad. And well, there's the two hearts, sorry, another good year from Bo and there's the two hot months from Vlad. And if you squint, you can see a world where you put it. No, if you're able to see it, then you do get a true referendum on what this thing is. And yeah, it can't be overstated how important it is to have those two guys going. It's the only way for you to have any semblance of understanding of what this thing is supposed to be. And, you know, I know Vlad only gets the one knock last night, but he takes the three walks. When Vlad is at his best, that is going to be the experience. It is going to be one night where it's three knocks and there might be three singles. And that's a conversation we can have, but it might be three walks the other night. It's what these guys need to do. And then, you know, you throw in a Varsho having, you know, I think this is like the, what, third, fourth Dalton Varsho game of the year. Of the year already. And all of a sudden you can squint and kind of see an offense good enough to build around those two if Varsho goes three. Yeah, I want to get to Varsho in a second, but I want to stick on Vlad. Because yeah, he does have yet another single and three walks. And the on base is actually up to a nice robust 376. That's good. That's really good. The slugging percentage still 100-400 though at 391. So his OPS is 767. This is a guy with a career 840 OPS in last season. He had a 788 OPS. So I mentioned he's 767, which is less than last year's OPS, but his OPS Plus, which is on a scale of 100 being league average. He's actually higher right now in OPS Plus than he was a season ago. Built only on the strength of walks and singles. I think where I'm at with Vlad is that, yeah, okay, is he maybe a 30-home run guy? Yeah, is that what you expected him to be coming out of the minor leagues where he was the best minor league player anyone had ever seen and had an 80 hit grade, which nobody ever graded a prospect that? No, it's not. But if this is what you've got, a guy that is, I mean, honestly, the guy that I compare him to, and this is not an easy comparison to make, but if he's like each hero, right handed each hero without the speed. And he takes a few more walks, but if this is his MO, he's just going to be, he and Bo are going to be competing amongst the league leaders in hits and probably not be for Vlad because he just takes too many walks. All right, at least it's something, right? I think the idea, because he's stuck on four home runs and he'll run into one every once in a while. And people who have paid attention to the history of prospects would also tell you that sometimes guys take a while to figure out the home run swing and the power potential is realized. If this is what he is, you could do a lot worse than a guy that's going to get a bunch of hits. Now, would I prefer them to be extra base hits? I would. It seems pretty clear that he's just a guy that's going to hit 115 mile an hour singles. It's insane. You send to us the team, that track and data last night. I was looking at the, like, individual leaders for it. He is 17th in baseball in terms of average bat speed. It's remarkable what he is able to do with a wand and not generate power and pop. And again, it's not a lack of power. The guy is up there in barrels every single year. It doesn't make a lick a sense. We at the beginning of the year had the big conversation about the launch angle. And if you are a believer in, like you said, the home run stroke takes a while to kind of develop. The old adage was always, you know, doubles early on in a career can maybe turn into homers as long as you're not, you know, like hitting them, turning singles into doubles with speed. But we've seen that before. I just think we have to understand that Vlad just has an odd profile for a guy that hits the ball the ball. The way he does. And you're going to, you have to more realize that the big home a year. Because I believe there will, when you hit it the way he does, you would think, right? Like 115 miles an hour. How? How? No, no. Actually, though, how? It doesn't make a bunch of sense. At least now that they're lying on the ground balls to the left side. Do they still do sports? I mean, they should get my man John Brinkis on this to explain. I mean, I understand. It's just like launch angle. I get it. He would do it very quickly. You know, it doesn't make a lick of sense that he can hit it as hard as he does swing as hard as he does. I understand these are these equal to the same thing, but barreling the ball the way that he does. And it not generating any true pop. It's just honestly, it's remarkable. Yeah, it's really weird. It's really strange. And home runs are important. They're the best thing you can do in the sport. And it's single handedly tied the game for the Blue Jays and, and yeah, allowed them to win it. So the Homer thing, like I agree with you, I like them and they are good chicks. Dig the long ball. Mark McGuire reminded us in the Simpsons that do you want to know the horrifying truth? Or would you like to see some Dingers? We all just want Dingers. Can you build your team around two guys that are not big power threats? Can you supplement? Yeah. Can you supplement that elsewhere in the lineup? If the idea is, okay, that's your, that is your two, three hitters right there. It's never going to change. And you're going to pencil them in for, you know, whatever the best version to