Bottle Rocket with Alena Sycheva Episode 48: Stanley Cup Final Breakdown with Vic Morren

Alena, Stan Fischler, Jerry Hack, and Vic discuss the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights, the coaching impact of John Tortorella and Bruce Cassidy, the goaltending matchup between Frederik Andersen and Carter Hart, and which team has the edge in the race for the Stanley Cup.

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Bottle Rocket. I'm Elena, joined by Stan and Jerry, and we're thrilled to welcome back our returning guest, Vic Mormon. Great to see you again, Vic. How are you? I'm good. So is there any sort of gift or award for being a repeat appearance on Bottle Rocket? The gift will be my joke at the end of the show. Let's get serious. You have a very successful podcast, and you hit a milestone. Tell the people about it because I'm very proud of you and Neil Smith for what you guys have accomplished. We started in January of 2024 with Gretz as our first NHL wraparound guest, and we have now expanded out to six different franchises under the wraparound umbrella. But wraparound is really the one where we bring guests in. And we reached our hundredth milestone last week and decided to go to the top again and had Commissioner Gary Bettman on for about 40 minutes and covered a bunch of topics and even surprised him with a couple of things that we did research on. So it was uh a lot of fun. It's on YouTube, it's on all of our platforms, and we're really proud of that episode and that milestone. What do you consider the most significant thing he told you? I I it's a it's a great question. Uh, I think probably when we spoke about the size of the rink, which has not changed since 1929, and that the players are faster and they're stronger and they're bigger. And of course, if you're going to make the rings bigger, then you're gonna have to take seats away in order to do that. And Gary said that the players now create their own space, and in fact, over in Europe, they are trying to actually make their rings smaller to conform to the NHL size. So I thought that was really insightful on his part. Um, we also got into something very interesting right at the end of the show, because Stan, as you know, going back to all of Gary's predecessors from Frank Calder to Clarence Campbell to John Ziegler, when you won the Stanley Cup and the presentation took place, it was the president, which is what it was called at the time, handing the cup off to the captain, and that was it. And Gary was the first one to actually address the crowd. He did it in the Montreal Forum, and I kind of surprised it with a little bit of research because I did go back and look at the ESPN feed because CBC was doing an interview with Denny Savard at the time. But the first words that he said when he addressed the crowd in the forum were actually in French, and I thought that was a big deal for him to make that effort. And as he says, I didn't speak French, but I thought it was important to acknowledge the fans first in what was not his native tongue. He's a smart cookie. What did he say about possible NHL expansion? We asked him about that, and I went in the direction of saying, you know, how much is too much? Because to win one Stanley Cup is such a big deal. And he is always looking at the footprint. And the reality is that they're tripled up in the New York area, they're doubled up in Southern California with the Kings and the Ducks. So I think it's something that they look at, but I also got the sense that he realizes 32 is a really good number to work with, and you never want too much of a good thing to water down your league. Stan, you remember, Jerry, you probably remember as well, Elena, you were too young for this. I'm gonna tell you right now, but that's not an insult, that's a compliment. That when the NHL added two teams, this is after the 67 expansion, and they added two in 70 and two in 72 and two in 74. The league was really watered down at that point because the curtain hadn't come down. You only had some Swedes coming into the league, maybe a few Czechs, and you didn't really have the talent pool to sustain that many teams at that time. And of course, now you do because Europe is wide open, and you have players coming in, albeit dotted from you know Asia and and and other areas, but you have players coming in from all over the world now, and it does really speak to the growth of the NHL. The uh I I I like the point you make. I've never I can't imagine, I couldn't have imagined so many uh European players coming over and doing so well. And of course, the only thing that it that makes it difficult is for the guys who have to write the names and remember the names and remember the spelling. But I want to switch over to some we get right down to something very, very important to me, and that is the episode with John Tortorella at the end of the series when they beat Anaheim, and uh he refused, or he ignored the media. It's a league, uh league, it's a league rule that he was supposed to uh address the media. I don't see any follow-up about that other than the fine and the whatever they'll say it. You knew the guy, you were why do you what do you think he was thinking? There's some talk that this was decided beforehand, and we addressed this with Gary also, that they were protesting the Braden McNabb hit on Ryan Paling. And my feeling is if they were so outraged about the suspension, why didn't they just appeal the suspension as opposed to not allowing locker room access and torts not addressing the media? And of course, this is now all gone by the wayside. And the funny thing about Vegas is that, well, screw it. So we lost another draft pick. Like, why is this year different from any other? Where they just trade them away to get assets to win. But we asked Gary about this accountability, and I kind of posed it in a way, and