Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hour 2 Overdrive continues. Powered by FanDuel, Brian Hayes, Jeff O'Neill, Jamie Noodles-McLennan, and Darren Dreger, our TSN Hockey Insider in studio.
Chapter 2: What are the latest developments in the Maple Leafs' head coaching search?
What's happening, Dregs?
Oh, just warming up for another hot zone.
Hot zone after the Habs game. I love it.
A couple of us will be on it.
Hot zoning tonight. Bringing the heat. Well, there's been a lot of heat in the National Hockey League this week. Coaches getting fired. People getting hired. Like, what do you make of it? How much more can we expect? First off, what do you make of the handling of the Chris Knobloch situation? Unfortunate. Sketchy. I think it's as bad as it gets, Darren.
Yeah, well, look. I mean, I'm not pointing fingers at how leaks occur. I mean, that's part of what I do for a living and have done it for a long time. That's where it really came off the rails, right? Because in the perfect world, if... The Vegas Golden Knights give the Edmonton orders permission to get to Bruce Cassidy.
Chances are you fire and you hire on the same day and it's a big splash and everybody moves on. It feels like Edmonton was backed into it. I mean, look, I guess Vegas doesn't have to feel any sense of obligation to cut Bruce Cassidy loose and give him permission to speak with the Oilers or any team for that matter. But because the information was out there. Right.
Now Edmonton's in that jam up, all right? You know, you've already made the decision. You're moving on. I mean, coaching is a problem, obviously, for management of the Edmonton Oilers. So how do you back out of it, right? And that's where it comes off the rails.
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Chapter 3: What happened with Kris Knoblauch's departure from the Oilers?
But that's where we were talking about. If you've made the decision to move on from Chris Knobloch and you just want to interview Coach X. Yeah. You should probably believe him of his duties first and then just say, hey, we're going to have a wide range of, you know, the John Chyka.
What he said in his media was that yesterday, I feel like they've all lumped together, said, hey, we're going to have a wide scope here and take a look at it. What happened because of the leak you mentioned. it made it look like it's embarrassing. Chris Knobloch sitting on his couch or wherever, and there's information coming in, hey, they're already looking at Cassidy and they won't get waived.
To me, it's a poor look on everybody, and Knobloch didn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve that. In essence, you're going to move on. Great coaches get fired. I see that all the time. But he deserves the respect to go...
Let him go, then move on. I will never forget when Paul Maurice was fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs years ago. I mean, Paul and I had a longstanding relationship, so he reaches out to me as soon as he learns his fate, and he goes, can you do me a favor? He goes, please don't report anything. I'm on my way to my kid's school.
I want to get to my kids first, so can you please not say anything until that happens? Right? That's what I, as I've gotten older, I appreciate more and more. So, look, I mean, Chris Knobloch's going to be fine. By and large, I don't know Chris Knobloch. I think he's a good coach. He's respected.
He's got a deeper coaching background and arsenal than what I knew about until I started poking around with those who work with him. But you wonder about the young family that he has and things like that. And, look, I also think that... There's a narrative out there that, okay, maybe the stars didn't align.
So McDavid and Dreisaitl didn't necessarily align with the coaching philosophy of Chris Knobloch.
You know what exactly they didn't align with about that? Him putting them on the ice for 30 minutes each?
No, I think we're saying the same thing. I don't buy that for a minute. So we hear Connor McDavid speak the way he did and Leon Dreisaitl just... dropped the gauntlet in his end-of-year media address, that's directed at Jeff Jackson and Stan Bowman, his general manager. That's not directed at coaching. That's saying, look, you took a swing at goaltending and missed. Missed.
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Chapter 4: Who are the potential candidates for the Maple Leafs' coaching position?
Everybody's on the clock in that organization. And rightfully so.
And look, I mean, Daryl Cates, the owner of the Edmonton Oilers, is as demanding an owner as there is. I'm not saying that he felt like there needed to be some bloodletting in the disappointment of this season. But it kind of has that feel to it, right?
And, you know, in talking to those who have worked in Edmonton and worked for this owner, even though they've been slow and methodical through their process, as Stan Bowman alluded to, at the end of the day, come on, you're firing a guy that's going into a three-year contract extension? I mean, is that going to turn things around in Edmonton?
It's money, too. I was telling Brian off-air, like, Outside of the actual business, there's real money involved. Knobloch could sit at home for the next three days. Seven plus million bucks. So there you go. Let's call it eight million bucks.
Chapter 5: What insights does Darren Dreger provide about coaching changes in the NHL?
That's the thing, guys. In any regular business, if you piss away seven million bucks, you're fired.
You got to answer for it. You signed Trent Frederick for eight years, you're fired. You got to answer for these things. And that's from an actual business standpoint. You've got to look at it and go, you know, we didn't get the Game 7 home gate where they were probably hoping for when you go into Anaheim and you lose that. That's a gate that they probably worked for. It's a lot of money.
Every home game in the playoffs is a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. That's why there's so much pressure in today's world when teams are like, make the playoffs, do this, because it's money in the door for these owners. That's just the business side, not just the actual wins and losses.
Are we just living in a world now where you have one disastrous season, it's game over for a lot of people? Is that what we're doing here now?
It has that feel to it. It definitely has that feel to it. Not with every owner. And some are more loyal than others, and some are more mindful of the millions of dollars that are being... Pissed away, right? I mean, at the end of the day. And, you know, Toronto's a little bit different for me in the Berube situation because he was part of a regime that didn't work, okay?
