How Boston Bruins Overcame Challenges Where Detroit and Columbus Failed | Ep. 138

0:00 Speaker 1: Can you start a podcast with me? Please? I need something to do. I'll track shut it out. A triple bock of this, says.

0:19 Speaker 2: Today ask here's a chance pop right down with goalie Scars.

0:22 Speaker 1: Oh my, what a move by the rookie too on one faster not moving in shoeing to his own oil dances in podcast at home right away corner faster Chester?

0:40 Speaker 1: What's that for? Boston?

0:50 Speaker 2: Welcome in everyone to another episode of Bruins Tape to Tape. I'm your host this week, Caroline with a K, and our Boston Bruins have finally clinched a playoff spot for the first time in over a year. They have been redeemed. I don't know what, but they certainly backed their way in. But before I keep going, I want to welcome in a special guest because Maria from Watertown is enjoying Italy right now as we speak. So what's better than to talk about some other Eastern Conference teams? Then bringing in Anna, and we're going to talk about the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Detroit Red Wings.

1:34 Speaker 2: Anna, Hey, welcome back. It's been a minute, but one of our favorite guests and friends of the pod, keeping us on our toes and keeping us informed in our discord, especially when it comes to divisional rival Detroit Red Wings. Let's talk about what's going on around the rink for the Bruins real quick, and then we'll dive right into learning a little bit more about what the heck is happening in Detroit and will we see Charlie Coyle's playoff record continue. The Bruins clinched their playoff spot, they're currently fighting for wild Card one.

2:12 Speaker 2: Because again, nothing is easy. They do this to themselves all the time, and playoffs are going to be I don't know if they're going to be painful or not to watch, but hopefully they can beat New Jersey this week and clinch that first wild card spot. I don't want to see them go to Tampa again or a first round, nor do I want to see them play Carolina at all this season. That was enough. We don't need to see them do that again. But we've got three teams fighting for a single playoff spot in the East for the Metro third place, and four teams out West fighting for a spot in the Pacific.

2:48 Speaker 2: Special stick taps to Morgan Gegee this week, obviously because Maria called him out This is then the week that he comes back and is able to score again, getting himself a second hattie in his entire career in Carolina and then scoring on a beautiful breakaway against Tampa in Boston. What a great game that they totally blew at the end, typical Boston Bruins hockey final minute and they lost it all. They made it without really having to do anything and headed immediately to Columbus where they played the Blue Jackets for the third and final time.

3:25 Speaker 2: And Anna, you had mentioned before the start of the episode you didn't get to catch this game. Don't worry. It wasn't anything particularly thrilling, at least for the most part, no surprise. Columbus scored first, usually do that seems to be something that they were really really good at, and then playing a little back and forth, Boston tied it up, they led, then Columbus seemed to fall apart in the end. But very interesting story about their goaltender. Is his name jet At Greeds and then what's his name?

3:58 Speaker 2: From Latvia to try to forget that he's on the roster, well, so it sounds like one of the grades kind of grease greets whatever. Greebs greats. This is why I spend all this time editing, because I don't know these names for these other players. He's seemingly run away with the starting spot. I mean, how long has he been playing in the league. He's a young kid, right, this is.

4:22 Speaker 1: His rookie season, But he did have some games before then, and he should have been up at least last year, if not the year before. But because Elvis just is on that ridiculously along contract that Yarmo signed him to many years ago. Yea, but yeah, I mean, Greece has been a revelation because for a long time we had no idea like goldtending. We were doomed of goaltending after losing Proparovski. We had what corpus solo in vers Linklin's corpi back when news in Columbus. He had to think where one year he'd be great, the next year he'd be absolute utter trash.

4:56 Speaker 1: Oh no, it was a cycle. One year he would look like a legit star. You're like, oh my god, he's the future. In the next year it's like, do should be into eh? Hel what is he for? Evan? Mrs Lincoln's is always to spend He shows up for about three to four weeks in the year. Usually the first two or three weeks have been a week or two later in the season, and he's absolutely great, looks like a Vesno contender, Like dude is a brick wall. Nothing gets past him. He's just absolute god. And then the rest of the year he's outer.

5:28 Speaker 2: I feel for you on that. That's it's hard to get and find a good solid goaltender these days. I feel like it's there's just a lot of folks in the middle and it's hard to really find that the star player. I mean, to your point about Corpuslo, don't I don't think he's been a bad goalie. I think last season he was pretty solid, pretty consistent and decent. This year he's been phenomenal. So I laugh in my head as you're describing him having one year being awesome in the next year not And I'm thinking to myself, was this year then his awesome year?

6:04 Speaker 2: Because he did get a lot of criticism last season and even parts of this year, although since coming back from the Olympics, he and Swim have been like you could have either guy and they're gonna steal the game for you because the offense in front of them is just not showing.

6:26 Speaker 1: Up to work.

6:29 Speaker 2: But let's talk a little bit about which one do you want to talk about first, Columbus or Detroit.

6:38 Speaker 1: I have a lot less to say about Columbus, so.

6:43 Speaker 2: A super quick review of what's happened between Boston and Columbus and then we can get to the juicy stuff about divisional rival Detroit Red Wings. My first question, and I've asked you this earlier in the season, Charlie Coyle. This guy, love love love him. I was so sad when Boston traded him. I kind of knew it was coming. He was having a sort of crappy season last year after really coming into his own, got traded to Colorado, made it into the playoffs there, and then I believe it was in the off season, then he was traded to columb.

