[MUSIC] >> Hey morning, Joe Sportsman 5-9 of the fan band and a spring gunning. >> I wanna pick up on something that we were talking to Kim Barker about. >> And yeah, it was him speaking my language. Now there was, okay, he said, hey, do something. Like look like you're doing something, just do a thing. Like having be able to, I don't care, somebody do something because what you're doing right now not working. >> Yes. >> It's not a direct correlation because there was a clear solution that I thought presented itself in the moment. But like the George Springer lead off thing was kind of the same thing. It's like, you don't want change before the sake of change, but like change because there's a better option there. >> Or it can't be worse. >> This is more change for the sake of change, which is, it's often used by executives as like a pejorative. It's like we're not doing change for the sake of change, okay? We're not firing the coach, we're not firing the manager, just to fire the manager. >> Sure. >> Because, that makes no sense, yeah, I agree. It doesn't make any sense, there's no logic behind it. But we're talking about human beings here, we're talking about pro sports, we're not everything is a number, right? And I know it presented a lot of numbers today, I am Mr. Number today. >> You are. Again, you keep saying, get off my blog. You keep saying today, like you don't like. >> No, I feel like this is the real you coming out though, you've been like shackled all this time and you're like, it's not a new analogy. >> It's really just not true. My favorite part of sports is the games, right? And just watching the individual matches. >> Not as favorite as mine, okay? >> We do do this all the time and you're like, wouldn't you like that quantified? And I'm like, yeah, I'm good, I'm good. I mean, after the fact, I would, but in the moment, like, yeah, I just love the, when I play video games and I play like a season of MLB the show, I don't do any of the GM stuff, I just play the game. >> Do you wanna play the game? >> Just play the game. >> Hey, okay. >> You play to win the game and you play to play the game. >> Yeah. >> I play to play the game. This Blue Jays team could use a change just for the sake of change, okay? And yeah, Daniel Volgobock hanging your hat on here being the offensive savior, okay? If that's, you wanna give him another couple of games runway. >> Sure. >> Here's my guess is that he will continue to be Daniel Volgobock and eventually you can just say thanks, but no thanks. Same with Ernie Clement, like had a nice little moment, is a fine, upstanding citizen. He can stay within your organization. I think he's more likely to if you DFA him than somebody claim him because he's been around the block a few times. >> Great. >> People have a good idea of what Ernie Clement is. It's in the Oakland A's organization for Ben played for the Oakland A, you can send those guys backing. You can call up a Spencer Horowitz, you can throw in a cabin Beijo. You can do something now firing the manager I think is a different deal because of this front office and the managers they've already run through, but man, the idea of change for the sake of change being some pejorative thing is not sometimes change is good just for the sake of change. Even though there's no obvious and logical reason why you would change to the other thing. >> Well, I understand the thing I'm about to mention doesn't have as hard and fast a consequences and that you may lose bigger and out of the organization. But you know how I know that players feel it. This is the dumb thing that I'm going to mention, but like Chris Bassett does not wear high socks. Guess what? He was scuffle and he went to high socks. You know why? Because sometimes you got to change something and you're not going to change everything about it. You know, if we're going to like use this Chris Bassett example and extrapolate it out to the whole team, you're not going to change your delivery. If you're Chris Bassett, because you're scuffling a little, you're not going to completely change your pitch mix much like you're not going to trade bow and Vlad for change sake right now. But you could you could tweak around the fringes of the lineup and an Ernie Clement or a Daniel Vogelbach or something is kind of the changing to high socks of this org. Is it going to change anything almost certainly not? But even if it just gets you feeling better. Even if it's a placebo effect. And even if the placebo effect is not felt by them, but it's only felt by all of us watching it every night. It's something. Well, and we have proof of concept to this. And okay, it worked out because David Schneider went nuts when he was called up at Fenway Park last season and like he performed at an insane level. And part of the reason why Bluejay swept that series at Fenway Park, but we're going into it. There's a reason why he was called up. Bluejay stank against the American League East could not win a game against the Boston Red Sox. And sure, they part of it was like he deserved to be called up, but like was there a guaranteed belief within the organization that those numbers would translate to the major league level. I would say no considering they saw what he did. So long. Yeah, they did. He did the thing last year and then did it in limited sample this season and it took until like a month into the season for him to be a regular contributor or get an everyday spot on this Bluejay's team. But his insertion within the lineup again, performance was a big part of it, but it's like, oh man, what an earth changing moment. Bluejay's don't make the playoffs if he doesn't have that moment. Um, ultimately didn't change the end result. Yeah, they lost in two games to the Minnesota Twins, let's go to one run, we'll always have that run. Yeah. And the burrios conversation. And you're and most importantly, we'll always have your rant about flag getting picked off in second. Yeah, that's what a fun time anyways, it's, it's tough for Spencer Horowitz to live up to, but the majors have been demystified for him as well and he performed adequately well last season. Anyways, our next guest has a little story on Mr. Horowitz. He is our insider brought to you by Don Valley, North Lexus, where you can expect excellence online and in the showroom visit Don Valley, North Lexus.com. It is Ben Nicholson, Smith of the at the letters podcast. How's it going, Benny? Pretty good. How are you guys today? Good. I want to