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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hour 2 Overdrive continues, powered by FanDuel, bringing you more ways to play your game your way. Ernie Clement later in the hour. Ray Ferraro coming up here in a few moments. We're into the offseason in the NBA, into the offseason in the NHL. Shout-out to the Carolina Hurricanes, New York Knicks, Bud Colley yesterday.
And we've been waiting for this one, and I know I'm sure our audience has kind of been waiting for us to get into the Mitch Marner conversation that everybody has been having. really for the last decade, maybe ten years, certainly over the last two months.
And I'll allow you guys to take the floor first, but as you look back on Mitch Marner, his run in the playoffs, his start to the Cup Final, the end of the Cup Final, how has your view of Mitch and the discussion surrounding him possibly changed?
I thought he was easily the best player in the entire playoffs. Hands down. And he did his thing. And if you look at one guy, and we're the Toronto market, so we're hyper-focused on former Maple Leaf Mitch Marner.
Chapter 2: What are the highlights of the Stanley Cup Finals?
There's another guy that plays for Carolina. His name's Sebastian Aho. And let's be real about his play. He was a ghost for a lot of the playoffs. He was not a dominant player, but he had other lines, Taylor Hall's line and different guys, Jordan Stahl stepping up, and they insulated him. And Mitch carried the mail for a long time.
And if we're going to get hyper-focused on four, five, and six, what did he do? It's a team. It's not all about Mitch Marner.
Chapter 3: How did Mitch Marner perform in the playoffs?
He was desperately looking for a Barbashev, a Jack Eichel, other guys to step up and get it done, and they never did. And that's the end of the story. I will say one thing. When everybody's pumping your tires, and we talked about this with Brooks Koepka, you don't owe anybody anything. But when everyone's pumping your tires and you're happy to go out with the media,
Him and Jack Eichel are the two stars of the team, or two of them. You've got to go out there and talk to people after and address it after the game. And neither of them did, which I think is ridiculous. But like Brooks Koepka said, you don't owe anybody everything.
So he was the best player in the playoffs, and he couldn't have anybody step up, including the goaltender, Eichel, anybody else to bail him out. And that's what happened.
Yeah, I thought he played great, but in the last couple games, we were hyper-focused on, hey, he didn't get minus five, didn't get points, all of that type of stuff. The team didn't. They got shut out last night, literally. Eichel hits the crossbar. I think Bussey made a good save in the first period that gets on the top of the net, drops down. They had their chances.
Chapter 4: What insights does Ray Ferraro provide about Mitch Marner's legacy?
Stone had one on the back door. But at the end of the day, like Carolina squeezed everybody, all top players. They were talking about Caulfield, you know, and Montreal. Like all the top players got squeezed by Carolina. I didn't, full disclosure, I didn't know he didn't talk to the media until about an hour ago or maybe just before, two hours ago. I didn't know that. I assumed he would have.
I assumed media would have gone in there to talk to Vegas and to Carolina a lot of times. I don't know how they do it with the losers. I think McDavid came out last year.
Stone spoke last night. A lot of guys spoke.
So I didn't know that. But I think you should always, the good and the bad, you speak. Even if you take 10, 20 minutes just to let the emotions get out of the way. But I didn't know, full disclosure, I didn't know that until a couple hours ago.
Yeah, I mean, regardless, he didn't. Aiko didn't. I'm not surprised by that. Ultimately, Mitch Marner did not change who he is because he went to Vegas, right? Like, he was always very comfortable. in the positive spotlight, very uncomfortable in the negative spotlight. It's no different in Vegas, right? It was no different in Toronto.
I'm not surprised at all he declined to come out or didn't want to come out and speak because he knew what was coming. And I'm sure it was going to be uncomfortable for the first time as a Vegas Golden Knight. That's the truth. Last night would have been his first deja vu moment last night because everything else had been insulated. ultimately pretty positive, certainly throughout the playoffs.
He was up there because he earned it. He earned the marquee. He earned to be the guy that got to puff his chest out and say, did you see what I just did? Because he was phenomenal against Utah, against Anaheim, against Colorado. For the first three games of the Cup Final, he was brilliant. He had one of the truly great performances in Stanley Cup playoff history.
Onward to a slam dunk on Smith.
Absolutely. But I think what ultimately ends up happening is, is whatever your viewpoint was before the playoffs started, you've probably just been emboldened in that view. What I mean by that is if you always believed it was the Leafs' fault or the media's fault in Toronto or the market in Toronto,
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Chapter 5: What factors contributed to the Carolina Hurricanes' success?
Game five and six, he was invisible. Like the other guys. Just like it was in Toronto. It wasn't just him.
matthews was tough d lander would go south tavaros would disappear they all would but so did mitch and when you get all the platform that he got that he earned and deserved you got to finish it off and in game five and six he didn't he didn't play well like he didn't he didn't break through yeah so you know if you and it's the same scenario that two things can be true
He was the best player in all the playoffs. In game five and six, like the rest of his teammates, he wasn't worth it. Folded.
Folded. Couldn't break through. Just like couldn't break through against Florida. Couldn't break through against... Tampa, Boston, right? Like the best teams in the East for the last decade have been really tough to play against, you know, and especially when they were smelling blood in the water. Here's a guy that was there throughout the cup final.
Here's our main man, Ray Ferraro from ESPN, joining us here on the Maple Toyota podcast.
hotline uh ray you can jump in on this chat with mitch marner what you saw to him up close and personal the last couple months how how is your opinion or viewpoint of kind of the the mitch marner legacy your reputation possibly adjusted over the last couple of months well i gotta say i'm shocked this was the first topic shock you know like unreal yeah um now i'm listening to you guys now it is the finals
It is different than the first round.