And you guys have talked about this. I don't want to go back down that path. But I guess what I would submit, you can appreciate what John Chayka and Matt Sundin are going to do without knowing who they're going to hire, right? They've got to have some idea of who they might hire.
I think so. I'm not saying one guy in particular.
They would have a long list established right now, and then you go through that process.
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Chapter 6: How do recent coaching changes affect team dynamics and performance?
You know what your inkling is, which way you want to trend as soon as there's coaches available.
I would say this of Edmonton, and Edmonton maybe more so because it feels Edmonton needs a closer type of coach. What if Bruce Cassidy ultimately gets permission but doesn't want to go to Edmonton? That's possible. He might look at the Los Angeles situation, and there's a sense that Kenny Holland might just extend the interim tag on DJ, depending on how things go.
Maybe Vegas doesn't give Cassidy permission to speak to a division rival like Edmond. So then when you get past Bruce Cassidy... Who's better?
Who's better for the Edmonton Oilers than Chris Knobloch? The only two guys that I can think of personally is Lavi and it's Cassidy. And not because of... Well, maybe throw Berube into the mix now. But I'm just saying tactically. They need a detailed tactician. You had Lavi. Hard. Fair, but tactician. I think what they needed was a different look and voice. I tongue-in-cheek say this.
Daryl Sutter's 60 kilometers down the road. One-year deal. Come in. He might piss some people off. But, I mean, Darryl Center, that's a closer. He'll upset the apple cart. Sure. But I am tongue-in-cheek because, again, maybe Darryl's past that. But they need somebody who's hardened. That's what I think.
So what do you think the Leafs need, Dregs? Or what do you think lines up with where Chica might take this coaching pursuit?
Yeah.
And how much money do they have? One of the big names that everyone's like, hey, go get that David Carl out of University of Denver and blah, blah, blah. Can they get him if they offer him? Dude, I think that guy makes like four sheets a year. That's what I'm saying. Can they offer him $6 million a year and would he come?
And how much money are they willing to spend on a coach now that they're still paying Berube?
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of coaching decisions on player development?
Otherwise, you can't hold Manny Boulter back. And by all accounts, he's ready to be an NHL head coach. So it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for me for them to cut him loose. But if they did, he'd have to be a man of interest. And look, I mean, I kind of threw it out there with Ryan Rashog and Gino Retta during our hit earlier today.
Like, I don't think that Chris Knobloch would be automatically on Toronto's list. But developmentally, like, here's a guy, too, that I didn't realize. I talked to a guy today who knows him very, very well. How much he leans on analytic support in Edmonton as a coach. And, you know, line combinations, the matchup game that you're building going into your next game, playoffs, all of that stuff.
Does that move the needle for John Chayka to at least have a discussion with him? You know, maybe it does come down to money here, Brian, too, right? You know, you're on the hook for Craig Berube for four and a half for the next two years. You know, if you can get somebody for two and a half, three shmill. on a three-year deal. I don't know. I think everything's on the table, though.
Do you think everything's on the table for the Leafs?
It has to be. But it also depends on what, like we talked about earlier, what their objective is for next year and then five years down the road, so to speak. Hiring a guy where it's like, we've got to get back in the playoffs next year and prove that last year was just a blip. So, yes, he's not a long-standing guy.
And how many guys are like, sure, it'd be great if you could find the next John Cooper. Go ahead. That'd be amazing. But hire a guy and keep him here for 10 or 12 years.
You have to have a patient ownership and board. To do that. To do that. Yes.
And a very good team. Let's not forget, Cooper stepped in with Vasilevsky and Kucherov. His team was loaded when he got here. Yeah. Do you think all the hirings are going to start, like, trending? And I think Lavi's going to work in the league again, obviously. Yeah, and he should. But do you think it's going to start trending to fresh stuff, like if a GM, like all of it?
It seems like in the next five to six years, there's going to be a lot of new blood. Yeah. Running things.
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Chapter 8: What are Bryan Hayes' FanDuel Best Bets for the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
Why can't it? So I have time for inexperience. But for me, it depends on where you're at as a team. If you take it back to Edmonton, I think they need somebody who's already proven that they can drag that team over the hump. And it gets complicated.
But it comes back to what Brian's saying. If John Chayka's mandate, we don't know it, and he's not going to share it with us, but if his mandate from Keith Pelley was like, we thought we had an offseason because of injuries and inconsistencies, you go out and get four or five different players, and we're right back in the mix in the Atlantic, and we're a playoff team, and we're this and that.
It's a lot different story because it comes back to how you're going to build your team. And it comes down to the meeting that you're going to have with Austin Matthews. Are you going to talk to Morgan Rielly and see what his thought process is moving forward?
You mentioned Manny Malhotra, though. And now that you say that, and I've had a minute or two to digest, I do think that there are... People pay attention to what Steve Ott did in taking over Springfield. In a relatively short period of time in the American League, right? In the St. Louis organization. There's a guy that people are talking about. Ryan Craig.
Vegas is pretty stingy with letting their people out of their deals. And you know what? Ryan Craig might be the next coach of the Vegas Golden Knights. Let's see what they do with John Tortorello. But for me, you have to... Because the door has been kicked open on... Some of these outside-of-the-box hires in management, why can't that drift into the possibility of coaching at the NHL level? Sure.
That's fair.
Maybe it's a package deal. They hire Manny and take his son first overall.
His son's a player, right?
He's going to be a top-ten pick, more than likely.
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