get to your Spencer Horowitz piece in just a second, but would you like in on my new metric? It's called the big fly factor and it can be the Ben's big, a big fly factor. If you jump on board and we can get Ben Schulman in there, it can be the Ben's big fly metric. Are you in on it? Side unseen. I'll tell you what it is. But like side unseen, are you in on it? Yeah. Okay. Count me in now. Let's hear it. Okay. What do we got here? Okay. So home run. Hold on. What trust you guys clearly have as colleagues. Maybe Ben, you'd say, I'm going to need a little more, but this is good. Maybe one sports net hires a few bread. You know, okay. All right. I actually want to be the only one. You don't want to know the crippling anxiety and insecurity. If there was another bread poking around these parts, I can't have it. All right. So Ben, let's start with the start on solid footing. We can agree that home runs are important, both hitting them and not giving them up, right? The most important, really. I agree, so you and I, it's important to go to start this thing. So what I've done is I've taken your ranking so far as like the home runs that you've hit. So your league ranking, one to 30, and the home runs you've given up, one to 30. And I've added those two numbers together. And that number is your big fly factor. So obviously the lower you are, the better you are, the lowest you could be is two if you're first in both. And the worst you could be is 60, Orioles seven in my big fly factor, Yankees eight, Blue Jays 53, Tampa Bay Rays 58, Red Sox, Mete Middle 19. What do you think of my big fly factor? It's actually a pretty decent metric. And yeah, it's pretty simple. Yeah. I think that it accomplishes something. I think that's a pretty good bet I will. So add, I'm kind of shocked that the Rays are where they are. Yeah. They've been awful, man. They're really, really bad. I think the Blue Jays have been bad, and I don't expect them to regress to some like great, great team. But I think they're better than the Rays. I think the Rays are like legit awful. Wow. I mean, that wouldn't have guessed that. They always seem to find a way to get it done. And then I honestly, I didn't realize that they were in the same territory as the Blue Jays there. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really bad. All right. Ben's big fly factor coming to baseball reference. Yeah. You maybe. We're two thirds of the way there. Yeah. Yeah. Text Ben Schulman. See if he's in. Okay. Spencer Horowitz. Why isn't this happened like yesterday? What does the hold up? I feel like I've asked you this before, but yeah, it does feel like it's it's boiling a little bit. He was a major point of conversation before the game. I understand what John Schneider yesterday. Yeah. Exactly. I asked John Schneider about Spencer Horowitz because to me, it seems like this is yeah, what do you want? The guy is 26 years old. He's had the chance to learn the new position second base. He made his 11th start there yesterday at AAA, made just one error a second. So it's not like he's totally defensively lost there. And most importantly, he's really hitting. He's hitting 330 is on base percentage is 450. He's running the AAA leaders and all kinds of offensive categories. So it's not like he can't hit a delo. His numbers against a delo are good. The projections like him. There are just a lot of reasons to want Spencer Horowitz and the majors. So yeah, I mean, he was a topic of conversation. I guess maybe I arguably made him one, but you know, talking to John Schneider and talking with all that, I think they said that they have spoken to other coaches about Spencer Horowitz. So talking to the AAA coaches, Tom Mattingly was talking to Matt Hagg about him yesterday. So it's clear that this guy is a topic of conversation. If nothing else, the Blue Jays are seriously considering calling him up. And honestly, like they fly to Oakland today, right? So after the game, they'll get out to the West Coast, you know, probably around 5, 6 p.m. I wouldn't be surprised if Spencer Horowitz is on that plane. And you have to find someone to take off the roster if you're going to put somebody on it. But I think the time is really coming quickly after, you know, I'm not reporting that to be clear. But yeah, I think that if he's on the team at some point in the next week, I won't be surprised at all. Yeah, I think that comes as welcome news to a lot of people. Quite honestly, just because as we've been saying on the show today, it's just it is time for a look of something different. You mentioned the question they're going to have there or the conundrum. I think it's kind of twofold. One is what do you do to make spot a spot for him on the 26 man roster. And then the other, the other part of that is where does he play, you know, understanding he has taken more reps at second base. How much is that tied to Vladi potentially taking some more looks at third base as well? So I guess two part question is who makes room for him on the roster when it comes? How easy of a decision is that? And then what or how big is how much of this is tied to Vladi getting more looks at third? Yeah, I'll start with the second part because I asked John Schneider that as well. And he actually said it's not really all that tied to it. Vladi at third, I think is more of a way to get Justin Turner in and Daniel Vogel back in, at least in the way that John Schneider was describing it. The thinking with Horowitz is that if he's playing second base and a little bit of left field, then you're not as tied to him as a first base, but it has to get into the lineup at first. Now that is Horowitz's best position, so it probably helps. So that's that part of things. As for who would come off the roster, you know, it would always be a tough decision because no team likes to lose a major league player. I think that it's funny, you look at the Blue Gate's position player core. They've actually been very, very healthy. And so for most teams, if you have a guy hitting 330 with a 960 OPS at AAA, he finds a way onto your roster because someone gets hurt. That hasn't happened to the Blue Gate's. They've had a really healthy group, no one on their position player core is injured right now. So if something were to change there, someone has something nagging, then that could open a door to Spencer Horowitz or, I mean, you look at who's performing the least and, you know, Ernie Coleman is a name that I think of. I know those guys are