themself is, is that enough? If you, if you have two guys in there, the fulcrum or focal points of your offense and, you know, not that they're completely without pop, but either of those guys are guys you think of as Homer threats. This is where we're going to find out. It's very difficult. So what you're, what you're basing your offense around, you're like the Cleveland Guardians do this, right? This is their whole MO is, is, is traffic on the base paths, a bunch of slap hits, pressure on the pitcher or the J's going to the central that would help, although the central is better this year. Yeah, I mean, Don Mattingly was the first to alert us to this possibility of the maybe the Blue Jays are not going to lead the world in home runs. I mean, boy, how right was he? They were among, I think they're bottom five still in Major League Baseball in home runs hit. I mean, like if you're, if you're going to try and do this, you got to do something Blue Jays of recent vintage have been unable to do. You got hit with runners in scoring position. That feels hard for this group. And the idea would be that you, you get starting pitchers out of the game relatively early because you're working them for a bunch of walks and a lot high pitch counts. It's hard. It's definitely hard. It's harder. And not to say that hitting a home run isn't hard. Oh, hitting a home run is obviously incredibly difficult, but as far as creating, like, like you just have to do it one time. If you're doing it the other way, you have to have four, five, six good at bats to do it. The Orioles had three hits yesterday. That was one of the baseball game because two of them left the ballpark. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, no, it's extremely, extremely exceedingly difficult. I know it kills rallies, but no, it's, it's really the most effective way to score. And also, I mean, nobody really believes that anymore, do they? Yeah. It's also like, especially when you get to the postseason, this team in fact gets there. It's the most effective way to score against good pitching because it's really, really difficult to string together three and four and five hits against a really good pitcher. It's quote unquote easier to take advantage of a mistake and put it over the wall. It's so much easier to just hit a ball 400 feet. It's so easy to do that. Dalton Varshot did against a junior cano, which by the way, Blue Jays, here's the slash line career for cano against the Blue Jays. They own this man, 298 batting average, a 414 on base, 447 slug for an 861 OPS. That's their best reliever. How, how do you have such good, I mean, I know the answer to this is the game of evidently or your own PEN blows it or whatever, but how can you have such success against a team's best reliever and get big brother by them the way that they did last year by the O's. It just doesn't compute, but they have always owned cano. It's been remarkable. You know, I remember those games last year before about Tista goes down and it's well, but Tista, he's scary and cano should be. He is nasty. You see what he does against everybody else in baseball, but it only seems fair that if Ryan Mountcastle gets to do that to the Blue Jays, that the Blue Jays to get to do that to cano. Yeah. Yeah. And it helped them win the game as Dalton Varshot deposited his seventh home run of the season onto Utah Street in right field, give them now seven home runs and his slash line, it's not like overwhelming hitting 214 with the 308 on base and a 752 OPS, but on this team is really good and like, again, OPS plus where 100 is league average, he's 15% higher than league average. Take that one 15. So this is Dalton Varshot. What you're watching right now is not like some abnormal fluke or like, Oh man, what an incredible start. That's unsustainable. What you are seeing from Dalton Varshot, which is not a perfect player. Okay. It's not necessarily an MVP candidate, but a guy who runs into the occasional home run and can take the occasional walk and is better against righties than lefties, but like playable against like the lefties and is one of the best defensive center fielders in the sport again, one of the catch like at the end of the season, that's going to be on the highlight reel of catches of the season, like just bringing back a home run. This is what Dalton Varshot did in 2022 when the Blue Jays acquired him. So if you just reverse the seasons, like if this is the season he has last year and I'm not defending the trade. I still think the trade is bad, especially considering what Alejandro Kirk has turned into. And boy, wouldn't you like to have the option of going to a Gabriel Moreno and have that as your one two punch with Danny Jans and that'd be a whole lot of good. And like Lorda Scuriel, Jr. also had a good season a year ago, but he was a free agent. You could have acquired him. This season anyways, I think he's lesser a part of the equation. But if this is the season he had had a season ago, I tell you, we're not like, hey, listen, there's plenty of reasons to criticize Ross Atkins, but the amount of blowback he gets from this trade is significantly less if this is the player you saw a season ago. >> Man, we said the kakuchi formula, we've seen this guy comes in bad for season expectations are as low as they could possibly be. And I don't know if it's having your feet set on the ground in your situation finally. You feel comfortable in your