100% Hockey's John Shannon (3/11/26)

0:00Hey, it's Bob Stoffer. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Oilers Now, Add Free, on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Baseball is back, and the first pitch is on Netflix. The New York Yankees, led by seven-time all-star Aaron Judge, head to the San Francisco Bay to take on Raphael Devar's San Francisco Giants. This season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game. Watch MLB, opening night, the New York Yankees versus the San Francisco Giants. Live on Netflix, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. Spring starts at the Home Depot, and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300, like the next grill for burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go-to spot the patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot.

1:00Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot, exclusive supplies at home Depot.com slash price match for details. Five thirty-four in oil country, Bob Staffer with you, I'm down in Dallas, Texas, the Oilers of the Stars tomorrow, the Oilers in St. Louis on Friday, and then Emotions got a four-game homestand coming up. Nashville will be on Sunday at Rogers Place with a visit from a couple of Florida teams coming up as well. Oil pizza, pizza pasted so much more Emotions on an operator for fifty-five plus years. You can pick up their new spicy vegetarian pizza for a limited time. The Staffer recommendation at Royal Pizza is a Mediterranean chicken. For a menu and a list of their fifteen Edmonton area locations visit Royal Pizza.ca. Now I'd like to tell you that when Royal Pizza started advertising with me twenty-six years ago, they had three locations and it's an illustration that radio works. They had nothing to do with the fact that they got the best pizza in the city.

2:02Well it has a lot to do with the fact that they got the best pizza, but radio does work as well because you know what advertising works because you know what doesn't work? Not advertising. Anyways, let's go off to the River Creek Resort, Casino Hotline. We welcome back to the show for Legacy Heated and Killin' John Shannon, whether it's Heating or Killin' you need to get up with no payments to no interest for your, that's how you build a Legacy Heating and Killin' John, I'm going to throw a total curve while I let you just start. How are you doing by all? I'm ready. I'm ready. Which guest did you have on today's show? Steve Valacate. Right now, in my opinion, arguably, one of the best guests you can have anywhere in a hot. I agree. I think and I can tell you right now that if I was running a TV network in Canada, Steve Valacate would be a regular on a hockey show every night you could get him. So he has, he's connected to Clear State Analytics, right? He owns it.

3:02He owns it. He owns it. Top flight. Top flight. Yeah. Top flight. And I don't know if you got a chance to ask him about the Orders 2 games, but they were completely different than what we'd seen for a while before. But he is an ounce. I watched him actually the night the Orders hounded the Rangers in here and he was on their network showing that that's really good. Like just, you know, here's his magic, Bob. As you know, I'm not the greatest analytics person, but he makes them understandable. He can communicate what the numbers mean. He creates context with the numbers. And then he does it in such an engaging way. He's a good storyteller. So it's, it's, it's what broadcasting should be about. He understands that he's in the entertainment business and he's very good at his job.

4:04And I cannot get enough of Steve Valacate. Yeah. No, he's an, I see him sometimes on a Kipper show. He's outstanding. I watch some of those MSG games. He's an excellent analyst and he's got, you know, arguably, well, there's no argument about it. He's got three analytics based a lot of people think it's the best one going right now with clear side analytics, especially specifically for goalies that it reveals a lot, a lot about goalies and which, which goalies are going to be successful, which ones fail. Now, I'm going to pivot to the obvious because there's an old line in radio, go turn 11 to works for Paterson group and writes a thing on the cult of hockey of David Stables. He's tells me in radio, you go to the mouth of the line, you go to a story when the story last night, yes, 17 show of resiliency and played probably their best game all year. But one of the biggest discussion points in hockey is the Nathan McKinnon major penalty. Right. John, I've stated I thought it was going to be a minor and part of that's just based

5:05on watching hockey in the NHL for the last 50 years. I mean, 30 years ago, Nathan McKinnon would have been jumped by all the players on the other team. And the game's not played that way anymore. He's a great player. He's not a dirty player, but he does play, he does bully his way around the ice. What was your take on that whole situation? I did not think that Darnell Nurse had as much a role in moving McKinnon as Jared Bedner did. He was their contact between Nurse and McKinnon, absolutely, but I don't think that it played much of a part in a the speed and velocity that McKinnon had going through the crease. I did think it was a major, but I don't want to see the game as conduct. That was so, and that to me was the biggest issue is how do you do that without throwing

6:06him out of the game more than anything else? And right now the way that rule is written, it is a major and a game is conduct. So I can assure you that the discussion in the War Room Bob was similar to the discussion we're having. There was a lot of people that believed it should be just a minor penalty. The referee who was 12 feet away saw how fast McKinnon was coming and obviously could feel how physical the play was felt it was awarded a major penalty and therefore a game is conduct. I have no problem with the major penalty. I do have a problem with a game is conduct. All right. What did you think of Edmonton's resiliency in last night's game? I think we've seen a much better team in the last two games and obviously with two victories