friends and, you know, it's a tough game, right? It's a tough, uh, rough one sometimes, but yeah, that would be an option. Yeah. Yeah. Or Daniel Vogelbach. Like, yeah, no offense and I mean, Kevin Bijo, I guess, has options. If you're really into like just the roster management, I suppose you could, you could option Kevin Bijo. It's not like his performance has necessitated him being at the major league level. I mean, is there a, is there the potential for Kevin Bijo to, to be the guy that's sent down at all this? Um, it's an interesting spot. I, um, so Kevin Bijo just passed five years of service time this year. Um, so he would have to approve an assignment to try to understand it doesn't mean he wouldn't do it. But that's a wrinkle. Vogelbach, it's interesting, right? A few weeks ago, I would have been totally fine DFA in him. His quality of contact has been better since then. So actually think for now you probably want to ride that hot hand, but you know, in a couple of weeks time, if well, which isn't up within a couple of weeks and Vogelbach is struggling, that would be the most logical role. Um, it's just that he's hitting now. Yeah. Is that the only move you make? Like, I, I get it. Like, we saw Addison Barger for a little bit and he didn't perform all that well in his brief little sample at the major league level. Ralvis Martinez is 22 and he's come back down to earth a little bit despite the, the home run power and has really like no position because it seems like, uh, Spencer Horwitz might even be a better second baseman than, than Ralvis Martinez is playing third base again, by the way, which is bizarre. Nathan Lucas is like an interesting fella considering he's I believe still on the 40 man, right? We saw him a little bit at the major leagues last year. He's almost 30 years old. He's having a hell of a season. I mean, he would probably mean that Kevin Kiermeyer is not a close to everyday player. And like, is there, is there a Nathan Lucas scenario that makes sense to you? Um, I could see it. I think to me, Horwitz is the guy who probably projects as the best hitter. And again, you know, Horwitz, he's not going to be pulling fly balls into the third deck and right field in Rogers Center every night. Like what's, you know, he's not, I'm sure you guys are aware of this, but just for anyone listening. And it's not a transformative offense. The player is more single, doubles walks, kind of in line with what the Blue Jays do as an offense. But hey, if you have a player who can actually deliver those, that's good. You know, you'll, you'll take that. Um, but yeah, um, as far as Lucas, he's someone who's having a really good year. He's also hitting around three 30 at AAA. So you could look at him, I guess like, if Kiermeyer were to pull a hamstring, for example, then maybe that's where you look at it or, or hey, like, as we get closer to July, we're going to be talking a lot more about trades. I know that's already started as a conversation here. And we think a lot about the buy sell, you know, what are they going to do? It's also possible that they do a little bit of both. And I mean, let's say the royals, do they trade for Kevin Kiermeyer? And then the Blue Jays acquire a reliever back. And then that opens up a position spot for Nathan Lucas. And then they also help their both then, like, there are ways that you can sort of do that. I'm just completely inventing that. But there are ways that you can do this where you're helping one area of your team and moving off an area of depth. Yeah, there, there certainly is. I want to ask you about Kakuchi. He gets the ball today. And you know, the Blue Jays have bigger fish to fry certainly than arranging their rotation to make sure a guy and you say Kakuchi who needs, there's only 24 hours in a day. My understanding is it requires like 27 hours of sleep or he loves to sleep that his numbers in day games compared to night games have been jarring. There is not a single metric that's better in night games or sorry, in day games than night games. I mean, part of it is he's been getting babbip to death. I mean, I'm half joking here. But what we know about Kakuchi is he loves to sleep. Is there any world where the team would look at these numbers in the day night splits? Because this isn't one or two starts. Like he said, seven during the day, five at night, it's a pretty even split. And the numbers have just been worse during day games for him. Is there a world where the Blue Jays start to maybe, and again, I know they have bigger fish to fry with this, but maybe work their rotation in a way that he's not pitching so many of these day games because he just has been worse in them, quite honestly. I think it's an interesting observation and probably something to keep monitoring. It sort of reminds me a little of sometimes around this time of year, pitchers will have really drastic home road splits and will kind of wonder why is this happening? And in the end, usually those things iron out and there's a bit more evenness to them. Now, this one, there would be a compelling explanation for it because Kakuchi is, as you're saying, right? He legitimately is more routine oriented than most pitchers. He has more specific routines that has to do with his body clock, his sleep, all these different things. So, to answer your question, I don't think that's going to happen. I don't see the Blue Jays going to Kevin Goss and then Chris Bassett and saying, "Well, quick, you say it just really needs to sleep." He's tired. He has to pitch on three days rest, like I just, you know, and not to say, not to dismiss it. I think it's an interesting idea, but I just, I don't see it happening. I bet you there's more offense in day games also. Like, I wonder if that would impact the sample there as well. Just like generally, you love numbers, go find out. Yeah, somebody, again, that maybe between jobs, like, like, he has a little more time on their hands. Maybe they can dig into those numbers. Anyways, Benny, great stuff as always. Enjoy the game this afternoon. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. There's Ben Nicholson-Smith signing on to the Ben's big fly metric. He was our insider also, brought to you by Don Valley, North Lexus, where you can expect excellence online and in the showroom, visit DonValleyNorthlexus.com. Yeah, I love you bringing that to Ben Nichols-Smith and he wasn't totally discounting the possibility. No, he wasn't. I did well, he was answering that because I've been zeroed in on this year, but I did, like, I'm pulling up the career splits and like, you know, just normalize it, so poo poo, my theory. Thanks. Okay, we love you as a show. We love Kukuchi. There's nobody whose narrative arc has changed more than you say Kukuchi from the start of his Blue Jays tenure to today. Yeah. And I'm pre-making excuses for him when the Orioles shall lack him as they're want to do. I don't know, just about any sentient being, flinging baseballs up there. All right. Before we take the break, I want to get to this breaking news of the day from Adrian Wojnarowski. And I feel like this broke, like, it's during the six o'clock hour today. Woj upper early. Yeah, so I was doing, I didn't even know like radio in LA would be happening, but I feel like he's already doing it out there. Well done. Breaking the Los Angeles Lakers are targeting Connecticut's Dan Hurley to become the franchise's next head coach and are preparing a massive long-term contract offer to bring the back-to-back national champion to the NBA, sources tell N or tell ESPN. So this was, this is on the heels of like multiple reports, including, I think, Woj was part of this. Yeah. JJ Redick was like, I feel like it was Wojnar's report. We read. Yeah, maybe. I know. Shams definitely had something. Don't get the two. Like, I know. I know. The pupil overtaking the teacher anyways. Yeah. Did feel like that was, that was on the verge of being completed. And obviously there was a connection between JJ Redick and LeBron James. They host a podcast together. LeBron James also notably about to become a free agent. Although he doesn't have to. He could play an option. He could opt in, but seems like he's going to opt out and keep his options open. But to me, there's an indication that maybe LeBron James is not going to be a laker. Like if you're talking that in-depth about JJ Redick, and like not to say that LeBron James doesn't like Dan Hurley, who wouldn't, right? Right? With the success, he's out of Yukon. Yeah. And a lot of people retweeting this tweet he had to J, if there's weird triangulation here, he replied to a JJ Redick. That being Dan Hurley, just clarifying her, he being LeBron. No, LeBron James replied to a tweet. Yes. Put out by JJ Redick of a clip from his podcast. So JJ Redick's, JJ Redick's podcast in which he had Dan Hurley, who's like espousing his coaching philosophy. And LeBron James like, that guy's awesome. So it's like, what, what do we make of that? Who do you want? JJ Redick or Dan Hurley, maybe? No, I tend to think that if you're getting JJ Redick, it's to appease LeBron James. Maybe an indication that they're not in the business of appeasing LeBron James anymore. Yeah. It could be a possibility of that. I do think at a certain point in time, like you just have to decide who you are. And you know, for the better part of his NBA life, if you're going to be in the LeBron James business, it's just doing whatever he wants to do. That's kind of how it's gone about it. It's proven fruitful for every org he's ever been a part of, not in every stint in every org, but every org he's ever been a part of. It's proved fruitful for them. But how can you look at this as any other way? This guy who does a pod with LeBron. I also think that if you're the Lakers, this is a great move for you to make. This is a guy who obviously was highly sought after by other coaches and either LeBron signs up to do this and then you're kind of understanding what that is. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy. That doesn't mean it's going to be rosy or you move on and then you're just able to kind of reset in the way that is so hard to do after LeBron leaves an org kind of in his wake. So yeah, I think it's interesting. It's fascinating, but I don't know how you cannot tie a direct at very least question to what it means for LeBron's future. I think if you're a Lakers fan, you're more excited about Dan Hurley than JJ Redick and no offense to JJ Redick, who I think has the possibility of being a very good NBA head coach. I'd say like as much as I was excited to see JJ Redick attempt to be a successful NBA head coach, I would be also happy that if he didn't leave the broadcasting realm because I think he's quite good. For us. I'm trying to think like the Hurley of it all is like, I'm not saying it's a bad higher, but it is always like, yeah, college coaches, yeah, yeah, you see the way he's screaming out there. I don't know. Well, that's going to go on. Yeah. So I have the tweet from April 19th. Here's LeBron James replying to JJ Redick in a clip he posted in his interview with Dan Hurley. He's so damn good along with his staff, super creative with their Oh, love it. Well, so he's getting into specifics as to what he liked about the coaching that you wanted. I mean, he's pointing to one half of the game and saying he likes that. Like it's not like he said, I love the way that run pin downs in the rotate. Like it's just like, I like the way they run their offense. That is his like faint to credit or sorry, a compliment as you can have, but yeah, guys never coached in the NBA before, it'll be interesting to see how it goes. If that's what ends up happening. Oh, I hope he just like stays on hinge to if he's in the end, please, please, please. Yeah, that'd be great. I love it. We need more complainers in the world. Yeah, I know everyone disagrees with me on that, but I need my people out there can't wait for the first Lakers, Sixers game next season in nurse and complain early. They're just heads exploding just screaming at each other game. The game's been over for six hours. Everyone's gone home. The lights click off and then they went what? You're wrong about it. Yeah. Disney and Pixar is inside out to coming to theaters on June 14th and to celebrate. We're giving away passes to their Wednesday, June 12th, pre screening at Cineplex Cine Moss Queens way in a topo go activities begin at 530 p.m. Showtime seven. Dander, all you have to do is tune into the fan morning show, listen to the code word then text that code word to 59590 today's code word is Riley text Riley to 59590 right now for your chance to win today. The last day we're giving away passes. If you don't win with us though, make sure to secure your tickets to Disney and Pixar is inside out to which releases only in theaters June 14th. All right, when we come back, just a couple of sleeps away from game one of the Stanley Cup final. Jason Gregor, host