00:00But also the NHL.
00:02Yeah, it's freezing cold outside here in the Northeast.
00:04What a better time to get the puck and the skates on.
00:06By the way, Joe, being a Northeast guy back in the past,
00:09like we had ponds, we bought, you know, sticks,
00:12even though we didn't play ice hockey,
00:14and we also had skates up here.
00:16Do you ever skate on the pond, man?
00:17You used to love doing that.
00:18You always get chased off by the HOA, though.
00:21Yeah, no, I had a lot of friends of mine growing up, Donnie.
00:25They were big hockey guys, and they played,
00:29and they played on every travel team.
00:31You know, it wasn't like every high school had a hockey team, Donnie, right?
00:35So it was you did what you had to do,
00:38and you looked forward to those freezing days where the lake
00:41or whatever it was would freeze over, and they'd go out,
00:44and I'd be like, yeah, good luck, guys.
00:46Yeah, no, I'm a cleats guy.
00:48I am not a skates guy.
00:50But also, back in the day, I'm talking about like in the 1980s,
00:53I grew up in Somerdale, New Jersey,
00:55which wasn't too far away from the Flyers practice facility,
00:58which was at the Coliseum in Voorhees, like right on the town border.
01:01And I swear, Joe, it was like the one rink within a 100-mile radius.
01:06And there were leagues there.
01:07There were like, you know, the small-time programs
01:10and like the South Jersey elite, the gladiators, they used to call them.
01:13But the men's beer league, Joe, that place used to operate 24-7.
01:18Like, hey, I'm in a men's league.
01:19When do you play?
01:20Tuesday morning at 1.30 a.m.
01:23Like, there was the only place you could actually go and do it as well.
01:26I can't imagine what they charge for it either.
01:29It's crazy, right?
01:30It's absolutely nuts.
01:32And I can tell you, Donnie, having watched the Florida Panthers here in South Florida
01:37from inception to what has happened recently now,
01:42you would think, where are they playing hockey in Florida?
01:45Like, where?
01:46There are rinks popping up everywhere over the last three years, Donnie.
01:51The sport has grown exponentially here.
01:54And now you'd be hard-pressed to drive 20 miles without running into a place
01:58where they can actually play hockey now.
02:01It used to be an afterthought.
02:02Like, oh, Tampa Bay is eventually going to fold.
02:03What do you think?
02:04Hockey's going to work in Miami?
02:05Like, the two best organizations in the NHL are basically in the state of Florida.
02:09It doesn't make sense, but it does make sense if you think about it here.
02:12Also, to reach the Stanley Cup final, talking about those Eastern Conference teams, Joe,
02:16the two of the three teams that we just mentioned are some of the favorites.
02:19The Lightning, plus 240 price.
02:21The Hurricanes, plus 320.
02:22And then there's the Florida Panthers there, the plus 480 price.
02:25And that big drop-off after that.
02:27How about that?
02:28Carolina, technically more a Southern team here.
02:30Florida and Tampa Bay, just the way it's been in the NHL, man.
02:34Move it closer to warmer weather.
02:35Get yourself a better hockey team, apparently.
02:38Listen, so everybody knows that the best team in the league is still the Colorado Avalanche, right?
02:44But let's face it, it's what the Tampa Bay Lightning are doing right now is pretty darn impressive, right?
02:51So they should be.
02:52And it's funny, as good as the Lightning have been, there's still double-digit points back of the Avalanche,
02:57which shows you just how ridiculous the season that they are having right now.
03:02But yeah, I think coming out of the East, you can't discount the back-to-back champs, right?
03:07They've been there three years in a row.
03:09They are getting healthier.
03:11You know, Kachuk is back on the ice for them.
03:15They are expecting Landis-Log and a few other there.
03:18I think this is going to be a lot closer in the end in the East,
03:23and I do think it's going to be in the West, believe it or not.
03:26Yeah, in the Western Conference, Colorado Avalanche, a plus-125 price as it sits right now for them to win that conference.
03:32Just shows how crazy the NHL is.
03:33The Flyers stink right now, but the Flyers absolutely wiped out the Avalanche on the road,
03:37and then the Flyers got wiped out against the Islanders.