7:07that's Captain Obvious coming through. But what you saw was you didn't see anybody giving up and you saw even when Colorado tidied at three there was still a ton of character on this hockey club. You know what Murphy is helping? Dickinson is helping. And that means there's a lot less onus on McDavid and dry saddle and when you consider that for the most part they did it with 11 forwards and five defensemen. I think it speaks volumes of where this team is and how it can play. I think the question now is and I think it's a fair question to ask is can they maintain this for the remainder of the regular season? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I have some people out there that they look to certain things like they look to gold differential to reveal how good a team is. Okay. When they talk about coaching they look at the cumulative total of the power play in the

8:11penalty kill. Well, guess who's number one in the league? The top two teams in the league are in that regard Edmonton and Dallas. The orders are now it helps that Edmonton's power plays at 33.1 and Edmonton had a horrendous stretch on the penalty kill that for the three weeks before the Olympic break. They were the worst defensive team in the NHL, the worst penalty kill team in the NHL. And usually you need your goalie like the best penalty killers your goalie, but they went out and they made a couple changes here and getting Dickinson and Murphy. And I think they've been decent on the PK since they got those guys and that power play is still a power play. Protein is now at Starbucks and it's never tasted so good. You can add protein, cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks. Your little one grew three inches overnight adorable, also expensive. Sell their pint-sized pieces on Deepop and list them in minutes with no selling fees.

9:14Because somewhere, a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kid will out grow tomorrow. And he's ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growthspurt budget secured. Start selling on Deepop, where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply, see website for details. And the key thing for me, Bob, is it's something that Chris did when he showed up, when he took over from Jay, is he took a ton of the responsibility of the penalty kill away from Leon and Connor. I don't ever want to see them on the penalty kill. I don't. They're not doing it near as much as they were at the beginning of the season. And when I say that, I'm not talking about the last ten seconds. There's a face-off with ten seconds to go put them out there and get the transition going and whatever. But don't put them out there and expect them to be the penalty killers.

10:14And that's what a guy like Dickinson's supposed to help you with. That's a reality. That's what Adam Henrik is there for. That's what those guys are supposed to do, because it not only does it relieve a little bit of the effort and time on the ice for McDavid and Drisadle, it empowers those guys, that they're contributing on a regular basis, because we know they're not going to contribute on the power play. We know they're not going to contribute in the last two minutes of the game when the goal is pulled. So that's, I think that's an important psychological and physical need of this hockey club. And I think that Jason Dickinson is doing what was supposed to happen. And I can only think that he'll get better. Yeah, no question about that. What's going on in Toronto? You're there. Yeah, at least I think you're there today. What's going on? I am today. Well, you know, it's the beginning of the end.

11:19And it's the end of the beginning. I think that there's going to be a real analysis of what has gone on here, what's going to happen here. And I don't think it's going to be, you know, a quick decisive, okay, this is the way it is right now. I think there's lots of moving parts in what's going on in Toronto. And we're probably going to know by the 15th of May in the end what exactly is going to happen in Toronto long term. Why would it take until the 15th to the 8th doesn't look like they're going to make the playoffs? No, but I do think that there's going to be a ton, a ton of due diligence. I don't think they're going to rush into, you know, the day after the season's over, firing Craig Boruby, firing Brad for living. I don't think they're going to do that. I think they're going to take their time. I think they're going to talk to people. I think that what's got to happen is they've got to, here's the fascination.

12:25And Jeff Jackson and before him, Bob Nicholson, when they were there, they created some level of process in Edmonton. You knew what was going on, you know, the improved, when Jeff came, the improved use of the analytics department, improved scouting groups. That process. The development, a recognition that you're moving draft capital and you're going to have to find players in Europe and the NCAA, especially with the change to the NCAA. Okay. So that process has to start occurring in Toronto, Bob. And I just get a sense in observing it that there isn't enough of a plan in place. I think it's been a little bit reactive rather than proactive. And I think now I think the key word and it's going to get overused here in the next three or four weeks. Maybe a couple of months is creating the process of making the Toronto Maple Leafs better.

13:30Are the one who picked Jets done? How big was that loss last night? That hurt. Hey, Bob, 13 shots on goal, 13, you know, they had no sense of urgency. The whole game, none until I think about four minutes to go on their slow. Well, they've always been slow, Bob. They've been slow all year. Yeah, but they got slower and older in the offseason after having a great year last year. And maybe they were, I mean, you know my theory on this, they overplay Hellabuck in the regular season and then it catches up to them by round two of the playoffs. This year, he got hurt. He was healthy, brilliant. I mean, the one year that he had a stellar playoff was against Edmonton when we had a 56 game schedule. So he didn't have that much, you know, you know, taking all the thread off the tire at that point. What Kevin's going to have to do in the offseason there is take a look at the core and, you know, do what any good corporation does is you, you know, you keep the 70 in the middle.