7:26 Speaker 1: And believe me, that was a very controversial trade in Columbus circles.

7:30 Speaker 2: Now, who did they trade him for?

7:33 Speaker 1: We traded him for a pick and Gavin Brindley.

7:36 Speaker 2: Okay, well how did that work out? I don't know.

7:39 Speaker 1: Gavin Brindley pretty much went straight to the NHL. We have to Colorado Avalanche and Columbus fans really liked Gavin because number one Gavin played for Michigan, I mean playing Columbus, but because Michigan has become the Blue Jacket development factory. Yes, you know over the last decade or so, like so many of our best players come from university skin so Ohio State fans Holiver nos and like Michigan players. Further More, Brindley was Adam v and Hilly's best friend. No, yeah, and so and so we traded him, and he also has some good upside.

8:15 Speaker 1: He was the one that we thought that, I mean, he's probably not ever going to be first line quality, but there were talks that maybe he would play on the first line just because he had a good chemistry with Aintilly, like back in college, folst who were a lestreck together. Yeah, even if Brindley probably should not be a first line guy, but it's like, guess, it's a good chemistry that he probably could have played in the first line on Columbus, just so that Ventilly is someone he had great chemistry with.

8:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, and so trading this guy away really did not make Blue Jackets fans happy. And also because along with Coyle we got Miles. Blue Jackets fans are it still are very very divided on myrles Wood.

8:57 Speaker 2: Really, so share the tea because I'm not familiar with.

9:00 Speaker 1: It's basically the same. Do I ever think that he's a very useful four flying grinder or do you think he's an absolute bum who brings down the entire team around him and it should not be on an NHL roster?

9:13 Speaker 2: And so, in your professional opinion, how has he performed this season? Good trade? Bad trade?

9:21 Speaker 1: I think it's a good trade. Here's the thing. The Bluejaggers were left in an impossible spot when Johnny Goodro was killed because they spent the off season before he was killed trying to get good now because they realize we have Arensky in his prime, Martenko's entering his prime, Johnny Goodrou is exiting his prime, and we also had some young guys like chick Ken Johnson who has been a major disappointment this year. Sean Monahan is exiting getting at the end of his prime. So it's like we had to win now, otherwise we had to start from square one and just trade everyone.

9:54 Speaker 1: How did you do when Don Waddle was faced with an impossible choice, but he was not in a position to to rebuild likely although it.

10:01 Speaker 2: Seemed like they certainly last year still overperformed, just missing the playoffs by two points. This year, it's literally coming down to the final game. It's entirely possible they would either just make it in or fall short by two points again. So do you think, and with the new coach as well, is Columbus at a point where they are about to make that leap forward? Or is this the high water mark for this team?

10:35 Speaker 1: I don't know how to be honest, And the reason for vett is because Don Waddle works in mysterious ways.

10:43 Speaker 1: And as for both good and bad, mostly good. I want to make that clear. I think that most of his decisions are good because both of my teams have very interesting general managers, and Wattle is the better of the two. Definitely at this point, Wattle wins more of his gamble, so not. But it's never to Campbells you expect. He always just does the weirdest stuff and you're just like, why would you do that? Almost as time it works, Yeah, like after Mason Marchmont and it's just like, yeah, hey, it's worked out, and we love him.

11:15 Speaker 1: He's a fan favorite. Now.

11:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a surprise one for me as well. He had a good game last night. I believe he scored a goal at least or was involved with some goal scoring. This is a guy who left Dallas in free agency literally last summer, goes to Seattle and it sounds like it just was not a good personnel fit and he ends up being traded fairly early in the Yeah, it was an early early trade coaching change or down to the end of the season. Now, how long has it been since the coaching change it's been was it the Olympic breaker?

11:56 Speaker 1: F it was back in January? Right?

11:59 Speaker 2: What's your take on how this has been going.

12:04 Speaker 1: I mean, bonus has been a definitive upgrade from episode even remotely a question. The only question I have is the timing that if you were going to do a coaching change, it should have been before of the new year, because I feel like it was becoming pretty obvious that Evison was not working out at like just beforeman, because here's what I kind of like to say about both of my teams. Well, now, ex coach and current coach Dean Evanson is the Dollar Tree version of Todd McClellan, who is McClellan is the Walmart version of John Squordorilla.

12:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's and so it's just like the all very similar coaches. Ye that for the guy you hire when you need a fire lit under the team's ass, but were not necessarily tactically the greatest, Like especially Evison and McLellan are very easy to prepare a guy. Yeah, that's probably been my biggest criticism. But Evanson is just he's not that great, Like he's he's really good at one faint and it's fighting a fire under ass. Nothing else he's all that good at, to be honest. And I think that after about a year and a half, I think that the lighting of fire under asses had run its course with this core.

13:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I think out of all adapt goes free, he's probably got the shortest shelf life because that's all he's got, has nothing, So I think it was trying to move on. But Rick bonus, he has shown that this team had a lot more in them. M hm. Also that this team still has a lot of work to do, which I think we kind of knew Beforeman, Like, this team really overperformed when they went on that long wind streak. Yeah, massively overperformed, and we're kind of getting now. It's like the probably massive underperform at this point to balance things out, and it's just at the worst time of the season to do so.

13:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, my impression with that every team is going to have a coaching bump, right, That's just it's a well documented thing. They continued to show that, which then kind of makes you think, all right, this coach clearly is working really well with this team. I mean, Bonus, he's a veteran coach. That was probably to your point of him getting more out of them, that probably comes from his having way more experience working with players in this degree of coaching as opposed to the others.

14:29 Speaker 1: I mean, he's been coaching so long that three up the Blue Jackets players currently had dads coach by Bonus in the NHL.

14:36 Speaker 2: So see, he knows what he's doing. But on the flip side, then again to your point of there being three guys on that team whose dads were coached, I'm wondering if what you're seeing now with Columbus is just the result of the lack of experience with this time of the year and veterans having gone deep. I mean, yes, they brought in Charlie Coyle for a multitude of reasons. I think he's a great culture guy. He's a phenomenal center. Hearing what you're saying about the team, it makes me wonder if them sort of falling apart a little bit at this time of year is just something that you tend to to see in teams that maybe don't have the right balance of deep in the season and playoff veteran experience to get them past that point.

15:28 Speaker 2: Is that the secret sauce that's missing.

15:30 Speaker 1: I think it is because even most of the Blue Jackets, a lot of the Bluejackets core are seasoned veterans into the playoffs. Like people forget Wrenski was into playoffs quite a few times in his career, you know, I mean at least what free four times set already, Voon Jenner has been on the Blue Jackets. It's like, what twenty eleven, twenty twelve, he was one of the you know, top center. I mean he was an important piece of when they swept the Lightning in twenty nineteen.

15:59 Speaker 2: Yep.

16:00 Speaker 1: I mean a lot of merce Lincoln's was I think also on that roster, you know, like there was I mean, we have players and Monahan has been in the playoffs quite a few times. Garland has been in there a few times, so it's like we have a lot of guys, like most of the roster has been in the playoffs at least once, if not many several times. So I don't necessarily think it's that. I just think it's a roster with serious issues and that is a product of being forced to accelerate even when you're not in a position to accelerate.

16:32 Speaker 1: Once again, this scene was forcing an impossible situation. I think they lessly made the decision, like you have to just keep going with the acceleration at this point. Yeah, it's starting from scratch. You just can't do that. So it was an impossible situation and this is the result, Like this team's just not ready for it. And I think next year is going to be the make or break here, Like you have to at this point just hope that in the offseat because I don't think we're making the playoffs there too much has to go for a way.

17:02 Speaker 1: No, it's hockey like twenty nineteen, who fought the Blue Jackets sweep the Lightning, you know, right, but not only win the series, but not even just win the series, you know. But it's like weird things can happen. I don't think it's happening. I'm a realist. It's very unlikely.

17:19 Speaker 2: You're procuring for the worst and hoping for the best.

17:22 Speaker 1: Yes, no, it's literally my motto, Expect the worst, but hope for the best exactly. Yeah. But I think next year is to make or break here. I think that you have to go all in in the off season, get a few more big name make because a few more needle moving players, not necessarily star players, but guys who make a genuine impact like marchmin or Garland or Coil, like guys who actually make an impact at least in some aspect of the game. And if you still can't make the playoffs, then you just got blow fings up at that point, Yeah, because at that point most of the core is just too old.

17:54 Speaker 1: You're not winning with that core, and you just got to tear around Vantilly needs to be the old untouchable. They him and Jet Grieves assume need to be untouchables, and then you just build around them.

18:05 Speaker 2: And it sounds a lot like what happened with Boston that by some miracle they should have been torn down three years ago and somehow extended their shelf life a little bit, and then all of a sudden they didn't, and you had what we had last year, which was then particularly traumatic for a lot of us. I'm hoping that Columbus pulls through, that they get that spot. That's just me because again I'm rooting for Charlie Coyle to continue his playoff streak, and I like Columbus. I've always been a little bit of a fans.

18:40 Speaker 2: It's not like they were an easy team to play against, at least for Boston, right so they played their three games. Boston did sweep the series, but not without some degree of challenge. Boston this season has made nearly every goaltender look like of asn't a candidate at some point. They don't make it easy on themselves.

19:01 Speaker 1: Well, Hegan, let's help that.

19:04 Speaker 2: I didn't realize this until the second game that Boston played against them. I'd heard earlier that day that the stats for the goal differential for Columbus in the first period was third ranked in the league, behind Colorado and Carolina. However, their goal differential in the third pretty horrible. And as I'm watching that game, sure enough, boom boom, boom, three goals right away in the first I'm like, oh my god, Boston's never going to come back from this because of just the season that we'd been having, and then somehow the Bruins came back and forced it into not only overtime, but a shootout.

19:45 Speaker 1: It's nothing more terrifying for a Blue Jackets fan than having a lead going into the third period. Nothing. The moment we see that we have any lead out all going in for period, we know we're losing that game. It's over to turn the game off. It's not worth watching. You're not with I mean CNX game.

20:02 Speaker 2: That losing wasn't for lack of talent on the ice. I mean, certainly you've got a lot of really great players and some good future out there. So let's now talk about divisional arrival the Detroit Red Wings. The Bruins finished the series against Detroit this year with three wins and one loss, and it wasn't without drama. Certainly, we had a shootout win, we lost four to five in one game which was just crazy, a random three to zero win which I feel like probably came out of nowhere, and then a four or two win in our last outing before Actually what I would say was probably the stretch of wins that got Boston into the position that it currently is in and actually to make a wild card spot for Boston very well timed wins.

