Keith Yandle (2:06)

What a rat.

Ryan Whitney (2:08)

Yeah. I don't know.

Keith Yandle (2:11)

That is incredible.

Ryan Whitney (2:13)

Yeah. No. Am I all right? It's just like. It's one thing to. To lose a Super bowl, right? You know, we've. We've. We've lost some heartbreakers. The New England Patriots now actually have the most super bowl losses in the history of the Super bowl was six. They're tied for the most wins. So 12 trips, six losses. But it's one thing to lose The Super Bowl. And it's one thing to lose it like that. That was. Thank God I didn't fly across the country to go to that game. Biz kind of want to throw it to you first based on you being there in what seemed like a pretty sick atmosphere.

Keith Yandle (2:51)

It was unreal. Like, I have no complaints. I didn't have a dog in the fight, obviously. Being the company man and the. The love I have for, like, people's hate on dynasties, I wanted. I wanted the paths to pull through. Happy for all my Seattle, our Vancouver friends who are Seattle's fans, like that whole crew. I feel like it probably. It makes up for the Butler interception on the goal line. So at least they have that going for them. And, man, yeah, if not for that play right there, they got three Super Bowls in the last 11 years. So pretty good franchise and very impressive. And all I kept hearing about was the defense and, wow, that was a clinic. Some pretty sick open field tackles. Really didn't give him much at all. Now I'll throw it back over to you guys. Obviously, as far as the playoffs were concerned, Drake may probably, I guess, underperformed based on maybe an MVC MVP caliber season. Just couldn't get any type of rhythm going. Nor did maybe they give him enough chances to throw it. But, ugh, that offense was Brutes. Brutes.

Biz Nasty (4:01)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (4:02)

They had nothing.

Biz Nasty (4:03)

Before we get into the nuances of the game, I just want to have a quick moment of silence for the buffet at. In the box that Biz was in, because I heard. I heard you put an absolute beating DraftKings.

Keith Yandle (4:18)

Oh, we got the. Because you're going low sodium for your 20.

Ryan Whitney (4:27)

Jeremy from drafting the best Keith and I. And he said, I never seen eats somebody eat this. This much meat. Like this guy. He's gone back and back and back. And I said, you haven't seen anything yet because that was the first quarter. And I mean, I'm. I'm speaking for a friend who orders sometimes four entrees. Yeah, four different fish entrees. The one time at dinners. And when he's got what looked like actually an out of this world suite and an out of this world DraftKings, they're top. He might not see one play of the game.

Keith Yandle (5:03)

So I'm happy I didn't come in swinging with the DraftKings promo because the people were gonna be like, okay, enough. But, buddy, the show that they put on, the way that they got us to the stadium where they were like, when they walked us closer, you were getting handed off on My way out the stadium. I had to leave my backpack in order to record this podcast. One of the guys took it, ran it over to the car that then took me here after the game. As far as the box was concerned, buddy, Jon Hamm was there. Saw, ended up seeing Jay Z. Like really, when we were leaving near the elevators with Beyonce, the girl who was in the movie with Marty supreme was sitting with next to Wanton. She's, she's very exotic looking. She's.

Biz Nasty (5:48)

Oh, the one who was married to Ahmad Shump or the basketball player?

Keith Yandle (5:52)

No, no, no, no, that was the one that win one battle after the other. I love her. That's like Tatiana or something.

Ryan Whitney (5:59)

I don't know, a 12 pack, that one.

Keith Yandle (6:03)

Oh yeah.

Ryan Whitney (6:04)

Oh, she's got some ridiculous abs.

Keith Yandle (6:07)

Yes. Yeah, no, she's. She's a stunner. No, this one kind of looks like the Zedenia one. You know who it is? Who is it?

Chris Pronger (6:15)

Biz, you got to tell this. I don't know exactly who she is, but you got to tell the story about Wanton Don and Kendall Jenner.

Biz Nasty (6:20)

Are you taking a shit right now, G?

Keith Yandle (6:21)

Sorry, no, he's got to be in the bathroom right now, cuz. Recording part of my take.

Chris Pronger (6:26)

Hotel room. But you got to tell the Kendall Jenner wanton doll.

Keith Yandle (6:30)

Well, Kendall Jenner walked in our box and for whatever reason, this building has like a 1:1 in an 1.8 pound burger, but it's like fall off the bone. What do you call that meat? Like almost like brisket or whatever it is.

Biz Nasty (6:46)

Short rib.

Keith Yandle (6:46)

Short rib. Short rib. It's. Oh, buddy. It was to die for. So because Wonton's a bit of the foodie, they brought it down to him, like hand delivered it. So he's just, he's kind of keeping up with the gimmick that he's got this big burger and he did it a couple times and he's kind of stuffing his face with it. In, in walks Kendall Jenner in through the door and she like has one hand on the door and like locks eyes with him and he's just mucking this huge burger, staring at her and then she stops and then closes the door and goes back out the other way, knowing that.

Ryan Whitney (7:19)

So just it was enough for her to leave.

Keith Yandle (7:20)

Buddy, I would be engaged to Kendall Jenner right now if it wasn't for fucking Wonton Donnie. Yeah, one and a half pound fucking brisket burger. I would have had her. But. But Yan's, you're going to love this one. I was chatting with A WWE hall of Famer, Nikki Bella. Do you know who that is?

Biz Nasty (7:42)

Yeah. She was married to Cena. No.

Keith Yandle (7:45)

Okay, okay. Oh, shit. What?

Ryan Whitney (7:46)

She's dating the guy on the Eagles now, Correct.

Biz Nasty (7:50)

Oh, no. She has a twin sister, so her sister might not. The Bella twins. One of them was married to John Cena.

Keith Yandle (7:57)

If she's with. If she's with this Eagles guy. What was all that? One in a million talks. I knew I'd get wet with that one. I got you two years. I got both of you.

Ryan Whitney (8:16)

Oh, buddy, that might have been one of your top lines of all time on this show. Like, to describe stunning.

Keith Yandle (8:26)

Oh, she was stunned. And she's fucking badass, man. She did WWE for, like, 20 years, man. You got to be fucking hard, Cord.

Ryan Whitney (8:33)

Yeah, she's got same L5s1 issues you got, probably.

Keith Yandle (8:37)

Yeah, dude. Oh, you know it. We. Hey, we'd share a chiropractor, which would share an art specialist, but.

Ryan Whitney (8:46)

Yeah, but you ain't sharing your time. Asus.

Chris Pronger (8:49)

No, no, no.

Biz Nasty (8:49)

Hey.

Chris Pronger (8:50)

Whoa.

Keith Yandle (8:51)

Well, I got two of them now, so maybe I'll send one over. I was, I was, I was planning the. I was planning the bachelor party. I thought we had things locked up. I'm getting blocked by a Philadelphia Eagle for kinder loud. I can't compete with that.

Biz Nasty (9:05)

It could be her sister, though. I'm not sure what the names. I'm not good with names.

Chris Pronger (9:11)

Yeah, both sisters were in the box. I think Biz made a run.

Keith Yandle (9:14)

Yeah, they were. They're both in there.

Ryan Whitney (9:16)

Okay.

Biz Nasty (9:17)

So I would imagine the one who is single was chatting you up. So wedding back on. Where are we doing it?

Keith Yandle (9:25)

Where? The bachelor party.

Ryan Whitney (9:26)

Wrestling ring.

Keith Yandle (9:28)

I, I, I think it would be fun to bring you guys. Have you ever done F1 wit? No.

Ryan Whitney (9:35)

I would Montreal. I would 1000% be down to go to an F1 race. I've been to a NASCAR race. I would rather watch that super bowl every day for 500 days in a row than go to another NASCAR race, but F1, no doubt. I'm down.

Keith Yandle (9:53)

Okay, okay, okay. I would. I would actually never have done it. I kind of want to do Saratoga because of how highly witt talk you talk about it. Yan's is all about it. You said it's one of the best places. And then, of course, Merle's invented Saratoga, so.

Ryan Whitney (10:10)

Hey, speaking of Merles, Merle's is loving life right now because, you know, he's been just so bitter. He's that bitter ex, right, that the Bills lost again. And this Patriots suck and Sam Darnold. Merle's texted me about 20 minutes before kickoff and mentioned, like, biggest bet of my life on the Seattle Seahawks. They're going to murder the Patriots. And I said, this is the perf. This is exactly what I want to hear. And sure enough, he was. He was bang on. So Merle's is hot. He's hot, and he's hot.

Keith Yandle (10:43)

So he put a big wager on it.

Ryan Whitney (10:44)

Yeah. Good for him.

Keith Yandle (10:46)

He probably paid for his furniture or TVs at least.

Ryan Whitney (10:49)

Yep. All his TVs. And I'm sure he's got to build a fence or something.

Keith Yandle (10:53)

Tom Brady walked in our suite, said hello to him. Yeah, just. He was getting, you know, these guys are getting that David Grundmann was in our suite the whole time. So this David Grundman guy, he owns a bunch of nightlife. He's one of the biggest guys in nightlife, probably in North America. And considering he. He's the, like, the king of Miami, probably one of the biggest in the world. He was in our suite, and the next thing you know, he was in the halftime show. So he was the one of the guys outside of the pink building early on with Alex Earl. Jessica Alba. Was that her?

Ryan Whitney (11:31)

Yeah, that was. That was Jessica Alba. The halftime show. I'm not like somebody that was losing my mind leading into the halftime show, but Keith, I'll tell you this. We finished the last episode, we were talking about Bad Bunny, and Biz was saying he's a big fan and he's multi talented. Hey, listen, very funny. Caddy and Happy Gilmore, snl. Very funny. As the Caddy and Happy Gilmore, snl. Yeah. The guy's obviously talented. My thing is, music wise, I lived in Russia for a year. Some of the beats are okay, but once they start singing, I don't know what they're saying. Right. It's very similar with Bad Bunny. I. I just don't have interest towards music where I don't know what they're saying. It's not like. So the halftime. Oh, well, I'll get back to Biz. So Biz texted me after the show, Keith, and he's like, tell me, tell me you won't put this on right now. And your hips don't just start moving. I put the song on. It was one of the worst songs I've ever heard. And. And the halftime show, the visually, the visual effect of it. Pretty cool.

Keith Yandle (12:38)

Yeah, production was crazy.

Ryan Whitney (12:39)

Production was cool. I just. I just. I. I had. I had Reggie's daughter next to me. She's nine and she said, I don't get why it's all in Spanish. Like, yeah, we don't know what they're saying. Yesterday I said, paige, let me tell you, you're a lot smarter than the normal nine year old because we're all saying the same thing. And then I said to her, you know, I work with this complete clown who's sitting up in a box right now. And I know biz. I know for a fact you were doing your, you know, his moves.

Keith Yandle (13:09)

That, but that's the thing. So here's the thing. I, I, I agree with you in the sense of if you are one that like, listens to the lyrics of music, then yes, that won't appeal to you. I'm not a huge lyrics guy. I'm more of like a beat and like, like. And I'm also not rocking to every single Bad Bunny song. I think he's had like probably four or five that if they came on, I'd listen front to back. And the one I sent you is freaking awesome. That is an awesome song. I'm going to read out that song to people at home so you know exactly what I'm talking about. But going back to the show, there was probably like two or three times where you're, you're up and you're moving and you're, you're feeling good and you're just moving your hips. That's it's feel good, happy music. The one popular song off the album he just won Grammy of the year for. It's like four letters. What? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Ryan Whitney (13:59)

Yan's H, O, L A. That would be Ola, right?

Keith Yandle (14:08)

No, it's, it's called, it's called dtmf. That one that they sang. Yeah. Hey, it's just a, if I could just picture if you, like had a, a kid and you're at home and it came on it just one of those ones where he might be jumping on the couch to, and you're kind of lifting your arms up in the air and you're just having a good old chuckle and it's a feel good, happy song. I'm not bumping a whole feel good.

Ryan Whitney (14:38)

Happy song for people who speak Spanish, but feel good happy beat for most people who don't speak. Like, I don't think it's a happy song if I don't know what the words.

Keith Yandle (14:49)

I don't think I put up a poll. I don't think you need to know the words of DTMF on his new album. If you listen to it front to back to enjoy it and smile and dance and be silly with it. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying that. If, if you're saying, hey, listen, we, we did Bad Bunny this year. It was a full Spanish album. Is that, is that the, the native tongue? Is it Spanish?

Chris Pronger (15:15)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (15:15)

Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's go back to something that's full English next year and more like old school rock. Like a throwback or who's this country artist? Is it called Zack Top?

Ryan Whitney (15:26)

I don't know. I actually in the middle of the Bad Bunny show is like, I. I'm just like kind of craving like AC DC right now. Like a legit rock, rock, rock queen.

Keith Yandle (15:38)

Imagine getting Queen back.

Ryan Whitney (15:40)

Yeah, yeah, just like some rock. So cool visual. And. And I want to say something right now to everyone who's like, oh, get to hockey, Hockey show. We have an hour and 50 minute unreal team by team breakdown with Chris Pronger, who's in the hall of Fame, and then a bunch of NHL topics. So this is a show.

Keith Yandle (16:00)

And then we're going to break down all of Bad Bunny's catalog on the back of the pot. Hey, but, but can you at least agree that it's pretty crazy? This guy is like the high, like, most popular artist on the planet right now. He does wwe, he's doing snl. It's remarkable. And he just.

Ryan Whitney (16:19)

Taylor Swift.

Keith Yandle (16:20)

He's a very. He's Taylor Swift and he's so likable. Like, you can't not like him. You'd be like, ah, you know, maybe you don't like his music. Be like, ah, it'd be funny to like go grab like a drink with him. No, no.

Biz Nasty (16:32)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (16:32)

I mean, I, if, if he's.

Biz Nasty (16:34)

Oh, he's gonna be able to talk.

Ryan Whitney (16:39)

Because if I just look at him and he's like singing and I'm sort of doing the.

Biz Nasty (16:46)

He better bring that sign language guy with him.

Ryan Whitney (16:53)

Shout out. Sam Darnold. Really happy for that guy. I think we mentioned last episode, like Kick to the Curb kind of bust.

Keith Yandle (17:00)

Five teams in eight years and Lamar Jackson was drafted ahead of him, not behind him. Who's the guy in, In Buffalo?

Biz Nasty (17:12)

Josh Allen.

Keith Yandle (17:13)

Josh Allen. Same draft.

Ryan Whitney (17:14)

Both Baker Mayfield, that draft and, and the first QB from that draft, 18, I think 2018 to win a Super Bowl. But just the fact that he was the bust. And I got quotations if you don't have Netflix and then, you know, backup San Francisco, Carolina, Minnesota. Okay. He's reached his potential. We're going to kick him to the curb for J.J. mcCarthy, who's, I mean, Drake may look like J.J. mcCarthy tonight, but horrible. And, and then he, you know, he goes to Seattle and fucking wins it all. I was pretty pumped for that guy. That's pretty, you know, that's pretty cool. And that team, I don't know, Keith. And a little football breakdown from the ball knowers here. It's like obviously they're a way better team than the Patriots. The defense was incredible for the Pats. The defense for Seattle is amazing. I don't know if they were that much better or Drake may truly just choke.

Keith Yandle (18:10)

So apparently the, the, the coach for Seattle, his defensive schemes make it almost as if though they have another guy on the field. The way they, they, they're able to like move and shift their defense that was.

Biz Nasty (18:23)

Told you this, Nikki Bella.

Ryan Whitney (18:37)

Those schemes they're running Beyonce, they actually have their fan base. The 12th man out there.

Keith Yandle (18:42)

Where the fuck you go? She's like, I'm talking defensive schemes with biz.

Biz Nasty (18:48)

And I will say though, whit, like as a, as a blue blooded Patriots fan, like they, they definitely had the easiest road to the finals maybe in the history of the NFL. Obviously getting there. You gotta be good enough, right? They were good in the regular season. Drake May wasn't great in the playoffs, but like Seattle, man, like as much as like we hated watching it, like the Patriots had won some Super Bowls like that. Like the one against LA, I think it was like 13, three. Like if you're on the other side of that, you're like, hey, my team was the better team. Seattle came out, they played their game, which I, I didn't watch a ton of Seattle football this year, but from everything I watched this morning, that's the way that they played. Just smothering defense, Nikki Bella style. And it's like you, you gotta, you gotta figure it, you gotta figure it out. And the Pats couldn't do it. And at the end of the day, they got beat by a better team.

Keith Yandle (19:43)

Hey. Hey. You're uninvited to the wedding.

Biz Nasty (19:46)

No, dude, take it.

Keith Yandle (19:48)

No, actually you can come, but it's cash bar for you.

Ryan Whitney (19:51)

What if he gets bad Bunny to be the musical performance?

Biz Nasty (19:54)

Hey, my plus one is Cena.

Keith Yandle (19:56)

Yeah. Then I'm going to be in the fucking hole. They fucking ten ten million bucks to get them for six minutes.

Biz Nasty (20:01)

Hey, I'm going to eat like biz eats at other people's free food. The way you eat, I'm going to eat.

Keith Yandle (20:08)

You're going to be in the holy. Hey. So we kind of glanced over DraftKings shout out to Jeremy. That might have been the best sushi I've ever had. Not at a fucking stadium. Best sushi I've ever had. I couldn't believe how good it was. It was the complete opposite of what Ra ate in the buffet or. Or the. The. The box in New Jersey or the.

Ryan Whitney (20:31)

Dinner he brought us in Vegas when he was 110 and he got us a seat outside.

Biz Nasty (20:35)

Did we ever talk about the soup.

Ryan Whitney (20:37)

When he ordered the salmon pizza with fish eggs on top of it.

Biz Nasty (20:42)

Hey, funny, funny thing about the buffet. When we were at Penn State when you guys left, I went down to Frank's box and I was talking to his wife. I'm like, man, isn't. Oh, she said it. She's like, it's just a shame like how much food gets wasted at the. At places like this. I'm like, that's where you just invite biz. He will mock every single ounces disposal.

Keith Yandle (21:04)

Canada garbator garb. Garb. Hey. So. So they. They accidentally brought in the tray of fillets before they were supposed to.

Biz Nasty (21:15)

It was gone.

Keith Yandle (21:16)

Were there two hours before the. And I open up the surrounder. I must ate half the fillet before kickoff. And then they bring out this sushi spread. I couldn't believe it. I'm on a. I'm gonna. I'm 1000% waking up with go tomorrow. Like there's not even. I might amputate my foot tonight just because no one's coming.

Ryan Whitney (21:36)

And then you might have mercury poisoning and the goat and. And all of a sudden like.

Biz Nasty (21:42)

Yeah, in L5S1 from getting body slammed by Mrs. Bella.

Keith Yandle (21:47)

Who else was there? Sierra walked in and Danger Wilson walked in our suite.

Biz Nasty (21:54)

Watch your feet, people. We got some names.

Ryan Whitney (21:56)

Oh, no.

Keith Yandle (21:57)

Hey, listen. We saw. No, hey listen. I think it's. Is it not silly seeing all these famous people in one area where it's.

Biz Nasty (22:06)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (22:06)

Was this a different box than Dave? You guys have two.

Keith Yandle (22:09)

Yeah, we had separate boxes. We. I was with Jeremy and the draftkings people. Who was the. We had a football player in ours.

Chris Pronger (22:17)

OBJ came by at one point.

Keith Yandle (22:18)

OBJ was in there.

Ryan Whitney (22:20)

Oh poor guy. He's got no money. Got a hundred million dollar contracts.

Keith Yandle (22:27)

I bought his cleats. Look at these things. Fucking. I got.

Biz Nasty (22:32)

Hey, are those game issues?

Keith Yandle (22:35)

18 pieces of sushi. I had to give him like the sashimi grade the good stuff, but that's how good this stuff was.

Ryan Whitney (22:42)

Nigiri out of your jean shirt pocket. Right now and ate it. I'd shit a brick.

Biz Nasty (22:49)

I wouldn't be surprised.

Keith Yandle (22:50)

Oh, so the guy. So a couple things. The woman who sang God Bless America, she was incredible.

Biz Nasty (22:57)

Who was that?

Keith Yandle (22:58)

And then I was actually sitting right next to. In the box, the gentleman who sang the anthem. His. His father. Do you know who that was?

Biz Nasty (23:07)

Charlie Puth.

Chris Pronger (23:08)

Charlie Puth. Yeah. We sat next to Charlie Puth's dad the whole time.

Keith Yandle (23:11)

Big spitting chicklets.

Chris Pronger (23:12)

Guy loves hockey.

Biz Nasty (23:13)

Yeah, he's a big time.

Chris Pronger (23:15)

Oh, he's awesome.

Ryan Whitney (23:16)

Are they Canadian?

Chris Pronger (23:17)

No, he's from Boston, actually. New Hampshire for a bit and that, and then he moved out to la.

Ryan Whitney (23:22)

New Hampshire.

Biz Nasty (23:24)

New Hampshire down.

