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00:00say something i thought you might oh i didn't know it's jake richard's goal from last night
00:05pretty i was impressed by him at the the prospects challenge game that i called paul hamilton
00:10there were a couple guys i thought was impressed by komarov was one of those guys he played last
00:15night as well murka ran murka can skate he's big and can move what's like what's on the list of
00:24like things you can't wait to see because you're excited about it that you know better because you
00:29pay more attention than most people who are just sabers fans like what what what is this
00:34preseason slash early part of the season about for you as you're getting set to watch this team i think
00:40the internal competition between the young players to fill the alex tuck role will be really interesting
00:48to watch if you can keep a real keen eye on it like who's getting the opportunity first who's playing
00:54with who how is it going how's lindy talking about it i think that's a very interesting sort of
01:03challenge that lindy's going to have presented to him because he lost a he lost a really significant
01:10impactful forward and he's got options for who he's going to have do the jobs and it's likely that those
01:18duties will be split but i'm very interested to see where where he decides those jobs are best suited
01:25to be filled because i think there's the penalty kill side of it is interesting to me i think don't
01:32he even lindy i think in his is i believe it was the end of your press conference mentioned that
01:37he
01:37thinks don't is ready to be a really good penalty killer and that to me like lit lit a little
01:42light up
01:43like okay that's his plan right now for the like for that portion of for that you know part of
01:49the
01:49tuck job and offensively like who what's that gonna be who's gonna who's he hoping scores a bunch
01:54probably consta and that's i think super exciting um i'm also really intrigued to see the zell wigger
02:03crevier decision who plays with power more i know paul is big on he thinks the crevier is going to
02:10do it
02:11just to keep the right left hand pairs together and not have two righties and two lefties on the
02:17bottom two pairs which i think is interesting but i think zell wigger's skill set is just
02:22it's a really good match to replace byram and i think that power got really used to playing with
02:29that style of player last year and he knows i think he found out how to play that way and
02:34it was good for
02:35him well while there is no one-for-one match in replacing alex tuck on this team it definitely felt
02:42like zell wigger was an attempt at a even though you know a younger less um accomplished version of
02:49the player but it felt like byram's gone give me zell wigger he's new new byram yes whether it's
02:55and you know discount timu timu byram right it's okay um young young team yeah yeah um some timu
03:03purchases work out great yeah they can be great others do not but you know um but that that felt
03:09like a match like that that player is there because this guy's gone byram's out so he comes in but
03:15nothing happened you know dylan larkin didn't make an appearance and uh yeah there's no one-for-one
03:22match and you can come up with all the things he does paul hamilton talks about this all the time
03:26like
03:26the little things done by this player that there's not another guy that's doing them all but there might
03:31be a bunch of guys that are doing a little part and you just kind of assemble it voltron style
03:36yeah and that's that's where i think there's been a narrative about the the sabers approach to this
03:43offseason the lack of a big move of this feels like the kevin adams were relying on the kids to
03:49do all
03:49the work and and the kids the internal internal improvement right internal growth was the catchphrase
03:56that i think everybody kind of got pretty sick of and i recognize that that is what they're banking
04:03on here but the the the difference to me is that going into this season you've got a number of
04:11those
04:11guys that are battling to do one job that are going to be in fighting with one another to figure
04:18out who
04:19gets those opportunities whereas it felt in the past with adams that it was oh jack quinn here's
04:26your job you have to go score 40 goals that's what you're supposed to do and that's where you're going
04:31to take us and it was sort of gift wrapped to these guys devin levi was this was like oh
04:36you're going to
04:37be the goalie you're the goalie now this this year feels like which one of you wants to do it
04:42show me
04:44figure it out and you tell me and i'll i'll let you go whenever you prove it to me that
04:48you're ready
04:49for it and that would be universally accepted as a better way to do it 100 and that's my point
04:54is i think
04:55there have been people that are frustrated by this offseason the lack of the sort of dylan larkin move
05:01uh jason robertson matthew nye robert thomas robert thomas there's a million names that people were
05:08clamoring for and i think the fact that they didn't do any of that is and can be frustrating
05:14i would have loved them to make one of those moves honestly i would have liked it i think it
05:18would make
05:18me feel better right now right but it's not a horrible position to be like look hold on we got
05:23a lot of things we think we like we can make moves later exactly i'm not in a rush to
05:29placate it's the
05:30offseason let's yes see what's happening and it's the first day of fall today they didn't need any