of the Jason Gregor show in Edmonton joins us next as the fan morning show continues. Sprint gunning sports net 590 the fan. Fan morning show sports net 590 the fan bananas, brand gunning, Stanley Cup final starts on Saturday. By the way, get with it. Stanley Cup final NBA finals, which I don't know why because they're both seven game series. They're just anyway, but it is NBA finals Stanley Cup final and it's not the NHL playoffs. It's the Stanley Cup playoff. That's right. You nailed it. Anyways, so do you think J Woodcroft is watching this bad boy? Not not happily or with a big time rooting bend one way or another, but I don't think so. I think he feels so, I mean, literally, but so divorced from everything, everything happening now. And so little of it, in my opinion, was his fault that I don't, I don't feel like he'd be sitting there beating himself up. But I think honestly, I think J Woodcroft's probably like a lot of Canadians were like, it's, it's nice out. It's nice. It's so late in the site. It's June. What are we doing here? But don't you have to do the Mike McCarthy thing where you check your tell your next employer is like, I watch all the games like I'm well versed in everything that happened. If I was a, if I was a coach in that position, I don't even think they make these anymore or like it fell off. Actually, you know what I'm talking about? Like Apple Vision Pro exists, but it's like in the Google Glass era, I'd be like, oh, I'm watching right now. Like, what do you, I'm just watching the game at all times, at all times I'm watching the game. It's a little harder because like if you were doing that with like the Apple vision, you look like a true psycho. Where's Google Glass? Like you just lie. That's true. I'm doing it right now. Yeah. You lie. Lying's always the answer. Talk to Jason Greger, host of the Jason Greger show on Sports 1440 in Edmonton, co-host of The Daily Faceoff podcast as well. He writes for the nation network. Jason, thanks for dealing with us. How's it going? Good morning, fellas. How are you? Good. Let me take you back to November. Can I? It was November 9th and I believe that was the shark's first victory, but the Oilers lost that game 3-2, they dropped to 2-9-1 and yeah, J Woodcroft did last. Another game was fired after the 4-1 win in Seattle. If I had told you at this, at that moment that that Oilers team would be in the Stanley Cup final, you would have said what? Well, I might have questioned a bit. I did actually write an article after that that saying, you know, people need to calm down. The orders will be fine. And the orders were a good team now. You know, they obviously itself imploded in the first 12 games. I didn't expect them to then have the best record in the NHL over the next 70, which they did. You know, they had a real big turnaround. You know, they bring in no block and they bring in coffee and, you know, I think the players obviously play a big factor because, you know, they found their games, no question. But yeah, it was a big turnaround. It's a reminder that, you know, sometimes, you know, fans, media, everybody can kind of overreact for a, you know, for a 10 or 12 game stretch, right? Lots of teams will go, you know, two nine to one, three nine to one during the season. It's not talked about as much as when it's the first 12. And I get it because that's all you've seen for that year. So yeah, I'm a little surprised that the orders were in the cup final. But I was also a guy who had the orders going to the cup final start of the year based on what they've done the last year. So, you know, it's a little bit of a hiccup really, but, you know, when you think about it, there are 70 games compared to 12. And now, you know, the 18 and the playoffs. So it's really, you know, out of a hundred games, they had a 12 game stretch that wasn't good. It's not when you put it that way because it felt like 1200. When we were in the throws of it, it certainly didn't feel like it was just borderline into the double digits of it all. It felt totally reasonable that J Woodcroft was being fired. Honestly, it was not like, or like it's not, it's not that way in hindsight. But yeah, in the throws of it, it felt like we were three, four or five months into the season as it was happening. What has been the general mood in Edmonton? For Toronto, I have often when people have asked me this question, obviously much earlier on in the Stanley Cup playoffs, it's a nervous anticipation has kind of been the energy, but definitely a nervous part of it. What's been the mood in Edmonton surrounding this team? I mean, you guys are not unfamiliar with this situation. It's been a while, but it hasn't been generations since you've been in this spot. What's the mood in the city like? Well, there's lots of excitement, right? It's 18 years, the 2006 run, I think was magical for many fans because it was unexpected, right? Like they were the eight seed that year and then they upset 124 point Detroit team, like they got like 30 more points in the Amazon or 28, whatever it was. And you know what that one, then they went to game seven, of course, but there was always a little bit of a, I can't believe this is happening, right? There was different expectations in Edmonton, even after the bad starts, right? Now, there was lots of people who thought they were never going to get there. Because there's always a group of pessimists in any walk of life. And usually they're the most vocal I find, but right now, there's lots of excitement. I think you're almost in the dog days of Stanley Cup week now that like, okay, it was great to have a few days off, but now the sad is like, we get to Saturday, you know, I want to see a game. I want to see if I could hate Matthew Kuchuck as much as I did in against Calgary and you know, like how physical the one thing I would probably say is I think there's a lot of people in Edmonton that are kind of questioning why is Florida such an overwhelming favorite by a lot of people. And you know, and really I'm a big numbers guy. And I think there's a lot of validity into, you know, everybody, not many people pick them to be Dallas, right? Yeah. They'd be Dallas and six and controlled anybody who watched that series, they controlled the vast majority of the series, you know, Dallas had way more depth. And I argued before, I'm like, depth is what people say when you don't have elite top-head talents. Well, we had better depth. How's your topic? Well, they're not as good