Hockey Blogger Bruce Curlock (3/12/26)

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. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company, no matter how you do game day. On the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in. With a full lineup of non-alcoholic beer styles, you can enjoy bold flavors all game-long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stuck the fridge for tip-off, with a variety of non-alcoholic craft styles available at

1:00your local grocery store, or online at AthleticBrewing.com, near beer, fit for all times. 435, an oil country, Bob Stoffer with the oilers American Airlines Center Dallas, Texas. Yes, we got into a real challenging debate here just before we went to break. No, was that a major penalty in the Nathan McKinnon, or no, who's the better offensive defenseman, Kale McCarrer, or Evan Bouchard, carrot cake or cheesecake, and AJ from St. Thomas Sands, large piece of carrot cake, trumps a small piece of cheesecake, and unless it's deep-fried cheesecake, I may order two or three. No, I've never had deep-fried cheesecake for what it's worth. So, but I am in team carrot cake. There's no question about that. Okay, cheesecake is for the ladies. Carrot cake is for the guys, says a texture. It's from the 780. I just want to get this established right now. That is not me saying that. That is a texture to the show. So, there you have it. We will tell you Royal Pizza Pizza

2:03passes so much more. I pick up the new spicy vegetarian pizza only for a limited time, for a menu and a list of their 15 Edmonton area locations visit Royal Pizza.com. As we head off to the River Creek Resort and Casino Hotline, and welcome back to the show. Bruce Kerlock with the orders now. Prospect report brought to you by Reface Magic. Not just Re-Facing, now offering complete custom kitchens. Hello, Bruce. How you doing? Good. How are you, Bob? Good. All right. Carrot cake or cheesecake? Carrot cake. So, not even close. Yeah. Also, can I just say, if you do carrot cake right, you get cream cheese on it, right? Yeah. Right. So, what are we even talking about? I'm with you. And if I do do cheesecake, I've got to have a shot of bay leaves. Oh, that's just me. Well, you come to think of it if I do carrot cake right, I've got to have a shot of bay leaves. You don't want to just get rid of all the cake and have a shot of bay leaves.

3:04And there we go. All right. Now you can take your cake and eat it too. That was great. And I'm trying to think of it anyways. That's first of all, I know sometimes on Sundays, you do a little bit of writing specific to tactical play for the Emmett and others. And I know the advanced metrics, and I don't have the specific sport logic numbers in the last two games, but the orders really limited 5v5 scoring chances against Vegas and against Colorado. I could play a significant factor in the two-rowed wins, you not agree? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I can't recall what I had against Vegas. It was it was higher in the first couple of periods and they really clamp down in the third. But for certain against Colorado, I had their high danger chances at five. Okay. So that's your NHL leader in that category by any private or public model. There's no

4:06question Colorado would lead in that. And I thought the orders were absolutely suffocating in that game. And you didn't mind the pairing of nursing Murphy? Yeah, I like nursing Murphy as a pairing. I think there's a, you know, we talked a little bit about Murphy when he came over. That I think he's an underrated passer of the puck. Like he's a very good outlet passer. He actually uses the net quite a bit to shield off forward checkers come out the other side and advance the puck up. And again, with with Darnell, he's more comfortable skating the puck out and less comfortable passing the puck out. And that's fine. So long as you match him with somebody who can do that. And I think Murphy does that. And then I just think between the two of them, you know, that's a lot of length, a lot of physicality. And yeah, I think they should have a run as a pairing personally. All right. Let's switch focus to some prospects. But maybe some potential

5:11targets. And we will mention. Riden Evers was signed by the Seattle Kraken as a 20-year-old playing with Penn Tickton in the WHO. He was one of the first high-profile and drafts, the 20s out there. And today Tyson Gross was signed by the Calgary Flames. And the Flames could afford to burn a year in the contract. Edmonton had no wiggle room and cap to do that. I do believe Edmonton was amongst the finalists in Gross. I'm not in Gross's father. By the way, I think does some work with the Calgary Flames. So I'm not disappointed to see a Calgary kid end up in Calgary. I think that's great. But can you maybe help educator listeners, Bruce, and the prospect report? Are there a couple other NCAA kids or maybe men playing over in Europe that you could foresee teams getting in on? A 67-year-old grandfather fails to show up for a meeting with his son at a local tire shop, sparking a desperate search. And he wouldn't be the only victim. I'm Global News Crime Reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts

6:16this year, but they're not crime beat. Season 8 drops April 21st. But you can hear the first story now one month early, only on Amazon Music. I haven't got to the to the Europe piece yet, but certainly, I think there are some interesting free agents on the collegiate side. Tyson Gross would have been a kid that was obviously on everybody's radar. And that's fine. He's gone. But I still like Gdowsky. I know when he moved from army to Penn State, I think so people got a little bit more hesitant on his potential, just hasn't performed, I think, as some people expected. Well, imagine that as Gdowsky's son Mack Gdowsky left Army, where he had 16 goals and 42 points

7:19and 38 games, and he was up for the whole week Baker last year. He's only got one goal and 16 points and 34 games at Penn State, which is where obviously Gavin McKenna's playing. He is not on their first unit power play. He does have another year. He's a six foot three left shot defenseman. He might be a two year guy Penn State. Is that fair? Yeah, I think that's right. I think, you know, you could probably argue he made the change for that exact reason, right? Is to come over for one year and, you know, get acclimatized. And then next year, you know, once he's a little more established on it, you know, he's got to feel for the pace and moves up the roster. You know, probably a little bit better of an opportunity, I would say, for, you know, to sign with it. Probably a team that I would say is maybe a little bit more competitive because if you get it, if you get in my year further ahead, he's, you know, he might have a chance, right,

8:24to slide in at the very bottom end of NHL team. And so, you know, I'm not saying a championship caliber team, but maybe a, you know, maybe he doesn't end up with a bottom of NHL team. So he's kind of interesting. Me, Owen Michaels is the kid I really like out of Western Michigan. I would like to me, he's a real fit for Edmonton, whether they ever want to go for him or not, I don't know, but is it because he's a right shot center and he's six, dude? Yeah, you're exactly right, Bob. He has not had like last year, just for the listeners to know, all of Michael's was the MVP of the NCAA frozen for at Western Michigan. And he had 18 goals and 36 points and 42 games plus 27. This year, he's got 25 points and 36 games and his plus 11. Western Michigan has a good

9:25team. North Dakota is, and Western Michigan's had a pretty good season. They're 26. They've had a good year. They're right there with North Dakota as the better teams in that conference. Yeah, and that's right. And, you know, so I like him for all those reasons you said, and, you know, that to me, he's just a, if there was ever a player, you as an organization, you'd want to show a path to it be Edmonton showing a path to him because I think there are some opportunities here for a guy with his capability. You know, he would be my absolute favorite. There's some other forwards, JJ White, White Bull shot of Penn State to play the little bit with Gavin McKenna, high energy guy, right winger. Got some bite to him. You know, I think he played in the bottom six, but I don't think he'd be super far away from it. You know, and again,

10:27he plays, you know, you like the fact that he plays in kind of a, in a good competitive league. So, you know, it's, it's players like that. You're, you're looking for kind of slot fits in the organization who probably project out in the very bottom six or bottom pairing of your, of your, either your four group or your defense group. I'm got another name for you. That's Dylan Ritzkovian, who is the brother of Justin was Ritzkovian, who's had a pretty good year here in Dallas, and Dylan is born a Montreal. He's a third year kid at Northeastern, which is the same school, obviously, that Justin Ritzkovian played at. He's also a right shot, probably frankly a bit, like the Otter's Prospect, Quinn Hudson, you know, sort of similar in stature and size, not a timid player. I don't think that Quinn Hudson's a timid player. Quinn's always rocked up some minutes. He might be another guy that, you know, six or seven teams are in on,

11:30right now. These are Bruce, when you try to wait for a draw fix, these are the kind of guys you got to find, right? Yeah, that's right. You first of all, you're ruining my article for Saturday, so thanks very much because he's in it. And I would, I would say the comparison to Hudson is fair, but probably not quite as fair for, or not, I don't think Hudson has this gaining ability that you see here with Dylan and I think, yeah, he's just, he's a, he's a quicker player. Don't give me wrong, Quinn Hudson has improved his skating, but you're also talking about a guy who's 23, he's Quinn Hudson 23 or 24, I can't remember now, versus, you know, a player is 21 and is going to have some time to develop. He's another one I really do like, and you're, you're 100% right. And if you want to talk about how this can impact, you just look at Josh Mansky, right? Like, you're not going to find Josh Mansky every year, but if you can

12:37sign four or five, three, four or five of these players, each season, A, they're more advanced, they've almost all played, you know, big boy hockey for at least a year or two, and collegiate hockey is very big boy hockey now. And that means they're accelerated in their development, and closer to the NHL, and when you're just trying to feed into bottom six or bottom pairing roster spots, you know, a cheaper contract so that you can, you know, either maintain your high-end guys who are coming to the end of their contracts or you're looking for that next UFA, can that complain the top six or the top four for the oilers? These guys are super important. Yeah, well, you know, you talked about Samansky, and I know not so much on the record, but, you know, as broadcasters, we got a chance, you know, at the start of last year, we started talking about the silly pincoals, okay? And we'd see him out,