Stan, you'll appreciate this, that it was more about the importance of the teams being available to the media in general and the role that the media serves in connecting the teams and the players and the coaches to the fans. And then he elaborated on the severity of the punishment and having not only Torts, but Kelly McCriman and George McPhee fly cross-country to have a meeting with him when, of course, that decision was already decided upon, so he wasn't gonna change his mind and had them fly back out there. And Gary said that if we look the other way on this, uh who's not to say that there's another team that's gonna try to take advantage, so he stepped in front of it, the uh punishment was severe, and hopefully, this is the last we see of it. Well, what you're saying is all very interesting, except for one thing. I ask you a question. What was Torts thinking with all these media people? How come nobody has said to him, Torts, what were you thinking when you did this? So we still don't know how many media people are there covering the event? I would say minimum 50, right? Yeah. Out of 50 people, you're gonna tell me that one person didn't say torts. Why did you do that? What the hell kind of coverage is that? I think that when Torts addressed it right at the head of the next press conference, and he said the team has made a statement and we have no further comment on it, that's where the follow-up should have been asked, and it just wasn't. Well, what does that say about media that's covering the NHL? Pretty weak, huh? Well, it yes, yes, that they wouldn't ask that follow-up to an obvious question. And if John didn't answer it at that point, well, all right, but at least the question would have been asked and should have been asked. Okay, you worked with the guy for a year at ESPN. What kind of guy is he in a situation with you? What kind of person we don't know that, okay? You were you worked with him. What was he like to work with? Did he yell at you? Did he punch you or something? Uh no, but I thought he was going to. Now, I had met him a few years earlier in a very impromptu setting when he was actually doing a little bit of analysis on the studio side, and I met him, shook hands, was very pleasant. But when he joined us for 2122, which was the first year of the deal, we had to onboard everybody, and I was a production manager at the time on this project, so I had to do a lot of logistical stuff, and I had to onboard people. And you remember we were coming out of COVID at the time, so there were all of these layers of things, and I had to get him logged in through his password, and we couldn't do it. And I'm getting very short answers back from him, and I'm like, holy cow, I'm about to feel what it's like when a defenseman makes a bad pinch at the blue line, and I'm coming to the bench and I'm gonna get my butt ripped apart. But gradually we got him on boarded and everything got settled, and I kind of became his go-to guy, also. And of course, with my background and history doing hockey with ESPN on the prior two contracts, it was easy for us to connect, and we started to develop a rapport and a friendship, and we're still in touch to this day. I texted him after the final, and he oh or after the conference final, he always returns the text, asks how the family is. But I think one thing that people don't know about John is how easy he laughs. How what how easy he laughs, and that he is engaging, he's polite. Um, and you know, I told him before I was about to propose to my fiance. Now, again, this is on New Year's Day of 2002, and I told Torz I was gonna go ahead with this because he asked me, you know, he said, you know, maybe me, you, and Christine and Elise, we can get together at some point. And I said, Well, I'm gonna propose her on New Year's Day, and he asked to be, Don't do it, don't do it, with a big smile on his face. And then right after New Year's, I said, John, remember what you told me not to do? I did it, and he could not have been happier for me. Now we're still engaged, we haven't gotten married, but I've always remembered that fondly, and just real good times that we have had, and he has had interest in my boys. He's actually got a connection with my older son Ethan, who works with the Hartford Wolf Pack. So it's you, Stan, you know you've been in this so long, Jerry and Elena. You know it from your connections. So much of this journey that we all have is the people that we meet along the way. And John was one of them. And now through the podcast that I'm doing with Neil, I'm having more fun now than I had in 33 years in Bristol. And ESPN was a pretty good place, but as my career winds down through this podcast, it's just great the people you meet, the discussions that you have, and that they enjoy and they respect talking to you. That's what this is really all about. What about uh this? I mean, uh, you said that uh uh he was easy, engaging, polite. Yeah, looking back looking back, would would you say you love the guy? L O V E loves the guy. Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, I've never told him this, but if we had met 15 years earlier per se, I believe I would have worked with him. I would have loved to have worked with him. Okay. Steve Siemens was on the show a few weeks ago, and uh he told us he thinks Vegas will probably get away with it and keep their second round pick. Do you think that's a possibility? I I think it's done. And the other pieces, I don't think Vegas cares because that's the way they operate. They're kind of the rogue franchise in the NHL, they're like the Vegas Raiders who developed their notoriety when they were in Oakland in the AFL, coming in through the 60s and then went to Los Angeles and went back to Oakland. So they're always about winning now. And look, at some point, the bill is gonna come due, but they're gonna continue business as they do, they'll work with the salary cap, they'll work with free agency, they'll trade assets as they need to. They build their club in a very different way than the other 31 teams in the NHL. Do you think it's fair what Vegas is doing to Bruce Cassidy? I mean, he's still under contract with them, but he wants to work and start talking to his next potential employer. Do you think it's fair? I don't know if it's fair. It's not illegal. I mean, if you look at everything that Vegas has done, with the exception of this media violation, you know, they went there, they signed Cutter Hart. Uh, you know, the rules maybe were bent a little bit for them in their favor when they had their expansion drafted in 2017. You look at all of this stuff and it's on the line, but none of it is illegal. So, you know, Kelly McCrimin came out yesterday and he said the only reason that this is news with Cassidy is because Edmonton leaked it. Now I'm gonna be interested to see whether or not if Vegas wins the cup, that McCrimin gives the go-ahead and say, Yeah, you know what, we got our championship. Go ahead, talk to the Oilers, talk to the Kings. Or if they don't win, if McCrimen comes back and says you can't talk to any of the teams that are in our division, but you can talk to clubs in the other conference or in the central. So those are the things I'm gonna be looking for. I would be very surprised if there is any decision by Vegas in terms of allowing Cassidy to talk until after this final is complete. How long is this contract? Like, uh, how many more years does he have? He's got one more year, one more year. And so they could make him sit for a whole year without getting a job. Like, um they could I've never heard of it. I've never heard of that before. I mean, any any team would any other team would not stand in the way of a coach getting employment, you know. It's uh it doesn't make any sense to me. No, this is what they do, and Cassidy came out and said, you know, there's a non-compete also in there, so he cannot just resign and then go and shop his services elsewhere. He's bound by this for the next year until Vegas decides to eventually spring him, and maybe they will, maybe they won't. I think they will personally. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. What if they don't? He's gonna get paid, right? He's gonna get paid. He's gonna get what's his salary? Give me an estimate what his salary is. I don't know. Three, four million. Give me an estimate, yeah. Three, four million, let's say. I'm I'm not sure. I'm sure we could look it up right now. Three million, let's say three million, right? Yeah, yeah, but doing nothing. Yeah, you don't think my buddy uh Jerry would like to get make three million doing nothing? Or Elena? I'll do it for a million. He can he can go and coach in Europe. He he's got the man's got it made. Let's not share shed crocodile teals for this guy, right? He wants to work and he wants to work in the NHL. I think we all understand, we all understand that. I would like three million dollars from what the stories that I'm writing and to appear on Elena's wonderful podcast. But that the way it is, this guy's got it made, okay? Yeah. Now uh whatever the motive, the motive that the uh that the uh uh Vegas has for doing this, somebody should ask them why are you doing this to this poor, unfortunate guy who is getting only three million dollars for doing nothing. But again, we're talking about the media. They never asked Torch why he did this. And has anybody asked McCrimen why? Because they can. I think one reason Vegas may not be giving Bruce Cassidy permission to talk to other teams is that they don't want the attention taken away from their Stanley Cup run. If Cassidy were interviewing with another team, that could become a major story and create a distraction, you know. Right now, I think Vegas wants the focus to be entirely on winning the Stanley Cup. I agree. That's what I think. Let's agree on something, okay? It's possible. Elaine, not a joke, not a joke. It's possible that Vegas will say no until the contract runs out, right? It's possible. I suggest if that happens, that the four of us start a fund. We'll chip in, we'll do uh we'll drop in a buck a buck a week, right? Right, a week. Yeah, for Cassidy. This is a Cassidy fund. We you know, a buck a week and uh get them, we'll get him through it. Okay, we'll do it. We'll do it. Well, we're we're gonna have to chip in a little bit more than a buck because now I am reading that his salary, in fact, is 4.5 million for doing nothing. That's a good deal. What we're saying is that we're gonna have to chip in the dollars, but it's gonna be monopoly money, okay? So it that's the end of that. That's the end of it. How much credit does Bruce Cassidy deserve for what Vegas has accomplished this year? I mean, John Tortarella took over a team that was very close to missing the playoffs, and now they're in the Stanley Cup final. How much of that success belongs to the coach? It's his team, and I think Torts would say that. And it's interesting the involvement of John is his previous job was in Philadelphia, where he got there in 22-23 with like nothing in the cupboard. And part of the Flyers' growth this year can be attributed to the work that he did with that club for the better part of three seasons. But in Philadelphia, it was a nurturing environment to try to grow players. He came to Vegas and he recognized right away, and he's used this term guidance counselor, that the leadership and the strength of this team was already in place, and he just needed to get them on the rails when they wandered off a little bit. And that's what he's done here. I think you see him doing more coaching now than he did when he first took over the club at the end of March. But that's what his evolved. Has been as a head coach. And you know, you hear these people, well, he's