14:30You promote the 10 at the top and this is percentages and you, and you delete the 20 at the bottom of the core. Yeah. It changes to the core in order to improve because they're going to be able to get some valuable assets for a couple of those core members in order to try to be a better, younger, faster team for the next two or three years. John, in the 2000, 2001 season, I got a stunning call to fly out from Western Canada for round three of the Stanley Cup. Maybe it was round two of the Stanley Cup playoffs that year to go do a game in Buffalo, a playoff game in Buffalo. And they got great fans. They're a man. How exciting is this going to be? This is 14 years. They missed the playoffs. They're sold out a bunch of games, they're 29, 5 and 2 in their last 34 games, John. Well, I tell you what, people in Edmonton will understand it. It really started. The whole turnaround started on that Monday night against the Oilers for three overtime

15:31game. Yeah. That's when it started, Bob. You know, and they were up three nothing in that game and the Oilers tied up at David's great first shift of the third. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But what's happened is they're state healthy guys like Josh Norris who are apparently hurt is staying healthy. They're defensive. You know, when you think of Samuelson and Dahlene and power and Byram, you know, that's start with Dahlene. The guys at top five defense. Oh, sure is. Yeah. Yeah. He taught when we, I would not be surprised that in the end of the season by the time the balloting occurs, that he's in the top three for the Norris trophy. That's how good he is. That's how good he is. He's that. And so they had and they have gotten consistent goal tending. Not necessarily from Luke and then, but Alex Lyon has been solid all year long. And so they're there and they're in a good place right now, Bob, healthy, fast.

16:34You know, they they're taking a chance with Alex Tuck, not signing them before the deadline, not trading them, but they believe in being a local guy. He's from upstate New York that he'll want to stay. And you're right about the building. The building I was there last week for Vegas. The building is rockin' and it's almost like a playoff mentality for every home game right now. Awesome stuff, John. A hundred percent hockey, right? A hundred percent hockey, Steve Valakette was on our on our show today is a great conversation about how to manage goal tenders and we have a good discussion about McKinnon versus Jari as well. Good stuff. Thank you very much. Cheers. Cheers. We'll take a time show with this day in order, a history quick crossover of Brendan Eskott, who had a great NBA player have a chance to interview a legend like Brendan. This is Letters Now. My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink, then straight to the gym.

17:36Pre-game pick up, back home to meal prep, time for my fire session shift. One more Celsius gotta keep the lights on. When the three alarm hits, I'm ready. Let's live, fit, go. Grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com. Ready, set, go get your Toyota today with great deals on your favorite trucks at your local Toyota dealer, like a full-size tundra or check out the off-road ready to coma. Visit Toyota.com to find out more. Toyota. Let's go places. We've got updates tomorrow on Ty Emberson Colton doc, as well as Conor Ingram. We go to Listey and Order's History at 553, brought to you by newest travel. Your local travel experts in here is Aiden Gattam. Well, on this day in 1984, Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky scored twice to give him 350 NHL career goals and picked up three assists as the Oilers 1-12-2 over the visiting Vancouver Canucks. Mark Messier and Yari Curry, each had had tricks while Paul Coffee finished plus seven on

18:38the night. How random that Shaq was in Edmonton, but we'll take it and he was, he was a big man in a very big sofa and that was, I guess, the genesis of why it was here, Bob. We'll talk a little bit about that over the course of the interview, but also about a big night in the NBA last night. It was good timing to have him on with Bam out of bio going up and above Colby Bryant in terms of that single game 83 points that was bizarre, I mean, I don't watch, I don't watch the association. Is this kind of like a star like I have, or is he just a good shoot? He's not even that he's a center, first of all, but I think he got to the line 43 times

19:38he was shooting for free throws 43 times. So it was a little bit of strategy, I don't know, I'm not a big fan of the association either, but that is pretty darn cool. Okay, what else you got tonight? We will hear from Owen Newkirk on the Dallas stars at 705. We've got our minor hockey spotlight without a manna at 635, oil kinks forward, Kaden Strader. He'll join us at 730 and we'll do the Bears and Pandas report as well with Abby Goosan, the Canada West female volleyballer of the year. All right, great stuff with Brandon Escott coming up and inside sports. Again, tomorrow, guests will include Ron McLean, Louis de Bruce, Bruce Kerlock, look at our Oiter's Prospect report, Oiter's in Dallas tomorrow, up next 880 News Weather Traffic Update was Zach Ferguson followed by Brennan Escott with inside sports so long everybody from Oiter's now. Welcome to Survivor 50 Wednesdays on global. We chose you to represent 25 years of the greatest adventure on television and all we

20:43want is everything. This is the survivor Coliseum. It's do or die. Like your torch and be a part of history. Survivor, all new Wednesdays at 80's turn on global, stream on Stack TV.