20:56 Speaker 2: Sorry, but I think the biggest piece of conversation that even we have had in the discord this is what ten playoff years that have been missed.

21:09 Speaker 1: In our one hundredth anniversary season. Ten straight years missing the playoffs. Historic collapse, which is, by the way, the third historic collapse in three years.

21:19 Speaker 2: It seems like March has been a bad month for this team for at least the last three years. For the month of March, and hopefully I counted this all up correctly, and certainly tell me if I'm wrong. They went seven and thirteen in the month of March, with two of those being overtime losses and one shootout loss. They started the season and played up until the break like a winning team, like a team that had control over their season, that they had a good handle on things.

21:50 Speaker 1: Going into the break. They only had to be five hundred for the rest of the season and they would have had a playoff spot.

21:55 Speaker 2: Fine, yeah, so what happened? Why does this keep happening? What is the iSER plan?

22:01 Speaker 1: What is he thinking?

22:02 Speaker 2: What is going on. Explain this to me.

22:05 Speaker 1: Well, unfortunately, the iSER plan is a endless series of pretty much. I don't know what. I stopped trying to understand him last year. Look, I was a longtime defender of niser plan. I really was up until last off season when I realized because last season showed just too many contradictions, too many foundational flaws in the plan. And that's mainly due to what I call the timeline of the rebuild. None of it works, not a single ounce of it works. He started going all in, decided to go all in several years ago, he was going to win with Larkin.

22:43 Speaker 1: Well then, why did you trade a Bertuzzi and Heronic right before that? Yeah, just before he signed Larkin, like literally the day before he signed Larkin, he traded Bertuzzi even just like what a week or two before that he traded Heronic. It's like, okay, So that doesn't make it okay. So maybe he just wants him to be, you know, the grizzle old veteran for Raymond and Cider. And then he went out and got to brink it, but to brink it more on Larkins timeline, Right, So what's going on there? And then we have all these other young prospects who are not quite ready yet or just coming in.

23:17 Speaker 1: We have several years, right, there were no new prospects, but two years I think at least. But how does that work with that? Evanson should have been up before he was allowed up. This should be in ben his third season, and.

23:30 Speaker 2: There's been coaching changes.

23:33 Speaker 1: He's fired two head coaches. The first one was not his coach. Now is Blaschell? Oh right, yep, Blaschell needed to have been gone. But the problem he clearly had just run his course, which is the unfortunate. I mean, like Gause, in a better world, we would have been able to keep Blashell one more season. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world where rebuilds are extremely messy. Yes, what I would have done, was it done, is fire Blashil until Lalan. I don't care a shit what happens this season.

24:04 Speaker 1: This team can be unbelievably awful and we're not caring about the season, like it's a right off, you know. But instead it kind of judged him off at Sea and also they overperformed a season unfortunately. But also he kind of wore out his welcome fast. But unfortunately that happened, but Lake Bleashell needed to go too. Many players were getting worse under his watch, and he was supposed to be a player development coach, but players were really regressing under him at the end, so he had to go, even though but ideally he would have been around for one more year before getting a new head coach.

24:39 Speaker 1: Land wasn't good at keeping guys accountable. We've heard a lot of players were taking shots at him even before he was fired. There was a lot of poorly veiled shots at him even two months before he got fired. And then after he got fired, the players basically did the very polite version of I am so I'm glad he's gone. Screw him. And then McLelland comes in, and like I said earlier, he's a very easy coach to plan against. But it's not like he's void of any tactical prowess. He has to round himself with good assistant coaches, quality assistant coach corps.

25:16 Speaker 1: There are problems, Sarah, legitimate problems. Anybody's good at lighting a fire under it ver asses, and he has done that. Unfortunately, the roster just kind of sucks accelerated to rebuild when he shouldn't have he celerated to rebuild in Badard's draft year. Look, I don't think we would ever gotten b Dard. I don't think we'd have ever sucked hard enough to get him. I don't think we would have sucked hard enough to get Leo Carlson or Fanca Hilly, probably not even Will Smith. But you know he could have gotten who you're one position away from getting Ryan Leonard.

25:44 Speaker 1: Ooh yeah, yeah, we could have used a Ryan Leonard really badly. If you just not celerated, you could have easily landed Ryan Leonard. If he would have fallen to your lap, maybe you could have gotten little Smith. He sucked hard enough. You know, you definitely could have gotten Ryan Leonard said. We got nath Danielson, who at the time I liked, I was his biggest defender. But even then there was one guy who was better than him, Zach Benson. But we knew he wasn't going to get drafted because he's small.

26:09 Speaker 1: But Zack Benson was the better player at the time, has proven himself to be the better player since then. But Nate Danielson was the best player left. And if they did get him, no good the tom is he improved his biggest weakness, which was shooting. He was a god awful shooter going into the draft. I mean, the kid could not shoot to save his life. He's actually a good shooter now he is. It's to say all his other prop things were just he was just good at He hasn't elevated being any more than just good.

26:37 Speaker 1: He should be a very good Ferti line center. He's probably gonna have a very long NHL career. He will be that like third line center who teams won't want because he's elite. Defensively, He's going to be very good defensively. He's going to be the guy you want on your pound penal to kill. He skates well. He can provide some offense. He's not going to be consistent producer, but he can provide it.

26:58 Speaker 2: How long has Isserman been in his current position? With seven years now? Is he gonna still be in that position?