Keith Yandle (23:25)

Incredibly talented. I thought he did a great job. It was a great rendition. And then he's like, I have a feeling this bad bunny is going to bring out Lady Gaga. And I'm like. I'm like, oh, okay. Fuck, I should have betted on that. On a Polymarth or whatever the hell it's called. Polymath.

Ryan Whitney (23:42)

Poly Market.

Keith Yandle (23:43)

Have you heard of this freaking site?

Ryan Whitney (23:45)

Was Jeremy talking to you about that?

Keith Yandle (23:47)

Yes.

Ryan Whitney (23:47)

Yeah, polymarket's nuts. For anyone who doesn't know it's gambling on anything in the world where I don't know if you. I don't know if it's up to the public to put out something that you can gamble on or that's somewhat regulated, but it's like, hey, what's an example of something.

Keith Yandle (24:06)

How many times is Biz gonna mention his cornhole in the next Spit and Chicklets episode?

Biz Nasty (24:10)

Yeah, but, yeah, will Biz finish this filet.

Ryan Whitney (24:13)

Yeah.

Biz Nasty (24:14)

Out of his pocket.

Keith Yandle (24:14)

How many? How many fucking nigiris is Biz gonna stuff down his yap before the end of the second quarter?

Ryan Whitney (24:21)

Over under 4,000 swipes on Raya by November 1, 2026, and you could bet it, and boom, November 2, you're getting paid or you're not. And I don't even think that. I don't know how they make. Like, they don't take money, do they? It's like basically like the books try to make it even, right? Like they adjust lines in sports books to get it basically where they're just winning the vig no matter what happens, right? That is just like people are betting against other people kind of. They created a way where it's like you're just betting against somebody else. So I, I, We're. We're for sure some. I'm for sure somewhat butchering it.

Keith Yandle (25:00)

But no, no, I think you're pretty much bang on where, like you said the, the on the. The like exact math in real time is so close and when they take the margin on the person being paid out for the win that they automatically win. But I think that like let it legislators are kind of like and, and they somehow they deem it as a trade the way that they've set up this company. So it's technically not illegal in the non gambling states because it's not considered gambling. Where now gambling sites are like. Well what do you mean? Like oh we just got to say it's a trade as opposed to like gambling.

Ryan Whitney (25:38)

They're making their own to like fight back against the poly market.

Keith Yandle (25:42)

I was shocked to hear that it's a site that you can lit. You could well, well you know. Will Trump tweet about this today?

Ryan Whitney (25:50)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keith Yandle (25:51)

Boom. It's got the most random shit. So with the bitcoin like the. Now bitcoin's going down with I. The world's moving too fast, guys. It's moving too fast.

Biz Nasty (26:02)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (26:02)

And we can move forward.

Biz Nasty (26:03)

You don't even have enough time to enjoy a buffet. It's moving way too fast.

Ryan Whitney (26:07)

Yeah, just. That's why just get your sushi, meet WWE women and, and just smile. Just touch grass and smile and say thank you. And say thank you to Ev. Ev. Imagine how many thank yous he said tonight.

Keith Yandle (26:22)

I said I must have thanked Jeremy 26000 times.

Biz Nasty (26:27)

Hey well let's put that bet out.

Keith Yandle (26:28)

On Polymath or Polymart.

Biz Nasty (26:32)

So basically to dumb it down wit, it would be like if they put that out there, like Will Biz have 50 pieces of sushi? One person puts it out there and then other people see it and then say no he won't. Yes he will. Like how do you even get like traction on it?

Ryan Whitney (26:46)

It's, it's. I think it's like on Twitter. No, it's on the website or the app, whatever. Like. But what's crazy about it is it'll start like switching so quick live where say something is so unlikely to happen, like if it's a yes or no question, all of a sudden, you know, it's like 85% of people are betting yes and all of a sudden it's flipping and 60% of the people are saying no. Yeah, she was the girl that Marty supreme knocked up. Odessa Azaya.

Keith Yandle (27:19)

She's so unique looking. She was so cool.

Ryan Whitney (27:22)

Stunning. Never seen her stunning. Final thought on the game. I. The only worry I have is like Drake May had this MVP season against like really bad teams and I'M like, oh my God, this guy is like future superstar. He was really bad every playoff game. And the offensive line, Will Campbell, who was injured, he was horrible. And now I'm like so down in the dumps. It's like, are they even like that good? That like a season that was just a flash in the pan. It's like when you start playing real teams. But same time he's 23, he had to be just overwhelmed. It was one thing though to just maybe play great in the playoffs as a 23 year old, possible MVP and then stink it up in the Super Bowl. But he was bad every playoff game. Yeah.

Biz Nasty (28:11)

Because won't their schedule get harder next year? Doesn't in football it how bad you finish, the easier schedule you get.

Ryan Whitney (28:19)

So, so you'll play like you'll play when you, you always have some other divisions you play like in the NFC and stuff. And if you finish fourth in your division, you play the fourth place team the year before in that. In every other division you play. So this year they'll be playing the teams who won all the divisions, whoever play against besides their AFC normal games. So just, just basically for everyone in the public, though, I kind of apologize for having to watch that. That was, that was the most boring football game I've ever watched. And at one point I realized it was like the third quarter, I, I said we had a couple people over, I said, have they got over midfield? And my buddy's like, they did like the first drive and they got to like the 48. So what are you gonna do?

Biz Nasty (29:07)

I will say too, like even just being a fan and just having that extra week of being able to talk about it and having something to look forward to, it was great. And I mean, obviously those guys, you feel gutted for the guys that lose, the guys who win, it's life changing. Feel bad for the Patriots guys, but hopefully they can come back. But I mean, you just never know. But I, I also do think like Variable's building something really special there. I think the way that he gets his to play for him is super special. That you don't see a ton in, in other sports. But yeah, it was definitely a brutal game. But I feel gutted for the guys that won, happy for the guys that are gutted for the guys that lost, happy for the guys that win. And now football's over, boys. Now it's all fucking hockey.

Keith Yandle (29:53)

Oh, it's all hockey. I would say 60, 40, maybe fans in there, but it felt like Seattle.

Ryan Whitney (30:01)

My brother was there and said it was like 9 to 10.

Chris Pronger (30:04)

No, fans were way louder.

Keith Yandle (30:06)

I would say they were louder.

Biz Nasty (30:07)

Your brother went to Cornell. Biz went to Davenport. You. I'll take Sean's.

Ryan Whitney (30:12)

He said it was 20 to 1. Seahawks fans to Pats fans.

Biz Nasty (30:15)

Okay, I take Sean's.

Keith Yandle (30:16)

No, no, no. I'm with Biz. No, I would say it was probably, let's say 60 to 65%, but they were twice as loud, minimum.

Chris Pronger (30:27)

They were way more into it.

Keith Yandle (30:28)

I couldn't believe how loud.

Biz Nasty (30:30)

There was nothing to get into. If you're a Patriots fan.

Keith Yandle (30:32)

There was as the game. Who's on D? Like, the minute they had the ball, like the. The full. Almost the first half, like, the. It was still a game. Yeah. And every time Pats had the ball, I'm like, holy shit, man. I can't even hear myself think, hey.

Biz Nasty (30:48)

That kicker should have won mvp, by the way.

Ryan Whitney (30:50)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (30:51)

Who won mvp?

Ryan Whitney (30:52)

The running back.

Biz Nasty (30:53)

Who?

Chris Pronger (30:53)

Who?

Ryan Whitney (30:54)

I think he had, like, 95 yards at halftime. He was.

Keith Yandle (30:57)

He looked like Bernie Sanders.

Ryan Whitney (30:59)

Great call, by the way, on the group chat. He did kind of look like Adrian Peterson running.

Biz Nasty (31:03)

Yeah. Then Brian said, booby miles. That was funny.

Keith Yandle (31:07)

That's funny.

Chris Pronger (31:08)

Guys, real quick, before. Before we move on, I just. We got to give Dave a shout out. Like, he flew 20 of U.S. patriots fans out there. A couple guys had never even gone to an NFL game before.

Ryan Whitney (31:17)

You didn't have to pay for your flight either, man.

Chris Pronger (31:20)

Didn't have to play for flights.

Ryan Whitney (31:21)

Hotels figured you had to pay for that, man.

Chris Pronger (31:24)

They're taking us to the DraftKings party, the sports Illustrated party on the night before. We had a party bus with high noons on it. Right when we stepped on the bus, like, Dave took care of us to the 10th degree. So, like, stick taps for him, man. That was the best once in a lifetime experience.

Keith Yandle (31:39)

You can't find a better boss than that, guys. He's a fucking man.

Chris Pronger (31:42)

He treats.

Biz Nasty (31:43)

Dude, when they. They. They had a video of Fasoli crying like that, that warmed my heart. It really.

Ryan Whitney (31:49)

That was an hour before kickoff. He's crying.

Biz Nasty (31:52)

The players weren't even at the stadium yet, and he was crying.

Keith Yandle (31:56)

That's why. That's what I. What sucks, man. All these guys, it's like, if they get it there, will he do it again?

Biz Nasty (32:03)

Yeah. But the good news is with, like, PFT has zero chance of ever winning a Super Bowl. Big Cat has zero chance of winning a Super Bowl. They're all over Hank. I know you're in Hank's room right now. Those guys are absolute Trash. The way. The way that they treat Hank is.

Ryan Whitney (32:20)

They'Re the definition of, like, haters. The trolls online that just, like, hate themselves and take it out on other people and they're giving it to them right now. Yeah, I'm a. Pardon my take fan.

Biz Nasty (32:31)

Shoot.

Ryan Whitney (32:31)

The last two weeks, the last month, I'm like, this is painful. Like, these losers are so jealous and so miserable with their own existence.

Keith Yandle (32:39)

This is for PFT and Big Cat for going after Hank.

Ryan Whitney (32:46)

Oh, the last one. The last one. You gotta check your undies. That was sushi filet, short rib burger, Kendall Jenner cannolis in there. Everything.

Biz Nasty (32:58)

Yeah. Special.

Ryan Whitney (32:59)

You had a couple cannolis with Fasoli.

Keith Yandle (33:02)

Yeah. A hint. A hint of Nikki Bella's perfume.

Ryan Whitney (33:09)

So moving along, my love, I. I have. I've gotten to know the Tkachuks. I love the Tkachuks. If you are not a friend of Matthew Tkachuk or a fan of the Florida Panthers, that. That hit on Kucherov and just. I was like, this is why he is the ultimate number one rat in the NHL. That game was complete madness. And he just gets off the bench on a PK and just goes way into his own zone and just bundles Kuchara from behind. Fuck this. I'm going to cause a melee. And this Brandon Hagel is a fucking nail gun.

Keith Yandle (33:51)

He's nails.

Ryan Whitney (33:51)

He, like, he broke out with all the points one year. Then he fought tkachuk last year, Four Nations. He must have thrown 27 punches on Thursday night in that fight, John. And then the way that game went. Did Sabrina end up getting kicked out of that game? Did he?

Biz Nasty (34:10)

I don't even think he did anything. And they just told him to leave. They were like, hey, do you mind getting out of here? It was like biz at the buffet. Like, hey, your time. Your time's up, dude.

Keith Yandle (34:20)

I don't.

Biz Nasty (34:20)

I think they did kick him out, but he didn't do anything.

Ryan Whitney (34:25)

I. That's what I was like, what did he do? But I think I thought he got the boot.

Biz Nasty (34:28)

Yeah. When I. When I saw Matthew do it, Matthew doing that, that looked to me like, hey, this is the last game before I gotta go play the biggest tournament of my life. I'm going to get thrown out. Get a couple minutes extra of rest before this flight over to Italy. I didn't mind it. I didn't mind it one bit.

Ryan Whitney (34:48)

And Tampa put a beat down on the Panthers. Guys. The news broke and very funny with, like, Frank Saravali and what's happened in terms of the Florida Panthers draft pick that the Chicago Blackhawks acquired in the Seth Jones trade. For a year now, everyone has thought it was just their pick. No matter what, that is Chicago's pick. And all of a sudden, Frank, and I don't know if Frank had tweeted out originally, I think I saw something where he did mention it a long time ago. No, he was in the weeds, like, going at it with Blackhawks fans that it's top 10 protected. Okay? So I don't know how that didn't come out earlier. Like I said, maybe it did. I don't remember it, but I know there was a bunch of, like, battling back and forth.

Keith Yandle (35:38)

Maybe they didn't even notice it just because they're, like, top 10 protected. Like, they're like. They're not in that realm. They're not going to miss playoffs. Right?

Ryan Whitney (35:47)

Yeah, you're right. Maybe that was something where it's like.

Keith Yandle (35:50)

So it kind of just probably didn't get mentioned that much, but this could turn into. That's a big thing, man. That's a big thing at this point.

Ryan Whitney (35:57)

And. And Hawks fans are. Are fuming. And I kind of get it, because they're, like, looking like, oh, my God, like, they're struggling, and then they find out, like, whoa, wait, like, if it's. If somehow Florida, like, really, really goes to.

Biz Nasty (36:09)

To.

Ryan Whitney (36:09)

To the. This. This. This final few games after the Olympic break. Like, we don't even get the pick if it's like, six, seven. Yeah.

Keith Yandle (36:16)

So let's. Let's dumb it down for some of you listening, being like, what are they talking about? So in that, in the Seth Jones trade, there was salary, retention, and then a conditional pick, right? So if, obviously, if they end up, you know, missing playoffs, a catastrophic end of the season, and they end up getting a pick in the top 10, they get it protected this year.

Ryan Whitney (36:38)

So.

Keith Yandle (36:39)

So then Florida would then draft in the top 10 this year, and then it would bump back to next year where the Blackhawks get their first round or. Well, once they get healthy and, you know, things are rolling for the Florida Panthers, I think that they're probably going to be drafting between 25 and 32 next year. So you're missing out and potentially moving back 20 spots in the draft where, I don't know what the analytics are, but when you drop out of the top 10, it drops significantly as far as, like, NHLers playing a long period of time and actually making an impact in the NHL. So that 20 picks is, like, catastrophic for a team trying to build to where Chicago is Going.

Ryan Whitney (37:17)

And Keith, I want your opinion, because this is what I was getting to. I know Barkov has been skating and stuff, but. And Panthers fans may be like, this guy's an idiot. And maybe part of this is like, if the Oilers somehow get to the finals, I just want to know that the Panthers will not be there, but would you not be willing to be like, all right, Barky's not coming back. Anyone else who's banged up, you don't have to play either. We're going to make sure we finish in the top bottom 10, get a really high pick, everyone is signed and we come back next year and we're ripping and roaring and ready to go. The argument would be like, we're still in our window and if we get in, we can win it. But what do you think about possibly being like, we're kind of going to punt this season, keep this high draft pick and next year we know we will be back in the mix?

Biz Nasty (38:13)

Yeah, I, the only thing is, I don't think they have that in their DNA in that locker room and the makeup of their team. I think they have to go like 17 and 6 to get into the playoffs or whatever those numbers are around there. So it's like, whatever. Say they come out and lose the first five games and it's like, okay, now we gotta have a crazy, crazy run. Then it's like, all right, maybe we shut down Barky, but I honestly don't think that they have that in their DNA in that locker room. Even just the guys alone, like, where, like, imagine telling Matthew Kachuk when he's playing right now, like, hey, dude, we're gonna shut it down so we can, you know, get a higher draft pick. They don't give a fuck. Right?

Ryan Whitney (38:52)

Yep.

Biz Nasty (38:53)

But looking at it the way you're talking about it, it definitely makes sense and it makes you think, like, did Zito do this on purpose?

Keith Yandle (39:03)

Well, I think that he, I think that, yeah, I think he was just a. I, I think it was a thing that was so far fetched that Chicago was probably like, sure, right.

Ryan Whitney (39:12)

I know. I. They're like, yeah, whatever.

Keith Yandle (39:14)

Yeah, that's not a realistic situation. And, and even then, like, maybe not even use it. Like now all of a sudden, if they do falter and they do get a top 10 pick, now they maybe use like an 8th overall or 9th overall to go get something to help them out in like what they want to do in the next two, three years after that. So just a huge, a huge play by Zito and I. Yeah, I Don't even know if I could say miss by Chicago, but just. Oh, just.

Ryan Whitney (39:42)

Yeah, just a bummer for the fans to find that out and be like, what the fuck? Like, why hasn't this been mentioned since last year's deadline? Or whenever they got Seth Jones. The other Thursday night storyline was the goddamn Pittsburgh Penguins, boys. It is incredible. They have all these guys, you know, have an awesome seasons. Malkin's been a beast. Sid is Sid. Carlson's been awesome, right when he's been playing. I know he was injured a little bit, but Kindle is nasty. And I saw a thing where Kendall is. I think he's going to break the record for most points from a player picked in the. In not in the top 10, like playing as an 18 year old. This may be a tweet that I saw and this is like the dumbest thing I've ever said, but it was like Bergeron, I know, was a second rounder, played as an 18 year old and had a good season. And did Ryan O'Reilly play as a, as an 18 year old? I think he was in the tweet.

Chris Pronger (40:44)

Colorado.

Ryan Whitney (40:45)

Yeah, I think he did. And Kindle's like on a pace to get I think 45ish, maybe 50 points. He just, that kid's a gamer. He's really good.

Biz Nasty (40:55)

Bobby Orr was the other one in that tweet, wasn't it? Who wasn't it Bobby Orr in that tweet?

Ryan Whitney (41:01)

I don't even know if what Bobby Orr was, Was he even drafted? What was it like then? Didn't they just like sign you when you were 14? But yeah, you're right. The cool story was this, this kid, Avery Hayes, who got called up and I think got to the arena at like 5 o'. Clock. He's carrying in his bag. He had two goals in like the first eight minutes of the game or something like that. And that was just like, oh my God. Like I saw Kevin Hayes. Funny, they were playing together or he was at least on the ice. He grabs the puck for the first one, gets another one. They're showing his parents and his brother in the crowd. Then after the second one you could tell they were like, oh my God. So the Penguins just never saw it coming. Awesome storyline. Do not want them to fall out of this race by any means. I think they're gonna be in the playoffs. We get sit in another possible run and it's, it's a pretty cool, pretty cool storyline that I don't think anyone saw coming.

Biz Nasty (41:58)

Do you think that they're Big time buyers at the deadline, right? Like, like it's, you owe it to Sid and Malkin and, and Latang, right? Like you gotta do whatever you can to get these guys. Obviously you can trade guys like Kindle, this Hayes kid, but like you gotta, you gotta make a run, get guys whatever you need to get these guys to get a playoff run. Because Sid, Sid deserves it. At the end of the day, he deserves it.

Ryan Whitney (42:20)

Okay, so here it is. 18 year olds drafted outside the top 10 to play 70 plus games. This is in the salary cap era. And their point totals. Bergeron, 39 points at 71 games played. Colts. Cole Cylinder. Bergeron was 45th overall. Cole Cylinder was 12th overall at 31 points in 79 games. Benson did it. He was picked 13th. He had 30 points in 71 games. O'Reilly was picked 33rd. Wow. O'Reilly was a second rounder and he had 26 points in 81 games. Ben Benjamin, Kindles Pace, 40 points in what would be 79 games. So the Penguins looks like they, they got a steal there in, you know, in the middle of the first round. So, and Biz, you're, you're a dubious guy. I think you're owning a lot of stock of it still.

Keith Yandle (43:09)

Oh yeah.

Ryan Whitney (43:10)

And he definitely has a lot of moves and, and ways he wants to grow this team for the future. But like Keith said, you're looking at him as buyers.

Keith Yandle (43:21)

I would, I would maybe go get a guy like a, like a middle six or top six guy as a rental, but I wouldn't also wouldn't be paying a lot. I wouldn't be leveraging.

Ryan Whitney (43:31)

He's still going to be timid on giving away. Like, you're not trading Will Hoff, say. Right?

Keith Yandle (43:36)

No.

Ryan Whitney (43:37)

Yeah, yeah.

Keith Yandle (43:38)

No, no, no. I don't think that that's where they are. But, but I, I, but you've got to imagine there's got to be a few guys out there who maybe are up for contracts and they're in that position where they could fit in there where they're like, oh man, a playoff run with Sid and it's, if it's a contract year with him, maybe he would slot in there. I don't know. Like, the other thing too is like you look at their path, like if they end up playing Long island the first round and then they draw like Carolina in the second round, it's not a very intimidating path to get to the conference finals for, for what Pittsburgh has, like Pittsburgh, when they've made a few of their runs. I don't think that their lineups were, like, jaw dropping. They would get good goaltending. They would really work well and understand the systems. Like we talked about the one year when latang went down and their D where you would look, look at them on paper, you'd say this is like the. Probably the bottom 10 worst defense scores in the league. If you would have showed it to them at the beginning of that year. So they got the strength through the middle. They army loves their. Their bottom two lines. And like, they were.

Ryan Whitney (44:47)

That was. Remember our complaints last year? Like, what are these guys doing?

Keith Yandle (44:50)

They brought nothing. They were vanilla. And this year, I think they have the highest scoring and best analytic fourth line in the league right now.