old school, and the NHL is a recycle bin for you know, like 20 different coaches that just have a revolving door policy. But in this case, you can see John's Tampa Bay team in 2004. He takes that club, he nurtures it, he rides it from beginning to end. And in Philadelphia, this was a very different environment. And of course, we could look at his stops in Columbus and New York also. But here, what a contrast that you take a team of neophytes in Philadelphia, and then you come to Vegas, and you've got this veteran team, and all you're doing is sitting back and seeing where you can enhance the team without stepping on what Cassidy had already built. You could go to the example of when he coached Vancouver and he tried to get to the Calgary dressing room to beat up Bob Hartley. I don't think he was thinking. And so, you know, it uh I'm wondering with Bruce Cassidy, you know, what's stopping him from pulling a Mike Keenan? You know, when Keenan stepped away from the Rangers, he was under contract, he just went, signed another contract, and then let the league, you know, deal with it, you know. And I I could I could see that happening. I think we just need to let this play out through the end of June. I really believe that they're gonna let him go once the final is over. I think so. I would like uh to throw this out to you people. Uh the uh Colorado Avalanche was supposed to have the greatest teams uh uh since the invention of sliced bread, and they went down in four straight. Did they choke? Did this great, great team not even be able to win one game? Did they choke or not? What do you think, Vic? I thought, and I and I wrote towards this after the opening round series. Well, no, actually after the second round, after they beat Anaheim, and I said, Look, you know, I'm not here to tell you things that you probably know, but in watching the Avalanche play their first two series, I thought the Kings did a really admirable job taking away center ice and getting the game into a half-ice environment. There wasn't a lot of room. The Kings didn't have enough talent to compete. I thought the Avalanche defended extremely well. But even though that was a sweep, those were tight games. It's just that the Kings didn't have the depth. But boy, they checked well. And I thought, boy, you know, the Kings checked better than the Wild did in the second round. And I thought if Vegas was able to execute to maybe 75-80% of what the Kings did, they were gonna have a shot to win this series because there was more scoring depth, there was better goaltending, there was better defense. So that the that they won the series being the Golden Knights did not surprise me. But of course, yes, in four straight, that that shocked me. But once that series got to Vegas at 2-0, I thought it was gonna be very difficult with Vegas having the last change and Torts able to have his matchups. I thought it was gonna be difficult for Colorado to come out with a win there and get that back to Denver for a fifth game. Well, wait a second. Who's the GM, the brilliant GM in uh Colorado? Chris McFarland. How come he never how come it was so dumb to go with two second rate goalies right through the season? Goes into the goes into the uh playoffs with two backup goalies and he expects to win uh win the cup that way? How crazy is that? I I don't think it's crazy because those two goalies won the Jennings trophy, and you could say, well, it's the team concept and it's how the team played in front of them. Look, I think there are a couple of goals that Wedgewood maybe should have had in games one through three. I thought Blackwood was excellent in the fourth game. The bottom line is this we saw last year in the Western Final, all of the big stars for Dallas, maybe with the exception of Jason Robertson, towards the end of that series with Edmonton, everybody went south. And the same thing happened to Colorado in this series. They got nothing from their big guns, they got very little from McKinnon, they got nothing from Natchez, McCarr was scoreless, Nelson was scoreless. That's where your problem was. Who was the goalie for Vegas? Carter Hart. Okay, Carter Hart was the goalie. He was available to 32 teams, and guess what? The brilliant guy in Colorado passed on him, but the real brilliant guy was in Vegas, and they saw the value that this guy, because even Torse had him in Philadelphia. When he was with the Flyers, he was a damn good goalie who was going to get better, and Vegas had the brilliance to sign him, where the other guys didn't have the guts to sign him, even though they could have. Well, they could have, but you got to remember that you know, you look at this now, you know, months later, after Hart was reinstated by the league, what was it, back in December? But a lot of teams were concerned about the PR backlash coming out of that suit in London, Ontario. And so it fit right into what Vegas does. We're gonna do this. We don't give a damn what anybody else is gonna think, and now they are reaping the benefits of that signing, whether anybody likes it or not. Yeah, but that's made up backlash. Nobody, nobody would knew whether it'd be any backlash. The guy, the guy was acquitted. What the hell more do you want? Second chance, you don't believe in second chances? You gotta commend them for giving uh a second chance. The point is they realize the guys in Vegas, they looked at what how well this caught guy played in Philly and it was he was going to improve. And meantime, the Schlamiels, the Schlemiels in uh, you know, the in in Denver figured, well, our great team will carry these second-rate goalies, and they didn't. And they was it was an embarrassment. You think their goaltending was an embarrassment, Colorado's did they win a game? I said before, I don't think it was every single game. Well, he was he was, but I'm not putting the loss on Colorado's goaltending