27:09 Speaker 1: Pot it out? It's not even it's not even couestion. Really yeah, because you see understand this, Mike chris Ilich. There's two big things. Number One, Chris Ilich only cares about money, that's it. He does not give a crap about the team. And guess what. The Red Wings are a complete financial wagon, and so as long as they're making more money than the year before, Ilich does not care. Number two, Isserman is basically an Ilich family member at this point, He's basically a sibling to Ilich. Entire organization is just a bunch of friends.

27:43 Speaker 1: There are no outside voices. Everyone in an organization are besties and they have no interest in breaking that up.

27:51 Speaker 2: I feel that because I have a similar complaint about Mealy. You've heard me say, you know how much I just I find him to be a snake. He was an excellent player, but look, I don't like how he operates as a president of hockey ops. I call him the shadow CEO, the shadow owner, because the elder Jacobs the spoon feeding him somewhere down in Florida. His son clearly is of an age I think where he probably grew up watching Neally in his prime and is just hook line and sinker going to follow Neely to the ends of the earth no matter what.

28:35 Speaker 2: And to your point, is Boston going to be bringing in all that cash every single year? Hell yeah, hell yeah, Because at the end of the day, when you have a team that is part of a city's identity. You can be as mad as you want to be, like we were last year, livid, livid, livid seeing a team just abs absolutely tank and not on purpose, which is painful to watch when it's like that. And then to sit there and in their post mortem listen to the Jacobs say yeah, we're gonna raise prices by four percent, and somebody says in the audience, pushing back and saying really four percent?

29:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, And guess what continues to be sellout crowd every single game because it's a drug. And what can I do? I'm not you know what I mean? I sorry that it's the same for you.

29:35 Speaker 1: You know how in the NBA there's the sell six and the Lakers. They are the two cornerstones of the league. They can suck unbelievably hard like they can have historically beast seasons. We're still gonna paye sell out every single game. We're gonna we're gonna have more money than they did the year before. There are basically two teams in the Rhythmics are basically kind of like that. But for the NHL there's a few teams us you know, Buffalo, Montreal. Those teams are always going to have no matter how bad they are, we're going to sell out, and to be fair in Buffalo's case, a lot of times it will be because fans of other teams come in even like well into when they're sucking, Like five years ago, if you were still getting in like better ratings than almost any other team when it comes to national broadcasts or even local broadcasts.

30:18 Speaker 1: There's just certain teams where it's just like we're just going to be money factories for the NHL. So yeah, if they have no incentive to get better when the fans are not giving an insensive, fans can start next year throwing jerseys on the ice and start chanting fire iesermen, Like the entire game could be nothing, even if they win, could be fingers, just channing fire izermen and throwing set winners on the ice as long as they keep making more money than the year before. Chris, So let's just going to hear that and go, oh that's a shame, Yeah, counting his fat wads of cash like it's not gonna matter.

30:51 Speaker 2: Oh, these guys are the worst, all right, Ierman's not going anywhere.

30:56 Speaker 1: They're going to be forced to rebuild soon unless Ierman finally gets aggressive because he is not aggressive. That's been his biggest problem. If you're going to do the thing that he did where he traded the Ironic and Bertuzzi decided to winn a Flarkin, then you've got to be aggressive. You can't make that work, but you got to be aggressive this offseason. I see this as the final off season of this core. This is the off season I'll make or break its. If you have to be aggressive, you have to get several new Igle movers because you have to replace Kane.

31:23 Speaker 1: You have to get a actually good bottom six, because that bottom six somehow gets worse every year. I don't understand how our defense gets worse every single year because every year they somehow find a way to get a new worst offnsman.

31:37 Speaker 2: What's your goaltending?

31:38 Speaker 1: Because again a complete cluster beep Yeah.

31:42 Speaker 2: Because I'm like, I can't even like is Gibson the guy? I feel like he's not the guy because didn't he play out in Anaheim.

31:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a long time ago. He played his entire career in Anaheim for over a decade. Yes, he'll being traded to Detroit and he had a redemption year last year. He was very good in Anaheim back in the day, and when we started rebuilding, he fell off, and then he got good again last year and he has been good this year. But then, like always, every coach is done for the last seven years, maybe where they overplay for starting goaltender. I mean, but they played Gibson for what like thirteen fourteen straight games, including several back to backs.

32:20 Speaker 1: No, what they literally played him for at least twelve to fourteen games. They showed back to backs straight.

32:28 Speaker 2: I mean, I thought it was insane when Jeremy Swayman got the nod for playing back to back. I knew that Sorokan had done it this year, but I thought those two were the only ones.

32:43 Speaker 1: No, No, Jit Griz also has played a few back to backs this season.

32:47 Speaker 2: Blows my mind that they would do that, like again twenty five years ago. Happened all the time, but like the way that they blows my mind that anyone would do that on purpose.

32:56 Speaker 1: Age of goaltenders doing at starting goaltenders doing it. I think he's coming back. It's been trending that way for a few years now. But I think we are definitely, especially because goaltending is not there's really no big improvements in goaltending, and this us just getting the first around reason seemingly harder to get Google tenders for some odd reason. Yes, I think we are about to see an age of that where if you're the starter, you are basically going to be playing probably sixty plus games and doing a lot back to backs.