who's, who scores more guys, the top-end guys. So I, you know, I look at, I look at Florida, who has the top five scores, five on five in this series, Edmonton, right? Who has the best penalty kill, Edmonton, who has the best power play, Edmonton. So what is it about Florida? And I looked, who did Florida play in their, in their three rounds? They played teams that finished 13th, 15th and 19th in five on five scoring. Edmonton played teams who finished fourth, fifth and 20th. So the one, who, who has played better five on five teams and who has limited them more. Edmonton. So it's, it's a little perplexing. And, you know, when you look at it, because I think there's a lot of people that they still can't get over because it's, you know, first impressions matter and everybody still remembers the order's terrible start, and they still remember that, you know, last year, the orders could give games away better than anyone in the playoffs. And the year before that, they couldn't defend. But that's not the 2024 order. They finally figured it out that you can win by still being offensive, but you can win one-nothing games. You can win two-one games, and they never could be four because eventually they would self-employed. Like, there was no team better from 2021 to 2023 than the Edmonton orders for throwing a grenade in their own zone and just blowing up the point. Jason, that sounded like a guy who had that answer rehearse because he's been asked a lot of times like, Hey, can the Oilers win this series if it stays at five on five? Because that's actually just looked at up this morning. I was walking a dog, so I was looking up at that before. Well, yeah. Yeah. So I mean, that's where I was going to go next because you're right. I mean, like the Oilers have scored a bunch at five on five, but they have actually allowed just as much, almost as much at five on five, 39 goals for 38 against at five on five during this postseason. The Panthers, they've outscored opponents by seven goals, not some astronomical number, but that's the best goals for percentage at five on five during the playoffs. Okay. So like, do you believe if the officials do what they do every postseason is like round after round after round, the whistle gets tighter and tighter and tighter and we know that's such a weapon for this Oilers team. If it's as tight as we might expect, can the Oilers still win this series if they don't get their power play looks? Well, yeah. And I think I outlined why, like Vancouver and Dallas were way better five on five, like limiting the Rangers five on five. How is that considered a great accomplishment? The Rangers were 500 in the regulars. They were plus one five on five in the regular season over 82 games, right? Like small sample sizes are hard. That's why, like, I give two sports about expected goals in the playoffs. Who cares? What matters is in a short series is who scores? It doesn't matter if you're lucky. It doesn't matter if you're unlucky. It's on a big enough sample size, but if you look at the overall hundred games of them and you look at who they've played, Edmonton has limited better five on five teams. Now, as far as the power play goes, now Florida was pretty disciplined against the Rangers. They only took 15 penalties, right? So two and a half a game, you know, that's kind of normal. It's a little bit lower than women what you'd expect, but still pretty low and then they killed off 14 to 15, so pretty good. But, you know, Edmonton, they've only allowed three power play goals, the entire playoffs, right? They didn't allow any to Dallas who came in with the 29% power play before they faced the orders, right? LA didn't score anything. Vancouver had two games where they scored, and that was it. The thing is like you look at the Dallas series, it was two, two after four games, neither team had scored a power play goal. Now granted, Edmonton only had six chances in the first four games, and they didn't score, right? Oh, Jesus. They're 100%. That's great. Well, what happened in games four and five and six? Edmonton went 80%. They scored four out of five, scored three, one game, or sorry, two each game, and they won both games. And, you know, they didn't score a ton, but they didn't give up it. They only gave up a goal in each game. And so I think Edmonton could win if they don't have to rely on their power play, but the truth in the latter is their power play isn't going to go over in a series. It's just not going to happen, right? Like for four games, they were zero percent. But then they finished a series at 36% and their power play in the playoffs is 37, right? So that's kind of who they are. Their power play's been so good for five years. I just, no one's ever been able to shut them down for that long a time. You can have two or three games, even four, right, for Dallas, but you watch their power play. When they gave it, I've talked to so many defenders. And like I had Fernando Passani on my show yesterday, he goes, and he was a really good penalty coach. He's like, well, you're going to watch McDavid. He cycles around, but no one really does that. He's moving, and all of a sudden he's like, well, there's a top guy, go to him, there's a bottom guy, go to him. And then eventually somebody does, and then it opens up a scene, whether it's a Nugent Hopkins in the slot, it's a dry settle on his offside or him in front of the net. And no one's being able to figure it out. So to me, I look and say, well, I'm going into the series, Edmonton's going to be 30% on the power play. I don't know when they're going to be 30%, but they're going to be 30%. So it's just a matter of does it happen in enough games to impact? Like they can't have, you know, three goals in one game and then go over in the other five, right? Yeah, no, that's not, that's not the recipe for success. There are many different ways to do it, but that's specific one. I do want to unpack a little more what you said about McDavid and how special he is on the power play. Now that isn't breaking any news here, but we've had countless conversations and shocker, you're coming to talk to us in Toronto and we're going to make the Stanley Cup final about the Leafs. But we've had a lot of conversations here about, well, why can't the Leafs power play look like that? How much of the Oilers power play being transcendent? And I'm not taking anything away from Drysaddle, Bouchard, Zach Hyman, anybody else. But how much of the Oilers power play being this