05:34players during the summer no um they can do whatever they got to do including the uh the
05:38goaltender situation have we heard anything on hella buck in the last week or so aside from he's
05:42not going to report to camp no not not nothing new uh some stuff about you know failed deals in
05:49buffalo people speculating about a lucan in no trade clause that is the reason that kicked in on july 1st
05:56right and that that that i mean can we all talk about that happened they they did that he he
06:04they
06:05lucan and nixed it they they were going to move him and that stopped and so at least in my
06:11mind that
06:11it just it feels too obvious that that's what this roadblock everyone's talking about was with a no
06:17trade clause we also had i think it was friedman reference uh a forward that buffalo was trying to
06:23include in the deal that winnipeg wasn't interested in for injury concerns man i wonder who might that
06:29be josh norris like there's been sort of the filling out of the story that was but nothing new um
06:37but i
06:38think that that's that's gonna change shortly i don't think that this thing stays quiet long but
06:45would any hellebuck move have to be thought about with cap implications in mind obviously everything has
06:52cap implications but as far as like aav are you trying to swap out x number of dollars and have
07:01that match up with what you're gonna end up paying hellebuck when you sign them they've currently got
07:054.1 million in cap space so they'd need about another 4.4 in in cap space to add him
07:12onto the
07:12roster any any deal you're making is likely including enough salary to get that done like like mcleod
07:20for example if he's traded that's five million dollars you've got the room it's done even if
07:26nothing else from the rosters included right you don't want to put yourself in a situation where
07:29like this is the move because this is the player we want now we have to find out other ways
07:33to make
07:33like you couldn't make this and maybe that's part of what makes it take so long is it's got to
07:37make
07:37sense for everybody and the numbers have to match with the restrictions that are placed on you by the
07:42nhl right and that that's always you know that's i think that's a big part of why nhl trades are
07:47so
07:48few and far between at least big ones like you don't see nba action in the nhl because it's it's
07:54hard to do it's hard to maneuver around the cap and it's a hard cap unlike the nba which has
07:59a soft
07:59cap you can sort of wiggle around in this is you you can't go over this number and everybody wants
08:05to be as close to that number as they can be and so making all of that sort of work
08:10can be difficult
08:11um but you know and especially if you're including lucan in the deal that's a 4.75 there and that
08:17right that solves it all and yeah it really does so what happened why didn't this happen before that
08:22kicked in the the jets fumbled the jets the jets what the jet what happened was the jets wanted to
08:28keep them the jets thought that they could wait it out and they wanted to wait until their hand was
08:33forced and then it's too late right and so what the jets came into the offseason what happened according
08:40to hellebuck himself was he went in and requested a trade he was i don't think this is getting better
08:44i'd like to be moved and he let it sit he didn't make it public and the jets quietly
08:52didn't do anything they had some conversations but the price tag that they were asking for
08:57was so absurd that nobody was ever going to meet it the closest anyone came was the sabers
09:03and that was at the night of the draft and it ended up being well they wanted the fourth pick
09:09without
09:10sending the 20th back and it was just that was ridiculous it was always ridiculous for that to
09:15be the deal and i think shovel day off the gm of the winnipeg jets if you don't know knew
09:19that he knew
09:20i'm not getting this deal done so what he wanted to do was make hellebuck think well they're listening
09:26to offers they're feeling offers whatever they're they're working on it and hope that over the course
09:31of the summer hellebuck stance would soften and he would go all right you know what i'll give you
09:36another year i'll come play for you again we can try and make this work and what hellebuck did in
09:42you know however long ago it was that he made this public was put a big giant bomb in the
09:46middle of
09:47that plan when he said all right i'm telling everybody i want to go somebody trade for me
09:52and that now takes any leverage away from the jets they're in a position where everyone knows they
09:58want to deal and they have to deal them this is going to happen now the price has to go
10:02down
10:03winnipeg is now trading at pennies on the dollar is the price always down if you make it known
10:10that a player is available like might that actually work in their favor in some way i understand the
10:15traditional way to read the whole thing is this but i mean i haven't heard other teams really
10:19mentioned it's hellebuck the buffalo how's it going to happen and now it's hellebuck demanding to be out
10:25of winnipeg and i'm still not hearing other teams so might that be the opportunity for someone else to go
10:31hey i see he's got to go i see the buffalo thing's not working what was the problem with that
10:37deal
10:37oh okay what can i do to make you happy to make this deal happen so i don't know how
10:41much control
10:42hellebuck has once you demand a trade i don't know it seems like there should be some wiggle room on