because injury to Makar aside, there were so many other areas that failed for them that, yes, you could say the goaltending wasn't as good as Vegas's. I could say that there were 18 skaters on the Avalanche that weren't as good as the 18 skaters on the Golden Knights. Lousy coaching, or maybe great coaching on the other side. Well, whatever. I think the flip side of that coin is that uh, you know, Colorado being the president's trophy winner, yeah, they were the best team during the regular season, just goes to prove that the regular season is a different animal than the playoffs. Absolutely. Much tougher, and and you can't get away with things in the playoffs that you got away with in the regular season. It's it's much tighter, it's you know, and like uh like Vic said, you know, uh the the Colorado forwards weren't producing enough offense. Like, you know, uh Codry was invisible, uh Nakushkin was invisible, you know. I hardly heard his name, you know, and uh, you know, and these guys are like the second line. And they and you know, and if you if you're gonna win the Stanley Cup, your middle six has got to be dominant, you know. You gotta you gotta get production out of those two lines. So, you know, and they got nothing. They got nothing. They had McKinnon and nothing. So let's deal with the uh injury applesauce, okay? So McCarr was injured, right? Injuries were not invented in that series, okay? Correct. Happen to be, happened to be the captain and one of the best clutch players of all time, the captain of Vegas was injured, right? Well, they managed to win without this guy, right? And when he came back, he showed how good he was. What did Micard do? The square root of nothing. When we had Craig Button on for our conference final preview, and he'll be recording with us tomorrow for the final preview. One thing that he pointed out was that over the years, Vegas has gotten accustomed to playing without Mark Stone, and they have been comfortable with that. Obviously, you want him in there, but there was an acclamation that they were able to make during the games that Stone missed, that you could see how much Colorado was missing McCart. And of course, we're talking about a defenseman and a catalyst moving the puck from your own end as opposed to a forward, but still the comfort level with playing with injury appeared to be much more obvious in this series with Vegas, like, okay, star if Stone's out, we're gonna be fine, and if he's back, we're gonna be better, but we're gonna still be able to survive. Colorado just wasn't able to do that. Did they joke? I hate that word. I hate that. I don't think they did. They got beaten by a team that had a game plan that knew would work, that executed better, and Colorado didn't have an answer. You know, uh I mean, are are there things in retrospect the abs wish they would have done? Yeah, by the way, Stan, I heard one of the all-time worst media questions posed to Nathan McKinnon at the end of the series, and somebody said to McKinnon, Do you think you guys just think too much that you're out there? And maybe next season you can go out and just play and not think. And I'm like, Yeah. You know, did was McKinnon in the series? He was in the series. He was another guy who did minus radical. No, because you know, and even after he got hit by that shot from Shea Theodore, you were looking for this burst to see if he had it. But I watched him skate in that fourth and final game, and he was spinning fine, he was stopping fine. And if you were looking for the burst though, it wasn't because he couldn't do it, it was because the gaps that uh Vegas presented were minimal. He had no room. Who's the captain of that team of uh the losers? Probably the forward that was the most effective for them, and that's Gabe Landiscott. Okay. So the answer to the whole series is that Vegas left no stone unturned, and he came through, and the Schlemiel's on the other team did not come through. End of story. Okay. And we know that injuries were only invented for the uh team from Denver. It's exciting to see how Mitch Marner is performing in the playoffs. He's doing so well with Vegas. Yeah, well, how come, my dear? How come he didn't do well in Toronto? Was it the air coming off Lake Ontario? What was it? Everybody blames the media, the pressure, and all sorts of outside factors. Who do you blame? I think the team just didn't click when it mattered most. There seemed to be a lot of finger pointing and frustration. The playoffs are completely different beasts from the regular season. So some teams thrive under that pressure, and the Leafs struggled. They maligned, they maligned Marner. They said, going, you know, once Marner gets into the playoffs, particularly against a tough team like uh the Denver team, uh tough team like Denver, uh, Colorado's gonna stop him. He's not gonna be able to go in the corners or he'll be shy. That word shy is a dirty word in hockey. But he wasn't. And full credit to him, full credit to the coach. The coach got him to play his best hockey. And uh it just it just shows you what the the critics don't know what the hell they're talking about half the time. But I want to get to a uh and uh this is a real serious top topic and a very sad topic, and that's Claude Lemieux. Has anybody yet determined what happened? It was stunning. And when I recorded with Neil earlier today, we saw him Monday night walking the torch out, and he looked happy, he looked vibrant. And to get this news on Thursday, and then the circumstances surrounding it, we don't know. Was there a depression? We don't know what demons were lurking inside that would cause something like this to happen, and I think it rocked everybody, it rocked the Canadians franchise, and Stan, as you know, he's the agent of Freddie Anderson, Hurricane's goaltender. And I don't think anybody saw this. I worked with him for years