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Chapter 6: What are the key points discussed regarding Jordan Staal's Conn Smythe win?
I would definitely think, in my opinion anyway, it looked a hell of a lot different than it did in Toronto in rounds one and two. He got to the final. It's a big reason. He's a big reason why they got there. I don't know if everybody noticed, but Jack Eichel had two goals in the playoffs. Does he hurt Ray? I don't know. I don't... think so, but because I thought he skated pretty well.
He did have some crap. He hit the crossbar a couple of times. That would have got him to four goals. I think Vegas played until the tank was empty. All of them. From game... The last part of game four through game five and into game six, they were done. They didn't have... They didn't have any energy left. And it seemed like Carolina was getting more and more strong as the series went on.
As for Marner, clearly he's a brilliant passer. He's a great creator. And as their pace wore him down, it wore everybody else down around him. So you only become so dangerously. And in the last couple of games, he didn't have anything. He didn't have anything left, I don't think, to give. That's what it looked like to me.
So in terms of, you know, Carolina flipping that switch, right, it's 2-1 after three games, and you mentioned they seem to get stronger. Vegas, I guess, seemed to run out of gas. Was there anything, you know, tangible that you can point to? Was it Bussey going in? Was it Ajo and Svechnikov kind of arriving in the series?
You know, like what did you see that allowed that to happen, the series to flip the way it did?
I think the 13 games that they played to get to the final, the 11 days off before Montreal, I think somewhere along the line it gives you more gas in the tank. Like there had to be an advantage for the fact that they do not ever overplay anyone. No forward for Carolina plays 23, 24 minutes. They don't do it. They play three and a half lines all the time.
And so the rest, the style of play, the freshness of their players, certainly when Bussey came in, I think almost by accident, they were able to make a goalie change that Vegas probably would have liked to have made. Because Hart, to me as well, looked like he was worn out. Played 25 straight games. And they're all...
Corey Schneider was saying yesterday, I was talking to him, he said, you've got to remember, they're all high-leverage games. There's no 8-1 games where you can take a snooze. And I just think Carolina was fresher, and as much as maybe people don't want to give them their due, that team's been roughly the same for four or five years. you know, eight years with Rod. They add Ehlers.
Like, they make these additions, but it's the same group. It's like consistency. It's a build by design. They're not trying to, hey, let's find this guy to play with that centerman. And they don't do that. You look at their lineup, I mean, you know, what's supposed to be their top line is Ajo Svechnikoff, and in the final, it was Jordan Martinuk.
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Chapter 7: What is Ernie Clement's perspective on the Blue Jays' season?
I don't know one coach, maybe Cooper, but I wouldn't say the same, because Coop has an outsized influence in Tampa. But I would say there's no coach that is more the face of their team and the way they do things than what Rod does.
Like even the thing, did you guys see that story today about they have a block and before they leave they've got to press the block and it's the same weight as the cup? Yeah, that's cool. I just think that stuff, how could you not buy into that and go, man, this guy cares about everything. And it's evident in what they do. It really is. Here's another thing.
They've had the same assistant coaches for eight years. Nothing changes. And they've had, like Batman said on the ice yesterday, the last eight years, no team playoff in regular season has more wins than Carolina. It took them eight years to win, but that is a pretty amazing stat.
Yeah.
So, Ray, we were talking before, and I was asked this today. If this is a copycat league, what do you take from Carolina?
Oh, man. Like, see, first of all, I don't... I don't know if you agree with that, Noodles, or not. I think it's a fool's game.
I agree. I 100% agree. I agree, Ray. I don't think you should copy a team if your team's built differently, all of that type of stuff. But I'm just saying, we see it all the time. The league tries to copy, oh, this team played heavy, or this team played this and that.
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Chapter 8: How does team chemistry affect performance in baseball?
Other than trying to get Rod Brindamore out of there, what would you copy from Carolina?
Speed. Speed and... The installation of a work ethic that never fades. That second goal last night that I guess Jackson Blake scored, three times they lost the puck in a 10-foot circle. And three times either Blake or Stan Colvin got it back. It just never ends. Those guys are like worker ants. And to watch them is so impressive.
And I think in their scouting profile and in their profile of players they bring in, if you're not a worker, it doesn't fit. And when they brought in, for example, when they brought in Rantanen, his style of play... doesn't quite fit Carolina. And remember how much he struggled when he was there. It was like the pace and the style just didn't suit him.
So they flip him to Dallas and they end up with Stankov and a couple of firsts, one of them that they turn into Miller. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, they got back. You know, they took a swing, didn't work, and then they went right back to what they know best. So I would think the one thing is identify whatever you want your team to be, if this is the copycat.
and make your pursuit of the players fit that. Don't sign somebody. There's players that sign every year, and you go, nah, I don't know if that's going to work. You don't really say that in Carolina. I use these three guys. I said, if you didn't know what their face looked like, and you changed the jerseys of Martinuk, Robinson, and Carrier, would you really know the difference?
Because they all scored 12 goals. They all hit 200 times a year. They're fast, and it's like it's a Carolina player. I just think it's really admirable.
Do you think Rod Brindamore will be remembered more as a player or as a coach?
Coach. I think he should be in the Hall of Fame. I look at his numbers, and I look at other guys that have numbers similar to his that are in. but I think his numbers would tell us he's probably a whole lot bigger. His impact is in the top shelf. It is just remarkable how much he means to that team.
And so I think people will, in time, people won't remember him quite the player that he was because he was so good. But, man, as a coach, I think... I think they'll remember. He's so intense, right? It kind of cracks you up sometimes. Ehlers scores in the empty net. It's 3-0. Everybody's going... And he's yelling behind the bench, one more minute. One more minute. Can we please have a hug here?
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