Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Alright, here we go. Overdrive off and running. TSN 1050 on the TSN app. Your home smart speaker up on TSN 4, up on YouTube Live. Brian Hayes, the O-Dog, Jeff O'Neill, Jamie Noodles, McLennan. What's going on today? Lots going on today. Yes, there is. Lots going on today. How are we feeling?
Lots going on, Noodles, and it is a newsy day, and I'm sure Hazy B would like to get to the news of the day. But sometime during this show, I'm going to tell you about listening to some country music in the backcountry. And just pulling over to take a leak.
Okay, good tease. I'd rather hear that story. Great tease. That's coming up because I have a very similar story.
Really? Of all the places in Ontario, you could pull over and take a leak. You're not going to believe this one.
You're not going to believe what happened this morning.
You two were traveling together. No.
We'll tell you later. We'll tell you later. Okay, we'll tell you later.
That's a tease, man. That's a tease.
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Chapter 2: What led to Craig Berube's dismissal as head coach of the Maple Leafs?
They haven't had as many coaches, but they haven't had that much success. I think there's times where we're mad about it, but haven't we been going, isn't Vegas the standard? It doesn't matter. They fire guys all the time.
All the time. They just fired a guy with eight games left.
This is a cutthroat business. Yes. This isn't about... Great coaches get fired. We're going to have one on at 5 o'clock hour. Labby is an unbelievable coach. He's going to coach again in the NHL, but he has been relieved of his duties several times in this league. It happens. Oh, I understand what you're saying, but I think what... The outlier now is John Cooper and Jared Bednar.
Everybody else is... Roddy Brindamore. You're right. Everybody else is on three years, four years.
Okay, but Jamie, I'm talking about this specific group.
I understand.
If anybody... If anybody of those gentlemen I just mentioned think that they just need the right coach with that roster that they have in place, clinically insane.
But you've got to be clear about what happened last year. Listen, I'm not a proponent that this roster or this team is the greatest team in the league. They're terrible. I don't think they're one of the three or four worst, though. They were horrendous defensively all year, arguably the worst team in the league all season. Do the players have to own... 70% of that? Yes. 80?
Fine, I'll give you 90 maybe. Craig Berube has to own a lot of it, though. The head coach is responsible. We just had Ron Berndemore. What this team's about. First 10 minutes, how they're going to play, how they're going to buy in. Now you can sit there and say they should have bought in more, and with that I wouldn't disagree.
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Chapter 3: How do the Maple Leafs' recent performance and coaching changes impact the team's future?
You've been around for a long time. They were a disaster. What are we talking about here? It's not deep. It's not a conspiracy theory. We all watched them play. They were horrendous. What coach survives that? You explain it to me. I have one question. Explain to me.
I just asked a question.
No, I know that, but you're asking it rhetorically like I can't believe it. It's not tough to figure out. It would have been... Thanks, Tibbs, I get it. It was a terrible year for you to fire the coach. You're acting like I'm devastated he got fired. But you're asking the question as if you don't know the answer. You watched them. They were horrendous. No coach survives that.
It would have been managerial malpractice if they brought him back, if the plan is to win next year. They have to change it.
Okay, all I'm saying is if this roster comes back and some smarty-pants coach comes in, good luck, because you're not going to win with them. That's all I'm saying. Get whatever coach you want.
You've got to give it a shot is the point, though. Good, do it.
That's all I'm saying. Get another guy in there, and they're going to do their own thing, and they're not going to win, and that's what's going to happen.
That's what I'm trying to tell you. I get the impression this move would suggest to me Chyka has either sold them or... They asked them to sell them on the idea of them being a competitive team next year. I could be wrong on that, and I'm not going to sit here and predict that they will be. But if you want to be competitive next year, this was an obvious move.
And it happened in Pittsburgh.
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Chapter 4: Who are the potential candidates to replace Craig Berube as head coach?
And I think that's what they're doing.
I agree. If we dumb it down, there's no way you could bring it back with a new regime anyway. So I think Craig Berube should have been let go with Brad Treeliving, had Noosey Lalonde run the rest of the season as an interim, and then you start over fresh. We knew Craig was a dead man walking. You could see in his body language.
Looking back on it, I think if there was true serum, and Craig's too classy of a guy to do this, but I would love in a candid moment to go, did you execute everything that you wanted to do? And hear me out on this. There's probably nights where he's like, I wanted to sit 88 out or do something different.
And whether he didn't do it or maybe from above or whatever, like to me there was things where I felt like he probably could have done something different with the personality that we see in Craig Berube. Now he has to own that. They had a poor year.
Do you think they look back as an organization and wish they pulled the trigger 20 games into last season?
Maybe. I don't know. That's the thing. In hindsight, you can go back and say, Team X should have done this at Christmas when they weren't responding. They could have done this. You should have traded this guy. We can do it until we're blue in the face when it comes down to it. But I think today's announcement was the least surprising thing that comes out of Leaf Camp, in my opinion.
I don't know how you feel about that. No, I would agree with that. And I think, listen, there's... Yes, hindsight being 20-20, it actually worked out beautifully because everyone played a role in them winning the lottery. That's the truth. Everyone being a part of the program led to the lottery balls falling their way, and now they have the first overall pick.
But Matthews is front and center on everything here, and whether or not he had his voice heard, I wouldn't be surprised. Chayka said no. Like Chayka said definitively, nope, zero. He had nothing to do with this. Maybe it was more indirectly.
Right.
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Chapter 5: What role does analytics play in the Maple Leafs' coaching decisions?