when he played for the Devils, he's a great guy. I'm talking about media accountability. All we know is that there was suicide, right? Does anybody know how I believe that Florida law protects having to release the method of suicide? I I think that's underrated. I don't want to, I really don't want to know. You know, the fact that he committed suicide, you know, and he had demons that we couldn't see. Nobody knows what battle another person is facing. That's why, you know, you you always gotta be nice to people because like you don't know what they're battling, you know, you don't know what people are are going through, you know. And much as my curiosity, if I if I can separate that compartment of my brain, wants to know, my compassionate side feels it's none of my business, and I really don't want to know. I agree with Jerry. I you know, the curiosity part, yes, but the the real need to know. I mean, if if something comes out, we might be able to put it together. I'm not gonna speak to it here because I do have some idea. Um is it possible that he could have had CTE? And again, that's purely speculative. I have no idea. Well, is that something? What does that mean? Chronic, traumatic, and simple pathy. That's from taking X amount of hits to the head over the course of one's career. And we even heard when Honore Richard passed that there was some form of brain injury that he had suffered. And you watch the play without a helmet for all these years and think, well, how much contact did this guy absorb? You know, we as outsiders don't know what the cumulative effect of hits are on these guys over the course of time and how they may manifest themselves later in life. And maybe this is something that indeed may have been a cause, but we we just don't know, and we shouldn't speculate. Well, Bob Krober, Derek Bugard, Junior Sayo, they all had CTE. Yep, and unfortunately, you don't find that out until after yep, yeah, and there's no way to diagnose it ahead of time. Yep, you know, and that uh that uh new New England Patriots uh tight end Hernandez, I think his name was Aaron Hernandez, yep. Aaron Hernandez, yeah, he had CTE and uh uh and it just causes all sorts of issues, so you know, and depression is just one of them, sadly, and uh yeah, it's uh it's tough, you know. Then you know, you don't I just like I say, I I am still shocked by this, you know. We were all shocked because but I'd be reasonably shocked, yeah. But just to see like we saw him a few days ago, and he looked good, he looked fine, and you know that's you know, and he was uh he was a player agent, he had purpose in life, you know. Yeah, and and so it it just comes as does you know, just the the uh the makes no sense, you know. This world makes no sense sometimes, you know. That's why we need to learn. Yeah, you just wish you could go back in time and and help that person. You know, there's help, you know. There's anybody who's having depression issues, like anybody who's watching this who who is struggling, there is help. You can get help, you know, there's help to be had. So well, that's why there's an NHL uh alumni association, and that's why uh Healy is somebody who should be on this case, and I think he will be if he isn't already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wasn't he Frederick Anderson's agent? Yeah, yeah, I said that earlier. Yeah, I have to admit, it was very tough watching Freddie get emotional after the game. When Claude was mentioned during the post-game interview, you could see how much he meant to him. In a way, it feels like Freddie is now playing for something bigger. You know he'd love to win the Stanley Cup and honor Claude's memory. Yeah, so on that uh point, Vic, who do you think's gonna win? I think that Carolina has had one of the great room service draws in the history of the Stanley Cup, and that's not their fault. They earned that number one seed in the East, and they matched up against an Ottawa team that they were gonna completely overwhelm. Even though one game went to overtime, they got a good draw with Philly, who beat Pittsburgh in the opening round. And even though two of those games went to overtime, Hurricanes were the better team, and then you get Montreal coming off back-to-back seven-game series, where entering the third round against the Hurricanes, the Canadians had already played the equivalent of six and a half more games than had the Hurricanes, and so that took its toll. So they got a great draw to the finals. That said, I believe Vegas is a little bit more battle tested. They had to come back, they were down two one against Utah in the first round, one in six games. I think Anaheim played them tough, and then you wind up uh having to face. The president's trophy winning team. I think they're more battle tested. I think that the Hurricanes aren't going to be able to do to the Golden Knights what they have done against their three prior opponents. And we all know that Carolina likes to come in, they like to get out of their cars, and they like to start shooting pucks even before they get into the ring. We all see that. One of the things that I thought Montreal was dreadfully deficient in was there were two ways that they could have won this series, in my opinion. And I'm saying this at the start of the series. The first was getting into a track meet with them because Montreal had and has enough offensive talent to go shot for shot with most teams in the league. The other thing was to be the Hurricanes at their own game, establish a forecheck, force Carolinas forwards to come back in deep to support their defense. And they never did that. It was a lot of one and done. And I think that Vegas will execute a forecheck. I think they'll make it difficult for the Hurricanes to exit their zone. I think they're going to check, they're going to create gaps, they will have defensive attention to