surroundings. Maybe you finally are able to, I don't mean this literally in kakuchi's case, but figuratively speak the same language as your coaches, you understand each other, you just know how to work together. It is remarkable to see it because kakuchi, he is the guy who I think has changed minds the most in terms of it here, but Varsho quickly making a case for that. And yeah, if these seasons are reversed, we still, when Gabriel Moreno is playing in the World Series, are still talking about all that and still going, oh my God, how could you make this trade given the J's future at the catch, but we're still having all of those conversations. But the blowback is immensely less like, yeah, there's just no ifsans or buts about it. I still think people would have their criticisms of it. It's still a fair trade to have your questions on, but gold glove defense and center field. I mean, that kakuchi makes last night. That shades of the Mike Trout catch early in his career in that exact park, pretty much in the exact same spot, I think it's remarkable. And Varsho, you know, I think it's also has to be pointed out that, and nobody, I shouldn't say nobody, it would change the equation a little, but he didn't get to do the thing he was best at for most of his first year as a J, either playing center field and Kevin Kiermeyers there, you have to put the best team forward. And that was with Kevin Kiermeyer in center field, but I think that has to be stated as part of this as well, that a guy who man, how many times, how many conversations do we have about Vlad with Kevin Barker, where, and I'm not putting this on Barker, he was usually the guy pooping it, but it's, Hey, let Vlad feel good at first base and the defense can transitional offense. If that can work for a first baseman, you think that can't work in spades for a gold glove center fielder. So yeah, I think it's just human nature, he's just clearly more comfortable here. >> Yeah, and it's one thing to be an incredible defender, which he always has been, which Kevin Kiermeyer is. But so it's like Bradley Zimmer, it's like one thing to be like a defensive specialist, which is like that special at that position, but you can get that guy providing a better than average level of offense takes you to another level. And war isn't everything, but Van Graft's war, Don Varsho tied with Bryce Harper, 1.4 war, obviously leads the Blue Jays this season. I'm still like not yet convinced that this Blue Jays team, like I said, agreed to be on the record. This is a large sample sport, and obviously one game does not a team make, but boy, again, like if Vlad and Bo are doing the things that Ross Atkins was like, can you do that? And they haven't. Like Vlad coming around, but Bo had not looked like his normal self until recent days. If those guys look like that, you continue to get the starting pitching that you've gotten this season. I understand like from an ERA standpoint, it's not top five in baseball. But I think the feeling that you get with the top four starters on the mound on any given day is that you can win any baseball game. The bullpen with Jimmy Garcia feels a lot different than without it. That guy might be the best reliever in the sport right now. And we can talk about Jordan Romano later on, because the Orioles want that guy if the Blue Jays fall out of it. But that guy stepping right back into the closer's job throws the gets the six outs yesterday, but has yet to take a misstep when it comes to saves this season. All right, this is your best shot. Even against a team like the Orioles who pound the baseball. And it does feel like the next two days are kind of important as far as narrative building for this team. Yeah, if they can find a way to take one, one more win a series against the O's. They had most of five straight three game series and now they have the split in Philly there that they've lost. Good teams win series and great teams win series against great teams. You have a chance to do it right there in front of you again. I think if you could, I suppose you would want Gosman in the in the equation, although, you know, he had a rough outing against the twins this weekend as he always seems to do. But this is, this is how you would have lined up your rotation as well, getting burrios in there in the wake. Who she's been pitching again, we can, we can quibble about, I think you'd probably rather have Gosman over Bassett, but I think this year it's been pretty much a wash to this point. So it's also the way you would set up your rotation heading, heading into this series. So yeah, the, this is as good with Vlad and blow going and those guys on the bump. This is as good a chance you're going to have against the Sos team. Who Jay's last series victory was April 19th through the 21st against San Diego, San Diego Padres. Well, almost a month ago since they won a baseball series, a chance to do so tonight in Baltimore. All right. When we come back, Leafs getting their head coaching interviews underway, how do we feel about the named candidates and could Broadbrendomore reenter the mix if his Cane's team eventually loses to the Rangers, although saving off elimination yet again, not more next as the fan morning show continues, Ben and his Brent Gunning Sportsnet 590, the fan. Hey, it's Ailish for a fire and I'm Justin Kusser. 