13:41and that's one of the advantages to show up 15 minutes, 20 minutes before practice. You can see which guys are putting the extra time in the level of intensity that they're practicing with. And actually, it was the coach on the other team tonight, Dallas, Glenn Goldson, who pulled me aside and said, stuff, the silly pincoals is going to exceed people's expectation here. He has a relentless work ethic and drive, doesn't cheat the game. And I can tell you this year, in the last month, that player that has caught the eyes of some of the oilers players and some of the others coaches is Josh Samansky. Like it would not surprise me if he's here for the rest of the season, if they're just going to, you know, tonight he's going to center the fourth line. He is someone said to me today when he gets caught up, he's fast enough, he doesn't cheat the game. He's on the right side of the puck, but on the rare occasions, and he isn't Bruce, he can still, you know, make the play defensively because he can skate. And this, this has turned out to be your really interesting pick up for the amateur oilers. Yeah, I, why he should stay with the team, in my opinion, I agree with you first of all,

14:51that, well, sorry, I'm not sure, I don't think you were lobbying for him to stay, you might stay. I think he should stay because what he does is two things. So first of all, he's multifaceted, he's shown he can play left wing. And when he plays center, he wins face-offs. And I mean, A, if you've got a guy who can play two positions, and if he can play center, when face-offs, you know, I'll take him, he's got good size. And like you said, his pace is much better than I expected for sure. That's a big surprise for me. And so what I would be careful with this, but you know, when you, you mentioned another player of a silly bug calls in it, when I saw a silly playing in Abbott's bird, I was, I was, you know, I didn't understand why he was in Abbott's bird to be quite candid. But what I, you know, what I like people to remember is, if it's silly

15:53pod calls in, who is roughly scoring at about an awful point of game and has 15 goals, and I think, are they not all five on all even strengths? Yeah, all even strength close. When he was in the AHL, he was really only scoring at like a point six points per game rate. And so when people look at that stuff, they need to be very careful about how that translates in terms of the context of a player going to the AHL. But my point in all of that is, you have Josh Samansky, who scores at that pace. Robi Jarventy, who scores at that pace. We are, we've talked about Ike Coward all the time and Quinn Hudson may score at those pace. So what I'm saying is that the organization has a broad in players either by UFA or by really sneaky good trades that all are bubbling below in the AHL level and all should have a shot to make

16:55next year's training camp very, very interesting. All right, so you got a full prospect report coming out Sunday, specifically focused on NCAA free interest, right? We're going to talk about Tommy LaFranie, we're going to talk about Paul Fisher, and then we're going to talk about the NCAA prospect pool. But it's coming out Saturday, Marty. Saturday. All right, awesome stuff, Bruce. Thank you. Dave Bob, have a great call. You bet. It is 451 in oil country. We'll wrap up orders now with this day in oiler's history when we return. Modern measure, need to find fitter to find style to find year right in the heart of ice history, Edmonton Tower, MRDN measure. If they can make me look good, imagine what they can do for you. Let's go to this day in order's history for new ass travel, your local travel experts. Wow, I remember this day. Here's the young guy in Adenganum. This is one of the rare ones that I remember too. The NHL suspends the 1920 season indefinitely in the wake of COVID-19. I have a friend who used to tell me Bob, COVID is a story, but it's not the story.

18:07And initially, I was kind of like, yeah, okay. But the longer it's gone on, some more I started to believe. Maybe we knew what the real story was. If you missed any of today's show, make sure to download, subscribe to the oilers now, podcasts, available in Apple podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you get your streaming audio. I realize that sounds a little conspiracy theorist. Let's just see how far we can go. Here's what we're going to focus on tonight. The Edmonton, the oilers and the Dallas star should be a heck of a hockey game. Brennan Escott has got the face off show coming up right after this show concludes. We will tell you tomorrow, we will be in St. Louis. Full review of tonight's game against Dallas. The full preview of the game against the Blues. Guess we'll include Brian Burke, Ryan Rashog and David Staples, Brian Burke for Ultra Shine. Up next in 880 news, whether a traffic update with Thomas Stias, again, Brendan Escott has the face off show up next. Hello there. Thursday's un-global.

19:13I'm Madeline Matlock. She's the lawyer with a legendary name. Don't underestimate this Matlock. This one is a shark. You know it, baby. The one you can trust, even if she has to bend the rules. Things aren't always as black and white as they seem. To crack a case. This is how I get things done. Any winning actress Kathy Bates is Matlock. All new Thursday's at 90's turn on global. Stream on Stack TV.