The Kevin Karius Show - Mar. 12th, 2026 - Sam Nestler

0:00Hi, this is Pablo Torei from Pablo Torei finds out and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile because we spent a lot of time analyzing inefficiencies in sports, overvalued contracts, money tied up in the wrong places, and so on, but those inefficiencies aren't just on a roster. Sometimes they're in your own monthly expenses. Boost Mobile says switching to their $25 unlimited forever plan can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's $25 a month for unlimited data, talk and text when you bring your own phone. If that money is trapped in a pricey phone bill, it might be worth a second look. Visit BoostMobile.com to learn more. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds, customers pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Mobile and Limited plan. Savings claim based on a January 2026 boost mobile survey of a thousand Americans with single line on limited plans, comparing average annual payments of major carriers to 12 months on the Boost Mobile and Limited plan. For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com. With its two juicy beef patties, three slices of melted cheese and tangy big ox sauce,

1:02the big ox is what happens when you start making a McDonald's burger and never stop. The big ox, the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet, for a limited time. We welcome back Sam Nestler from DLLS Sports in Dallas. Morning, Sam, you're with Kevin Carious. Thanks for jumping on. Sports 1440 once again, really appreciate it. Yeah, of course, Kevin. How are you this morning? Getting ready for another big game between the others and stars. They've had a great rivalry as you know, over the years and the playoffs, the last couple going back even to the 90s. So, looking forward to another good one tonight, Sam, just the way that the DLLS stars have been playing on this last little stretch, Sam, how can you explain it with the quality of players that they have on the shelf? Yeah, you know, it's a team effort, right? It's been kind of a new person every night, and Juven just said the other night that it's a great thing about your team when you're asking the captain about a different young player or a different deaf guy every night when you're in your

2:03interviews, right? So, they've had guys, you know, it's not just in the Jason Roberts and scores three or Wyatt Johnson is dominating the power play. Those things are happening as well once a while, but it's been the Justin Ritzkogi and having an incredible line and scoring a goal or Nathan Bastion, I think, had three goals in five games. Colin Blackwell having an incredible game and getting Oscar Beck a goal. It's been just kind of a bite committee thing down here, and I think I give full credit to Glenn Goldson for the way he's instilled confidence in this group, because you know, as much as Pete DeBore loves to roll four lines, they kind of come at you with a bunch of different waves. It didn't feel like every line had the same type of confidence that they could be the ones that were out there in the key moment. And now it's like, it's Justin Ritzkogi and third line is out there for the final minute when you're up one. Great. He's not there, but they deserve it. They've earned it. And I think Goldson's been big on giving everyone the confidence to play in all situations, because he knows not only are injuries a huge part of

3:04hockey in general, but this thing has been decimated with him in the worst way in terms of who they've been hurt with at the worst time. And you just mentioned it, Hans Ranton and Fox the Tyler Sagan, it's happened again at this time and well, it's not the playoffs yet, you know, knock on wood, anyone in Dallas, it's getting close there and he wants everyone to be ready to go. So I give him full credit for that. Well, let's start with Glenn Goldson before we get to maybe the potential of some of those injury injured guys coming back here, Sam. I can tell you one thing that the oilers miss Glenn Goldson's presence on the coaching staff here. There's no denying that. And I spoke to him and I've known him a long, long time, Sam going back to Saskatchewan days like 30 some years ago. And you know, we just discussed about how the makeup of this team in Dallas was compared to when he was here. And he had some great comments about the similarities and differences, but what was it about where the identity and like the stamp that he wanted to give this team,

4:05how it happened quite quickly and how it continues to sort of to morph into what they want here in Dallas in the sense of a championship team. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because they had such a great start numbers. Well, I say if they want a ton of games, they were on point streets of 10 11 and looked on stop a lot of the gates. They were flying up there with sticking with Colorado, who was on a just a ridiculous record, but they weren't playing great hockey. Kevin, it was more just a higher place word twice tonight or Jay Tottenhamer had 36 saves and trying to win or you know, we got Jason Robertson who just went on on one and scored a hat trick. It wasn't it wasn't a game where you felt like man, this look out for this team, they're going to be great because they just weren't playing that kind of full 60 minutes. Then they went on a losing streak, lost a bunch in a row, lost I think six or seven in a row, couldn't kind of get out of the gates right around that that right before that Olympic break. Played better a little bit, then played worse. It was really up and down and then

5:07right before the Olympic break, I think it was fixed in a row going into the Olympic break, maybe five, I can't remember. And that was the shift that we really started to feel. So when gun bolts and came in here, he said one degree more physical every night. That's what I'm going to watch for every player and and that's what you know, the words were great that anyone down here has felt that they've been missing that that element of hockey over the past night and just peaked aboard. It's probably decade. Just haven't had that little bit of extra edge where you're when you come into Dallas, you not only know you're going to play at depth, deep skilled team that could score goals and defend, you also knew you were going to get beat up a little bit. And that was the sense that that kind of gun goals had felt coming in here. And that didn't really take hold until that time right around before the Olympic break where the players all of a sudden started to buy in. I know they lost the game to Tampa Bay here at home. They went off. They went down like, you know, five, one couldn't come back. They were just mothered in the game, getting kind of pushed around on their own rank. And they sat down afterwards and said, this is the type of team we want to be. That's mean that just beat us, the Florida, the Tampa,