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 590, the fan and wherever you get your podcasts. Van morning to a sportsnet 590, the fan, Ben and his Brent Gunning, that was Jeff Merrick on 32 Thoughts, reacting to Fridays, media availability, Keith Belli, Brendan Shanahan, Brad tri living, not necessarily in that order as far as the power is concerned. So yeah, I wasn't on yesterday or Friday, you didn't even get your say on Keith, did you? Uh, no, that's a good point because we finished the show. What's under the key stuff? It's like Brad's kind of like, Brad's living tormented me. I was waiting like a whole week for him to make his math. You could check trade. He has a tendency to drop news. The second I'm done talking, he's like, I cannot have gunning or pining on this too painful. Yeah, that's right. So I was on with JD and I did the nine o'clock hour and then, you know, he was doing a baseball conversation in the 10 o'clock hour, which had to be cut short because he had the Sheldon Keith news came down at that point, which you figured it had to before the media availability on Friday. Um, so yeah, that happened Thursday and Friday and it's, it's Tuesday now. So it's a, it's a ways back. It's in our rear view mirror. Everybody's well, uh, digested it by this point, but I, I will say the one last thing thought I had from Friday was I mentioned the order of operations and who like on the flow chart, the power runs through like Brad for living the lowest point then Brendan Janin and then Keith Pelly. But I couldn't help but come away from that media availability thinking that's not exactly the way this thing works and Brad for living is the guy that's being empowered more. It feels like it has more of the hard line stance of things need to change is the outsider perspective as the guy who's seen it play out over the course of the entire season. And Brandon Shanahan isn't fired, but what his job is now, I couldn't necessarily tell you. Yeah, like he's part of the hiring process for the new head coach, which we'll, we'll get to and he brought in Brad tri living and his name is still on the plan and he'll get the kudos if it turns around this year. But if he, I couldn't help but feel like he was kind of the odd man out on Friday and I'm not exactly sure of his role right now, other than just sitting back and either waiting to be lauded or fired. Yeah. So I think, I think it's very interesting and obviously the people who hired Brendan Shanahan in that role are nowhere near this, this problem, I shouldn't say nowhere near because you know, the MLSE board would have, you know, been rubber stamping that at some point as well. But you know, the ultimate people who decided that, you know, have moved on in terms of MLSE presidents and all of that. But I think that, you know, the point I've been making about this is I really wonder how much Shanahan now that he has had a year of his divorce. You know, we talk a lot about the divorce of Kyle Dubas in the Leafs. I want to talk a lot about the divorce of Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas. I think that Chaney is a guy who, you know, been in the game a thousand years. Keith Pelly called him a champion and probably had a certain way he views the game. Then he brings in for a reason, the young up and comer with fresher, newer ideas allegedly. And I imagine that that starts to shape his opinion on the game. And then he spends a year talking hockey with the old school as hockey man, he can find in Brad's living. And I do wonder if it's a little bit of a wake up call for Shanahan of kind of getting back to his roots in that. So I agree with you that I think it's pretty clear that your living is a guy being very empowered here. I just wonder how much of a, you know, like getting back to basics back to his roots. This has been for Brendan Shanahan because and I don't say that to say, you know, Kyle Dubas brainwashed him with all his terrible ideas. No, I think Dubas had a lot of good ideas, but I think ultimately it went kind of too far in one direction. We've talked about this a million times. That's the thing that I kind of took out of all that. Well, it's not a bad point considering Brendan Shanahan brought in Lulea Morello and Mike Babcock, right? Right. Right. Okay. That was like at the outset, Brendan Shanahan's like, you know what would be a good departure for this team? Yeah. Bringing in the most, yeah, the most yelling the, the most like capital H hockey men in Lulea Morello and Mike Babcock. He pivoted, couldn't have had a harder pivot to Kyle Dubas and to a lesser extent, Sheldon Keith, who by the way, I have an opine on his video on Twitter, which I thought he played the media game perfectly. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. Almost like the setting for that video was almost like, it was like a Hollywood design. It literally looked like he was in heaven. That's, I was going to say, born at the best line. That's exactly what he said. So good job. You both had the best line. Yeah. And apparently he's very much in discussion to be the next head coach of the New Jersey Devils. Okay. Are we going to transition to coaching? Because I think it's very interesting that the Leafs by, and obviously they would have had to make a move on head coach to have a chance at hiring or Craig Berubei or any of these other guys. But I feel like by freeing Sheldon Keith into the coaching environs here, it has actually made their job a little bit easier in terms of hiring. Because, you know, the Devils to me seem