03:39That team stinks, but the Vegas Golden Knights are in that second slot here, plus-470,
03:43following the Edmonton Oilers at plus-550, and every other team in the Western Conference, Joe,
03:48at least listed at 10-1 or higher.
03:51Yeah, I mean, it's like I said, it's tough to look past anybody other than Colorado,
03:56but we've seen this kind of dominance from them in the past,
04:00and then teams like the Golden Knights show up, right?
04:03But they are one of the teams this year, unfortunately, that has more injuries than we have seen there.
04:10Stone, Carlson, Theodore Eichel, all injured for extended period of time.
04:16Aiden Hill, all of those guys have been hurt here.
04:19Can they get them back to make a run?
04:22But right now, it's Colorado's world, Donnie, and everybody else is just living in it at this point.
04:29You know, us is living, and just about everybody's living in here in Philadelphia as well,
04:32pounding out the Philadelphia Flyers.
04:33The Islanders came to town last night, wiped out the Flyers 4-0.
04:38Same thing, Jake.
04:39Let's hire a general manager.
04:41Oh, yeah, where did he come from?
04:42Well, he used to be a Flyer.
04:43Well, that's our president of hockey operation, Keith Jones.
04:45Oh, where did he come from?
04:46He used to be a Flyer.
04:46Why don't we hire a new head coach?
04:48Oh, who's that, Rick Tockett?
04:49He used to be a Philadelphia Flyer.
04:51Come on, man.
04:52Break the cycle.
04:53Break the cycle.
04:55I'm upset.
04:56Kind of crazy, all of a sudden, the transformation of the New York Islanders
05:00and what they have done now and what Bo Horvat has brought to this table.
05:05And now, all of a sudden, they're, what, second or third in the Metropolitan?
05:09Like, what happened?
05:11I mean, our good friend George Gertz here at the network,
05:13we have just been roasting him over the years of just how terrible the Islanders
05:18have been.
05:18Great goaltender, can't score any goals.
05:21But, boy, this, what a turnaround for the Islanders and Patrick Roy here at this point.
05:26By the way, the New York Islanders, another little story when growing up as a kid here,
05:30like, I was a huge Flyers fan, always hated the Devils.
05:33But it was going to kick out of the Islanders.
05:34Like, they would show, like, from out, Nassau County Coliseum.
05:37And I used to say as a kid, like, man, they play in the Bahamas.
05:39Isn't that cool, the Islanders?
05:40Like, come on now, like, play on the Island up there.
05:43You get all confused as a 10-year-old kid.
05:44Like, they play in the Bahamas?
05:45What's up with that?
05:46But they don't.
05:47But they're going to play about this game tonight, though, Joe.
05:49Buffalo, Toronto.
05:51That's two of Cam's favorite teams in the world, teeing it up tonight.
05:54Total six and a half.
05:55And a slight favorite, depending where you're shopping at,
05:57as who actually is the favorite.
05:59Leafs savers.
06:02Yeah, who would have thunk it, right?
06:04In years past, this was always the laughable, like, they're Toronto's like,
06:07yeah, okay, just a scheduled loss for Buffalo.
06:10But not so much this year at all.
06:13Not to mention the look-ahead spot here, Donny, because I'm not mistaken.
06:18When you look at what's coming up here, I think on Friday,
06:22isn't it the return of Mitch Marner?
06:25This should be very interesting here to Toronto.
06:28Now, of course, no longer with Toronto.
06:30He'll be returning for the first time with Vegas.
06:34So it could be a little bit of a look-ahead spot here.
06:38But I wouldn't be looking past the Buffalo Sabres right now,
06:42because they, what we thought was, yeah, they'll come back down to reality.
06:47And they haven't come back down to reality yet.
06:49This is still a pretty competitive hockey team right now.
06:53Mammoth on the road to take on the Florida Panthers.
06:56Bob's going to be in net as roughly a minus 162 favorite here.
06:59Do the Mammoth have a chance down in South Florida?
07:02Hey, a little vacation time.
07:04Well, they better, because I'm tired of the,
07:06well, we haven't had Barkoff or Kachuk all season.
07:09So as soon as we get one of them back, well, he's back.
07:13Let's go.
07:13It's time to kick it into gear, Florida.
07:15I'll meet you in the elbow room tonight.
07:17We're out of here.
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