10:47he's got a no move clause so he can tell them no no move clause but demands it right which
10:53is
10:53another agree that's stupid yes i a hundred percent and that's been a big narrative this
10:58offseason of like these guys have these no trade clauses in their contracts and then they demand to
11:04be moved to one of three places which is what dylan larkin did it is not what hellebuck is doing
11:09he's
11:10been reportedly he's given them a long list of teams where he's willing to go it is not a trade
11:16me to
11:16vegas florida or tampa and like have fun try and get a first it's a you know make a deal
11:23wherever
11:23you think you can get the best deal on from this list of 10 15 teams so he's put them
11:30in a better
11:30position but that that narrative that story of this guy signs a deal where you're not allowed to trade
11:37him and now he's asking to be traded and you can only trade him where he wants to be traded
11:41and it's a
11:41it's a real mess for these gms to deal with i mean they could just not give out no move
11:47clauses
11:47that's an option for well too late on this one yeah exactly so what do you think like you're winnipeg
11:54what are you up to how concerned are you that this is resolved before the season starts in a week
12:01or can you just let it linger and he's not there and he's still what well the answer is that
12:06no you
12:07shouldn't let it linger but they've done the wrong thing at every stage here and so that makes them a
12:13bit of a wild card they might just let him rot they they might just keep him suspended and say
12:18we're not
12:20we're not going to take a bad deal and you're not getting us the offers we want so you don't
12:26want to
12:27come play for us then you're not going to play in the nhl and there's nothing that he can really
12:32do
12:32about that and i i think it would be i mean a catastrophic possibly franchise altering not
12:42possibly definitely franchise altering mistake because you already have a hard enough time
12:47getting players to come play in canada you already have a hard enough time getting players to come
12:51play in winnipeg you're gonna have a much harder time if you hold a guy hostage for a year and
12:57a guy
12:57everybody knows and loves and thinks is probably the best goalie on the planet that's not a guy that
13:04you want to you know jerk around that's a guy you want to make sure doesn't go telling everybody all
13:11his friends on team usa like winnipegs are these guys are mean and i don't like them well you already
13:18didn't ever nobody wants to go there no right and now and now it's like the best guy they've got
13:23and the guy who everybody loves is being told he has to stay there and he's like yeah it's not
13:28a
13:28and and and the other thing i want to make a point about with this situation is that this is
13:35not simply
13:36i don't think that you're good enough that this team is good enough or that i can win a stanley
13:41cup
13:41here or i don't like living here i don't even think that i don't think the the location part comes
13:47into it for hell of a lot even though those are all on the back of the sheet where you're
13:50writing the
13:50main thing you flip it over here like here's some other problems but yeah the bigger problem is the
13:55way that the canadian the u.s players were received in canada after they won the won the olympic goal
14:01oh there was uh have you read any about no no i didn't know anything about it it's there was
14:07i mean crazy death threats and his wife anti-american sentiment really hardcore stuff like that that
14:17really could make you feel unsafe in your home and i think that that deserves to be mentioned in this
14:25i haven't heard that because he he oh yeah he he has talked about like after after they got back
14:31after they all went to the white house which i think really ramped it up that there was a lot
14:37of
14:38canadian fans to those u.s players that were on that team like you are not one of us anymore
14:44you we do not like you we are done with you we don't respect you we want you that's what
14:50brady
14:50kachuk dealt with and that's why he's not in ottawa anymore that's why he plays for florida with his
14:55brother i mean it's also so that he could go play in florida with his brother but it it was
14:59it all
14:59makes sense and i you know maybe i've heard little hints of this sort of thing but it didn't
15:04there's a didn't all come together in my mind to be the reason that suddenly halibut needs to be out
15:09of winnipeg yeah i don't think it's the soul thing but it's a part of it but it's a it's
15:14a part
15:14of it and it's a human aspect of it that i think we all can identify with like if you
15:20worked at a
15:20job and you started showing up and all your co-workers started yelling at you every day and telling
15:25you like i'm gonna come to your house later and mess you up like i probably wouldn't want to work
15:31there anymore and that's where hello bucks at okay and so i i think that that that narrative
15:38about hello you sign a contract you gotta play the contract out yeah until people start threatening
15:44your family then i think the contract can be broken and maybe move from winnipeg right and that's what
15:51he's asked to do and and so you know if you if you want to say you think he's soft
15:56because he signed
15:56a five-year deal and blah blah blah blah fine but i i think that that's woefully short-sighted
16:05all right let's talk about him as a player you just used the phrase best goaltender in world
16:09as a reference to him you didn't like specifically endorse that as a point you just said that that
