Ryan Whitney

Any thoughts on the Russians being checked out, ready to go home?

Already got a Stanley Cup?

Tampa even tried.

They had our boy Gruden come on before the game to fire them up.

Did you hear about it, Witt?

So in Tampa, they got these big lightning chugs, like these beer things, lightning that you can drink out of.

He probably said.

He declined it.

He said, no, I'll just do the horn.

Did he actually?

I got to ask, Witt, was it Stoff that put out that Connor McDavid is a game-time decision?

If you want to use your back channels to win this game for us tonight, and they are splitting up Leon and McDavid, I'm going to teach the coach what to do.

Okay.

If McDavid's line's out there, you can't have Leon Dreisaitl changing for McDavid.

Leon changes for the first forward that comes, so that way there is some overlap on their lines.

I see it every time they're changing for each other, so there's none of that overlap.

Okay.

Good call, Merle.

And that could be the X factor tonight.

Before I go, go over to Game Notes.