Biz Nasty (44:59)

Manth has been unreal. The kid who looks like the bad kid in Toy Story. Sid. Brazil Brazo. Yeah, him. Like those guys. But like, those guys, they're built. They're built third, fourth liners, like guys you do not want to play against. And they're contributing, getting points, scoring goals and stealing your toys.

Ryan Whitney (45:21)

And then like burning them, like, with the magnifying glass. Sid was a disgusting.

Keith Yandle (45:26)

That's why any crypto you look at online right now, it's tanked over the last, what, three, four months? Why do you think that is?

Ryan Whitney (45:34)

What's tanked?

Keith Yandle (45:36)

Bitcoin, Ethereum. You fucking name it, they took it out and they put it in Douglas stock.

Ryan Whitney (45:42)

Okay. Okay.

Keith Yandle (45:43)

That's the crypto of the future.

Biz Nasty (45:45)

The big dogs are doing it too.

Keith Yandle (45:46)

All of them. The Winklevoss twins.

Ryan Whitney (45:49)

But some of them made a mistake and it went to the Pittsburgh mayor.

Keith Yandle (45:52)

And now be major, major inside trading.

Biz Nasty (45:55)

Hey, the Winklevoss twins. The Bella twins.

Keith Yandle (45:59)

Yeah, all of them. All the twins. The bitcoin twins. What's that? What's that SFP guy? What's his name?

Ryan Whitney (46:07)

Oh, sbf. Sam Bankman Freed.

Keith Yandle (46:09)

Yeah. He was in the box tonight.

Ryan Whitney (46:11)

His girl was a rocket.

Keith Yandle (46:13)

You know who else was in the box? The fucker who did the. The fyre fest.

Biz Nasty (46:17)

Was he?

Ryan Whitney (46:18)

No. Was he?

Keith Yandle (46:19)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (46:20)

Didn't he try doing another one?

Biz Nasty (46:21)

And that thing, me and Biz went.

Keith Yandle (46:24)

We're collaborating with them. We're doing like a Chiclets cup fire festival.

Biz Nasty (46:28)

Yeah. Fly fishing fest.

Ryan Whitney (46:37)

Biz, your team made a couple adjustments. We. We already know and. Or knew that Bennett was replacing Anthony Cirelli. But Jarvey, our buddy, Seth Jarvis, Winnipeg's finest, he's coming in. And you know what? Gutted for Braden Point pretty cool. I saw that the GM there, Breeze Bond, Tampa, was saying, like, I want to. I want to show both These guys out, like, pretty unselfish and pretty incredible where they maybe could have gone and given it a shot and tried. And they knew, like, I'm not at the. I'm not the player I would need to be. And I want Canada to win. And took their names out and Jarvis comes in for point.

Keith Yandle (47:20)

That's. Yeah, that's pretty. That's pretty sick. Like, that's a very selfless thing to do. And then for Jarvey to get the call. And then they. They asked him about in that interview. It was a pretty emotional interview. You could tell he's just, like, so fired up and. And blown away. One thing to get mentioned to the four nations, and obviously he. I thought he played awesome there. Seemed like he really gelled with the players there. And you were one guy that. That was probably a guy. Would you not agree that you probably maybe saw on the outside looking in going into this year's roster? Whit.

Ryan Whitney (47:49)

Yeah, him and. Him and Connectney. And they. They didn't make it. Right.

Keith Yandle (47:53)

And they didn't make it and connect.

Ryan Whitney (47:55)

He has been awesome this year.

Biz Nasty (47:56)

Yeah, he's been unreal.

Keith Yandle (47:59)

So the. The. The silliest thing about that was I think that Jarvis was supposed to go to. To like, Cabo or Cancun with his buddies.

Ryan Whitney (48:07)

He was going somewhere fun.

Keith Yandle (48:09)

Oh, yeah.

Ryan Whitney (48:10)

Margaret Buddies somewhere too, Buddy.

Keith Yandle (48:13)

Yes. So they DM'd me. One of the buddies DM me. And I guess the site they booked through, they don't have insurance on. On their. On their vacation. So now they're trying to. They're trying to get some help.

Biz Nasty (48:27)

You can't drive making like nine bananas a year. What's Jarvie making?

Keith Yandle (48:32)

I just. I told them to drive their RV over to Italy instead, but they're trying to get this company to. To like, change their flights so they can go over to Italy and now watch their buddy. And they're hoping that. They said tickets are too expensive and there's not available. And they're. I think they're asking for a little bit of help. I gotta find.

Ryan Whitney (48:52)

Oh, they were asking for dough.

Biz Nasty (48:55)

Jarvis is making nine bananas, isn't he?

Keith Yandle (48:58)

I know, bud, but I don't think his friends are on Scully like that. He's not. I think.

Ryan Whitney (49:02)

No, I think they're. Scully. They can't ask for more. It's like. It's like in blue chips. Like, Nick Nolte, like, gave the kid, his dad a John Kid, 50 grand. He's like, you can't get any more. You can't keep coming to me.

Biz Nasty (49:16)

For more Team Canada should be paying this did.

Ryan Whitney (49:18)

They showed up to fucking four nations. They drove to Boston. They drove to Boston from Winnipeg.

Keith Yandle (49:23)

Do you think Carney should step up and pay for this?

Ryan Whitney (49:26)

Benson?

Keith Yandle (49:27)

No, the fucking Prime Minister.

Ryan Whitney (49:32)

He's too busy rubbing the guy from heated rivalry's thigh.

Keith Yandle (49:36)

You thought I meant the Carney as in the carnival kid?

Biz Nasty (49:39)

Yeah, yeah.

Keith Yandle (49:42)

That would have been random.

Biz Nasty (49:43)

Let's do a go fish me biz.

Keith Yandle (49:45)

What.

Ryan Whitney (49:46)

What was their message? Was it.

Keith Yandle (49:47)

I'm trying to find it.

Ryan Whitney (49:49)

It's their GoFundMe to get to Milan.

Biz Nasty (49:52)

I think, I think Jarvey needs to, to like, he's got to step up and pay for this. Like, if you re like, he's. He got put on this team to bring some vibes. His buddy, his buddies brought the vibes in four nations. He's got to do the right thing. And this will, this will pay for itself in, in, in gold.

Ryan Whitney (50:10)

And you can, you know, you stick these guys middle row roach class like they don't care.

Biz Nasty (50:15)

They don't care. No.

Keith Yandle (50:18)

So I, I, I remember reading it and I think I, I, I put it down to go back to it and I can't find it.

Ryan Whitney (50:26)

Was it a DM or was it.

Keith Yandle (50:27)

A. Yeah, it was a DM On Instagram.

Ryan Whitney (50:30)

They have a group Instagram account. It's just like seven of them. One of those kids was supposed to play for the Gargoyles.

Keith Yandle (50:36)

I think we're going to have to come back to it. I know it's important obviously for, for Jarvey to get his buddies there. This could be the difference.

Ryan Whitney (50:43)

We can go back to that. Maybe after prongs. Final thing before we get to prongs. And our Olympic preview is Canada named its captains. Crosby's obviously the captain. McDavid and McCarr got the A's. I guess you maybe want to have a. A defenseman with a letter similar to what the US did, but I feel like it was just like a no brainer to be like, Crosby McDavid a McKinnon a like it's weird. Like McKinnon's the captain of the AVS and then doesn't have a legendary.

Keith Yandle (51:14)

No, he's not Laniskag.

Ryan Whitney (51:15)

Oh, Jesus. What am I thinking? Fuck. Wake up with. I feel like he's the captain with Landiscog being right. But yeah, you're right. So it, I guess it does make sense. Suck on that one, Whit. USA went with Matthews. That's who it was last year. I actually thought there could be a switch there, but Matthew Tkachuk gets an A and Charlie McAvoy gets an A.

Keith Yandle (51:35)

Who would you have picked if it was your. Your guy?

Ryan Whitney (51:38)

I thought Matthew Tkachuk might end up with the C. I. I didn't think they would change, but I didn't think it was as. It's obviously not as locked in as Sid, but I didn't think it was, like, 100% Matthews again. But there were one goal away in OT of winning it, so, like, why switch that up? They obviously were happy with. With how he was as a leader, and it seems like that room is pretty. It's almost like all these teams, it doesn't really matter. You have a letter besides Sid. That's just different. But we'll see how it all shakes. All right.

Keith Yandle (52:12)

I found it.

Ryan Whitney (52:13)

Okay.

Keith Yandle (52:13)

My fault. Can I read it for you guys?

Biz Nasty (52:15)

Of course.

Keith Yandle (52:16)

Let me do a couple breathe. Breaths before.

Biz Nasty (52:20)

Read it in your real voice. You're unreal at reading in your robo dick pill voice. Yep.

Keith Yandle (52:25)

Hi. No, it says biz. Hope this message finds you well. My buddies and I are part of the crew that drove down to Boston to watch our friend Seth Jarvis at the Four Nations. We actually ran into Wit at the bar before the game, as we does that. Is that true?

Ryan Whitney (52:44)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (52:45)

As we know, he just got named to the Olympics, and now my buddies and I are all scrambling to get down there. We had flights down to rally. Okay. So they were going there to go see him over the break. And of course, none or none of us got travel insurance. I know you have lots of experience working with brands and doing partnerships. I was wondering if you had any travel partnerships that could. That could recommend I reach out to you for help getting us down there. Down there.

Biz Nasty (53:16)

From.

Ryan Whitney (53:17)

Yeah, he. He's act. Well, no, he's acting like Italy's in Florida.

Keith Yandle (53:23)

Doesn't necessarily have to be travel. Could be for accommodations. We're looking for any help. We'd also be open, more than open to doing any content for any of these brands. Even if there's anything we could do with Chiclets. We're huge fans. Okay, so we got our.

Biz Nasty (53:40)

We got boots on the ground.

Ryan Whitney (53:43)

Traveling circus.

Keith Yandle (53:45)

I said. I said, what do you need? I said, it would be funny if we sent you there as correspondence. That's what I said to him. I think our biggest issue is going to be getting our hands on tickets to the games once we're down there. We're planning on flying out on the 13th, so we'd be there for Canada's game on the 15th against France. All Layup and then. And then any games after that. As of right now, looking online, all tickets, any Canada games are sold out. We could absolutely go muck it up and get some content for you guys as correspondence. Oh my God. Where do we go from here?

Biz Nasty (54:20)

Tell them if they. If they wear USA jerseys, paint their face with the American flags, all that stuff, I'll pay for their whole trip.

Keith Yandle (54:28)

I think they would rather talk.

Ryan Whitney (54:29)

They would skydive no parachute on before doing that. Those Winnipeg lunatics, proud Canadians, they drove to Boston and I think some of them had their faces painted at the greatest bar before the championship game. They wouldn't consider it. I would tell them, guys, if you can't find tickets and the fights are crazy, you live In Winnipeg, it's minus 45. You've been sitting indoors making fires and like praying to God you didn't have to put your skin in the outdoor since November. Just go to Raleigh, watch the games and play golf. You have the flights already.

Biz Nasty (55:06)

What if we have a man that.

Keith Yandle (55:09)

Knows, hey, what if we have them go to Raleigh and then meet us for the live stream and they drive down an RV to Florida where we're at?

Ryan Whitney (55:17)

That. That could be pretty fun.

Keith Yandle (55:20)

All right. All right. Okay. Yeah, let's get them.

Ryan Whitney (55:23)

They're going to be like, so you got.

Keith Yandle (55:26)

You're building five guys, Yance.

Biz Nasty (55:28)

They can only stay at my house.

Ryan Whitney (55:30)

That was very smart biz. G just says genius call because now we get the content out of them. They already have the flights. We don't have to pay for those. And the only problem is the Yandel household. I mean, it could end up looking like a post Winnipeg Bombers Gray cup victory and Keith's getting kicked out of his own house.

Keith Yandle (55:50)

How about maybe a. So maybe we do something with them where whatever guys continue and go to Raleigh. They get. They rent an rv, they come down and then we put them through some type of contest where if Canada reaches the gold medal game, we then get one of them. Whoever the guy who wins the contest, we put them on a flight to Italy and we get them a ticket to the game.

Ryan Whitney (56:15)

I don't even think these guys will leave each other, though.

Keith Yandle (56:17)

It's like, I know, but it's going to be. But one guy has to go as the good luck charm and he could be in the locker room celebrating the gold if he's the guy who gets.

Ryan Whitney (56:28)

Chosen and you know, we can do for the winner, instead of a contest, we've run him through a combine.

Keith Yandle (56:34)

That's what we could. We got to do something. As far as the contest final boss.

Biz Nasty (56:38)

Is he has to muck food with biz at the buffet.

Ryan Whitney (56:42)

If you can out eat biz but the poor kid dies stomach explodes.

Biz Nasty (56:49)

Okay. I think. I think our fans would be unbelievable at coming up with some games to.

Keith Yandle (56:54)

All right, let's do it. All right, let's. I'm gonna start. How about you come to Florida? How about you, You FaceTime him?

Biz Nasty (57:02)

FaceTime them.

Keith Yandle (57:03)

What's your number? All right. What's your number?

Biz Nasty (57:04)

All right.

Keith Yandle (57:05)

All right.

Ryan Whitney (57:05)

We're gonna. We'll get that figured out right now. Olympic Preview hall of fame legend. Legend Chris Pronger. Guys, we got to take a minute here and talk body armor. This episode is brought to you by Body Armor Flash iv. When you are feeling not great, when you've had a big night, when you need a pick me up and you know that you're dehydrated, it's Body Armor Flash IV all the way. No question. Flash iv packed with electrolytes that deliver faster, longer lasting hydration without any artificial dyes, flavors or sweeteners. None of the junk, none of the stuff that you don't need in your body is in Body Armor Flash iv. Whether you're training, whether you're traveling or just feeling the heat or hurting from a big night out, it's all about body armor flash IV. Work hard and hydrate hard with body armor flash IV. Grab it at a 711 today. Guys, we need to talk DraftKings. This is a DraftKings podcast. The DraftKings sportsbook is built for hockey on the world stage. What an exciting time. Last year we had the four nations face off as a little preview. Now we're in the Olympics. We're there. Favorites feel the pressure. Underdogs rise and everyone's skating for the gold medal. Drafting Sportsbook lets you back your country or the team you ride with. Every step of the way, every shift feels bigger, every puck matters more. And one play can turn the entire game. So new customers bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app and use code Chiclets. That's code Chiclets. Bet $5 to win 300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins in partnership with DraftKings, the Crown is yours.

Keith Yandle (58:52)

Gambling problem. Call 1-800- gambler.

Chris Pronger (58:55)

New York.

Keith Yandle (58:55)

Call 877-8-HOPE and wire.

Biz Nasty (58:57)

Text HOPE and why Connecticut?

Chris Pronger (58:58)

Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org on behalf.

Biz Nasty (59:03)

Of Boothill Casino in Kansas.

Chris Pronger (59:04)

Wager tax pass through may apply in Illinois, 21 and over in most states.

Biz Nasty (59:08)

Void in Ontario.

Chris Pronger (59:09)

Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required for additional terms and responsible gaming resources.

Biz Nasty (59:15)

See DKNG CO Audio limited Time offer.

Ryan Whitney (59:22)

An honor to be joined by this guy. He's been on the show several times and it's Olympic time. He's got two gold medals. He's got two of them. And he wants to talk about this year's games in Italy. Chris Pronger, hall of Famer. What's going on, legend of a game.

Chris Pronger (59:38)

Paul, please get your hat back on. Thank you.

Biz Nasty (59:40)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (59:40)

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Chris Pronger (59:41)

I mean, your toque.

Biz Nasty (59:42)

You sure you want him wearing that? He can ruin a team, bro, with.

Ryan Whitney (59:46)

The best of them.

Keith Yandle (59:47)

I'm not even. I'm not even shitty enough to. To ruin Canada. We got the Four Nations. We're rolling, baby. Let's go.

Chris Pronger (59:54)

We're ready.

Ryan Whitney (59:54)

I actually saw a guy's tweet this morning. I think it was a Canadiens fan who said, waking up this morning with McDavid, McKinnon, Makar, Crosby, and everyone else on my hockey team, this is great, Liv. And I'm like, porset is sorry.

Chris Pronger (60:09)

Not sorry, exactly. That's going to be a lot of fun.

Ryan Whitney (60:13)

Have you been dialed into the teams? Have you been kind of looking at rosters, thinking about, you know, what it's going to take this year for another gold?

Chris Pronger (60:20)

Yes, it's. I got. I got my list right here highlighted. Wow.

Ryan Whitney (60:28)

What a pro.

Chris Pronger (60:28)

Yeah, there's a few. A few things that I think most people are worried about as it relates to Canada. Bennington has really struggled. Yes, you are correct. Yance Bennington has struggled. Thompson coming off injury. Kemper has been, you know, I think the back end, minus the first four guys and then the goaltending, I think is. Is probably the. The biggest question mark. I'm not going to say it's an Achilles heel, because we don't know. They could. They could come out and, you know, rise to the occasion. And we've seen that happen a lot. So, you know, we saw it happen. The four nations, last year with Bankton. He was getting worked in the media, and he came up huge in that gold medal game. So, you know, we'll. We'll see. But, you know, I think up front, it was nice to see Sam Bennett get added to the roster. He's going to provide the grit, the experience, and certainly the pedigree with his cod Smythe and the way he's elevated his Game down in Florida and the style of play, the grit.

Keith Yandle (61:35)

So obviously goaltending is not your expertise, but what's your opinion on the three guys they did end up choosing? And like, have you, have you talked to other guys? Like normally when I have goalie questions, I usually talk to Hank Boosh. Like any of those guys, I lean on him just to say, hey, like, what do you think here? And I, I was just wondering what your opinion was. Should they have gone a different route with the tandem going the way they were going, especially early in the year in Colorado?

Chris Pronger (61:59)

Yeah, I'm not, I can, honestly, outside of Colorado's goaltending, I'm not sure there's another option in CA for Canada at least. You know, it's pretty slim right now in the, in the goaltending department. So that's, that's actually a major concern with respect to, you know, minor hockey up through junior college, etc. You know, there's just not a lot of guys and I don't know if it's the style, the, the type of athlete it takes to be a goaltender in today's game and they're not taking up the position, how much, how much equipment costs and then the training and all. I mean it, it is a, a full time job just being a goalie. So as a young kid and then working your way up and as we all know, minor hockey now and how crazy it is who wants to be a goalie?

Keith Yandle (62:44)

No one prongs. What was it like with, with your teams when you went where it's like almost you're like, fuck, we got three guys who could take the net. Like, were they just very cordial with one another? And, and obviously Team Canada, it's always team mentality, you know, who's ever up. So what was it like being in a locker room with like three, three legends in that?

Chris Pronger (63:03)

Yeah, you look at 98 we had. Patrick was the starter, Marty was the backup. Tough sledding and then, and then, oh two, we start with Cujo, he gets yanked by Pat Quinn and Marty goes in and we have Eddie belfor as our third goalie. And then, and then obviously 06 was just a disaster. We had Marty. And the funny part about 06 was in, in 05 at the training camp in Calgary. No clone in Calgary. Marty literally had his equipment shipped from the company in a box. Hadn't skated, hadn't skated a lick and was outstanding attempt. You know, he, he was one of those guys, he didn't like to, you know, do anything in the summer he liked to just get away and kind of let his body recover, you know, playing as much as he did in, in Jersey in the style, you know, pretty easy to replicate the two pad stack and just somebody that was that gifted in his skates and the way he moved, you know, I could see how you would want to get some time off, but I found that very interesting. 06 was just a debacle from start to finish. And then, and then obviously 2010 with Marty, Louis and, and the flower as our third stringer. He was awesome. As you guys know, he's the best. He'd sit out there, just take one timers from the house.

Ryan Whitney (64:28)

Mark.

Biz Nasty (64:32)

Big smile.

Chris Pronger (64:33)

And again the controversy in 20. Just like O2 with Cujo and Marty. Controversy in 2010 with pulling Marty and putting Louie in. So you know, there's, there's no sort of shortage of goalie controversies when, when we've won and so we'll see what if they can replicate that. And then obviously 14 Carrie Price went start, finish.

Keith Yandle (64:54)

I was just gonna ask were you nervous when you, when you walked in the locker room in the Olympic room for the first time or maybe it was camp and I'm sure it got easier and easier by the time you're done, but you must have been, you know, a little nervous going in that locker room for the first time.

Chris Pronger (65:07)

98 for sure. I was not. We didn't have a camp. Well, if they did, I wasn't invited. And if you remember, they had the 96 World cup team that, that the U. S won. Congrats to the U.S. you won something. Thank you, thank you.

Keith Yandle (65:23)

I love this guy already.

Chris Pronger (65:25)

And you know they, they, that was a friggin war that tournament. And, and I wasn't, I probably wasn't ready to make that team anyways. You know, I was still trying to find myself in my game and, and then in, you know, late 97, coming into 98, you know, really kind of found my game and going in that locker room, you got Gratz, you got, you know, all these guys that, you know, I played with Grets a little bit, but you got Gretz, Ray Bork, Scott Stevens, you know, Izerman Sakic. You know, all the legends of the game are in this room. And it was, it was pretty interesting walking in and I'm sandwiched in between Stevens and Bork and Craig Heisinger now assistant GM with the Winnipeg jets was our trainer.