33:24 Speaker 1: And the Redmans are trying to do that. But of course if they want to do that cosa. But right, you know, like tandems are becoming a luxury again, this could just be a weird few year blip where it's been trending enough and that like it dies off in a few years again. At least the last few years I've started noticing it a bit more than this year was like the years seem to really sort exploding.

33:43 Speaker 2: I almost wonder if it was more noticeable this year just because of the compressed schedule and the fact that you could you could pay attention to that happening because they're playing literally every other day, and then oh there you go, they just he just played twice right in a row. So interesting. Interesting.

33:59 Speaker 1: They over play John Gibson. That was the big problem. I mean, they've been doing this for years. They they get a guy who plays as a starter. They overplay him in the second half of the season. They make them pay like they play them basically every freaking game, and then they fall off a cliff production wise, and we're like, well, that's a Scooby Doo mystery as to why. I guess we're gonna overplay them again. We gotta play them the next game, maybe they'll finally figure it out. And then the next season that always without fail.

34:28 Speaker 1: The next season we get a goals under in one year, we overplay them, and the next season they suck at complete garbage, unusable, We trade them, and then they get good again for the new team that for playing for. It's been a cycles for years and the Red Wings keep doing. Everyone understands how the cycle goes, except seemingly our coaching staff in front office Verda was just scratching her heads, like, how does this happen? I don't understand what's happening. What's going on?

34:56 Speaker 2: What does Detroit need to do this offseason? I mean, obviously whatever is happening in their development pipeline is something's not working there.

35:06 Speaker 1: But we have good goaltenders and that's about it. We have good goals any prospects. But that's about it.

35:13 Speaker 2: What do you want to see from the Red Wings in this off season, either with being fulfilled by trade, like you want to see somebody gone, you want to see somebody be signed, not signed, anything in particular. There.

35:30 Speaker 1: Okay, here's the thing. We could be here all day if I went and see specifics, because I believe me, when I write my article, which we will be titled What Must be Done Detroit twenty twenty sixth edition, it's going to be a very very long article.

35:44 Speaker 2: Yep.

35:44 Speaker 1: It's not going to be a fan of hurt to read.

35:48 Speaker 2: Give us the cliff notes there.

35:49 Speaker 1: But okay, so there's what should be done, yeah, and then there's what will probably actually be done. Knowing Isserman, well, I'm expecting he's going to stay to course because he hasn't shown a willingness to be aggressive. Maybe finally this season he books a trend. But until he does it, I'm just going to assume he keeps going to a trend because his argument is going to be because I already know what his arguments are going to be. Well, we got more points from last season. Clearly something's working.

36:15 Speaker 1: That's just going to be his argument and then also, he's gonna be, well, what am I supposed to do? The prospects aren't developing as quickly as we want do is there going to be his two arguments? Because those are his arguments every single season, every single season. In the end of season he says there like he gets to really upset when the press asks him, Okay, but why aren't you eiver trading the prospects because we got quality prospects that you never trade or call up for just wasting away in Grand rapids.

36:42 Speaker 1: But the guy's clearly ready prospects.

36:45 Speaker 2: They have a shelf life. We saw this happen in Boston a couple of seasons ago, and it was happening at the exact same time that the Bruins were operating on borrowed time. And because I don't know, Sweeney Neely wanted to keep this core together and kind of see how far they could take it. And that meant that guys down in Providence were not coming up or in the disastrous season, they would get called up for like a game. They were not able to play enough games, and it just it was horrible, and they would be sent down right away, and it just seemed like it was very stagnant between the big club and the AHL team that there was no movement back and forth.

37:37 Speaker 2: There was nothing happening. And finally, again I don't love how it went down, but it had to happen. Where they cleared house in Boston, they made room for openings and basically had a huge, huge, not only dev camp, rookie camp, and regular camp to give guys a legit shot at making the big team and having these guys go as far as they could so that way, when they had to get sent down, they knew what they were going to get if they needed them to come up. And we've had a few of those players come up and have found homes.

38:18 Speaker 2: I mean, Jonathan asbro is a fantastic example. This is the guy who played in the AHL for six or seven seasons and I can't imagine him not being a part of this core going into the playoffs. And in addition, the Providence Bruins, they've been one of the best teams. So finally it seems like, Okay, they're cooking, we're cooking. There's some synergy happening there between the two. So you feel good as a fan that not only is the team up in Boston a little bit fresher faced. There's some very good, very close prospects right there that could make that leap, and it sounds like that's just not happening in Detroit.

38:59 Speaker 1: You see point V like to call up AHL players, but it's AHL veterans and not the prospects. Like we have Dominic Seine on the team night now, who actually has been a good audition, like he's used the captain of the Griffins. This is a guy who made his NHL debut like what thirty one or something, just okay season ago. He's been good, but then they just don't play him in the important games when he's been probably the only good bottom six player we've had since he got called, and we just don't play him when the season's on the line.

39:27 Speaker 1: It's like he's the only guy on the bottom six who actually plays well. We got this guy named Sebastian Kosa, don't know if anyone's ever heard of him. Drafted fifteenth overall, Red Wings, traded up to fifteenth. So this is a guy drafted in the first round, traded up to get drafted him over Wolfstet who everyone thought was going to be drafted first and then you just don't call him up when you clearly don't trust your backup. Yeah, like, what's going on here? I mean, the thing is Cosa is not living up to the fifteen overall status.

39:58 Speaker 1: He's not going to be will Set the wild wan A baby.