transcendent just comes down to Conor McDavid being more special than anybody else in the league and it's not even close. Like how big of, if we're doing the percentage of the Oilers power play and great power play being great, how much of it simply is Conor McDavid is not replicatable across the league? Honestly, guys, I think it's maybe 20 or 25 percent. It's not that high because Leon Drysaddle, you look at where he scores as one-timers from, right? There's not many guys that continually score from below the bottom of the circle, right? Teams know it's coming and he has worked on, and the funny thing was Drysaddle entered the league, no one thought of him as a goal scorer, right? Well, besides off the Matthews, he's got the second most goals in NHL now for five years, right? He's like, "He'll, it's funny to me when people try to downplay power play goals. Oh, they're easier." I'm like, "Oh, well, if they're so much easier, why isn't the best goal scorer in the league ever scoring on the damn power play?" That would be my question is why can't Matthews, who has the best release in the game, what the hell are they doing in Toronto that they're like, "Hey, guys, let's get Matthews to puck in good areas." So, you know, Drysaddle can not only can he shoot, well, then he'll throw in a backhand sauce. He's the best backhand pastor in the NHL. So you have that. And then there's Bouchard, who is really emerged, and Bouchard from the point is accurate. He's not just a guy who, who lamb based in, you know, berries his head and rips one. He'll go top shelf accurately from the blue line. And I've seen goals from a regularity. So, McDavid's a big piece, but the other thing is, guys, it's continuity. Like if you go back and look when San Jose was the best power player for like six years, they had the same guys. And all that happens is they just keep inventing new little plays that they want to make, right? And so, the new invention for the orders was when they got that kind and their power player was good, well, now all of a sudden they got a really good net front presence guy. And he worked on, like McDavid said, Heiman was the one who came to him and said, "Hey, this is the play I want to do. I'm going to stand up and try the net. This is how I'm going to do it." And all of a sudden they incorporated that into their power play. So every time a team comes up and says, "Okay, we know McDavid's going to go here. Let's stop that one. Great." Well, then all of a sudden they come up with some new play and like, "Look at their set face off play." So, some of them don't even involve because Drysaddle wins a face off. That's the other key. Look, you got to win face offs on the power play. And when Drysaddle wins face offs because he wasn't winning any of the first four games against Dallas, he was like, "Ridiculous 36 percent." Well, then the orders went 61 percent in games five and six. And guess what? Then they won. Because now if you get more time, eventually they'll break you down. And most good power plays will do it. So I think McDavid's a part of it, but I think it's more their continuity of that five unit that was exactly where the other ones want to do. And they, like Glenn Goldson, like they work together in the off season, they'll be like, "Okay, what are some new things we want to bring in for next year?" And they keep working on it. It's one of the most aesthetically pleasing things in the sport is to watch the Oilers go to work on the power play. It's awesome. They've been so good for so long as you pointed out. All right. Let's... Before we let you go. The one thing I will say, guys, the zone entries though, that's where the McDavid jacket comes in, right? Yeah. Kind of important too. That's probably the big one. Now, they win a lot of face offs, but when they do their zone entries, like, "I've been watching all the play. I love it." I'm like, "You kind of take it for granted." You're like, "Well, McDavid just gets in every time." It's like zone entries aren't hard. And then you watch other teams and Dallas is regrouping three times because they can't get in. Yeah. Yeah. We watched at least their little drop pass thing. Yeah. No, it's helpful when you can spend the whole two minutes in the offensive zone. That helps a whole lot. All right. So, if we were going to talk about one thing that would make Oilers fans nervous about this matchup and maybe even take the Panthers part of it out of it, like, "Where is Stewart Skinner on the list of reasons why the Oilers might lose this series?" That's a good question. You know what? Now, if you would have asked people in the middle of Vancouver series, they'd be like, "Oh, jeez. He's one, two, and three." Yeah. You know, since he took those two games off, well, he, his coach gave two days off. And he came back and is now six and two and since though, is that like a 1.8, one goals against? And he's looked a lot more comfortable. But that's last series, right? So, I think it's fair to wonder, okay, how is Stewart Skinner going to handle the pressure of the Stanley Cup final? You know, he's being good lately, but prior to his last eight games, excellent. His first eight games, meh. So which one are you going to get, right? Because you don't really have time in the Stanley Cup final. Like, if you give away a game in the Stanley Cup final, historically, it's really hard to come back and win, right? Because you're playing another really good team and now all of a sudden, you just spotted one. So, you could play well in your other games, but there's lots of games you'll play well and lose in the Cup final, right? So, I would say Skinner is definitely probably, if you're looking at concerns for Emminton, that would be one I would look at, you know, can Emminton, can their depth scoring keep producing? Right? That's obviously a little bit of a concern. And then to me, the other one is, will they, how are they going to handle? Not that I think they're going to be nervous about it, but Florida just forechecks a lot different than Dallas. Right? Like, Dallas is very passive. Vancouver's defense were physical, but they didn't really forecheck a lot. Florida does. So, how many games will it take them to just get used to? Because it's different guys. Like, you can tell yourself, "Yeah, yeah, I will be fine," and historically, they would be. But if all of a sudden you're down to nothing because you haven't adapted, well, now it's, you know, pretty big hole to dig out of. So, I would