All I'm saying is we're talking about a group of players that are going to be on their third or fourth cycle. Mike Babcock, Sheldon Keefe, Craig Berube, and now it's reverting back to another one. How many group of players get that opportunity to cycle through a different philosophy where you actually look at the players that go on the ice and say, maybe different players.
Hold on. Who's to say those players are coming back?
Then that's, listen, Mara's not here anymore.
At this point, I don't even care if they come back. I really don't. But, oh, hear me out. Because what you need is if this is John Chayka's team, and it is now, he might have a completely different philosophy and say, what have we talked about? They might have eight to ten new faces on there. That's a different team. You might still have some of the same cast of characters.
You're not flushing 20. But you might have a way different looking team next year. And that's going to have a new coach attached to it. So, yes, you're going to have, if you bring back Matthews and Nylander, which they're under contract and those are star players, Tavares is going to be there. I know what you're saying, oh, but if everybody else has changed around that, That's a different team.
That's not the same cast of characters.
I'd like to see it, Jamie, but we've already discussed the challenges that come to flipping out eight different players.
A couple more things on that. For starters, Marner's not here anymore. That is a massive piece that was here for nine years. that is not here anymore. A lot of the Shanahan era has been moving out. Beruve is the last hire of the Shanahan era. Tree Living went out a month ago, a month and a half ago. Yes, you have Matthews and Nylander and Tavares and Riley who are still here.
I can't imagine Morgan Riley's here in the fall. We'll see. But that's a pretty major hit as well. So if you move off a coach, a GM, Marner, and Riley within 18 months, that's pretty significant change. Who knows what is going to happen with Austin and with Willie in the future. Those are the two main pieces. But I think what happened this year, and it was extreme, needs to be considered here.
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Chapter 6: How are player performances being evaluated in light of the coaching change?
He's still got a loud voice there, and he's still got a legacy that he owns, and he's a big part of that dressing room. But it's the captain and then Nylander, the most offensive kind of player on the team and the most ā The mercurial player on the team is Nylander. And how are they going to react to the next wave of coaching? I don't know. I don't have that answer.
Are they going to be here long-term? I'm not sure. But this year in the meltdown is different than past meltdowns in terms of what the issue has been.
Yeah. And ultimately what it comes back to is ā
today's world now like it it's what have you done for me lately and and that's the biggest thing like bruce cassidy won a cup and and the guy who's rock star coach it's like vegas is like don't like what we're seeing and it's you can't get rid of the players so it's eight games left torts here you come like it's a cutthroat world right now i mean look at what the islanders do how many games left with that with pete de bourgh four games
Four games left, and they missed the playoffs, and they got a hell of a player there, but they wanted their coach. And that's Patrick Waugh getting let go.
Yeah.
Craig Berube gets let go. He won a cup. Patrick Waugh is a legendary coach and done a great job.
Maybe Patty Roy comes through town. I don't know, man. It depends.
This is the one thing I would say is, and I'm being respectful here, is it a desirable spot right now with where the organization at is for a legacy coach? Or is it better for a younger, up-and-coming Dan Mews, Manny Malhotra type of guy, a first time at it where you've got a different team? Because I don't know how many legacy coaches, certainly you want the money, you want the Toronto market.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the draft lottery win for the Maple Leafs?
He's still fired up. By the way, when I was taking a piss, the guy that honked his horn at me, I wish he rolled into the farm field and rolled over.
Anyway. Because I don't see it the same way. You want Craig Berube to be the coach for the next decade?
I'm trying to tell you, I don't care who gets hired or fired. Craig's a friend of mine, but he got fired. The team was terrible last year. You totally missed the point on all of it.
What is it? Go ahead. Go ahead.
You talked about making the ā we've seen it with Pittsburgh. They tried to claw into the playoffs. Year after year, they got dummied in the first round. What is the sense of doing that, in your opinion? Let's just get back into the playoffs and probably get slaughtered in the first round. So you tell me, what is the purpose of doing that? If you're trying to ā there's this long-term ā
kind of thought process here. What is the sense in doing that?
I think the sense in doing this, Hulkster, is that if you hire the right people and you build the program and you move forward with a process where you feel like, and I sound like Keith Pelley, where you're aligned...
Yeah, you're horizontally and vertically aligning yourself, you dumbass.
Horizontally, vertically aligned.
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Chapter 8: How does the team plan to address its defensive issues moving forward?
I'll tell you one thing. If I was dealing with that situation, I would say we're giving you a month. And by the draft or before the draft, we need to know what your intentions are because we're not going to sit and wait. and try to make all these transactions to impress you, or whatever it is you feel that's needed, we're not doing that. We've got a business and a team to run here.
We want to know the deal. What's the deal?
I don't think you have ā like, if you're John Chyka, you can't build this team for Austin Matthews. You build it for John Chyka and the Toronto Maple Leafs. And if Austin Matthews is a part of it, great. If he's not, then you move on from him. Like, it should be a scenario where you're trying to build a program ā that wins and give yourself a window of 10 years. And that's the thing.
So today, well, today. You know what your name is? It's not Keith Pelley. It's Keith Smelly. Go ahead, Keith Smelly.
Go to commercials. Let's go to commercial. Let's pick it up on the other end because I still have more thoughts on this.
Okay. I need to hear this piss story, too. I'll tell you the story. I wish the guys ā Keith Smelly. Second grade.
This guy's literally named ā Yeah, you're Keith Smelly.
All right. That's you. What can I put on ā I've got to come up with a name.
I'm rubber, you're glue. What bounces off of me sticks to you, right?
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