40:02 Speaker 2: Oh my god. I can't believe that Detroit had an opportunity to get him and they didn't.

40:07 Speaker 1: Everyone thought Vectorators were going to draft wolf Set because the moment he traded up, everyone was like, okay for drafting wolf Set because we needed a goaltender. Then they drafted Cosa and we'll set fout what like two more positions or whatever. And somehow remember Edmonton was right after Detroit and they have always needed goaltenders. Everyone was like, they said, yeah they said. Everyone was like, what the heck? And so I can go on.

40:33 Speaker 2: Forever about what I think is wrong with Edmonton. And I'm not a fan of Edmonton. I don't know specifics, but I could give you a whole dissertation on what is going wrong with that team, just like I could give you a dissertation on what's wrong with the maple Leafs, and that would be relatively objective. In spite of my dislike of the leafs. I'm like, oh, that's a lot wrong. Everyone could and his name is Austin Matthews.

41:01 Speaker 1: Can't say that. I can't say that will be on your ass, Yeah right, say what I think needs to get done. The realistic option of what should be done if Izerman finally gets as to actually do something, is be minumbingly aggressive. You have to add a bunch of meatle moving players. You have to trade prospects. Is time clear out grand rapids, let him suck for a bit. You need to trade guys to win now if if you're going to win with his core. If not, then what you need to do is start selling off. I mean there's two paths you can take.

41:37 Speaker 1: You aggressively sell off every prospect to win now. But guess what going to be contending for like two diffree seasons this core. That's not ideal. But if I were to GM, if they were to fire Isserman and hire me as GM, everyone has a price except for Marie cider Recer is the only untouchable now Raymond. I do not want to sell. I don't want to sell Raymond, but he does have a price, and you have to basically sell your barn for him to brink hit. Whatever reasonable price go right, John Price gone, Simon Evanson.

42:09 Speaker 1: I don't want to get rid of him. He's a number one you're gonna you're gonna have to overpay for because he is good. But if someone were to overpay for him, I'd sell him. You know, if someone's willing to overspay for him, you can't sell him, especially because he's very clearly being groomed to be captain. Make him the court centerpiece of the next roster. I also would not sell Mirco Caspervius here because I want to see what his ceiling is. He showed flashes in his rookie season potentially being a one seed.

42:39 Speaker 1: I don't think he's gonna be a supertar, but any means, but I think he could be another Larkin, another guy who gets you like eighty to eighty five points a season. Not an ideal one see. But when you're a team that has had no luck, getting one's a luck you we know all about that. You just gotta do what you can and just hope that you get lucky, as with some like fur ground pick or whatever.

42:57 Speaker 2: I'll be curious to see what is said in that postseason presser and then what happens in the postseason when it comes to trades and free agencies. But worst case scenario, this is my last question for you looking at the playoffs. It's going to start at the end of this week. If the Blue Jackets don't make it, who are you going to be following with great interest? Who are you going to be rooting for? They don't have to be the same team.

43:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, the team I'll be following of great interests. I think this may be a shocking one to people, and I am not rooting for I want to make this clear. I am not rooting for this team. I hate this team with every fiber might be but I'm watching them with great interest. Who is that is? Pittsburgh?

43:46 Speaker 2: Oh?

43:48 Speaker 1: Oh? Because here's you know, this is the last year of the Big Free They got rejuvenated. They've gotten some nice young players and a lot of them look like they've turned back the clock. And this is a corve we know can do it in the playoffs. And so I just wonder is do they have just enough magic left in them to at least make a deep playoff run. If not, the Coups, I don't think they will. I want to claim for not my prediction for who wins the Cup or even makes the final Front of the East. But if any team surprises, I think it's going to be Pittsburgh.

44:21 Speaker 1: Interesting, Now, I hate that team, so I don't want them to The team I'll be rooting for is the team that everyone else and for mother is rooting for, and that is Buffalo.

44:32 Speaker 2: I was gonna say it has to be Buffalo.

44:33 Speaker 1: Or Detroit fans and Buffalo fans we got a comrade ship. We got to We've got camaraderie. You know, we're both lake Erie teams. We've gone through a lot of suffering in various sports, and Detroit fans are very good friends. We have always rooted for each over and basically every sport. You know, We're always wasn't even if Buffalo wasn't like the levelble losers, you know, but that helps. But you seem if it's not a camaraderie, Yeah, I am going to to say, utah, okay, I feel like.

45:02 Speaker 2: They give a similar vibe to Buffalo former Arizona right name kind of someone in the front office killing the team. Here, they are doing it right. It's the same thing like with Buffalo, right their GM was killing this team. Everyone was like, why the heck is this guy still there? They get rid of him, they bring in this tough guy and boom, you've got life.

45:29 Speaker 1: So I buy that. I think that's like for just underrated as a young as Yeah, feed out exciting young core if you actually watch that, yeah, by name for not exciting, like people aren't sitting there like, yeah, I gotta watch Clayton Keller and Logan Coolly, you know, but it's like for fun to watch for actually, like when you actually watch a game, like I'm locked in when I'm watching the Mammals. Yeah, yeah, you are an interesting team to actually watch, but we just don't have that exciting name like a Connor McDavid or a Matthew Schaffer.

46:00 Speaker 1: It's fun as hell to watch. I have watched so many Islanders games just to watch him play.

46:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that choice. That's a good choice fo.