Ryan Whitney (66:11)

Oh so.

Chris Pronger (66:13)

Oh yeah, so it was. Yeah. You, you think back on those days you're like where guys come From. And it's, it's pretty cool. Theo Flory was on that team.

Ryan Whitney (66:21)

You, it just kind of reminded me this, because I want to get into the D. Canada in a minute. But you talked about 06. Kind of a disaster. Celebrini. It was like, maybe he makes the team, then the season starts. All right, obvious. He's not only on the team, he's top six in 06. Do you remember it all being like, ah, Sid should be on this team. Right? Like, or was it actually. Because I don't remember it being brought up that much then. It was before social media. But was that even a discussion?

Chris Pronger (66:46)

Yeah, there was. You know, I, I, I did hear that. You know, I think it was a talking point. It was brought up. Like, I, had he been there, I think it would, he would have probably been one of our best players.

Ryan Whitney (67:02)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Pronger (67:04)

You know, we, we had, we had a number like Neidermayer wasn't there. I think he had a broken foot or a bad knee or something. We had a few guys that didn't come, and then, you know, they, they, they rolled over a lot of the team from 02. Some of the, the holdovers were myself, Blakey, Adam Foot, Sakic. We had a lot of newer guys and, and, and that newer generation hadn't come into the league yet. So in 2010, we had Richard's Carter, you know, get Sloaner donor was on that team in 06, you know, we had, Chris Draper was on that team. Like, we had a cast of characters. Robin Rugier was on that team. So the, the rollover from what you saw in 02 to then 2010, there was a little lull in 06.

Ryan Whitney (67:50)

You got those 85 to 87 birth guys.

Chris Pronger (67:54)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (67:54)

In the, in the 2010 games, that changed everything.

Biz Nasty (67:57)

Yeah. You mentioned in the goalies and not to beat this for Canada, but every team that you mentioned that you had your number one going in and things might have changed. It doesn't really seem that way this year. Like, does you think that that causes some controversy or some talking in the locker room amongst the guys? At least where it's like, oh, who's going for us?

Chris Pronger (68:16)

Yeah, I don't, I don't know if guys are going to be too worried about that. I think they'll probably have a strategy this year more so than those past years of, here's who we're gonna, we're gonna play this guy, this game, this guy, this game, and then just see who, I mean, you almost have to see who's gonna take the net.

Biz Nasty (68:32)

So you think it'll be like a trial, a tryout basically for the goalies, give maybe Bennington the first start and see where it goes.

Chris Pronger (68:39)

I mean, I think that makes the most sense. You know, going into it, you're kind of looking at the three goalies and you're going, who, who is going to be the starter? I mean, you look at, again, we go back to what happened last year and Bennington hadn't played great up up until the four nations, and then he, you know, elevated his play and, and played really well with each successive game. You know, I think you have to just look at the. They got a couple back to back games and they'll probably not going to want to play the goalie back to back nights and, and kind of see what happens from there.

Ryan Whitney (69:09)

So on D, you mentioned you like the, the top four. Right. So it, you got Taves and Makar. That's the obvious now. Tafes is meant to go. Yeah. So I don't know if he's had the baby yet or his wife, so who knows what's going on.

Chris Pronger (69:23)

They're gonna have, they gotta have. I don't know who they have, but they gotta have somebody on red alert.

Ryan Whitney (69:27)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (69:28)

They have to put their team in, what, on the 8th or 8th or 9th.

Ryan Whitney (69:30)

The actual roster after that, though. All right, so like, I'm looking at this roster, say Morrissey and Theodore. I know they're both lefties. Pareco struggled this year, Doty struggled this year.

Chris Pronger (69:42)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (69:43)

Then you got Sandheim. Like, how do you look at that, D? And maybe who's the odd guy out? What are you looking at right now if, say, Taves does go?

Chris Pronger (69:50)

If Taves goes and you got Taves in Makar, I think you'll have Morrissey probably you'll have Theodore and Pareco or Morrissey Pero in that second slot. So you get lefty, righty.

Ryan Whitney (70:04)

Yep.

Chris Pronger (70:04)

And it's most likely going to be Morrissey because Theodore has played the right side more often. So then you could put Harley and Theodore together and, and then probably Sanheim is the odd man out with Dowdy.

Ryan Whitney (70:15)

Okay.

Chris Pronger (70:16)

It would be my guess just based off current play, you know, to get puck movers to get. And, and they can always, you know, gauge the health of the guys to see, you know, if who, who's healthy, who's not, who needs a night off, you know, early on in the tournament, just to get, get guys into the, into the tournament a little bit, get them some, some game time, but you know, or they might just roll the six guys they think are going to be the best and we're just going to roll and somebody gets hurt. Then it's next man up and we'll see who. We'll see what happens from there.

Biz Nasty (70:49)

Doty is in that kind of that same spot as Bennington where it doesn't matter.

Chris Pronger (70:53)

Story ends. One, one question. Do we know in. In years past the Olympics, we've dressed seven defensemen?

Biz Nasty (70:58)

I believe so, yeah.

Chris Pronger (70:59)

Okay. So one of those guys, probably Sanheim or Dowdy would be the extra guy. So one guy would sit out.

Keith Yandle (71:07)

I have a little quick confession. I was actually helping in the Lamaze classes with Taves is when he was on the road, I would go just to ensure that he would be in the lineup for Canada. So those are the types of things I'm doing for my country.

Ryan Whitney (71:19)

You're just who I would want behind my wife rubbing her belly pre. Pre birth. So that's good.

Biz Nasty (71:25)

He's a big breather, too. But don't you like. Dodie's kind of in that same position with Bennington where it doesn't really matter how they've been playing like those guys are. They're gamers. Right. They're going to show up.

Chris Pronger (71:36)

You look at how he played last year, he only played like three or four games prior to the Four nations, which, by the way, as you guys know, is really hard.

Biz Nasty (71:43)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (71:43)

And you get ramped up. The league is already fast. Now you're getting into the elite of the elite with how fast they are. That's not easy to do. And he, you know, surprisingly, I mean, even surprised me. I was like, man, he played pretty good for not playing at all and coming off an ankle injury at that.

Keith Yandle (71:59)

You talk about maybe like making adjustments because the goaltending is not good or maybe potentially injuries on the back end. Like with all that talent and skill in a locker room, like, what. What were the coaches telling the players? Were they keeping it pretty basic and just like, hey, these are the best players in the world. Put them together and they're going to figure it out for themselves?

Chris Pronger (72:17)

No, we had systems. So 2010, if you go back to 2010, I. I think I played 12 minutes of first game. I didn't play a lot. I was on the third pairing with Dan Boyle and Brent Seabrook, and we rolled out probably 10 to 12 minutes. The first game, you know, same. The second game, all of the systems and everything that Babcock had in place and. And Jacques Lemaire had the PK and. And the way he was running the PK was a different system that I never played because I'd never had Jocko before. So his system was completely different to any style that I'd ever played. So just trusting it and believing that your teammates and your defense partner is going to be there if you step up and trusting the system. Having no game time and having very little practice time was really hard the first few games. And then as the games progressed and we played more and more games, I got more comfortable and, and felt better. I had played before I got to the Olympics that year. I played three and four nights, you know, playing 30 minutes a night. So I was exhausted. Going to Vancouver Progs.

Keith Yandle (73:26)

Do you think that that's probably a big reason as to why they sometimes avoid the younger guys? Because not only are they trying to get their feet wet, but like throwing them in a situation like that where they're like, all of a sudden they got to learn a new system. It's like way more overwhelming where these, some of these older guys have just.

Chris Pronger (73:41)

They can adapt on the back end, I think. So, you know, it'd be, you know, you're the last line of defense. You're it. It you make a mistake. And it's very apparent who made the mistake up front. You know, there's more guys to go through. You know, you get your defense, your goalie, like, there's just a lot more there. Having said that, based on what I've seen, you know, early on I was like, ah, the Schaefer kid, He's young, he's 18. I don't know if I'd throw him to the wolves. I don't know if I'd do that. He's not slowing down.

Ryan Whitney (74:09)

Oh, no, it's 2010.

Keith Yandle (74:12)

It is.

Chris Pronger (74:14)

That's not even doughty. Like, this kid's 18. He's doubt he was 21, I think, at that time. So it is remarkable to watch this kid night in, night out, and the energy that he's bringing. I don't know, man. I. The more I think about it, I was very adamant. You know, if you're the Islanders, you're like, let's give him the month off, let's let him rest because we're going to be in a playoff run, a stretch, stretch, drive. But I don't know, man. This kid has been lights out and watching him and I get he's not Bobby Orr, but the way that he skates, if you watch old footage of Bobby Orr, he's flying by guys and he's not even really Trying. And you watch this kid and he's doing the same thing and the league is way faster than it was back then and this kid is doing that.

Ryan Whitney (75:00)

Do you think that if Taves, you know, if his wife doesn't give birth, he's not there, that, that Schaefer is the guy they call.

Chris Pronger (75:06)

If I'm looking at the. The apparent three options, which would be Schaefer, Bouchard and Chickren, I would probably go with Schaefer.

Keith Yandle (75:14)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (75:15)

However, if I'm looking at it, they got Dowdy or righty.

Keith Yandle (75:20)

Pareco.

Chris Pronger (75:21)

Alrighty. And Makara. Righty. You can make an argument for Bouchard too, to add to at. So you have four righties and four lefties, but, but just based off play and, and Bouchard has been excellent the last three months of the year. He's been dynamite outside of a couple, you know, highlight reel mistakes, but which, by the way, happen all the time. Like, he's just got that X factor that it shows up and people are looking for it. But he, I, I was there a couple weeks ago and he, he scored the hat trick and then, you know, whatever. He was awesome.

Keith Yandle (75:57)

Six points.

Chris Pronger (75:58)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (75:59)

Like, give me night. I don't know how many of those.

Chris Pronger (76:02)

Too bad. I had a few good nights, but nowhere near that. And no, he's. He's been much improved from early on in the year. The first couple months he was horrendous and, you know, looked like he was just not even trying. And now, you know, and I think that affected his pre scouting by the, by the Hockey Canada folks and what guys were seeing night and you know, that was always the Achilles heel with him. And then he's just playing it up by serving up pizzas and, you know, making massive blunders and mistakes, which he's now cleaned up for the most part and has looked excellent. But, you know, it's hard to get that out of your head when you're looking for it.

Biz Nasty (76:41)

We had talked to. I forget who we were talking to in the beginning of the year and they had said that every guy, the older guys, the veteran guys in that team, they said they wanted to play with Celebrini. Like how much of credit for. For. Yeah, no, but like, who, who would you put with him? A. And like, how, how insane is that for that young of a kid to be having these legends wanting to play with them?

Chris Pronger (77:04)

You could put him with a couple different groups. I think. Number one, I think you could put him with McDavid and I think it was Reinhardt at the end that played with McDavid in the Four nations, if I'm not mistaken. And then you had Crosby, Stone, and McKinnon, I think was one line which. Which actually fit really well. You get. You know, I think they have to find players that can skate with McDavid and have that compete like Hyman does. And. And he's not. Zach Hyman didn't play the exact same way, but he has that same competitive drive that compete on pucks, and he's dynamic, so he can match McDavid's vision and whatnot, you know, and they've been able to use the world championships the last year as a vantage point to see who he fits with. He played with McKinnon and Crosby, and, you know, I just think that the type of year he's had, he would be a great fit on that left side with McDavid. I'm not. He can't quite keep up with them, but he. He's a good skater and can get there.

Ryan Whitney (78:07)

And do you think they end up now that Bennett's on the team, putting him on a line with Wilson, or is that too risky?

Chris Pronger (78:14)

No.

Keith Yandle (78:14)

And. And wheeling them out in a paddy wagon?

Chris Pronger (78:20)

I don't think that's risky. You know, I think you have to figure out who's going to fill Cirelli's role that John Cooper took him for. You know, he obviously wanted him to be the. The face off guy and, you know, PK last minute, what have you, trying to protect the lead guy who's going to block shots with his face, what have you. And clearly, Sam Bennett is proven that he's willing to do that night in, night out, and certainly their playoff runs in Florida, you know, I could see that. You could see, you know, putting Nick Suzuki in the middle between. You could even move Bennett to the wing. You know, that's the nice thing, is that he's played the wing, he's played center. You can move him around. And that's why I think he's a good addition for Sorelli, because they have so many centers. You know, you look at the roster, celebrity is the center, Crosby's the center, Horvat's a center, McKinnon's a center, McDavid's a center, Suzuki's a center, and Bennett's a center. You know, so you've got a lot of guys that can play up the middle, and you're not going to lose an inch. It's just slotting in who's going to be the best fit on that left side or Right side, for that matter.

Keith Yandle (79:25)

I would imagine that was happening at prior tournaments. Like that number of center, like the best players in the world. They have that much responsibility. Absolutely. What were the hardest adjustments that they were talking about? Just especially at that level, from going to the center to the wing. Like, what were. Was there any conversation about, like, off, you know?

Chris Pronger (79:44)

Yeah, it's more. It's more about comfort. You know, you're used to being that low guy swinging. You're used to being able to keep your speed as opposed to stopping on the wall or kind of picking up pucks off the wall. But. But a lot of the guys that have, you know, they're going to put on that spot in the left side or right side, what have. You will have played the wing in the past. They'll have been in that situation before. You know, I think more importantly, I think it's more just ice time. You're used to playing 22 to 25, you know, 20 to 22 minutes. Now you're going to be playing 10 12, and it's. I don't think people realize how hard that is to stay in the rhythm and the flow of the game when you're. That, you know, you know this.

Keith Yandle (80:23)

Oh, oh, I know. Oh, I know. Fuck, dude. I'd be using TV timeouts to stay warm between the forwards and the D. That's.

Chris Pronger (80:32)

That's tough to kind of get your feet wet and really get moving.

Keith Yandle (80:35)

This is kind of going back to when you were playing the Olympics. What was the. What was the most impressive, like, in tournament or maybe even in game adjustment that you saw that helped propel you guys to win, like from a coach or even a player standing up in a room, maybe it was a guy who was playing center saying, hey, I think you should move to the. To the middle. I'm having a hard time against this guy. I'll take the wing side. Like anything that, like, sticks out to you.

Chris Pronger (80:59)

Well, I think it's been talked about a lot, but in 02, Stevie Yzerman, with his knee and what he was going through, guys could see what he was doing night in, night out to make sure day in, day out, during the day. Now, day in, day out of. Of what it took for him to be able to play, you know, and just the. He had training, a training member with him at all times, you know, working on them, doing things to make sure that he could just get his gear on and get out there and play with us. And. And when you see that, and then to think they went on to win the cup that year in, in Detroit. You know, he was being held by paper mache at that point. Just, you know, you could see the pain he was in you, you know, and so I think, you know, Mario was our captain, but you could see, you know, what he was willing to go through to, to try to win an Olympic gold medal for Canada and, and what he was willing to do to help us be successful and, and the role that he took, you know, he wasn't playing a top six role, but he just wanted to a number one be on the team. But he wanted to win a gold medal. He wanted to be a part of history for Canada. And you know, it had been 50, 50 years or 52 years since we had won, I believe maybe 50. So, you know, a lot of history there. A lot, a lot went into it and, and just to see him got it out and, and play an integral role in on our team. You know, having said all of that and what he went through, he was a big part of our team and played big minutes.

Biz Nasty (82:28)

Just sticking with that Olympics as well. You had an assist on probably one of the coolest goals in the history of hockey. A Did you try to pass that to Mario or were you passing that to Korea? And what do you remember from that?

Chris Pronger (82:40)

It was all me. It was all my vision.

Ryan Whitney (82:44)

You knew Mario was going to do that?

Chris Pronger (82:46)

First off, I knew 66 was there. And in my head I'm like, well, first off, get it off your stick and get it over to 66. Let him do what he needs to do. And he, he, you know, he sucked Richter right in. If you look at, I have a great picture I found on, on Paul Korea's angle and Mario made Richter bite so hard, he just went like this and Richter set and all of a sudden you can see him just diving across and Paul's just one time in an end and that was all Mario. I, I first off, I don't care if Paul was there. I was going to Mario, let him deal with what he wants to do.

Keith Yandle (83:24)

Oh man, that is so good.

Ryan Whitney (83:26)

Was Mario there in 98 or was he out?

Chris Pronger (83:28)

He was hurt, if you remember, that's when he was hurt. So we, we were missing a lot of Korea was hurt that year. He had gotten cross checked in the face, I think by suitor or somebody. So he was hurt, Mario was hurt. We were missing a few guys. You know, Mario would have been nice to have in that shootout against the checks.

Ryan Whitney (83:51)

Oh well, Gretzky didn't go. Maybe Mario would have been on the Bench, too.

Chris Pronger (83:56)

Well, I know. Well, that's what you would have been a healthy scratch.

Keith Yandle (84:01)

On the press box.

Chris Pronger (84:02)

And the other thing, you think Joe Sackett got hurt in that game? So he didn't or. No, he got hurt in the prior game, so we didn't even dress in that game. Wow. And he's, as you know, he's money in the shootout, so think we had Mario Korea, and if they actually put Gretzky in Sakic, like, we would have had a sick lineup.

Biz Nasty (84:21)

Pretty good out.

Keith Yandle (84:22)

I got a few more questions for Team Canada, and obviously we want to talk about the States and the other countries and, like, dive into.

Chris Pronger (84:28)

Oh, are they playing, too?

Keith Yandle (84:29)

There's other teams going. Yeah. It's not just Canada going over. Yeah.

Chris Pronger (84:32)

This is a. Oh, excuse me. Multiple tournament.

Keith Yandle (84:37)

Did you read the. The article Dear Canada by McDavid?

Chris Pronger (84:41)

I didn't read it. I saw a lot of highlights of it.

Keith Yandle (84:44)

Okay. Oh, I just didn't know. And then. And then my other one is just on Crosby, like, if he's able to pull this off and. And. And win another gold medal as a captain, like, where do you rank him all time and just, I guess your overall thoughts on what he's been able to do for as long as he's done it.

Chris Pronger (84:59)

Yeah, it all. It speaks day. His professionalism, his commitment, his discipline. To have no drop off in his performance is. Is incredible. You know, from 18 now to that. He's 38, right, Whit? Yeah, 38, 21 years.

Biz Nasty (85:15)

That crazy.

Chris Pronger (85:16)

And just to be like this and to go through, you know, the concussion issues and all the things that he dealt with early in his career, to. To still be at this level and performing at this level is. Is remarkable. They're not. I don't know if you look at history, I don't know if there's another player that has been able to do this at that level. There's always been some drop off a little bit. They're consistent, but they're not at this level being, you know, top. You know, he's probably top 10 in the league right now. May maybe top five. You know, like you look at McDavid, McCann, Kutchov, you know, he's. He's probably. He's in there. He's not there, but he's right below those guys. And that to be in year 21 and to be thought of in that category is pretty. Pretty darn impressive. So for him to be able to go over and play the type of role, number one that we've seen in previous years, 14, you know, 10. The golden goal early in his career, and then 14 leader then, you know, four nations last year, and now. Now this. You know, you certainly have to. From a Canada perspective, I think you have to put them at the top of the mountain.

Ryan Whitney (86:28)

And you can just point to the. I mean, once. Once you're breaking a Gretzky record of consecutive seasons of over a point per game, it's like, that's exactly what you just said in the numbers. It's just fucking crazy.

Chris Pronger (86:39)

Yeah. And you look at all the. And you look at those guys, you look at Gordy Howell, you look at Messier, you look at Gretzky, you look at, you know, Mario's numbers are sick. Had he. Had he been healthy and. And played a full career, his numbers would be gross. He was that good.

Ryan Whitney (86:53)

No going to the States. So I said last year, biz owned me. But we're. We're. We're as close as we've ever. We. We've.

Biz Nasty (87:02)

We're.

Ryan Whitney (87:02)

We're as close as we've ever been. I'll say that. I love the D. Love the goalies. You get all these options.

Chris Pronger (87:08)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (87:09)

Up front, the. I think the main thing people are talking about right now, unfortunately, is like, all right, well, there's no Robertson. There's no Caulfield. Are you somebody who's like, wow, that's kind of ridiculous, or are you somebody on the other side saying, hey, Billy Garrett's putting together a team. I trust him. Even though you're not a fan of the US do you get what I'm saying there? What do you think on that?

Keith Yandle (87:28)

No.