like the next sexiest job. Like, if you're not, if can't get the Leafs job, the Devil's job seems like a very, very good one to me. Yeah. If you're a guy in Craig Berubei going, eh, do I want to sit here and wait for the Leafs to maybe make me an offer? Yes. The Devils or is yes. Apparently it is. No, it was obvious. Okay. Yes. But if the Devils are at a certain point in time and Brenda Moore is out there at that changes things, I think it's interesting that by the Leafs kind of releasing Keith into the coaching pool here, it makes their hiring process maybe a little bit easier. Because these teams that are, were maybe dead set on a Berubei or if McClellan's your guy or whatever, I think they see Sheldon Keith and I don't think it's an immediate, oh, forget those guys, we have to go higher Sheldon, but he is clearly someone of interest to these teams as well. Yeah, I think it's, hey, let's get Sheldon because if the Leafs want Craig Berubei, that's who they're getting. I mean, if you're a Berubei and the Devils come to you and it's like, all right, take it or leave it. Like, you can't wait for the Leafs, like, you got to take it that he's like, uh, thanks but no thanks. Like, no, what are you talking about? That's the best job in the sport. Remains the best job in the sport. Remains the most high profile job in the sport. I don't disagree, but we've seen this with players before and players matter more than coaches. Like, remember, Nazem Kadri coming off his near 100 point season as a gritty two-way center was going to be able to write his own ticket? And now he's in Calgary playing on a team he probably doesn't want to play for, making less money than he thought he should have been making. Craig Berubei is the hot coach right now and guess what, he would still be in demand. He's got a year left on that blues deal, but you can't always assume that you are going to be the sexy coach forever. I agree that the Leafs job has such a pull that you would do that, but I don't know that you can just sit by the wayside forever, especially if there's any smoke to bring to more. I mean, not forever. I understand what you're saying. Yeah. And I think the Devils understand that if they, in fact, do have belief that Craig Berubei is going to say yes to them, they have to let this Leafs thing play out. I think he's the favorite to lay on the Leafs job. So he apparently interviewed over the weekend, Todd McClellan yesterday. And as much as I'm not that sold on Berubei because of the one season he gets airlifted in and the Jordan Bennington and wins a cup right out of the gates and then very limited success since then. But had that, I got to tell you, the playoff record of Todd McClellan should be disqualifying. It's just like, that would be of all the potential hires that this Leafs team can make. And we joke all the time about, hey, well, the Leafs are trying to add some playoff harden veterans, some guys who know how to win, and they added Patrick Marlow and Joe Thornton guys on a historically bad postseason Sharks team that was one of the greatest regular season teams of that era, but just could not get, how about get the coach too? 42 and 46 record in the postseason for McClellan hasn't been past the second round since 2011. Now I'm not saying he's a bad coach, right, like he's, it's not been easy circumstances since then. But my God, you can't be having a serious conversation about Todd McClellan if the only express purpose for the new head coach is to forget the regular season, just get you into the postseason. But when you're there, have the success that they have not had over the last two decades. Would you have signed up for losses in a cup final or a conference final over this last six or seven years? I would have. But yeah, that hasn't happened since 2011, like even, I understand that that's like, they've had like a lot comparing the Sharks success to even the Leafs success here. It's like apples to oranges because they had more because they, they didn't factually win more rounds. One day round with an Oilers team in 16, 17, I'm not, I, the more I've thought about this, I both outside of the guys that I don't think you can get. I both don't think there's a great hire to be had, but also there's nobody that I consider disastrous. Like I've, I have quipped about McClellan to that you cannot bring more Sharks DNA here. And I do tend to agree, but if you want, if you want the hard ass coach who's going to take his team to task, Todd McClellan got fired after yelling at the Sharks. Like it wasn't like he, he called them out and then they got fired and he called them out and then they didn't respond and he got fired. But this is a guy who has a lot of that in it. I mentioned it. You know, I don't think this means much of anything, but he coached Matthews and Riley on that, you know, North America team. He was part of the Oilers power play or he coached that good Oilers power play. Now it's the Oilers power play, but I, I, the more I thought about it, I both don't think there is a slam dunk higher outside of the guys that I don't think you can have. And I don't think there's a disastrous hire either because it feels so much like there's going to be a pivot now. You're going to get your hard ass coach in here and it's either going to work or it's going to be a real hard pivot two years after this. That's the way I kind of look at it. To me, that's the most embarrassing hire like no offense