detail that the Hurricanes, quite frankly, had not seen yet. I think they're going to win the series. How many games? Six. And you know, it just they just seem to they just seem to have some kind of psychic connection where they they know where each other is on the ice all the time. And they they move the puck so fast. It just it was incredible to watch. And then, but like now you're making me think, Vic, oh, because now that what you said that uh Vegas will have a much uh more vigorous four check, and and they'll be uh they'll give uh Carolina more of a test than than Montreal ever did. So I'm you know it's tough. It's tough. I'm picking Vegas to win in seven, but uh, you know, it it's gonna be close, I think. It's gonna be one goal games overtimes. You know, I I uh it's gonna be a great series, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm picking Vegas in four, better coach. Why is that funny? It's not one of my jokes. Now the show isn't done. Oh picking Vegas in four, a better coach. What does Brenda Moore ever do when it comes to this crunch time? Nothing. So you got a better coach, you got a better goalie. Uh Anderson's been uh playing against uh club teams, uh, and he's older. Um and better balance. So you got better coach, you got better goalie, uh better balance, and um that's it. What else do you need, right? Talk's cheap, so what the hell do I care, right? But I'm saying four games, I'm saying four games. Freddie Anderson has a history of faltering at the worst possible time, you know, and and and plus he tell us when he's beliefs. Other than game one, other than game one of the Montreal Stars, he wasn't tested. Hardly at all. No, uh I I think a lot of the success that Anderson has had, and again, this is no fault of his, but this was has been a real collective effort by the hurricanes in terms of puck possession and limiting the number of high-quality chances that the opposition has gotten. The big thing here is they will not have seen a team in the first three rounds like they're going to see in Vegas. And if Carolina can make those adjustments and execute to a greater degree the type of play that we have seen them demonstrate against Ottawa and Philly and Montreal, yes, they can certainly win this series. It all comes down to execution. I bet you that everybody left at the beginning of the series with Colorado, that the idea that any team would dare beat them in four straight. And they did. They did. They did it, they did it pretty pretty clean, pretty clean. No, it wasn't any cheating. They won that game, they won that series fair and square. So why can't uh why can't they win this one fair and square in four straight? Because they already proved that they can do it against what was supposed to be the best team of all. But as we all know, this is a new season. We also know, Stan, that the president's trophy winner hasn't been to a final. Not just win the cup, they haven't been to a final in 13 years since Chicago did it against Boston in 2013 and won the cup. Well, historically, it proves that Lester Patrick and his brother Frank Patrick were geniuses when they designed something called playoffs, which was unheard of after the regular season. And it's it's two what the fans have been getting here is two seasons for the price of one. It's what we all sign up for, right? The regular season is such a ripoff. No, it's not a rip-off, it's not a rip-off at all because the regular season determines who gets to play in the playoffs. Found that out, and a few other teams found that out who thought they might make it. Absolutely. I'm taking Carolina and six. Frederick Anderson may be older, but with that comes experience. He's been through a lot in this league, and I think that gives him an edge mentally. He's been playing really well right now, and I think Carolina finds a way to get it done. You could be wrong. Yeah. I I mean, you know what? The teams are so close that uh the unseen hand has to help out this time. I think the unseen hand, yeah. I I gotta tell you, Vic, uh, congratulations on your 100th episode and uh getting Gary Bentman as a guest. That was uh that's a coup. That was a coup. So so for you. And uh yeah, you know, a lot of pad a lot of podcasts don't make it past episode 10. So what you've done is uh is a really remarkable. So congratulations. Thank you. No, we look at the metrics, and I think if Neil and I saw that we had no traction after a year or so, we would have shaken hands and said, good try. But we have listenership, we've got subscribers, we've got the download numbers, and we're gonna start going live on YouTube next year. So it's just another part of our evolution. I mean, I have to say, as a middle-aged guy that is out of the corporate world now, I can't imagine having more fun than what we're doing now. So makes you feel young, makes you feel vibrant, and who better to be young and vibrant than the man that is joining us, my dear friend, for over 40 years now. Thank you, uh Vic. As a middle-aged guy, I agree with you. I I have to say that there is an expression that fits you and uh the pro your podcast with Neil, and we gotta have Neil back soon, and uh and your guest Bettman, and that is three words genius will out. And uh as far as Bettman is concerned, he is one guy who is, in terms of his accomplishments, has to be one of the most un underrated geniuses of the game. Uh the the sport considering where the sport was at say when uh the Spano scandal broke on the islanders, yeah uh and he was the commissioner, and all the things, all the challenges that he had to overcome, uh the league is in the greatest shape it's been. It's it's in such great shape that even the whiners and the uh puers Pewers of the Union, they've got nothing, they uh nothing to uh beef about. These guys are uh making even an even an unemployed coach from uh what where's that guy, Cassidy from? He's