Chris Pronger (87:28)

Well, first and foremost, I think you have to give flowers to USA Hockey and US Hockey in general. Just the progression and where the country is at with respect to the game. You look at the players and the teams that you're putting out now, you know, on the heels of that 96 World cup team, and now, you know, you now seeing players coming from Phoenix and Florida and some of these places that. That now are having good minor hockey systems and former players sticking around and training and teaching these kids is awesome to see, but, you know, it is, you know, Cage Thompson, I think, is the only. And Clayton Keller. Those are the two changes from the. From the four nations. You know, it is a little sad that everybody's just talking about Caulfield and Robertson and not really talking about the team and why aren't these guys there? You know, it'll be interesting to see, you know, who, you know, I get. I get who you'd take Out. You probably knock the two Rangers guys out, but they're taken for a specific reason, just like certain guys in Canada have taken for a reason. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And. And we saw that, you know, on the four Olympics I played in. You know, we took Rob Zaminer in 98 because they wanted a penalty killer. And, you know, we saw that in 06. Chris Draper was having a great year with Detroit. They took him, and they took a few other guys to play specific roles. And. And sometimes it works out. You know, we. You think back to 2010, Patrice Bergeron was our 13th forward. The poor guy played, like, two minutes a game. And they'd throw him out there to take a face off, either on a penalty kill or a late, you know, defensive zone draw. And I'm like, why are you doing this to this poor kid? He has no chance. He's got no flow, no rhythm. So, you know, in that regard, it. It's a little sad, but I'm excited to see Tage Thompson looks like an absolute beast right now.

Keith Yandle (89:25)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (89:25)

Excited to see what he does in the Olympics. And, you know, I think a couple of the, you know, Jack Hughes, is he going to be healthy enough? I know he's going, but he's a little banged up. How's he gonna look? He didn't look great in the four nations. Is this, you know, where's his game at? And so it'll be interesting to see how. How all of it plays out. But, you know, if they can all go in fairly healthy, I think it's going to be a good matchup. And I think people need to realize it's not Canada against the U.S. there's some other good teams here. You know, that's the thing. People are like, oh, I can't wait.

Keith Yandle (89:56)

For the gold medal game.

Chris Pronger (89:57)

He's been Canada.

Ryan Whitney (89:57)

I know.

Chris Pronger (89:59)

I. I'll hold on a second.

Keith Yandle (90:01)

We'll get to the other teams, though.

Chris Pronger (90:02)

Cleveland's good. The checks are good. The Swiss are sneaky good. You know, even Germany's gonna have a good team. Like, there are other good teams that can knock teams off. Like we saw in O2. Sweden lost to Belarus. Like, it.

Ryan Whitney (90:16)

That fucking helped you guys. You walked through that semifinal.

Biz Nasty (90:20)

Wait, you know what? I. He's scared of us. That's why he wants to stop talking about him. That's all I'm getting on.

Keith Yandle (90:25)

We're not even. We're not even close to no talking about him.

Ryan Whitney (90:28)

I'm with you. I'm with.

Chris Pronger (90:31)

I think people need to Realize that we might be talking about Canada in the U.S. but there are a lot of other countries that are going to show and show well. They, they've got pride. They are going to, they're going to be playing to the max, to the, to the best of their capabilities because they're playing for the country.

Keith Yandle (90:48)

You'd think with a guy like Quinn hughes, he's automatic PP1, but all of a sudden you see the resurgence of all these amazing American defensemen. Zach Warinski, 20 goals, he hit the 20 goal mark and we're what, 60 games, less than 60 games into the season. So who do you have run their power play and I guess just speak to like the one two punch they got back there and Quinn Hughes, the water bug and, and what Zach weren't. He's done. Especially on a team that is not that loaded in Columbus.

Chris Pronger (91:18)

Yeah, no, he's, he's been, he's been fantastic and, and, and even elevated his game even more when your boy Bones got there. You know, he already was having a, an excellent season and, and now is even elevated even further and given a even more opportunity to excel and score a few extra goals. But you look at their back end, the US is, I mean they're, I don't see a weakness back there personally. You know, you can grind on them, you know, things of that nature. But you know, Jake Sanderson's a stud. I don't know if Charlie McAvoy would have with that hit last night, but you know, we'll see. Which was on Wednesday night against Florida. He seemed like he was okay. Slaving stud defense. Defensive defenseman. Lacombe is sneaky good, you know, again he plays out West Coast Bias plays out in Anaheim. Nobody gets to see him, but he's great player. Hannifin Faber, like they, they have good matchups like good one two Ying and Yang on the back end which I think we saw in the four nations last year. If they can stay healthy, I think is the key part, they're going to be tough to beat because they've got goaltending, they've got a solid base on their back end. And then up front, if they, if they are fairly healthy, they're going to be tough to stop.

Biz Nasty (92:37)

And I know you know all these power plays.

Chris Pronger (92:39)

Now to answer your question, the power play, they're probably going to go PP1 with 1d and 4 forwards and then PP2 with 1d and 4 forwards would be my guess. And we'll have Hughes and Warrenski. If not, you could have Hughes With Warrenski and three righties. So you're going Hughes. Yeah. Hughes to Warrensky on the. On the hat, on the top of the circle, and then over here to Eichel. And then you've got lefty bumper in the middle and in front, whether it's Tkachuk or whoever, Boldy. And then you got a righty down low to pull out to the net. So you look at who they have as options, and then you kind of create from there how you can fit all of your studs in there, because they are. You know, you want to try to get everybody involved. You have probably have Tage Thompson down low, Eichel here, Kachuk in the middle, whatever it is, like, and then Boldy, and you kind of. You just kind of map it out and see where the chemistry lies.

Keith Yandle (93:39)

Yes. You could probably speak more to it, but it's interesting. I wish we had, like, a white border or like, you were on the ice to describe what you were talking about and how much the way that the guys shoot matter. I think sometimes people forget that about the passing lanes. And at that level, man, you got a split second to get it through. And having a lefty as opposed to a righty makes all the difference in the world.

Chris Pronger (94:00)

It's all timing. It's all lanes. It's all forcing players out of their. Out of their lane to create another lane and. And all the rest of it. So it's, you know, it'll. It'll be interesting. They. And. And if you look at their roster, you know, I just talked about how they set up the right side. You look at the left side, and you got Matthews, you got Keller, you got Larkin, you got Connor. Like, you've got a bunch of. So they have a good left right setup, which. Which actually plays really good. You. You're given different looks to the opposition, which is really cool.

Keith Yandle (94:32)

On different units, you mean.

Chris Pronger (94:33)

On different units.

Keith Yandle (94:34)

Yeah. Amazing.

Biz Nasty (94:35)

Yeah, that's it. But I would like to see them like you and Niedermeyer used to do with Warrenski kind of in the middle, just because you know how important it is. Yeah.

Chris Pronger (94:43)

If you're floating around where he would move. Like, Scotty would move into the bumper spot, and then he'd move to the top of the circle.

Biz Nasty (94:49)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (94:50)

And then he'd even go down low, and then he'd come back like, they. He kind of was. We had structure on the side. Like, we'd have Gatsy pairs myself, and then Scotty would float around and tamu, like, we just had guys moving, which I think is important. I think a lot of times they get stuck where they're stagnant, so the box never moves, and you're just stuck there. And they skate up a bit and they pass it down, but the box never moves. And so when you have that guy moving around, it's a little pause for concern, like, where is this guy? And now you got to really pay attention.

Biz Nasty (95:20)

Yeah. I just think it's so important for those guys, especially the PP1 guys, to get their touches during a game, because if you're on that first unit, if it's just Hughes, you know, they're mostly playing a minute 30, a minute 20 of that power play. And then, you know, if Warrensky goes out for 30, 40 seconds, you're not getting that many touches. So I would love to see it the way that you guys did it in Anaheim, but who knows?

Chris Pronger (95:42)

I don't know, though. I would argue that they won't play a minute 20, and here's the reason. And actually, Joe Sakic used to say this. He would. They would be out there for 30 seconds. He's like, yeah, if we didn't get anything going, I want to change. Get the next unit out there. You know, if it's 30, 40 seconds and get the next unit out, he's like, I always wanted to go out for the. The back half of the. Of the power play, so you get a kick early. If you don't get anything, great, you come off quick. Get the next unit out there. Now you can kind of float. And. And now you're going to catch them, hopefully late in a penalty. Now you're going to get some opportunity again.

Keith Yandle (96:16)

Wow. Interesting. Hey, you guys are always Joey Sack.

Chris Pronger (96:19)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (96:20)

You hall of Famers, man. You guys are always thinking about stuff.

Ryan Whitney (96:22)

Think at a different level than us. Biz.

Keith Yandle (96:24)

I was more worried about what bottle service is in the cost of the W and who my cocktail server was going to be. No ice. I wanted to go back to Nedermeyer, like, when he was just buzzing around like that. Like. Like, did you ever, like, maybe get a little frustrated ever with them where.

Ryan Whitney (96:41)

No.

Keith Yandle (96:41)

Like, running around too much? Did you guys.

Chris Pronger (96:43)

No.

Keith Yandle (96:43)

No. Because Whit was talking about how sometimes you would get, like, you would snap in the locker room. I'm sure there was never an instance where you had to, like, give it to Nem because he.

Ryan Whitney (96:52)

Norm. He wasn't snapping on Norm. He was snapping on me.

Chris Pronger (96:55)

And. And we would. We would practice. We would practice that. Not. Not quite to that level where he's, like, all over the place. But he would be moving into the bumper position and moving out and going down into the front of the net, coming back. You know, we. We just would. We would adjust to him. We would try to be moving the puck and try to see how the box. How we could manipulate the box and where he could go and then adjust from there. Because you're kind of tracking what the box is doing when he's moving in, moving out as we move the puck, you know, from low to high or up to the half wall. And you kind of see how they adjust each time. And then you're like, okay. You know, it might take you the second power play before you're like, okay. When we move here, you gotta be at this exact spot. And it can go from me to, let's say, gatsy to Perry, right into the slot to norm. You know, on. By the hash marks. When you're seeing how they adjust, I.

Keith Yandle (97:49)

Do they call Igor Larianov the professor.

Chris Pronger (97:51)

Yeah.

Keith Yandle (97:52)

I feel like Niedermar was like, oh, yeah, Just like. Has his glasses on. Like, yeah. Like, how would you even describe him as a player? Like, who plays like him now? Or like, is. Was he just a. One of one?

Chris Pronger (98:04)

Very. As. As Whit knows, Very deep thinker. Doesn't say a lot. Always like. But highly competitive.

Ryan Whitney (98:11)

Very competitive.

Chris Pronger (98:12)

Used to love him pissed off in the corner, like, grinding with guys and getting physical. I was like, yeah, Norm's getting into it. Here we go. You know, guys would feed off that energy and feed off his competitive nature. Like, holy, look at this guy. He's getting after it. And, you know, the temperature would elevate a little bit and guys would kind of get going. It was. It was awesome to see when he would get. Get into it with guys.

Keith Yandle (98:39)

What was the most impressive part about him?

Biz Nasty (98:42)

He didn't sweat.

Chris Pronger (98:43)

Well, he never got tired. First off, like, I could tell you sweat.

Keith Yandle (98:46)

Oh, yeah.

Chris Pronger (98:46)

You just have a little patch right here. He'd play 30 minutes, he'd have a little patch right here.

Biz Nasty (98:51)

Legit.

Ryan Whitney (98:52)

Hair dry.

Chris Pronger (98:54)

Yeah, hair is dry. At the Olympics one year, we. I was playing the. He was playing the left side. So he rolled through Blake. He rolled through foot, and then, you know. Or sorry, no, he rolled through Blake, Then he rolled through Al, who was my partner. Then he rolled through foot, and then he looked over and he's like, oh, oops. It was like a two and a half minute shift, but he wasn't even tired. He just came off because he was.

Keith Yandle (99:20)

Like, oh, oops, sorry, guys.

Chris Pronger (99:21)

I took your shift. Like, he just felt bad he came off. I'm like, well, just stay out there. If you feel good, just stay out there.

Ryan Whitney (99:30)

Wow.

Keith Yandle (99:31)

Like that.

Chris Pronger (99:31)

And he just. To be able to skate like that, you know, that's where I look at the Shaffer kid. I'm like, he does not look like he's even trying to skate fast. And he's just flying. And Scotty was the same way. You'd see him in overtime, and he's just cruising around like, I couldn't imagine now, the way they roll out these three on threes. We didn't do it back then like that. He would just be. He would kept. He would be getting more breakaways just with how fluid he was. He'd just be skating around that. You could see the other team be tired, and he just gone.

Keith Yandle (100:00)

Is there anything he wasn't good at?

Chris Pronger (100:01)

I mean, he had a bit of a muffin shot, but his slap shot was a muffin. I mean, if we're gonna. If we're gonna start picking, you know, he had a. You know, a good. A decent risker, but not a great slap shot. But he never used it because typically, the power play, you know, he might be at top and you're going D to D is gonna walk it in and wrist it, or he's going to be in the bumper or closer and he's going to do a wrist shot. Again, you know, it was more about how quick he could get it off and get it on net and efficiency in that regard. Not really power. I mean, if we're going to pick people apart. He had a muffin, but by the way, Tamu had a muffin, and he got, what, 700 or whatever he got.

Keith Yandle (100:44)

Yeah. How quick you get it off and where you put it. We got to go back to usa. I know. We got distracted by Nitamara buzzing around there. So any other questions you guys have about Team USA boys?

Chris Pronger (100:54)

Who's the starter?

Ryan Whitney (100:55)

Helbuach. Yeah, it was funny. Hellebuck Wednesday night, gave up the goal to Lane Hudson. And then he's looking around, he's like, how'd that go? And I'm like, oh, I don't like seeing that. But he's your guy. Same way. I think Bennington's your guy. We talked to Fleury the other day, Prongs. And he said, same thing. Like, you got to start with Bennington. So Hellebuk. Helibuk was incredible in the four nations, too. So that was really good question. Yeah, I need. I need to see. I can't wait for the first practice to see some lines, because you mentioned them already. Prongs. But Thompson and Boldy, they're at a different level. Bold. He had a hat trick in, like, eight minutes Wednesday night in Nashville. And. And he didn't play an enormous role last year. Thompson's not even on the team. So I need to see the lines and see what they look like.

Chris Pronger (101:38)

He's another guy that is a sneaky, good skater.

Biz Nasty (101:40)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (101:41)

He doesn't look like he's moving, and he's moving good.

Ryan Whitney (101:44)

Yeah. So I look at Matthews and Eichel centering the top two lines, and then who are. Who's on their wing? And I. I think Thompson mentioned to us when we interviewed him, him and Matthews had had a connection before biz.

Biz Nasty (101:57)

Do you remember that? Keller. And Keller.

Ryan Whitney (101:59)

And Keller.

Chris Pronger (102:00)

Is that a world championship or where was it?

Biz Nasty (102:02)

I think they stayed together in Arizona. I thought that's what he said.

Ryan Whitney (102:06)

Was it a world junior with Keller? Maybe. But I got to say, playing at.

Keith Yandle (102:09)

The US Department or whatever you call.

Ryan Whitney (102:12)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (102:12)

Keller and. Yeah, same age group.

Ryan Whitney (102:15)

Yeah.

Biz Nasty (102:15)

But prongs also, too. Like the American guys. I feel, especially last night, Wednesday, like, the American guys are scoring. Like, the guys going to the tournament have been really hot. Like, how much does. Going into the tournament like this, being hot and feeling good about yourself, how much does that help. Help you as an individual?

Chris Pronger (102:33)

Oh, it matters. You know, you're confident. But I think just then that breeds into how the, you know, the swagger they already have and, you know, you bring in the Kachuk boys and you bring in that element, and then you. Then you're already. And then you have guys that are flying high and confident and. And have a sense and a feel that they're going to get it done. And for lack of a better term, retribution for the four nations and wanting to get a gold medal for the US and on and on and on. So it's, you know, you can see what's driving them and. And what's kind of pushed them since the four nations and, you know, unfinished business, as Billy G. Called it, and. And some of the guys have talked about, so you see that kind of look in their eye that they want to get this done. You know, the four nation was a precursor to the Olympics, and they want to get it done, and they want. Really want to, for lack of a better term, put Canada in its place. But we. We know it's not only about Canada, but I'm sure they would love to play Canada in the gold medal game. As I'm sure we would.

Ryan Whitney (103:37)

Mentioning it's not just us, Canada. I think most people look at Sweden and see a great team. But my question is about Finland to you.

Chris Pronger (103:44)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (103:45)

Because every single international tournament now they won the last one wasn't, wasn't NHL players, but every international tournament at every level, they're in the mix.

Chris Pronger (103:54)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (103:55)

How would you describe to people listening like why that country is able to produce that many players and just always be, you know, in the metal round looking to get to the gold medal game.

Chris Pronger (104:05)

Usually you look at and it's crazy. They're right beside Sweden and the Swedes play this finesse, highly skilled game. And Finland plays a Canada esque highly, a very gritty, hard nosed. You know, when, when you have Finnish players come over, you know they're always going to compete and, and you look at the roster like they've got some talent but they're going to be highly competitive. They're going to, they, they're all good skaters. They can handle the puck but they've got that edge to their game and they're going to, they're going to, they're going to fight to the death. They're not going to be pleased if they, if they lose. So you look at that missing Heiskin in last year was a huge loss for that team. He's, you know, he's going to play 30 minutes a night and be their key puck mover and power play guy on the back end. So there'll be a little bit of a different team with him in the lineup this year versus last year's four nations.

Ryan Whitney (105:01)

No, Barkov is just such a bummer.

Chris Pronger (105:03)

Because that's, that's going to be their Achilles heel. They don't have a one matchup. You know, Ajo is good, but he's a two.

Ryan Whitney (105:10)

Yep, yep, I know, but I'm looking this tournament. Yeah, Ajo, I mean Rontanin, it's like Lundell's been a hell of a player lekking into little Dog. It's like you throw Barkov in there, then you're like holy In a, in a, in a one game series.

Chris Pronger (105:25)

It's like the back end and you watch in the back end. They got wrist the line and Mikola Martin, Paulo Jokaharju. Like they got guys that are, that, that play with some jam back there and want to get physical and you know they're going to make whoever they play, they're going to make them earn it. They're going to try to punish you.

Keith Yandle (105:43)

You mentioned that like North American well, more so Canadian grinding style. Like, were they, were they dirty? Like in a, in a compliment way? Like hockey wise, like within the corners with.

Chris Pronger (105:54)

Oh yeah, yeah. They, they, they, they play. You know what you'll see it's kind of like the world juniors. You play against these European teams and they, you know, they play tough. There's no fighting, you know, so they're going to play tough. Switzerland will play that way. You'll see all of these teams are going to play that in your face. What are you going to do about it? You're going to see scrums now and.

Keith Yandle (106:15)

Guys will be like, what are you.

Chris Pronger (106:16)

Going to do about it? Like, well, let's, let's see. In three weeks we'll find out.

Keith Yandle (106:21)

Another thing too is I just feel like they're like, I've never really met a bad Finn or a bad Swede, so I feel like they just naturally like gel very quickly together. And I know back then it was more so they were playing on their national team and now it's a lot of the NHL. So do you think that that's like a bit of an advantage to them and just like how good a guys are and how well they're, you know, they just fall in line. So to speaker one.

Chris Pronger (106:43)

Good guys and you look at, they're very hardened by their climate.

Keith Yandle (106:48)

If you ever been over to Finland.

Chris Pronger (106:49)

And Sweden, it's very cold, much like Canada, very cold. A lot of snow. You know, it's. What do you do? You play hockey? You skate, you play hockey. You know, you're playing the snow. You do outdoor stuff and you know, so I think that that plays a part in it too. Is, is kind of their culture and their, the climate of, of where they live.

Keith Yandle (107:09)

Did you learn a lot about that from Temu? Like would you grill him about like his homeland and stuff?

Chris Pronger (107:14)

Well, you know, I'm 50% Finn. Right.

Keith Yandle (107:16)

Okay.

Ryan Whitney (107:17)

Are you?

Keith Yandle (107:17)

Oh, wow.

Ryan Whitney (107:18)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (107:18)

My mom is from Finland.

Keith Yandle (107:20)

Okay.

Ryan Whitney (107:20)

What's her maiden name? Is it a Finnish name?

Keith Yandle (107:23)

It's, it's actually Smith Prong, my home.

Ryan Whitney (107:26)

It's actually Finnish.

Chris Pronger (107:29)

It's a Swedish last name, but my grandpa's from Finland.

Keith Yandle (107:32)

How long have you like, have you been going over there? Like you, you keep a ties?

Chris Pronger (107:36)

No, I had never. I went for the 97 World Championships, which we won. And then I actually just took my kids this past, not this Christmas, but a year ago for Christmas and went up into the Lapland and, and you know, did all the dog sledding and all the stuff. It was really cool.

Ryan Whitney (107:57)

See the Northern lights.

Chris Pronger (107:58)

Did the northern lights. It was awesome to see that. We went. We went snow machining one day. And as you might imagine at that time of year, the sun does not crest the horizon. So you never see the sun, but it gets light out from like 10:30 to 2:30. So you wake up at, you know, 7 or whatever, and you're waiting. It's pitch black. Go to your experience, what have you, and it's still dark. And then all of a sudden you're. You're going. And now you can kind of see it start to brighten. The day is getting light out, but you don't ever see the sun. And what I'm talking about hardened. I think that's what I'm talking about is they never see the sun. They're very gritty. And you think about growing up like that. That's got to be pretty hard, never seeing the sun for three, three months or two months, whatever it is, just.