to Todd McClellan. It's just like this place at this spot in their development to get the guy who I don't disagree. Hasn't had the postseason success. That being said, like Rod Brindemore a lot, he's only one second round series once and when he did, they won no games, right? So he has yet to win a game in a conference final and they're still alive like the potential exists for them to come all the way back and become the 15 in NHL history to erase a three year series deficit by the way, which I love that hockey is the sport where you can do this, right? Like not all the time. No, but that there is proof of concept. And I know there is proof of concept in baseball because it happened one time very notably in two years. A part of that might just also be that there have been more chances because obviously hockey has more postseason series than baseball. So maybe if this had played out over the number of series that hockey's had over its lifespan, we'd be talking about more three old comebacks. I also think you'd see it more in baseball if a guy could go like C. C. Sebastian just take the ball every day in a series like that's generally speaking, the the root of the the plant that is a three old comeback is a goaltender going red hot on fire. Yes. Not to say there are other ways to do it, but that generally speaking has to be at the center of it. So maybe this has already changed the equation for Tom Dunnan that the the the the canes have come back and made this a series after going down three, oh, but maybe not. Like I said, this is like I think Rod Brindinger is great. Yeah, I think he would be a spectacular hire. But if you're a billionaire sports owner who cares about one thing winning, and like you done some of it, but like for normal franchises, winning around is not that big a deal. Like I know you get we get bogged down with that like the winning of a round and it being the Stanley Cup, the Maple Leafs won in six games against the lightning last, but like normal franchise like, Oh, well, that's just that's like an unsuccessful postseason winning around. Yes. So continually winning around or winning the second round once and then like I said, in year one, not winning a conference final game being swept away. If you're the billionaire owner and this guy who, yeah, from an outside from a Toronto perspective, we're like that guy's been exceedingly successful. But if you're the billionaire and Rod Brindinger more comes to you and is like, okay, let's I know we've talked parameters and there's been no pen to paper. But yeah, no, again, I want to be paid like the highest paid head coaches in the sport. We sure that the billionaire is going to be like, yeah, sure, no problem. Mr. Never won a cup as a head coach. Never won a conference final game. You want to be paid what? Six million dollars a year? Absolutely. I'm not a hundred percent convinced that even if hey, that the canes come back and force a game seven, yeah, as long as they lose this series of the Rangers, not a hundred percent. I'm not a hundred percent convinced that if I were in Tom Dunden's shoes or like evaluating what he does and the emotional nature of some of his moves, that this is a guy that's going to be like, yeah, no problem, Rod. Here's the biggest contract an NHL head coach has ever gotten, which it might take to keep him away from the Leafs. I think you're smart to bring that up. It all comes down to how much he values the culture that Brindamore has built there because I don't think it would crumble immediately. You know, I think the front office obviously takes some credit for that as well. You know, you have to put together a good roster for the Brindamore to be able to instill the culture the way he does. But if you're a believer that the team wins because you put together a great team, then Dunden's probably not willing to do that. But if you're a believer that the hurricanes win because of the hurricane way or the canes culture, I don't know, whatever dumb saying they have there down in Carolina and look, everybody's got dumb saying. So that's not a shot at them. I think that you if he's a believer in that, then he has to write the check because that is proof of concept. He is Mr. Hurricane. He was at the heart of it when they won their long cup. He's been at the heart of their resurgence as this. If he is of the belief, and I think he would be right to believe this, that Brindamore is the guy who created it and the guy who keeps it going, then there is no check because the big enough for him to write because it's keeping that franchise relevant. Do you know what the hurricanes look like? If they are not, they say what you will about, oh, only around every year. If they're not doing that and they're not in the mix in this way is a guaranteed playoff team, what does it look like in Carolina? What does the building look like for Dundan? And I think that in a market like that, here we don't have to think about, how does winning affect ticket sales? It pretty much doesn't. There it will. So I think that that's the other part of it that has to kind of, you have to take into account if you've done it. And I get it, Rod Brindamore loves Carolina, feels embedded in the community there, doesn't want to uproot his family. He also wants to get the respect that he, I think rightly deserves. Guy, what a NHL hockey game with a Zamboni driver as a goalie. He did. And yes, more of the Leafs lost that game than he won it. I don't know. They really did lock it down at that point. I do feel like you'd need a willing, you'd need a willing chance partner to lock it down in that way. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I think Rod Brindamore, given his druthers, all things being equal, would love to return to Carolina. And as Nick Caprio's rightly pointed out, had an opportunity to go to Rangers. Boy, if you want to be in the center of culture, probably no better place than the New York City. And he's already decided not to go down that path. Yeah, like, there's two things here. One is like, is Tom Dunden all that pleased about Rod Brindamore coming to the table with the all right money, please, after I lost in the second round, yet again, and is Rod Brindamore happy with Tom Dunden, like reluctantly saying, all right, you can come back, but not at the number you're suggesting. And does it make the siren song of the Toronto Maple Leafs louder for him? And I can't help but without the decision being made at this point, and no real finalists being discussed by insiders with the Toronto Maple Leafs, you can't help but the longer this thing goes along. And the potential for Rod Brindamore being available can't help but think that he's at least a consideration for this leaf press. Yeah, how could you not, I mean, they without saying, I mean, no, not without saying as much. They did say as much that they're going to take their time and try to interview as many people as they can for this job, obviously, you know, by the time you get to the draft free agency, you hope to have somebody named there just because the head coach is going to affect a little bit that type of players you want to have on your roster. But yeah, there's no reason for them in a rush. There's no reason for Brindamore to rush. And I think if you're done in the way you most, you know, you don't want you want Brindamore to just come play ball and sign a team friendly deal. But I think the way you most want this to play out is go call his bluff. All right, go take a meeting with the Leafs. See if you see if you really want to do this. And I think that's what it will take. It'll have to take Brindamore kind of turning down the leads. I don't see Dundin just capitulating unless you're talking about a team that's in a cup final or something like that. Yeah, coming back from 3-0 down against president's trophy team would be good though, like that would pretty much stamp it home for Rod Brindamore. It would be it would it would also though also play into like a little quasi fraudulent president's trophy team. Like when we look at the Rangers, we don't look at them as like these world beaters. I'm starting to post season 7-0 maybe change some people's minds, not me, but yeah. I think they're pretty good. Special and special teams where they like outscored opponents, short handed somehow. Yeah, Leafs beat him with Martin Jones so hot. Yeah, Leafs beat a lot of guys during the regular season, okay? Yeah, it's not an argument that you can use or not evidence you can use in an argument that the Leafs say they did a thing in the regular season. They do lots of things in score, including scoring goals during the regular season. They don't do in the postseason, all right. Bruins trying to stave off elimination tonight against the Panthers, who yeah, after a game won blip, they looked like the postseason juggernaut. I think we expected them to look like they look like the brutes that we also might have expected them to look like. You know who noticed? Bruins GM Don Sweeney, who had this to say about the lack of transparency around NHL officiating. We're not in a position to be criticizing, you know, officials and league wide such that that's, you know, standard protocol. We'll get fined as a result of that, so there's no intention of my point to be critical. The overall premise that I have is to be perfectly honest with you. We should not be asking the coach after a game what they feel about officiating and what happens. You guys should really be focused on, you know, what we didn't do well enough in the course of the game and win a hockey game. Those questions should be directed at either the director of supervisor officials, supervisor series and/or the officials. You want full access, you know, and transparency, then put the officials in front of the microphone to answer the question because they're the only ones that have the experience to be able to handle, you know, whatever interpretation they applied. So the only ones that can answer that, don't put out a statement, just stand in front and answer the question. That's as simple as that. Okay, so the other North American pro sports, they allow this like pool reporter especially in the postseason. Yeah. In major league baseball, sometimes the umpires will do like a press conference. If there's a controversial call, I wasn't post-season but didn't Jim Joyce have to do one? Yeah, that was very unique circumstances. He was very apologetic. He cried. I kicked the bleep out. Yeah, he did. There's just no debating that. Okay, media being allowed to question the officials. Does that change anything? No, I maintain that if you're going to do this, the only point in doing it is for content sake. I know that the league would cringe at that craven, but guess what, entertainment product. And the only point in doing that is just to pick the the angriest member of whatever fan base