he's got uh something like uh four million uh freebies that he's gonna get for a whole year if he doesn't come back, yeah, doesn't get a job. So Bettmond has done a fabulous job. People complained before the series this is not a good uh playoff uh system, but it this has been exciting. Exciting, and uh we'll see how the five the final looms that it could go seven games. I would love to see it go seven games. I just don't want uh I don't want Brindamore to win anything. You said four. I know, but I said I wouldn't be surprised if these teams are so equal that you guys make it to be. I would I you know would the more hockey I see, the better it is. Because if it goes in four, then the hockey season is over too soon. And also, you know, people are gonna turn to the NBA, and yeah, it's great in New York that the Knicks are there, but you know, games are blowouts every night, and for people to sit there and say, Oh, the NBA, it's fantastic. The NBA sucks. You know, I have to tell you, funny, uh, it was it's kind of funny. Uh, I worked for the Rangers in uh 54-55 and in publicity in the garden and in the same under the same roof were the Knickerbockers. And hockey, we hockey people, I don't know how they felt about us, but we hockey people thought that the basketball people were some foreign race from a strange planet because we totally ignored them. I remember one of the basketball guys was a fellow named Jimmy Werbelis, uh, who, you know, he was in the in the in the hierarchy. And I remember one I was walking down a corridor and he was coming in the other way. And as far as I was concerned, he was invisible. And as far as he was concerned, we didn't deal with them, we didn't like them. And we the reason we didn't like them is that the ball they play with is too big and the hoop is too low. There's there's there's no attraction for me. And I grew up a big Knicks fan, and now if they're winning, yeah, maybe I'll turn on the last 30 seconds to see what it is, but the journey How tall are you? Either too tall or not tall enough. It depends who I'm taller. This is not a tough question. How tall are you? Five, nine and a half. So, right there, it's a tough answer because not a big Knicks fit or a medium-sized Knicks fit. One last question from me, Vic. Um, uh the draft coming up. Uh, we all know that Elena rigged the draft for the Toronto Maple Leafs to get the first pick. Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. What do you think of the draft coming up and uh and the first overall pick? I think the Leafs have to take Gavin McKenna. And what I find even more intriguing is Austin Matthews has two years left on his deal. And if McKenna is the real deal, do they move Matthews before his contract expires at the end of 27-28? Do they try to resign him? Is Matthews reinvigorated? I mean, there's so much to this, but that's something that is out there right now. And of course, with John Cheeka and uh Matt Sandeen running the team, who knows what's going on with this organization right now. But I do think you have to take the best player available. This is the best player, and maybe the trajectory back upwards starts with the selection of this player. This player. I have a point to make, Elena. Can I make it? Absolutely. Of course, I agree with everything Vic has Vic uh just said about your beloved Leafs uh who won't make the playoffs next season. Uh well in the Stanley Cup next year. Whatever, whatever. The point is, I'm sick and tired of telling a joke at the end of our show without getting a grade for it. Now, I need to have a grade for this joke so I can know whether I do a Cassidy and retire from joke telling and still get four million dollars, whatever that's four and a half, whatever. And I know that you will be honest, and certainly Jerry will be honest, and uh Vic will probably send this to Elliot Friedman, Elliot Friedman with season whatever, before uh we finish. So you gotta be honest with me, right? And you give it a grade, five stars down to one star or no star. And I'm warning you in advance, it's a little bit long, and uh, I'm not confident in it, but that doesn't matter. You ready, Jerry? You ready? I'm ready. Uh by the way, Jerry, are you Irish? No. No, because this is an Irish joke. I just want to Okay. Okay, you ready? French half Austrian. Austrian? That's part of my mom got around. Okay, ready? Here we go. So these two Irish drinking buddies, they're in the pub, and they see a bald guy, and he's drinking alone at the end of the bar. Can you picture that? Yeah, okay. So one of the Irish guys, his name is Patty, says, I say, ain't that Winnie Churchill down there? And his pal's name is Sean, and he says, Nah, couldn't be. Winnie wouldn't be in a place like this. Okay, okay. So Pat says, I'm not kidding, take a good look. I swear that's Winnie Churchill. I'll bet you 10 quid that I am right. He says, Okay, Sean says you're on. So Pat goes down to the end of the bar and he says to the bald guy, he says, he says, You're Winnie Churchill, ain't you? And the bald guy screams, get out of my face, you idiot. And Pat comes back to Sean and he says, Guess we'll never know now, will we? I give you a B. Strong B. What'd you give me? I'll give you a B. How many or five? Four out of five. Four out of five? I give a four out of five. They want me back. See, I'm I'm gonna give you a three and a half, and I'm gonna get kicked off the show now. I tell you, three and a half is fair. We'll have you back for number one hundred. Thank you. Thank you. We'll have you back for number 100, but you gotta bring Batman with you. Yes, yes, hopefully so. All right, thank you. Thank you so much, Vic. Thank you for joining us. And to our listeners, thanks for watching and listening. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and we'll see you in the next one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Never