Biz Nasty (108:50)

Lock me in a rink.

Chris Pronger (108:51)

It's. Anyways, my mom came over when she was two.

Keith Yandle (108:54)

Okay. Any. Any other, like, fun cultural differences that you. That you can tell us about?

Ryan Whitney (109:00)

They get.

Keith Yandle (109:01)

Why are you laughing like that?

Chris Pronger (109:03)

My grandfather was in World War II for Finland, and let's just say he was not a fan of Russians.

Biz Nasty (109:10)

All right.

Keith Yandle (109:11)

What do you make of that? You think they should be in the games?

Chris Pronger (109:15)

I mean, listen, they're not. They're not the ones that started. I mean, their country started the war, but they're not the ones that are a part of it. You know, it taints the games a little bit. Just. You don't have some of the best players in the tournament. But I'm. That's above my pay grade.

Keith Yandle (109:34)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (109:35)

You know, I'd like to see him there. You know, I think if you're playing, you want to beat the best. You want to play the best, you want to beat the best. And then you can say there's no asterisks beside. Beside.

Biz Nasty (109:44)

Right.

Ryan Whitney (109:45)

They're goalies.

Keith Yandle (109:46)

Yeah, they're goalies. Sid Novi carried the league for 20 years. I mean, they, they revived the NHL and to, to pro. I would assume this would. Would have been the potential last games for Alexandro Ovechkin. We've kind of talked about it.

Chris Pronger (110:00)

Yeah, well, I think I, I've. I mean, we've all seen his body lately. I think this would be his last game.

Keith Yandle (110:06)

I would be shocked if him. And he's on a line when he's like 50 years old playing maybe in the, in the, like the Next one or the. The one after that.

Chris Pronger (110:14)

Well, he just needs to stand in the dot. I mean, he just stands there anyways. And rips is one tee bud.

Keith Yandle (110:20)

You. Hey, so. So we brought this up. You could still.

Chris Pronger (110:24)

I mean, it's wicked. It is wicked.

Keith Yandle (110:27)

Guess how many D zone draws he's had this year in the zone end? 0. 0. People are like, what do you mean? They probably iced the puck when he's out there. They don't consider it like, to the start of a shift when it's an icing. Yeah. So he's had something just under 400 ozone starts and 0.

Chris Pronger (110:46)

If.

Keith Yandle (110:46)

If it goes down the whole season that he had zero D zone starts. That will go down as the greatest stat ever, by the way.

Chris Pronger (110:54)

You know what that's called? That's called coaching.

Ryan Whitney (110:58)

Carberry's like, I got one thing. That's a rule.

Keith Yandle (111:02)

It's like, hey, Coop, you know, you didn't win it again. We. We gave it to Carberry. Not one D zone draw for Obi. Anything else you want to touch on on Finland before we move on?

Chris Pronger (111:16)

You know, I think goaltending, you know, I think Soros corpus salo langen. I imagine Soros be the starter.

Biz Nasty (111:23)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (111:23)

And again, you look at goaltending like some guy gets hot. We've seen it happen in the past. Some guy gets hot. They're tough to beat. You know, it's going to take a lot to beat a goalie that gets hot. And they just feel it. You just never know what's going to happen.

Ryan Whitney (111:40)

So moving over to Sweden, this team's loaded. I'll tell you what was a bummer to me is seeing what Leo Carlson's done. And then him, you know, injury replacement Marcus Johansson comes in for him. But the quiet one that might affect him even more is Brody not being able to go.

Chris Pronger (111:57)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (111:58)

So that's one where I'm like, wow, that D is pretty special. And nobody talks about Brodyn except for everyone who plays against him. Him, because he's unbelievable. Shutting down guys down. But they still have a lot there. What do you see as, you know, their strength and maybe a net. That's what I'm curious. Do they go? I mean, they got two guys from the wild, right? And then they got Markstrom. So what are you doing, Biz?

Keith Yandle (112:20)

I'm just recording prongs and telling everybody to record. Sorry for distracting you.

Ryan Whitney (112:25)

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Keith Yandle (112:26)

Send out a promo with love, you guys.

Ryan Whitney (112:31)

What do you like about Sweden?

Chris Pronger (112:33)

Deep on the back end. You know, you're right. They've got a really good back end. Even with Brodine being out. You look at Rasmus Anderson. Philip Broberg, your former Oiler, has been the best D on St. Louis and arguably maybe their best player. He's had a great year. Rasmus Dahleen is an absolute stud. Stud finally getting the recognition he deserved. That kid is a beast. Oel has been pretty good for your Leafs. There is one bright spot. Forsling, you know, we're talking about shut down D. Forsling shut down, close it out. Headman still a stud. Eric Carlson, power play. And then Happis Lindholm is kind of taking in or over the role of, of Brodine. You know, they're pretty solid back there. And they all. Again, unlike Canada, they all have played together before, so they have some continuity, they've got some chemistry. They know their systems, they know how they want to play. You know, I think at the end of the day, it's going to depend on the goaltending, how they play. Because up front, Philip Forsberg's in his prime. Adrian Kepe's in his prime, Nylander's in his prime. Patterson is the X factor. Lucas Raymond has proven he's a stud.

Biz Nasty (113:50)

Stud.

Chris Pronger (113:51)

You know, you kind of go up and down that roster and they've got some, you know, Jasper Bratz, a good player. They've got some really good players. They've got some, some, I'm going to call them fillers, but guys who can fill in in different roles, they're going to be a good team. It's. I think it's going to depend on the goaltending. If, if they can solidify a number one and solidify somebody, that's going to be the guy. You know, I think right now they kind of have three guys. Who's the one?

Ryan Whitney (114:19)

It's Cam.

Chris Pronger (114:19)

They don't have a clear cut one, you know. Exactly. So if they can find the guy that's going to be the number one, like, I don't think people realize they went 0, 0 and 3 in the.

Keith Yandle (114:32)

Oh, yeah.

Chris Pronger (114:33)

In the four nations. They tied all three games.

Ryan Whitney (114:36)

Yeah, they had a good. They had Canada almost like they were up. I think when the third, maybe the second or third and then Crosby did what he does.

Biz Nasty (114:45)

But do you think what those teams, especially like Sweden, Finland, when you think of them at like world championships, you feel like they just have a little more pride when they're playing for their countries. But Olympics, I think, is a little different, where you're getting, you know, all the best guys and you're Playing for something even more than, you know, just to win a tournament.

Chris Pronger (115:04)

Oh, they definitely get up for world championships, you know, playing for the country, they. They thrive in that moment. So. And then, you know, add in the Olympic Games and it. It goes to another level. So, you know, a. As we've, as we've said, they're going to be hard to beat. So to the point of Canada, US Team Sweden, Team Finland, like, Sweden has got really good players. It's interesting that Lis Cog has been cleared and he's going to go. That was a gruesome injury. He had looked bad hitting the goalpost like that.

Biz Nasty (115:38)

That.

Chris Pronger (115:38)

I mean, you could just see how much pain he was in. That had to hurt.

Keith Yandle (115:41)

Prongs, who are some of the old school Swedes who gave you the most fits when you're playing against him in international play? Because we have some people from Sweden who listen and they just love hearing about the older guys getting the double wristers.

Chris Pronger (115:55)

Well, Peter Forsberg, World Junior, World Championship Olympics. And then obviously, every time he was on the ice, I was on the ice. So we had some good battles trying to think here, what do people like.

Keith Yandle (116:12)

For the, for the younger generation who didn't get to watch him in real time, like just.

Chris Pronger (116:16)

Well, which, you know, he kind of hurt himself because he played so hard, I don't think. Highly, highly skilled, like one of the most skilled players you'll see. But he also had a switch that you could play into and he would want to battle you. He would want to show you that he could take you on. So he's taken on me, he's taken on Darren Hatcher, he's taken on, you know, all the big guys in the league. And so, you know, I think ultimately that I think kind of was his downfall is that he wanted to kind of match up from a physical perspective. And you could see, you know, he had a lot of major injuries through the course of his career, but if you saw him at World Junior, there were the line was him, Nasland and Patrick Sunstrom, and they had a play where Forsberg would come around behind the net and then if the goalie would turn his head and look this way, he would sauce it over the back of the net to Nasland off the back door. So he could shoot it in either off the goalie or in the net. And if the goalie kept looking this way over where Nazlyn was, he'd fired out in the middle of the sunstroke or he would wrap it. I mean, it was, it was almost we got smoked. We played them in, in the pre tournament game, and we got smoked like, nine, three. And we had a line brawl and we had all this. We were like, screw it.

Keith Yandle (117:41)

Let's take these guys out.

Ryan Whitney (117:43)

And.

Chris Pronger (117:44)

And I think he had probably like six or seven points. We just got smoked. But what it did. What it did was it helped us kind of figure out how we needed to defend that play because they were chewing everybody up on that. They would do it, the power play. They'd do it in, you know, five on five. It just. It was very, very. You had to have people in the exact spots or you couldn't stop it. It was unstoppable.

Ryan Whitney (118:08)

Speaking of legendary Swedes, what do you remember about when Alfie shot the puck at Norm?

Chris Pronger (118:14)

Remember that? The finals? Yeah, that was game. Game five.

Keith Yandle (118:18)

Kind of like stealing a game puck.

Chris Pronger (118:22)

I didn't steal anything. I. You know, there's no names on those things, is there? Other than Gary Bett. I stole it from Gary, by the way. You. You probably don't remember that. That's the game I was suspended for locker room watching, you know, late and late in the period, you know, Alfie takes a slapper at Norm and. And everybody's pissed. You know, it was like a couple seconds left in the period. Everybody's pissed off, come in the locker room, and Norm, you know, as only Scotty can, just casually, like, just. It. It hits him, whatever, skates off the ice, he gets in the locker room, people are like, we're gonna get him. Whatever. And he's like, don't worry about it. Let's finish this game. Like, just puts his. Puts his glasses back on in between periods and like, don't worry about it, boys. Don't worry.

Biz Nasty (119:17)

Got a block shot.

Keith Yandle (119:18)

No wonder he could skate for 30 minutes. He wasn't wasting any energy. Nothing phased them other than probably crossword puzzles.

Chris Pronger (119:26)

No, not even that. Nothing. We'd be driving to the rink and his beautiful Prius, avoiding traffic in the HOV lane.

Biz Nasty (119:36)

You would go in the Prius?

Ryan Whitney (119:38)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Chris Pronger (119:42)

It would be.

Keith Yandle (119:43)

I would sit. Crawled out in the back.

Chris Pronger (119:45)

I would sit in front. It would be me, Scotty, Jiggy and Robbie. That was our crew that would go down to the games.

Ryan Whitney (119:52)

The clown car as they arrive.

Chris Pronger (119:54)

Yeah, of course, getting out of the Prius. So it just depend on, on the day which car we were going to take. But sometimes we took Norm's Prius.

Keith Yandle (120:04)

Of course, he had a Prius. That is so good. That is so good.

Chris Pronger (120:09)

Well, he's got to save the Environment.

Keith Yandle (120:11)

Any other Swedes that you would want to talk about that, that you remember. And I agree with you on Darlene, though. Like, I was trying to bait him over to the Leafs because we need a number one D man. And that's another conversation we've kind of had on online where you chimed in where there's not a lot of true number one D men and what he can do offensively. He plays with some jam, too.

Biz Nasty (120:34)

Oh, yeah.

Chris Pronger (120:35)

As he's as gritty as they come. He plays hard.

Keith Yandle (120:39)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (120:40)

He's got. He's not just a talent in the sense that he can skate, shoot, he play. He's had some huge open ice hits.

Ryan Whitney (120:47)

Staying with the Olympics quickly. Cause, you know, then you got check, you got Slovakia, you got Germany. A lot of these teams don't have. It's not all NHL players, but we, we mentioned a month ago the season he's having. And I said, I don't know if there's been a defenseman as close to Pronger the way Mauritz Cider is playing right now, because we've seen, you know, you've seen all these guys and Duncan Keith and Drew Doughty and Makar, but he's mean. He's enormous. Are you seeing some characteristics that you had in your game out of him?

Keith Yandle (121:20)

And is he a number one at.

Chris Pronger (121:21)

This point, you think at this point? Yes. You look at now, should we go through what a number, a real number one is?

Ryan Whitney (121:27)

I'd love to hear it.

Chris Pronger (121:29)

A real number one. You don't have to play the first power play. Cause sometimes you might have a. A power play specialist or you might. Again, you got to manage ice then, too, and you got to get other players out there. So number one, place a power play, kills penalties on the ice late in the game when you need a goal on the ice late in the game, defending a lead, you know, you go through all the situational awareness, that player is always on the ice.

Keith Yandle (121:58)

That's a.

Chris Pronger (121:59)

A true number one. Now people are going to say, well, but Quinn Hughes doesn't kill penalties. He could, but they don't use them, you know, because they got to get ice time for somebody else. He already plays 30 minutes, you know, so you got to move ice time around. And, and you know, the funny part is people get pissed off. Like, but my guy, I go, he's a number one on your team. He plays number one minutes on your team because you don't have a number one. So they think he's a number one. Now you got to, you know, and it just. And by the way, it's no slight on these other guys. Like just because I say they're not a number one. In my opinion, it could be a number two, it could be a great fit. You know, like there's a, you know, it could be a 1, a 1B. It could be, you know, a guy's a great 2 or a great 3 or like people get upset and I'm like. But everybody's slotted. When you have a, A, A team and it's set up perfectly, you got a guy that slots in perfectly in the 1, the 2, 3, the 4 and you know, I heard BXA talk about Andre Benoit last year. He's a great six. He's arguably the best six in the league. Like people need to slot in into their roles and then play those roles to the best of their ability and it's the perfect fit for their skill set, for their style. A lot of times, you know, like Eric Carlson, he's a power play guy. You do not want that guy on the ice late in a game with a one goal lead.

Keith Yandle (123:27)

No, you saw that actually against.

Chris Pronger (123:31)

Yeah, but it's not his skill set.

Biz Nasty (123:33)

He probably doesn't want to be out there.

Chris Pronger (123:34)

Well, exactly, he probably doesn't. You know, he doesn't. First off, he doesn't want to block a shot and he doesn't, you know, like you're not playing to his strengths. You know it coaching as we just as we saw with OV and Carberry, playing to your players strengths and putting them in a position to succeed, that's what it's all about. So when I say I'm slotting guys in, it's just where they fit.

Biz Nasty (123:56)

Yeah.

Chris Pronger (123:57)

And the type of talent they have. I mean, by the way, there's plenty of guys that were way better skaters than me. It doesn't mean I couldn't move it. Just like Scotty was a better skater than me. It is what it is.

Keith Yandle (124:08)

Have you went through the list like how many would you say of true number ones there are currently in the NHL? Probably about 15.

Chris Pronger (124:14)

Yeah, ballpark, there's anywhere from 12 to 16 probably.

Keith Yandle (124:18)

So you kind of look at it like, like NFL quarterbacks where maybe there's a little bit of a, like there's.

Chris Pronger (124:24)

A, there's always a drop off, you know, and, and by the way, being a number two is going to get you paid handsomely as well. And being a number three and, and like as you go through them like the top, if you're in the top four, you can kind of roll along. You look at Adam Foote like Columbus signs Adam Foote back in the day to be their number one. He's not a number one. He's not going to play in the power play. He can't. He can't play the top of the power play. Like, he could maybe go over here and take one timers or whatever, but he's not going to operate and run the power play. That's what a number one does. And then they also go and kill penalties and they're the guy, the shutdown guy like that. A true number one is a shutdown defenseman and a. And a offensive weapon or can be. He might not play that way because he might look at. I want my team to win. And this guy, I need. I need. This guy needs to get ice time and I need a break and all the rest of the stuff that kind of plays into it and where the coaching staff wants to put you, they also have a role in this too, you know, so it, it can, it can kind of vary, but it, it's, you know, that. That's my definition. You know, people are going to argue, but this guy's, oh, my God, this guy can't do this. Like Philip Robert, he's not a number one. Not yet. He might get into that role, but, you know, you evolve into it and you kind of fall into that by opportunity, by ice time, by improving and maturing as a player and developing. You don't automatically roll in. And, you know, some guys do roll in and they're just that good. But like, as we talk about cider, he came into the league with such flash and bravado and played that physical role and puck mover and jumping into the play and. And then for a couple years there, he kind of regressed. For whatever reason, he regressed. I don't know why. I don't know what was going on in Detroit. Regressed. And now he seems like he's found that edge again in that playing with that grit and jam and. And passion for the game that he came into the league with, which is great to see, and it certainly helped Detroit get to where they are.

Ryan Whitney (126:35)

Biz, you got anything else for this legend?

Keith Yandle (126:37)

I got. Yeah, I got. I got about fucking two more hours left for them.

Ryan Whitney (126:40)

Yeah, that's the thing. So do I. Yeah.

Biz Nasty (126:43)

I was just thinking with these other teams like you mentioned, Germany, Switzerland, the guys that aren't in the NHL, like, the effort you're getting from these guys, because, you know, maybe they're like, we got every eyeball in the hockey world. Watching us, I'm trying to get to the NHL or trying to get back whatever it is. Like, that's another thing that you have to prepare for as well, I would imagine.

Chris Pronger (127:03)

Well, and you don't know who, you know, sometimes you don't know who they are. Like, I remember in, in 2010, there was a few Swiss guys that were just ready to come up with Zuccarello, and some of these guys were just getting ready to come over or had just come over, and you're like, who, like, who are these guys? You know, and, and they play incredible in the tournament. You're like, oh, that guy's good. And they're competitive and, and you know, you don't, you don't have a book on them, so you, you don't really. You're trying to gather information either before the game or, or watch. Watch games later in this tournament as you're getting ready to play them, to kind of get a, a read on how they play different plays. Like I talked about with Sweden Forsberg, that play. Trying to see if they have any sneaky plays or things that you need to be aware of and on the lookout for. And you can alert the video guy to kind of try to look for things that you may want to see how they work, the power play and what their tendencies are and things like, things like that. If you don't have a book on them.

Keith Yandle (128:02)

I was for the athletes going over, like the guys on Team Canada who are maybe single. How do you stay focused being in that village with some of these female athletes cruising around?

Chris Pronger (128:12)

Like, how do you just, just so you know, this is not the Summer Games.

Biz Nasty (128:19)

They don't hand out condoms in the Winter Games.

Keith Yandle (128:22)

They don't go to, like, Winter Games. They don't do, like a village thing there.

Chris Pronger (128:26)

There is, but in this particular venue, like, some of them, all the skiers are going to be up in Cortina. They have a separate village over there. Like, half of the events are nowhere near Milan, so that all those people are not even going to be in Milan. They're going to be gone. And then the ice skating stuff.

Biz Nasty (128:48)

And.

Chris Pronger (128:48)

Whatnot are in the Milan village. There's not as many people there as you think. And frankly, you're practicing, you're doing stuff. I'm sure, I'm sure guys are going to be around. But you're, you're pretty, you're actually pretty.

Keith Yandle (129:04)

Bad question.

Ryan Whitney (129:05)

That's a bad question, by the way.

Keith Yandle (129:11)

I don't know. I don't, I don't know. I was asking the expert. I've never been to the Olympics. The other one I had was outside of the hockey side of it. What was your favorite Olympic memory? Like, where was it? Like meeting another athlete, like, was it, you know, what you got maybe a sport that you got to watch? Was there anything that, that stood out? Maybe you met some, like some actor or actress at them because of the games? I don't know.

Chris Pronger (129:36)

Yeah, I'm. I wasn't too big. I'm going to go meet people and you know, say hi to people and do all that. That, that as guys that played against me know, I'm not making friends. I'm there to do my job and make sure I'm prepared and ready. You know, I met.

Keith Yandle (129:55)

I could hear that. Canada. You hear that?

Chris Pronger (129:58)

Boys, get in your rooms and you.

Keith Yandle (130:01)

Can leave for practice. Let's focus on winning a gold medal.

Chris Pronger (130:05)

No fun, but there, you know, you're able to watch. I did go. I think I went and watched figure skating one time. I went and watched speed skating one time. You know, I think we went as a team. I'm trying to think who it was. It was ELVIS STOICO. The one year we went and watched. I think that was 98, if I'm not mistaken. Went and watched him. But we didn't have a ton of time to go, especially when there was such a distance for some. I'd love to go see the skiing, but it was so far away every time and just I was tired. I'm like, I need to, I need to rest and recover and prepare for the next game. And you're practicing, you got back to back games, practice, you know, a game, practice game, you know, then you're kind of in that rhythm of, of your games. I, I just, personally I wasn't interested in being tired. I needed to eat and recover.

Biz Nasty (131:03)

You mentioned being tired and bizzid has said this, that during an Olympic year they should shorten the season to maybe 72, 74. I forget what you said, biz.

Keith Yandle (131:12)

76 games.

Biz Nasty (131:13)

76 games.

Keith Yandle (131:14)

Everybody in your conference and one game against everybody in the other conference.