46:07 Speaker 1: But yeah, like it's for a fun team. That's not that people just don't pay enough attention to a little underdog. I like that.

46:13 Speaker 2: I'm gonna get on your bandwagon for my West Coast team because I'm thinking of, Okay, who's out there in Colorado. I don't have any beef with them, but whatever, they got enough supporters Dallas Minnesota cho curse screw the Golden Knights like never in any No.

46:32 Speaker 1: But most of those specific teams should not be in the playoffs.

46:36 Speaker 2: Most of them should not be NHL teams.

46:38 Speaker 1: Let's I'm sorry, but this playoff to format is a disgrace. This year it's been more of a disgrace than usual, so almostly because of the Pacific. It's never gonna change because Betman seems married to it. But hey, you know what, we never thought NASCAR would actually get rid of the playoffs, So maybe Betman will finally see the light just like NASCAR did. Yeah, but this year. If this year wasn't to put breaking point for people who were defending that playoff format, I don't know what will.

47:07 Speaker 2: My biggest criticism was the fact that when you're looking at the East versus the West, and this was a couple of weeks ago, but I said, Boston is the fifth best team in the league and was at the time barely holding on to a wildcard spot barely. But if you did it the way that it used to be twenty some odd years ago, they would have been easily in the playoffs, and it just makes you wonder if when it comes to the Stanley Cup Final, how easily the Western team makes it to that series compared to the East, because if you've got to go through the Pacific, come on the Pacific, Like, how hard could that possibly be for a team like Colorado or Minnesota or Dallas.

48:01 Speaker 1: For crying out loud, this could be Colorado. Let's be real, Colorado's making it out of the West.

48:06 Speaker 2: I don't know the bad juju with those jerseys they were wearing them. They got the President's Trophy while wearing them. Then their coach gets hit in the head with the puck. They kept wearing the bad juju jerseys.

48:20 Speaker 1: I'm going to say, has no center Depp Minnesota is Dallas. Dallas are professional chokers in the playoffs. Until they stopped choking in the playoffs, I will not never choose them to even make the final. If not, at least you would not win it.

48:33 Speaker 2: They're always going to lose in the conference final for sure.

48:36 Speaker 1: For Carolina of the West, ooh yeah, it was like until they do it, never choosing them. It's going to be Colorado. That's the only team unless we have a miracle team I think.

48:47 Speaker 2: These Coast teams are going to be dead. I guarantee you East Coast is probably gonna have way more Game sevens. They're going to have played more hockey yep by the time they get to the final than any West Coast team.

49:01 Speaker 1: But there is one thing can work to the tire team's advantage is that if the other team has been sitting on her ass for too long, true, resting too long. Like we saw this several years ago, wasn't it. I think it was to Vegas Panfer's Stanley Cup where the Panthers like made the Cup final like a week before the Yeah, and then all of her progress was just dead. Bobrovski had returned to human came in again. My prediction is Tampa Bay comes out of the East. I'm just saying that now. I hate like, I think we're getting a Colorado Lightning rematch from four years o.

49:33 Speaker 2: God, yeah twenty two right, Yeah, I think.

49:36 Speaker 1: We're getting that. Our only hope, our only savior from that potentially is if Carolina decides to not choke this year in the conference final. Good luck that. Yeah, taking that, see, I'll know we're gonna be in the Conference final again. I would not count on the Western team being able to easily win the Cup, even if I have an easy path. For that one reason true, because we've seen this happen, we have just a few years ago.

50:02 Speaker 2: So Anna tell our listeners again where they can find you on all of your places.

50:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, So the main thing I'm I'm here for is prism Hockey, which you can find on Patreon and substack. Subsec is the main platform, but I do have Patreon for folks who don't want to support substack, especially financially. And then I am on Twitter as a Despicable Anna. That's just my username. Thank you Montreal fans for giving me that name. So literally Boston fans will love this, but it's literally a diss to Montreal fans because they called me despicable and so like, I literally became known as a despicable little to them.

50:40 Speaker 1: So I just changed my name to despicable Anna as a case to Montreal fans. So on Instagram and I asked to started streaming on Twitch and kick lately usually about every o our Monday, I do hockey news, so excellent event of our nights they do writing streams or gaming. Check me out there. I mean, I'm literally just my name Anna Hudoc with an underscore between them on your platforms.

51:04 Speaker 2: Well, thank you again so much for coming and chatting with us about our favorite rivalries and other teams that the Bruins play. On the regular. We like to keep an eye on what's happening across the division and in the conference, so it's always fun to talk hockey with you.

51:19 Speaker 1: Anna.

51:20 Speaker 2: Thank you again so much for coming out.

51:21 Speaker 1: Welcome, always glad to be here. You guys got a grief thing going. You've got a great community. I don't listen to too many podcasts anymore because I just wanted time there and I do. I try to listen to yours, so you are my main go to hockey podcasts when I do have time. There's a reason you guys are promoted on my substack and nobody else so far.

51:40 Speaker 2: It's mutual. Well and then speaking of that, so make sure you like and subscribe for more content, and be sure to leave a rating and review to help other Bruins fans find us. And you can support the podcast by joining our Patreon or following us on our socials at Tape to Tape MK and on substack at tape to tape, mk dot substack dot com. Any final thoughts, special guest.

52:03 Speaker 1: Hopefully the Blue Jackets figured out next season, and hopefully the Red Thing's tirfing sound well.

52:09 Speaker 2: Ann As always go Bes