say those would probably be the top three for me. Jason, I appreciate this. I am sure you appreciate the series starting eventually, like, how many more days of preview could you do before you lose your mind? Yeah, it's getting near the end, fellas. Like, I'm a good researcher, but, you know, the Holy cow, like, there's, there's only so many angles that you can look at. So, thankfully, I did a one-on-one with Holland yesterday. So, that gave me a shot. Yeah, I saw that. That was great stuff. People should check that out. Yeah. So, no, it's, yeah, it will be nice. Like, you know, tomorrow's media day, and so, you know, there'll lots of different angles there. It's fine. But I do have a Brett Koolack piece because how about this guy? Brett Koolack. Is playing right defense. He's played the last three games because they switched their d-pairs. He hasn't played right defense since before junior. Oh, wow. But here he is in the conference final, and you know what? He's done really well. So, we'll talk to him about that. Good stuff. Jason, appreciate the time. Thanks, buddy. Have a great day. You too. Jason Greger, host of the Jason Greger Show on Sports 1440 in Edmonton. He will get to talk about a real Stanley game final game after Saturday. I don't, I don't disagree with his angst of, like, yeah, it's a lot of preview. God, what I would kill to do a week of no games in preview for the Leafs, Stanley Cup final. Can you imagine the heartbreak of Euler's fans having to wait 18 years between Stanley Cup final appearances? How dare they? Jesus, give me a break. Also, it's like, you know, like, far be it. The guy is a great seed. I'm not going to disagree. But I am. It's more than 20% of the Euler's power plays. McDavid being transcended. And the thing he said about dry side all did make it interesting to me that it's like, you know, who's the guy who I think of scoring the most, the next most goals from that spot? That's what he said. Yeah. It's like he's he does it. He does it from behind the goal, or he scores on the power plate, at least did during the regular season. Believe it had 16. It was 18. It was a short change. Look at who's the numbers guy. Now done. Geez. 18 power plate goals during the regular season. It doesn't like League leader. It's on the same line. It's like, oh, it's just eighth and league terrible. Yeah. But no. Yeah. 20% would make it 1/5. Yeah. It's fun. So the other four guys. Also, it's like, Zach Hyman's like, oh, it's like Zach Hyman, Zach Hyman, just digging his skates to the core of the earth and refusing to move. He's like, yep. Same exact percentage value as McDavid. Again, like it's hard not to sound like you're, you're, you're besmirching the good name of other folks. It's just Conor McDavid. It's so good. Kind of like, come on, let's at least do 50% here. Yeah. Or like, I'd take at least 35, not just like the baseline of dividing it by five and giving it to him. Anyways, speaking of Conor McDavid, so, um, Amazon has released details of this, this, this reality show that is made by the same people that did drive to survive and the names that are included in it are interesting, including Conor McDavid, Matthew Kachuk. So the cameras are following them through the Stanley Cup final right now. This is a show that I assume is going to be released sometime during the regular season, next season. So you got also Rangers, Jacob Truba, Leon Dreyseidel, a part of it, David Pasternak, and Jeremy Swamin, a part of it, Quinn Hughes, Jack Eichl, and, okay, well, Philip Forsberg, Gabriel Landeskug, and William Neelander, is the, is the, the lone Toronto Maple Leaf. The lone Toronto Maple Leaf. They even forbid the league do something to, if, of interest to anyone and then not involve the Leafs at a core, they send them to Sweden, they had to do the last one, just leave us alone. Just let the Leafs play hockey. Really? That's, that was your take? Yes. That was my take. Cause there's, there's like many teams represented here. And you have to have the most notable franchise in the league. Yeah. Then also make other teams do it just by themselves, like they made the Leafs, it just, it's infuriating to me. There's been a 24/7. But there's not been us just focus on the Leafs or another team like there was with the Leafs and the Amazon series. They didn't, like, God, it just infuriates me. Well, I've heard all of your, like, your Leafs gripes, except for that one. Anyways, I'm, do you think they came to Austin Matthews, like, thanks, but no thanks? Or did they not go to Austin Matthews? Oh, they definitely asked. So like, what is, what is the impetus for Austin Matthews, who seems to, like, not be afraid of, like, being very visible? I think he's a, I don't think he's afraid of being visible. I think he's afraid of seeing, seeing, being seen to want to be visible while the Leafs are not having success. Like, I don't think he wants to be like, look at me while the Leafs have not. I think he would love to do this. And if he wasn't so getting hockey-brained and being the, I don't know, maybe soon to be captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, I think there's a world where he goes, yeah, of course I want to do this. If he's playing for any other team, but I think the pressure's in the like, why can't you win of it all and, ah, caring about other things? And, you know, I suppose, Newlander just doesn't care about those criticisms as much as Matthews. That's my read on it anyways. Because if the NHL could pick, if Amazon could pick, if all parties involved could pick, Matthews is at the worst the second guy you'd pick to do this behind McDavid. That's kind of insane that he's not a part of it. The more I think about it, like, this is a league that's going to do the four nations thing. We're going to be like, talking about Olympic games and him being maybe the captain of that American team when they go back to the Olympics, he'll be experienced enough by that time, for him not to be a part of this. Yeah, and you know what? The more I think about it, you're already ruining the Leafs by making Newlander be a part of it. So you might as well just like put it on the best guy. Although Newlander's going to be a star in this thing, so no doubt about it. Lot of shirtless, believe Newlander on Amazon. Come into your televisions next year. Alright, this has been the Fan Morning Show Band, and it's Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 5.9 Fan. Good morning. [Music] (upbeat music)