Biz Nasty (131:18)

What do you think about that?

Keith Yandle (131:19)

Well, progs, I just think that it, I think they have to look at the overall product and where the game is going and how they want to display it. Okay. If you're going to have a four year cycle and they could start it moving forward where all of a sudden the owners want 84 games in non Olympics years and then I'm assuming, let's say non World Cup Years. So you would have two of them. If you're going every other right, do the 84 games to make up for a few loss ones. Do a 76 game schedule during the Olympic year. Play your conference way more. They always worry about like, oh, every, you know, every team should get to see McDavid play. It's like, give me a break, buddy. If you live in New York, go watch him in New Jersey. If he's there that year, maybe you're not going to get them watch him on TV for the one year. Sorry. Not everybody can get what they want, okay? And it cuts down on travel costs because they want the gate revenue of these 82 games. So you arrest these guys. They get to go to the Olympics and do what they want to do and you have that shortened season year and in that year you give them a taste of what everybody actually wants. And it's the one through eight. Everybody's basically done with this fucking the way they do it now. And I think it's bullshit and it's costing people jobs essentially because if you're, if you finish second place in your conference and all of a sudden you draw the third place team, kind of like it's going to happen in, in the central this year. All of a sudden you're talking about GMs and coaches losing their jobs. It's like they, they weigh that because if you lose in the first round, it looks bad on paper as opposed to maybe the second or the conference finals. Then in the years going back to the owners of the 84 games, they get more of their gate revenue. They can fuck it. Hey, maybe they even open up the playoffs to more teams. They can look at that if they want to gain even more playing 9, 10, maybe even more revenue in those.

Ryan Whitney (133:13)

Like adamant, adamant against that, which is fine.

Keith Yandle (133:16)

So then you don't, and then you still get the 84 games, but then you do the bracket style the way that Bettman wants it. And I think they want it that way because they view the first couple rounds as March Madness. So they want some highly competitive series going on. Like we're going to see number two and three in the central.

Chris Pronger (133:32)

Well, you do remember, you do remember the old smite division. Yeah. Edmonton, Calgary. Nobody remembers those Winnipeg teams with Dale Howard, Chuck and Thomas Dean. And they got host. So I mean they were lights out.

Keith Yandle (133:46)

So quickly going back to that. So then you got, let's say it's Olympic year. Then you go back to the way that the owners in betment wants it of the 84 and keeping the same playoff structure. And then in the year of the World cup and this is the key to me, you, you're worried about the rink in Milan. You don't have Russia and Olympics. They should have the most like unreal World cup setup of let's say 10 to 12 countries represented. And you control all of it. And you want to talk about revenue and making sure the top end guys get paid and, and also the owners who are begging for these All Star games. Nobody wants to watch a All Star Game. Are you kidding me? The All Star Game. They should be doing the World cup once every four years. Off with the All Star game. You're laughing, buddy. These guys, it's like the Pro bowl. Nobody wants to see that. No one other than watch it either.

Chris Pronger (134:36)

They're terrible.

Keith Yandle (134:37)

Other than Tryov's fucking taking ketamine bumps before he's doing the fucking skills competition for fuck's sake. Nobody wants to fucking see it. So you control and make that World cup unbelievable. And you distribute all the host cities to what the NHL cities are. And then moving forward as years progress, where let's say you're in the third year that you're doing World cup, if a team, they have a whole city and they're not selling out their barn and they're not doing a good job of selling tickets, they ain't getting the World cup anymore. That's it. You move it to the places that are going to sell out and they're going to have pack barns and you collect all that revenue, TV rights, sponsorship, and I guarantee you they'd be making their fucking faces controlling an unbelievable best on best situation. And it would not to put anything.

Ryan Whitney (135:27)

Against doing that though, aren't they already have said they're controlling the World Cup.

Keith Yandle (135:31)

Right. But in also in the, in that year also shorten the season also because you're controlling it. And if the owners are so worried about this goddamn revenue. The best on best World cup is the hockey that people want to watch and they're going to be doing on North American time. And maybe even in the World cup situation, you do a division or bracket over in Sweden and Finland and. Or maybe you, you move it over there, you know, one every other time they do it. But I still think you control it and do it in North America and, and do it that way. So that's the way I think that they should look at it from a four year cycle. If the owners want to make their money. Bettman still wants to, to get his certain brackets the way that they Are because of first and second round matchups being entertaining, but they should look at it doing it different in the years of Olympics in World cup, as far as the amount of games they're playing and the structure of the playoffs. And that could keep everybody happy. Including bringing in the moolah. Because we all know it's about the moolah, right? Prongs. It's all about the moolah.

Chris Pronger (136:37)

No, I. Have you talked to Marty Walsh about that?

Keith Yandle (136:40)

I don't know.

Biz Nasty (136:42)

You don't know? Yes or no?

Chris Pronger (136:43)

No.

Keith Yandle (136:44)

I'm saying it's like, bring them on. I'll talk to him about it. But ultimately it probably comes down to Gary. I don't know what. How much shade Walsh has. Get the players on a zoom call. I'll fucking market this.

Chris Pronger (136:54)

Yeah, I don't know. If you're gonna get go. You can't. There's the one problem with that is you can't go, oh, we're gonna have 84 or 82. Currently 82. And then we're gonna go to 76.

Keith Yandle (137:05)

Why they. It was so traditional when it was 82. 82, 82. We would never lower the game's tradition. Oh, yeah, they'll do it when it's two more and they're making more money, but won't they? Why? Why? It went. Went to 84. No problem.

Ryan Whitney (137:20)

Because I like it. They're never, ever, ever going to less games. They're ever.

Keith Yandle (137:27)

But I'm saying is like, you make up in those other two seasons, the one that's. That the ones that you've lost now in those other years, and you're saying.

Ryan Whitney (137:35)

It goes to all owners.

Keith Yandle (137:37)

Cause you have these fucking morons like the Philadelphia Flyer fans online, defending the owners, saying the owners will never go for that.

Chris Pronger (137:44)

They agreed on that.

Ryan Whitney (137:44)

It's.

Chris Pronger (137:45)

It's, you know, the gate.

Keith Yandle (137:46)

It's like, oh, they'll get their gate, all right. They're going to get it. With the World cup that I set up, where you're going to be making.

Ryan Whitney (137:51)

Up $30 that he set up.

Keith Yandle (137:54)

I'm gonna be the new commissioner.

Ryan Whitney (137:56)

Busy betman.

Keith Yandle (137:58)

Busy betman, baby.

Biz Nasty (138:01)

That was like a Billy Madison rant. I award you no points and we.

Keith Yandle (138:05)

Are all now dumber every. That dumb.

Biz Nasty (138:09)

No, no, I think it's great.

Chris Pronger (138:11)

Dumber having listened to that.

Ryan Whitney (138:12)

Yes.

Keith Yandle (138:12)

But once again, though, those owners who are bitching all of a sudden, it's like, oh, we're going to have this World cup and you're going to be a host city. And then all of a Sudden their light bulbs are going to go off anyway. Well, I'm done.

Chris Pronger (138:22)

I wish you good luck on that.

Keith Yandle (138:24)

Should we get your opinion on the Mech golf in Philadelphia situation before we let you go?

Chris Pronger (138:28)

Hey, whatever. Let's do it.

Ryan Whitney (138:30)

How do you explain prongs? How do you explain, say, you're on the Flyers and you're just seeing all this noise around a guy where they're just carving the coach and it's like there's no responsibility on the player. And everyone talk, it's ruining this guy talk. It ruined Pedersen. Blah, blah, blah. What do you think as a player? Like, I don't think these fans really get what's actually going and. And has gone on here.

Chris Pronger (138:57)

Number one. I think the buildup for this player, in this case Mitchkoff, has been not quite Demidoff like, but very close where you're. They're like looping into the fact that he's going to be the savior and while he. Maybe he's. He isn't right now. And I've been through it myself as an 18 year old high pick. A lot of pressure. You need to be coached. You need to be developed. You need maturity. The kid came in out of shape. We've heard him talk about that. I came in out of shape. Like, there's a lot of parallels, but you still have to coach the kid and you have to teach him how to be a pro, teach him expectations, teach him how to play the game. North American game, playing in Russia and playing in. In the US in the NHL are completely different styles. And it's not that you're trying to take away his skill, that you're trying to acclimate him to what playing in the NHL is like. Again, I'm not in the room, you know, obviously I played there. But the fans are highly passionate, as you might imagine. You found that out. Hey, Biz, I love it.

Keith Yandle (140:13)

I fucking love it, baby.

Chris Pronger (140:15)

You know, and I think, I think there's just. Since 2012, when I got hurt, they've, you know, prior after that, they had a. They had a really good year that year, really good year the next year. I think one more good year. And then, you know, they've been in what's called a rebuild for what seems like 12 years. And I think they're frustrated and they want the rebuild to be over, but they didn't go about the rebuild properly in the early days and they keep trying to fast track it. And now every time they say rebuild, they're like, but we have our guy. And by the Way. I don't know any team, any team that rebuilds with a winger. I don't know one good team that rebuilds with a winger. You don't rebuild with a winger. You rebuild up the middle, center, D, goalie. So I know you picked the best player available, and clearly he was the best player.

Biz Nasty (141:09)

But.

Chris Pronger (141:11)

As it relates to that, you have to. You have to. Sometimes you have to luck out too, in a rebuild and get the right pick when the right player is available. And so, you know, we've seen that. We saw that with Buffalo where they tried to get McDavid where they tried to get, you know, different guys, and we're going to tank. All these teams tanking. And Edmonton kept winning the lottery and they kept fast tracking and it. And also it takes time to develop the players. And so you get in the situation where you're trying to fast track and you're trying to force either players to play more when they're not ready or teach them, you know, okay, he came in out of shape. Great. Get him to work out more. Teach him that this is how you need to prepare. This is what the NHL is about. Okay, great. I think the biggest problem with this situation is the kid's Russian and he doesn't speak very good English. And so there's a disconnect between the player and it. And it looks like on the bench, him and talking are always arguing. No, he's trying to communicate and it takes longer because there's the disconnect in the language. So it looks like you're arguing or, you know, on its face, it's like, I don't understand what you're saying. And so, you know, having a translator, what. It's. It's hard to. To manage on a bench in the heat of a game to. To manage those situations. So I think sometimes it looks a little different in that. In that regard. Cody playing more. Yeah, I'm sure he could, but there's a lot. You can say that about a lot of guys.

Keith Yandle (142:46)

But did that happen with. Did that happen with you, though? Because you said that you.

Chris Pronger (142:50)

Dude, I was Mike Keenan's. I was getting benched. I was getting yelled at every period, every game. If this kid went through what I went through, there's no way he'd be in the league right now. No way.

Keith Yandle (143:03)

And that's the thing too, is you're saying that. And I know he ain't going through what. How hard you got it, but by.

Chris Pronger (143:09)

The way, not many people went through what I went through. I mean, I, It Got so bad, my teammates felt bad for me. Like I was getting yelled at for nothing sometimes. Just. But I was the guy. I was the guy in Shea. Bow wow. I was in the doghouse.

Keith Yandle (143:23)

Are you great? Are you grateful for it now? And when you came in out of shape and you were called, what were the things that you did personally?

Chris Pronger (143:31)

Let's put it this way. I. The only reason I wasn't dead last in testing is because Furzy was there.

Keith Yandle (143:41)

And he was terrible and he was not ashamed too.

Chris Pronger (143:46)

So, you know, that was my third year, right? So my first year I came into camp in Hartford, I was in good shape. You know, I had an up and down year, showed signs of, you know, whatever. Came into training camp the next year in really good shape, got locked out, spent three months partying and then came back for the lockout shortened year. 48 games and was atrocious because I was out of shape then. I was kind of working out the next summer, but not showed up at camp, out of shape in St. Louis, traded for a fan favorite, came in, eyes on me, expectations, all the rest of it, and then slowly worked myself into shape through the first two or three months of the season. Fans weren't excited about the trade. They let me know about it. They weren't happy with my play. On and on and on. But ultimately you go through those moments and when you come out the other side, it sucks going through it. And again, I'll go back, if we're making it specifically about Mitchkov, the fact that he doesn't speak the language very well, if at all, that's the part of the problem, because he's not, it might not be translating properly. Kind of what he's dealing, what he's going through, what he's dealing with. And I mean, I'm not there dealing with it every day. I don't know what toc's telling him. I don't know what the coaching staff or the translator or whatever. Yeah, you got to be hard on young guys sometimes. But it's Also, it's not 1995 anymore either. Like, that's not how this world works. In today's hockey world, in today's NHL, you have to find a connection with the player. There's ways to be hard and there's way certainly not going to do it the way it was for me. And you have to understand that side of it. You know, should he play more? Probably. And by the way, if you want to see how good he is, throw him out there. Let's see what Kind of shape he's in. Just play him, you know I don't. I saw a few other games last year with Torts and he played him a little bit differently. He got him on the power play. He was putting him. To me it looked like he was putting him in more position for success and maybe not necessarily. Kind of looked like he let him do a little bit more but wasn't. I don't know if teaching him is the right word but showcase showcasing his abilities and not digging into the other parts of the game where that he needed to improve on. And I think that's probably talks there.

Biz Nasty (146:29)

To build a winning team, not a good player right at the end of the day like he's in there to try to get this team over the hump. Getting one player better is not going to benefit anyone, especially the Philadelphia fans. But I have heard the Philadelphia fans want talk to just learn Russian.

Chris Pronger (146:45)

Well here, here's the other thing that I think is the bigger question out of all this. I don't know if anybody's even looked at what he getting paid, talking, going anywhere. He just signed a five year, five and a quarter deal. He ain't going anywhere. They just got rid of one coach. They've gotten rid of a bunch of other coaches like at some point like what's the deal here?

Keith Yandle (147:06)

And I'll say you kind of, I think you might have touched on it or maybe it was you with like people were kind of saying that about him quote unquote ruining Pederson. It's like well he kind of developed the rest of the team and they ended up getting beat game seven of of the second round playoffs to McDavid and the Oilers and won the Jack Adams. So it's like they were up there.

Ryan Whitney (147:28)

Too in the series.

Keith Yandle (147:29)

Are you there to like put all your time and energy into this guy who didn't even have the, the, the respect to show up in shape for you first year as a head coach to show the hey I'm here to work for you. And so, so there's that also.

Chris Pronger (147:43)

He's also young so let's again let's play into that fact. That's part of the development curve of learning and understanding expectations.

Ryan Whitney (147:52)

What.

Chris Pronger (147:53)

But I don't know what the translation is. If we all know Russians are hard headed too. Like we're all stubborn athletes. And he's like no, this is, this is how I play. And taking that and then molding it to this is we're going to take that part and it needs to be in this team structure, okay?

Keith Yandle (148:12)

But if anybody had any knowledge and prior knowledge of what the pre scout was Armando before he got drafted and maybe that hard headedness and how things went over in the khl, they would be educated enough to speak on it. Now we don't need to really dive into that too much, but from somebody with experience, experience and doing it at the NHL level. When you said you showed up in shape and you're like, well, I spent the rest of the year trying to play catch up and get into shape.

Chris Pronger (148:36)

Out of shape, out of shape, out of shape.

Keith Yandle (148:39)

What do you.

Chris Pronger (148:40)

What? Showed up out.

Biz Nasty (148:41)

You said in shape.

Keith Yandle (148:42)

Oh yeah. Showed up, out of shape. How long does it take? How long does it take in the midst of a season while you're in the thick of it to get to that point and play catch up? Like did it take you the whole year basically to get there and you realize, holy, like these guys are true pros and the best of the best. Like if you show up out of shape, your base, your season might be a bit of a wash. And there's.

Biz Nasty (149:04)

Not a lot of practice time nowadays and people aren't practicing.

Chris Pronger (149:08)

That's the biggest problem. These guys never practice. Never. They're always recovering. You're always, they got a mandatory day off. They always, it's, there's not enough time to, to try to get into elite shape that you need to be in to play at that level. And that was always Mike Keenan's big thing with me. He's like, you want to be an elite player, you got to be in elite shape. Like, this is what the top players, this is how they prepare, you know, and so that was always a big thing. And it, it took me, you know, to get back into that type of shape. It took me probably a month or two, you know, six to eight weeks to kind of get caught up with everybody else. But I also had, we only had, early in the year, we didn't have a lot of games. So, you know, that's the difference between my 95, 96 and this is they're playing like three and four nights, four and six nights, constantly. There is no practice time. There is so from a team building perspective, a continuity perspective and a development perspective, when you have a young team like this or you have players that you want to develop, that's the hardest part is these guys never practice. They're. They're just constantly in recovery mode, you know, looking at freaking video and looking at how they're going to beat the next team and what they got to Change in the power play and all the other shit, it's. It's tough.

Keith Yandle (150:33)

I just, I. I guess I'll. I'll end it with this like, like this kid. The kid ended up showing up out of shape, and these people are like, oh, that's over. I just don't think, like, oh, I'll play him more. It's not really the example I would like to set to the rest of my team where it's like, oh, we're just gonna give this guy time because he was drafted seventh overall and he's projected to be this superstar, which he hasn't shown at this level. He did so in the KHO KHL on his own accord. And going back to that pre scout, how, how that whole situation had to go. So I just don't know if you're trying to build a winning culture, if just handing this person who, who hasn't shown the qualities yet to be a superstar, that. That's the kind of the precedent you want to set. And I really hope that this is a big time. And now he's got the whole break, right? He's got the whole break to, to work on that chip away and, and, and hopefully get in better shape for a nice push towards the end of the season. And hopefully this is more of a learning lesson for coming in proper shape for next year where things will look totally different. But trying.

Chris Pronger (151:37)

Their team, and their team is evolving and developing. They got young guys coming in. This, to your point, sets the example of, let's come in shape, let's come prepared. This is the expectation. You know, it's no different than, than that next year for me. I understood, okay, this is what I have to do. I can't float in the summer. Like, I need to be prepared, you know, and then it's. You got to look at yourself in the mirror and take ownership and be like, okay, how good do you want to be? Okay, you get told you have all this talent or you're going to be the guy. Well, if you're the guy, then you have an expectation to show up in shape. You have an expectation to compete each and every night. And, you know, if you're the guy, then go show me you're the guy.

Keith Yandle (152:20)

And buddy, like that. These fucking moron Philadelphia Flyers fans online. If, no, if you, if you want to live and die with a. With a seventh or eighth overall draft pick who didn't even have the decency to show up in shape for your organization and, and yell fire Rick Talkett in the stands and try to get people to do that online and galvanize your fucking trolls. Instead of going to bat for a guy who won a Stanley cup as a player, two as an assistant coach, he's now going to coach at the Olympics to help like I. If that's who you're picking over the other guy and you want to bury that guy and get him can. I don't know, man. I have no problem calling you a Like I don't. I don't care how many talk radio show hosts want to come at me. I don't give a flying I know who I'm going about for.

Ryan Whitney (153:12)

I think it's just mainly their star. They need a superstar and that 1000%.

Chris Pronger (153:18)

Starving for like they need a game.

Ryan Whitney (153:21)

Breaker and they need a game. You're right, it leads me Rollback. Last question. Prongs use code chiclets on rollback.com 25% off your order through the end of the week. Hoodies, joggers, polos, they got everything. C-I C L-ON R H O-B-A-K.com saw you recently, I think it was with O Dog and the boys talking about the Leafs mentioning guys, it's time to kind of start over. Mention trading either Matthews. Trading Nylander possibly. What. What's your thought on that? Maybe go into that with us and. And just tell Biz where his team is truly at right now.

Keith Yandle (153:57)

Keep your. You keep my team's name out of your mouth, buddy.

Chris Pronger (154:00)

So here's the. The question was, what do you do with the Toronto Maple Leafs? Question was, well, that ship has sailed. The question was, what do you do with this current iteration? And I was just talking about do you take it to the studs or do they have pieces that they could still build around? Which, you know, if you think Matthews is the leader and can lead the team. Is Nylander the missing piece and where is he? You know, on the back. I think they're missing on the back end. We just been talking about number one defenseman. Well, they don't have a number one, they don't have a number two, and I don't even know if they have a number three. So you know, they've got a lot of the same defense. Defensemen like Riley and OEL are kind of the same. OEL is probably a little better defender. You got 10 of Carlo the same McKay, you know, similar. Like they don't have. They're missing a lot of pieces on the back end. Like they have.

Biz Nasty (155:19)

Better than me.

Keith Yandle (155:21)

Take the break. Hey, take the Olympic Breakout buddies. We need you.

Chris Pronger (155:29)

They need to reimagine. I think they have to reimagine their team. And then the question was posed to me, well then what do you do with Matthews and Naylatter if you're gonna. In order to reimagine your back end, they're gonna either a. You're gonna have to partner. I would keep Matthews over Nylander personally because you build in the middle. You've got your center, number one center. And then how do you build from there? You gotta get a number one defenseman. They don't grow on trees. How do you get one? And. And it's just there's so many holes in my opinion.

Keith Yandle (156:03)

How much would you sell me your sperm for? Honestly, I'm. I'm dead serious.