was aggrieved and let them ask the ref the question because some neutral pool reporter going in there, asking the ref appointed question and then going, "Man, I don't know. The story, we saw it. It's not going to make anybody feel any better." Now, I know that that's where you want to go with this. Where I want to go with this is how dare the GM of the Boston Bruins hold the press conference without explicitly doing it, but crying about officiating. Oh what, you're not the big, bad Bruins anymore, so all of a sudden hockey is not kosher. This also leads me to a game I played on the show yesterday without you here. Imagine it was the Leafs. I did this with Leon Drey's settle saying, "Well, post isn't good goaltending. Oh, imagine a leaf saying that after a post season loss. Imagine, imagine." And it's not as fun if it's true living. Imagine Cal Dupe has taken to the mic and in the middle of a series, not afterwards, in the middle of a series, crying about the officiating, it's remarkable. And I cannot believe he did it. We would talk, but this would be a focal point for the next hundred years of the GM coming to the defense of the team and whining about officiating. I can't believe it. This is supposed to be the big, bad Bruins and this is their identity. And all of a sudden the bully gets bullied and it's not so fun being a bully anymore. I don't disagree with your saying, but yeah, I feel like I need to separate that because that's, yeah, that's the reality of the situation that it's never, it's not necessarily a good luck. It's almost like capitulating that, hey, everything's, it's all breaking against us in this series and we're about to lose. Generally speaking, you yelling, it's not fair, you're not in a good spot usually. Yeah, I'm going to put that aside for a second because I want to do, I do want to talk about the point which I think you're right to say does not have like a tangible impact on the way things are officiated. But can we say definitively that it doesn't, and one thing for sure, it makes it look more like the league doesn't have something to hide, which it does when these guys are not made available. I mentioned the other North American pro sports, they do allow their officials to be questioned and like we rarely have ever get any anything that changes our opinion on the matter. But hockey is the sport that probably demands the most explanation because the calls are so nebulous, right? This is why you can't because you're there. The pool reporter stuff for the last two minute report in the NBA, the reason it works or with baseball is because it's generally speaking a like very one-to-one flashpoint play. You would never make the umpse available if the point of it was to say, all right, if you look at the screen here, this is the three, two pitch for the third batter of the four, the bottom of the fourth inning, looks a little outside, does it not? And that's what happens in NHL, especially at this time of year of could that not have been a trip? What's the standard of the game? These guys will be needing to give three hour lectures on their games because of how many of these, again, wishy washy, what's the standard? I don't know that the idea of like, okay, ask your two questions that the pool reporter gets. I love the idea in the moment of the pound of flesh and make the wrath say he was wrong, but he's not going to. Just going to say it's the way we saw it, especially if it's something that can't be reviewed. Yeah, I don't think these guys, these guys very rarely if ever say that they're wrong because there's always an explanation. You can always like the rules and especially where like in the Stanley Cup, you can call a penalty on anything. Right. He's holding in the NFL. So I really don't think there would be a lot of Mia Culpa's after the game from these officials. I think they'd be like, well, I mean, as you can clearly see, there was a slash or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I just, yeah, I think it would be good for everybody, including the league if they were just a little more transparent about it. But what I, I guess it's like two different things. You're right. From a league perspective, it would be better to be more transparent. Would I have felt any better if Eric Ferlatt took to the mic after calling the pick penalty on Justin Hall against John Tavares and said, yeah, it was a pick. No, exactly. Right. Like that's a play. You're like, well, yeah, I guess it's interference. But I suppose I don't want the reporter to ask why did you call that? I want him to pick up the other six examples throughout the game. But guess what? I'm not going to get that. So it's not going to look like most things in life. Yeah. It's not going to appease me. I don't really care. Yeah. All right. And you know what? It's not going to appease the Bruins. I do care about it. Just, just let me hammer home the point of this segment. Weiner. Don Sweeney. Big, big, tough, bad Boston Bruins. Culture of winning and toughness. Culture of whining. Yeah. I mean, it's Don Sweeney going to feel any better if the officials like I did don't see Sam Bennett punch Brad Marchin in the head as he hit him. Probably not. Probably not. But back, the Orioles really want Jordan Romano, apparently, according to Bob Nightingale. We'll get to that in more next as the fan morning show continues. Ben Ennis, Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 590, the fan.