16:15is the way that people will argue is that um is that appropriate at his age and appropriate
16:23coming off of the year he had for the jets not talking about team usa sure i i think it's
16:28valid
16:28to question it i i think goaltenders are historically much more effective later into their careers the
16:36nature of the position is one that he it's physically not as demanding on the body impact wise like being
16:45a player is like being a skater is where you're getting thrown into the boards and you've got to be
16:50able to be explosive speed and agility and all that that matters for goaltending but it's a much
16:59more mental much more i need to understand what's happening what's coming at me be ahead of the game
17:05it's more of a chess match than being a skater is and that is conducive to improving with age and
17:13continuing to be more effective as you grow older and as you see even in my young career i i
17:21didn't
17:21play for very long i never got anywhere close to 33 i'm 24 now i've been retired for like three
17:25years
17:25four years even but i i can tell you from experience when i played junior hockey when i first started
17:33every game felt like what's happening i gotta guess where's everything going what's happening all
17:37right all right here we go this is going d to d but everything felt very fast and i felt
17:42like i was
17:42trying to play catch up and by the end of even my first season at that speed at that level
17:48it felt
17:49like okay i can see this developing i've got this guy on the back end they're going to look for
17:53a seam
17:54pass here and it's likely he's not going to have a lane down so he's going to kick it back
17:57to the d
17:58everything slows down you feel more calm you're like all right i know where i'm at i know i know
18:04what
18:04these guys are doing i know i know these players i know where i'm at i know my game and
18:10i can i i
18:10can i can play here i'm comfortable that is a much easier place to play goaltending than what i just
18:16sort of described in the start sure and that process continues oh year over year especially when you're in
18:23one league for as long as connor hellebuck's been in the nhl so that position it it is not have
18:31the
18:31same age curve that that skaters do you look look historically at guys like roberto luongo
18:39henrik lundquist there are guys that are that are elite for their whole careers and stay great
18:45later deeper into their 30s even into their 40s and so for me the age is much less of a
18:52concern
18:52but honestly not to just tie everything back at josh allen like we always do sure but that sounds like
18:59kind of what i'm picturing with him i because we know he's working hard because we know he cares
19:06because we know he is interested in being better and better and better mentally that guy is going to
19:13improve every single year until dementia hits or something if he if he could just somehow spell his cast
19:22on him the good kind that preserves your um your physical attributes and he could have the same exact
19:29body but his brain improve or not even improves but his brain processes an extra year of football every
19:35year 20 years from now that version of josh allen would be better for sure than the one that exists
19:42right now not realistic because your body does break down but the reality is your body does hang out
19:50in a certain area until it's not there the whole time his body is where it is right now his
19:57brain is
19:58improving now eventually what you'll see with um let's say tom brady who plays forever i don't think
20:04physically he was doing all the same stuff different type of quarterback but his the improvement in his
20:09mental game was greater than the decline in his physical game which allowed him to keep doing it forever
20:17you hit a critical point aaron rogers might be in that range right now where it's like yeah he's got
20:23it together but combination of just getting older uh physical uh attributes just sort of deteriorating
20:32naturally plus hits that you take plus just getting sick of being there plus the guys around you are
20:39maybe not up to the talent you had with you five six eight years ago like all that there's these
20:45competing curves that you're talking about and i get it that the goalie thing would make sense but
20:50it also would explain why josh allen if healthy is better this year than josh allen last year because
20:57there's an extra year of brain and better than two years ago because there is an extra year that
21:01and eventually physical declines a little but we haven't seen an ounce of that yet with allen
21:05um and then the goaltender thing it makes sense all yeah all of it kind of ties together 100 it's
21:10the
21:10same exact concept it's it's it's if you saw the kurt warner video of of him breaking down josh's
21:17throw to palmer on his second touchdown it's the same that's what warner's describing he learned he's
21:23learned how to read a defense quicker faster and diagnose what he should do with the football earlier
21:28and it's the same exact thing defensively for a goaltender i know what this guy's going to do because
21:34i've seen this guy do this 17 times because i've been in the league for 10 years i know what
21:38it looks
21:39like i know what he's about to do and that's a much easier way to approach a game than man
21:45i'm i'm
21:46looking for this what what's about to happen here that's a very different sort of vibe and then the
21:51the the year last year i i think that the jets have been as a team as an organization
21:59on a decline for a few years and what happened was he had an off year for the first time