Chris Pronger (156:12)

What?

Biz Nasty (156:13)

$1 billion.

Chris Pronger (156:15)

$1 billion?

Keith Yandle (156:17)

We should just get you nem like Adam just get all the greatest Canadian defense ball and just like. We gotta just like create a lab somewhere. We gotta. We gotta start pumping up. Maybe get like Flurry and Brodur in there too because we.

Ryan Whitney (156:31)

What makes you think they're gonna want their. Their offspring on the leech and you.

Biz Nasty (156:35)

Know that there would be a draft. They'd be drafted and they wouldn't. It's one out of 32 teams.

Keith Yandle (156:40)

No, we're going straight Eli Manning, you're.

Ryan Whitney (156:43)

Going old Montreal Canadiens days getting all the French guys.

Chris Pronger (156:46)

So I guess. I guess the. The bigger question is you look at the loss of Marner has created a hole and they didn't fill the hole. They just added a bunch of pieces that were bottom six that didn't the thought he could add depth and not adding to the top six and it's created a massive hole. And I don't. NY's has not been taking that next step. You know, they. They've just got a lot of question marks that I don't think development or maturity or anything like that handles because of the guys that we're talking about are older outside of Nice. So you look at every. The shitstorm surrounding William Nylander now and all this stuff like just is. Is it better to get a. A fresh start somewhere and start that process? Here we go.

Biz Nasty (157:45)

Something leaves.

Chris Pronger (157:50)

Oh, here we go.

Ryan Whitney (157:52)

Oh, pros. We appreciate it, dude.

Chris Pronger (157:55)

Yeah. So it.

Ryan Whitney (157:58)

Business. Business.

Keith Yandle (158:00)

That's what I'm thinking. Your rebuild breakdown there Bronx.

Chris Pronger (158:03)

All right, well, I hate to tell you it wouldn't take very long, I don't think.

Ryan Whitney (158:12)

Yeah, I mean 1967 double barrel. It hasn't been too long since they won anyways. They got time to Figure out this. This out.

Biz Nasty (158:20)

Yeah. Rational fans as well.

Keith Yandle (158:23)

Yes, you're the best. Hey, the fact that you spent an hour 45 with us. An unreal Olympic preview. Just a. An unreal hall of Fame defenseman and. And a funny too at that.

Ryan Whitney (158:36)

Thank you, prom.

Chris Pronger (158:37)

Well, tell. Hey, let's make sure all those Flyers fans are okay with you. I mean, you can kiss and make up. Why don't we? Do we? Let's do a little Philly trip.

Ryan Whitney (158:47)

Yeah, let's do it.

Chris Pronger (158:48)

Get you into the city.

Ryan Whitney (158:49)

Looks like a Philly guy right now. Looks like a Flyers fan.

Chris Pronger (158:52)

Yeah. Getting after him. Did I tell you? My first game in Philadelphia.

Ryan Whitney (158:57)

On the team or against them?

Chris Pronger (158:59)

On the team. On the team. So I get traded there, skate out for warm up, and I do the lap around the net and I come back and I look, I make eye.

Keith Yandle (159:09)

Contact with this fan and he's got.

Chris Pronger (159:12)

A Flyers logo tattooed in the side of his head.

Biz Nasty (159:14)

Oh, yeah, what's his name?

Chris Pronger (159:17)

Flyers Eric.

Ryan Whitney (159:18)

Oh, the guy, Keith.

Biz Nasty (159:19)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Pronger (159:20)

His name is Flyers Eric.

Ryan Whitney (159:22)

Yep.

Chris Pronger (159:23)

I just saw him like a month and a half ago when I was there. I'm like, what's up, brother?

Keith Yandle (159:29)

He probably shanked me. He'd give me the Gavin McKenna right now, the right hook.

Chris Pronger (159:33)

He used to. So we'd come off a road trip, you know, it's 10 degrees, it's freezing out, snow on the ground. He'd be in shorts and that beautiful wife beater you're wearing and just clapping. It's three in the morning.

Biz Nasty (159:46)

Rollerblades. He'd have his rollerblades on regular season trips.

Chris Pronger (159:50)

Regular season, Regular season. You guys were great on the road. Good plan.

Biz Nasty (159:54)

He'd be rollerblading near the airport in.

Chris Pronger (159:57)

Our cars, from the plane to our cars and going home.

Keith Yandle (160:00)

He'd be there.

Ryan Whitney (160:01)

He might assassinate biz.

Biz Nasty (160:03)

Oh, I pray.

Keith Yandle (160:04)

I should actually go. Go to Philly and watch a game with him. If he's willing, I'll buy the tickets. And they just sit with him and. And you should hear him out. Maybe he's on my side with everything. Or maybe he'll stab me in the. In the stomach. Yeah.

Chris Pronger (160:19)

Oh, yeah. Boys, don't forget about my book, which we're going to talk about another time.

Keith Yandle (160:23)

No, Earned. What's the name of it?

Chris Pronger (160:25)

Right now my book is called Earned the True Cost of Greatness from one of Hockey's Fiercest competitors. Comes out April 14th. Pre orders are live now on my website, Chrispronger.com or Amazon or Books. Barnes and Noble Books. A million. It's all over. All over the place. Can find it anywhere.

Keith Yandle (160:46)

I don't want to.

Biz Nasty (160:48)

I don't want to ruin the book. But the gist of the story is you can come in out of shape and still be a hall of Famer. So, Meech Cobb, you got time.

Chris Pronger (160:55)

There is plenty of time.

Keith Yandle (160:56)

It was recorded by me.

Chris Pronger (160:58)

Yourself.

Keith Yandle (161:00)

He's got a chapter, but it's in Russian, so talk and read it for you frogs. This has been awesome. We're gonna promote the shit out of your book, buddy.

Biz Nasty (161:10)

We're coming.

Chris Pronger (161:11)

By the way, I'm coming back. I think Gia and I talked about late March, maybe early April. We're gonna crush it because there may be a couple stories you want to hear about wit.

Ryan Whitney (161:23)

Oh, boy.

Biz Nasty (161:24)

Oh, baby boy.

Chris Pronger (161:26)

Yes.

Ryan Whitney (161:27)

Hey, prongs. Also, maybe. Maybe we do it even right after it comes out, because then we're mid first round, and then we can go over what's happening first round as well.

Chris Pronger (161:38)

All right. We'll figure it out.

Ryan Whitney (161:39)

All right. Prongs.

Chris Pronger (161:40)

Prongs.

Keith Yandle (161:40)

This was so fucking incredible. Dude, you're unreal.

Ryan Whitney (161:43)

Unbelievable. Thanks for all that time, dude. We got some big news in the spit and Chiclets world. And you want to know what it is? It's that Pepsi's on board. Thank you so much to Pepsi for sponsoring Spit and chickles. Who would ever have thought when this thing began that at one point the greatest soda in the world would be coming on as a sponsor. So thank you to Pepsi. And I'll tell you, hockey. There's crazy games, there's wildness that happens. It's nuts. But over time, it becomes clear who the better team is. The Team USA of 1980 over the Soviets. They were better that day. Pepsi Zero Sugar versus Coke Zero Sugar. It's not even close. Pepsi's Super Bowl 60 spot brings light to a similar phenomenon of discovery and truth. The Pepsi paradox. The idea that when labels and bias disappear, cola drinkers prefer the taste of Pepsi. A phenomenon that blind taste tests have repeatedly proven. In the 2025 revival of the Pepsi Challenge, 66% of participants agreed. Pepsi Zero sugar tastes better than Coca Cola. Zero sugar. Pepsi wins on taste. Sometimes you have to flip your world upside down to discover what's been there the entire time. Go out and try Pepsi Zero sugar today. Let your taste decide. All right. Time for the Pepsi Challenge. Presented by Pepsi. The Pepsi Challenge. Here we go. Open this box up. All right, show you guys. For anyone watching on video, we got two straws, and we got two different sodas. And I'm going To tell you which one's better. Blind taste test.

Chris Pronger (163:27)

I don't know.

Ryan Whitney (163:28)

I don't know which one's better. Crack it open. Crack the other one open. As you could tell, like I said, no clue. The box. You see, we don't know what's the top. We don't know which one it is. Draws are in wait on the other straw, because I'm a Muppet. Okay, the A, Okay. This is B. Okay, Draws out. A is way better. A is significantly better. Like not even close, actually. 66% if this is Pepsi, if I got it correct, should be a hundred. Let's see. Top off. What do you know? What do you know? Can a Pepsi, zero sugar. What an absolute joke. Unbelievable. That should be 100%, maybe 99%. But that is. That isn't even close. That isn't even close. I love it. Sometimes you got to flip your world upside down to discover what's been right there the entire time. Pepsi, zero sugar. Thank you very much. Prongs, the man shoving that. You know what? You know what he did after, after that interview is the nasty knuckles pod. My guy, he tweeted out a picture. Just a throwback. Throwback Thursday picture, whatever it was of myself, Brooks Orpik, Chris Drury, Nasty equipment guy, somebody else in the picture. It was right after the gold medal beers. What, Powalski, Pavelski, maybe. And Prongs, you know, tweeted underneath, there's something really mean. I gotta look it up right now. And it was just like I pictured him tweeting it and then doing his laugh, suck it. But that was kind of a kick in the dick after we interviewed him to remind us of that. Nasty lost in the gold medal game. Let me find this, this pricks response right here. Looking for. Oh, I got. I got great, great news on a night that was really hard for me to deal with. I got great news I gotta fill you guys in with.

Keith Yandle (166:03)

Oh, I'm excited for this.

Ryan Whitney (166:04)

Oh, buddy, you would be even more excited. You're gonna be more excited after I tell you this news.

Biz Nasty (166:09)

But I gotta find that's how it happens.

Keith Yandle (166:12)

Does it benefit me?

Ryan Whitney (166:14)

No, it doesn't benefit you at all. It benefits me a ton. Benefits.

Keith Yandle (166:18)

Well, I'm happy. I love you, Ryan.

Ryan Whitney (166:19)

Callahan was in the picture. And there was one response to it. There was 111 likes on the nasty knuckles post of Drury, myself, Callahan, Nasty and Orp having beers. And one response from Chris Pronger. Those silver medalists look great. Nasty. Real motherfucker. So my good news, I received a Text in the second half of the game.

Keith Yandle (166:45)

Oh, I know what it is. I'm gonna assume Stoff broke the silence stuff.

Ryan Whitney (166:51)

Broke the silence.

Keith Yandle (166:52)

Wow.

Ryan Whitney (166:52)

And it wasn't amazing.

Keith Yandle (166:53)

Is that not crazy how I read that body language off you? I can feel his energy off of your. Your fingers there. And the text you're looking at.

Ryan Whitney (167:02)

Why can't Vrabel's teams piss a drop offensively in the playoffs? I said, wow, Stoff, amazing to hear from you. You know what he told me? Should have gone the twin to the twin back set with both Stevenson and Henderson and run play action off it. Old school stuff. McDaniels right there. So I would.

Keith Yandle (167:26)

So. So what does he mean? Like, he. They. They had a horrible scheme going in.

Ryan Whitney (167:31)

He didn't like their scheme.

Biz Nasty (167:32)

He wanted two running backs.

Ryan Whitney (167:34)

He wanted two running backs in there, and he wanted to go play action. He want play action. Biz is a fake to the running back. And you get. You get the D to bite a little. You go back, you believe. Maybe a little bit more time to throw. But I don't even care what he said.

Biz Nasty (167:48)

You got it.

Ryan Whitney (167:49)

Because he texted me, and he's not. He's not gunning from my head so.

Keith Yandle (167:53)

Funny that he did it, but he.

Ryan Whitney (167:56)

Did do it in a time. He knew I was down, but he said sorry. He said, sorry, your team looks so.

Keith Yandle (168:01)

Horrible, but that's him extending an arm, and that's what makes STH so special.

Ryan Whitney (168:05)

Yeah, I'm. You know, I'll never quit stuff. And now I know he didn't quit me so quickly before we wrap this thing up.

Keith Yandle (168:15)

I could not wait. I wish I could see his face when he hears you say that about your relationship towards him. I bet you you're gonna have a big smirk. He's gonna have a big smirk.

Ryan Whitney (168:26)

Yeah. But he also knows you leave. Your wife does tweet something to me that is quite evident. He's upset that I'm, you know, I'm gonna.

Biz Nasty (168:36)

He has every right to be upset at you.

Ryan Whitney (168:38)

Yeah, I'm gonna be. Yeah, he did. I'm gonna be sitting in the corner in the fetal position of my house with the kids, asking his dad. Okay, so Team Canada practiced. Celebrini with McDavid and Tom Wilson. Now, who knows if this is what they run with first game, Suzuki with McKinnon and Marshawn. Stone with Crosby and Marner, Hagel with Horvat and Reinhardt and Bennett as. And Jarvis as the extra D as the extra forwards. Taves with Makar. Obviously, Morrissey Pareco, I think Prong said that Doty with Harley, then Theodore with Sanheim is listed as the 7 8. I would imagine Doty and Harley are the 7 8, though. But that's not how it's listed by. That's Ryan Rashog for Team usa. Interestingly enough, they just were throwing out the. The last eight forwards, like, all over the map. But the top two lines looks like they'll be going with Gensel with Matthews and Baldy. Matthews in the middle, obviously, and Eichel in the middle of the Kachuk brothers. Sullivan said the Kachuk brothers will be playing together. And then the rest of the forwards were just. It was a hog podge of just seeing what. What they'll figure out. So the D pairing surprised me a little bit in terms of they didn't have Hughes and Faber together, that they had Hughes with McAvoy. They had Slavin with Faber. They had Warrensky with Hannifin. I thought that Warrensky would be with Sanderson. Like, Sanderson is unbelievable. That kid. And. And Lacombe's great. I think it's awesome.

Keith Yandle (170:09)

Goalies are the boss.

Ryan Whitney (170:11)

What? What'd he say?

Biz Nasty (170:15)

Unreal. Are throwing his goalies under the bus.

Ryan Whitney (170:19)

He apologized for that immediately the next morning. But don't try to.

Biz Nasty (170:22)

So did Stoff and stuff didn't.

Ryan Whitney (170:23)

And honest to God, we went over this. It's kind of like. I mean, those goalies have been God awful.

Biz Nasty (170:31)

Yeah, I saw.

Ryan Whitney (170:32)

Oh, we talked about it last week. The poor Senators, they get. They get little less than average goaltender. They're winning the Atlantic, the hardest division in hockey right now, so. Fuck, man.

Chris Pronger (170:44)

Whoa.

Ryan Whitney (170:44)

He's right.

Keith Yandle (170:45)

Holy breaking news.

Ryan Whitney (170:48)

Bella texted you.

Keith Yandle (170:50)

Crosby, captain of no Way.

Biz Nasty (170:57)

For enough.

Keith Yandle (170:57)

Got traded from the Leafs, was traded to the.

Ryan Whitney (171:02)

Also McAvoy. Very funny tweet with just a slow motion video of getting elbowed directly.

Keith Yandle (171:08)

That was a bad hit. I didn't know what you guys were talking about.

Biz Nasty (171:12)

Horrible. Has. Has anyone ever done that? Sent out a video of themselves.

Ryan Whitney (171:17)

Well, don't forget that the video looks like a picture. A picture of his face. He looked like Quasimodo and he looked like Crosby when he had the mumps. And. And. But the funniest thing, I got the.

Keith Yandle (171:28)

Mumps that same time.

Biz Nasty (171:29)

Yeah, you started it.

Ryan Whitney (171:30)

I think Sid. Sid still says he didn't have the mumps. He's like, I didn't have the mumps. But. But the funny thing was, like, there was no caption or writing with it, so you can't find him. He's just like Oh, I put a video and a picture of myself up there. But I think that that slow motion video, it's like that was a two minute penalty. That was, that might have been the worst call of the year. So with that last thing, Gavin McKenna, all charges dropped. So we can go right ahead with that right hook fish hook sale because there's nothing to worry about for Gavin. The police did their due diligence and realized that kid had it coming, deserved every bit of that right hook he caught. And now maybe he could almost support Gavin by buying the McKenna bissonnet fish hook. So.

Biz Nasty (172:21)

No, no.

Chris Pronger (172:21)

Whoa, Whoa, whoa.

Biz Nasty (172:22)

Bissonnette McKenna.

Ryan Whitney (172:24)

You're right. Business names first. You're right, you're right.

Keith Yandle (172:28)

So, so we're going to come out with the, the original one that's called the Right Hook, and then we're going to have like a spin off one called the Lockjaw.

Biz Nasty (172:38)

That's to catch the big fish.

Keith Yandle (172:39)

That's the big fucker. The yappy ones.

Ryan Whitney (172:42)

Yep. I also got a tweet from somebody that said Gavin McKenna has boxing in his blood.

Keith Yandle (172:47)

You think he doesn't?

Ryan Whitney (172:48)

His grandfather was an amateur boxer and his grandfather's brother boxed for Canada at the 1982. 82 Commonwealth Games and won a toughest man in the UConn contest in the lightweight division. If you win the toughest man in the UConn, I'll throw you against an army from another country.

Keith Yandle (173:09)

300.

Chris Pronger (173:11)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (173:12)

Just one.

Biz Nasty (173:13)

Imagine, imagine your grandfather winning anything in 1986 or whatever he said. That just shows you how young these kids are. His grandfather's our age.

Ryan Whitney (173:24)

If I, if that was me, I would have tattooed on my forehand forehead, 1982, toughest man in the Yukon.

Biz Nasty (173:31)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (173:32)

And I wouldn't even put in the.

Biz Nasty (173:33)

Lightweight free cover charge.

Keith Yandle (173:37)

You're an idiot. Hey, no, we're not done here. The next pod. We're going to have more clarity on Jarvis's buddies. And I think that when we were, when we threw it to the, the Pronger interview, we had a discussion internally. We're going to put up an offer to these kids instead of going to the Olympics. I know where they want to go there, but it's going to be a lot of money to put them up. Maybe they stick with getting the flights to Carolina. And then much like they RV to Boston from Winnipeg, they would RV from Carolina down to Florida where we are, and we would put them through a series of, of whatever. What would it, what would it be, boys?

Ryan Whitney (174:17)

Kind of like a, like putt, putt. Combine mile run where you got to drink. Pink Whitney wrestling. Alligator smoke. Meth. Because we're in Florida.

Keith Yandle (174:28)

Yeah.

Ryan Whitney (174:28)

Just some real Florida trash.

Keith Yandle (174:30)

Pickpocket on a 7 11.

Biz Nasty (174:32)

Yep.

Keith Yandle (174:34)

Sing a verse with Kodak Black. Just all the good stuff that you would do. Like a scavenger hunt around Florida. And then we would designate a winner. He's telling me there's six of them. This is Lucas and. And we might also be getting duped right now. This might not be his buddy and a guy posing as his buddy because that's how famous buddies are are at this point because they're doing T TV hits in Canada. And then the winner of whatever contest we do in Florida we would fly to hopefully what would be is the gold medal game in Italy. Get them a seat to the game. But it'll only be one of the six. So if they're down to do this, you guys will know it. And we're going to have a lot of extra content on our hands when.

Ryan Whitney (175:14)

We hit the Florida awesome biz. You going out tonight?

Keith Yandle (175:18)

No, I was good. I only lasted about 30, 45 minutes with ludicrous. I left and then Bieber got on stage. I did see Bieber walking by last night. Machine Gun Kelly was there. Megan Fox, absolute missile launcher. But it was cool. You know what? I. I would definitely do it again. Especially if DraftKings is buying and huge thank you to them again because they. They rolled out the red carpet. Once in a lifetime opportunity. But I would also be okay if I never did it ever again in my life. Like I was good. I think it's a. It's a built for TV game. Not.

Ryan Whitney (175:56)

You saw the worst game of all time.

Keith Yandle (175:58)

I did see the worst of it. But let's put it this way, with the flow and TV timeouts not getting in the way, you'd be hard pressed that those games in Edmonton. You can't fucking. They. That was a way better fan hardcore sporting event feeling. I think. Game four last year when McDavid had that goal, I believe the game went to overtime. Right. Marshawn scored the winner. That might have been the best game start to finish I've ever been a part of in a live experience. So. So it's hard to beat hockey and especially when we've been at two Edmonton finals back to back. So I'm pretty much done talking.

Ryan Whitney (176:37)

What are you talking? We're about to speak. We're about to see some. I think what's going to be an incredible tournament. I can't wait. I was very lost last night, Saturday night, I was like, what the fuck do I do? I went to bed early. But love you guys and love you boys listening. We appreciate you. Shout out Nikki Bella. And shout out Sushi.

Keith Yandle (177:00)

Jeremy from DraftKings. Yeah, Jeremy the goat guy.

Ryan Whitney (177:05)

And we don't like Poly Market, I guess.

Keith Yandle (177:07)

Or Market. Poly Market.

Ryan Whitney (177:08)

All right, have a great one.

Chris Pronger (177:21)

Won't happen again. A bad habit worth breaking but it's taking time. I don't know. It don't matter. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen again.