22:04and the team
22:05fell apart because he was the team for a long time like when they when the winnipeg jets were going
22:11to
22:11the conference finals and they had dustin bufflin and mark streifley was in his prime and they had
22:17some like young nicolai ehlers and they were they were a great team as a whole and i think over
22:25time
22:25they lost more and more of that and eventually culminated they lost ehlers even last year
22:31and the team wasn't any good anymore and hell of a can only do so much and he absolutely deserves
22:39some blame for how it went last year for them he was not very good but environment is a major
22:45major
22:46contributing factor to how well a goaltender plays more than any other anything else really and there's
22:51no position in in hockey or maybe even in sports that's more dependent on your environment what's
22:59going on around me i am the last line of defense i'd like to not be the last line of
23:04defense every 30
23:04seconds right right and so that that needs to be contextualized as well the playoff numbers i mean
23:12go look at his first four years versus his last three you don't forget how to play playoff hockey
23:18you don't as a goaltender that is that is a skill and if he's shown it it doesn't leave you
23:24and so all the all the concerns that people bring me about this player i i find my way out
23:32of all of
23:33them and honestly not because i think it's a fun idea because i'm thinking critically about it and
23:38you want to try and tell me why i'm wrong please 8030550 i'd love to have somebody convince me why
23:45it's not smart for them what is the definitive goaltender statistic is it save percentage save
23:50percentage that give me enough of a pick like i don't matter i don't have time to dig into
23:54everything if i'm looking just for a at a glance because i'll throw this out this totally separate
23:59thing went to a major league baseball game last week uh dodgers marlins and they've got up on the
24:06scoreboard they've got the uh the batting order of course and right next to it is a number right next
24:13to each player is a number that in my lifetime has always been batting average and they've switched it
24:19to ops yes no because that is technically um a better way to assess the performance what it does
24:27it screws me up as a fan because i just want to look up and see is this guy a
24:31300 hitter or a 200
24:32hitter right that's really all i'm asking like i've never heard of him he's got four home runs he
24:37strikes out a lot okay i've got enough of a picture for hockey though like with a goaltender
24:41it's not going to be wins no it's not going to be it's not goals like i don't know what
24:46other
24:47number i could ever look at to determine so whether a goaltender is in his prime just one
24:51thing looking at you said go back and look at him in the postseason compared to the regular season
24:56last year is the first year in his career he's sub 900 on save percentage in hellebuck um so that's
25:03his down year his average over his career which includes last year for um for save percentage is
25:119 16 last year he was eight at 8 95 but last year in the playoffs uh a little bit
25:18better than that
25:18i don't know i just missed of course come on man it was so much more dramatic when i said
25:23it the right
25:23way did i really scroll it's like 9 45 all right so it was his down year except when it
25:29was the
25:30playoffs everything was completely fine is the overall yeah in the olympics he was
25:33then there's the olympics an absolute freak and so the number you're looking for by the way is
25:40expected or say goal saved above expected it sort of takes into account the environment
25:47yes gsa that's your that's your that's your number you want to look for but that's enough again back to
25:53the ops thing yeah i get that that's okay if they're ranked like okay that's the best guy that's
25:59the worst guy but i don't inherently know what a good number gsaa is or what a good ops is
26:06in the
26:07same way that i know that i've been told my whole life baseball is a game of failure three out
26:12of 10
26:13you go to the hall of fame like 300 there's a there's a number there that means something to
26:18to me without me having to look it up so i don't know it's a little bit different but
26:22of course as i'm trying to do this oh there it is playoffs right there uh so it was
26:278.95 save percentage last year regular season and then it was
26:36no wrong oh that's oh look they weren't in the playoffs yeah they did not make the playoffs
26:40sorry never mind no no you're fine scrap that here let i'll pull them up we don't need we don't
26:45need them the point i was trying to make failed but disregard the last three minutes of radio pretend
26:51it never happened we'll take a break we'll be way better when we get back go ahead on you want
26:55to
26:55say something say it sure i i've got the first four years 922 913 904 931 great numbers his last
27:03three years the most recent ones where everybody's mad at him 886 870 866 so those numbers took a dip
27:10but his first four years were incredibly strong performances that is my only point as you said
27:16circumstances and surroundings are a thing get yourself out of winnipeg get to a place where people
27:21are suddenly revitalized around the game i bet that does wonders um if it happens i don't know if
27:28is this something that could happen before the season begins i've it's possible at this point it
27:34happen any day now at any point and i wouldn't be surprised
27:38you
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