6:11that's what we need to become. We don't need to be all like them, but we need to find a little bit of it. And since then, there's just been a little bit of an actiness. And I personally love that. I love that part about hockey. I love the getting your face a little bit after the whistle, whether it's, you know, just a little bit of extra push when you get into their towards your own goalie, whether it's a little mouth and off, just to let a guy know, hey, you try to run mirror. Hey, see then you're going to, you're going to hear about it. It's little things, but that's where I've started to see it. And they've not just beaten teams here. They just point in 13 straight 12 wins at that 13 time. The only time was a miss empty netter that would have had them beating Colorado and win 13 in a row. Right. They really pushed opponents around and got in their face and kind of dominated a lot of aspects of the game. I didn't think that could take hold as quickly as it could, to be honest with you. And now it, it's snapping. And I work with Greg Ludwig every day at CLS. You know that he's who, what type of player he was. He went from, I don't think the team can win

7:12the playoffs this way to look out the sky's the limit. And they're going to have to go through a gauntlet and the Western conference like always, but it's really shifted the way that everyone looked at. I'm including former NHL players that were pretty good at laying the hammer on people back at the day. Good stuff. There's Sam. Sam Nestler from D L L S Sports and Dallas are guests in the Kevin Keri show here on sports 14 40. So as far as the ETA goes for some of these injured players. And there's some big ones. You mentioned him, Ratten and Faksa and hints. What are we looking at here, Sam? Yeah, unfortunately, they're all kind of getting pushed back into the same sort of lump. So Brandon and Fox that were both injured at the Olympics. Brandon was injured. I think it was in their second to last game right before the bronze medal game. The gaming against Canada. Yeah, you mentioned right toward the end. He hasn't played since we just saw him skating on his own for the first time yesterday or the day before. So he's probably two to half to three weeks away. I guess I'm putting him right toward the end of March to the beginning of April. I know they're

8:15not rushing it, especially if they got like him. You need him. You don't need him playing last 12 games if it puts any risk at all in the playoffs when you really do need him. And then Rope Hance got sick when he came back from the Olympics as well. We didn't see him for a while. He was really sick. I think he had they didn't say this, but it seemed like it was a neurovirus type of thing because that's what Nico had before the Olympics. And he lost like 12 pounds and without for 10 days or something crazy. And Rope had a similar experience where he was out for a really long time. Then he comes back and he runs in the nation mechanic in the corner and in their game. His first game back kind of goes awkwardly is like kind of bends underneath him. It looked worse than what we got. So I'm going to say it's good news that it's not going to be there's no surgery, no season ending and like that. It's like he'll be back probably around that same time of a few weeks from now. And then Ratic Foxe injured as well right before the Canada game in the Olympics for team Jeff yet. He's a upper body injury was what happened to him there. And then I guess he had

9:20another injury as he got close to getting back from that upper body injury just long rehabbing. So something they didn't tell us what it was. It was some some freak accident because he was only out there, you know, an optional skates and wanting skates and things like that. He didn't play in games or doing things crazy. So must have been some sort of freak thing that happened to him now. So he's back on that same timeline. I see him riding around on a scooter with a boot on. So he's a his upper body has now shifted to a lower body injury. So it's like the crew they asked over here when he had tires taken to it that drops around in the press box during games good crew to talk to you but definitely prefer seeing them on the ice. Yeah, no kidding. Sam Nestler with us on sports 1440. Let's talk about the deadline acquisition starting with Tyler Myers and with Myers and Leon Bischel that has to be the biggest third pairing defense pairing in the history of the NHL. No, or what are we looking at here? Well, you know what? I we haven't been able to nail that boy down but I think everything we found suggested that's the case because I mean, I don't know. I think Charles was

10:23Charles six nine. Yes. He hit the six nine mark. So he'd have to have a six seven or six eight guy with him in order to break that. That's pretty much all we're looking at here. Yeah. Cause I was I say Tyler Myers might even be bigger than six eight. Either he's bigger than six eight or Bischel's small little smaller than six seven because Tyler Myers is much bigger than him because he can't actually do it though. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting with Myers because I personally thought that he was coming here to at least get a shot with Thomas Harley, right? They're missing they've kind of been missing that actual real top four defender to play with them. They got S.A. Lindell, Marrow, H.K. and Thomas Harley to a clear top three. They've kind of rotated in with Slobushkin, Longquist, Petrovik with on-site Harley and there's been some some things that have worked but then Nils Longquist got hurt and the Lucian struggle and then Petrovik all the sudden struggle. So they that's what I thought they were looking for and they just didn't have the assets to go get the Razzis Anderson's or the Justin Falks and those bigger type of names with money and contract left. So I think that Tyler Myers was the perfect one to just say look,

11:25he's probably not he might not be the answer there, right? He might he might not fit there. He might not be a top four guy on a really good playoff team. He might be more of a bottom five-six guy but he could fit there and I think that's what Jim no kind of went after with both of these deadline acquisitions is let's go get a guy that could fit there just in case Longquist struggle isn't a playoff. Just in case Slobushkin gets hurt just in case someone doesn't fit properly in that spot and then all of a sudden now they have nine defense and guys. Nine defense and on their roster right now that they could use and that they're comfortable with too. Not just like a no offense to Matt Dunba but you know peace of war wasn't used to Matt Dunba last year. He was just a roster guy whereas this one they've all played games all year long and I think he trust any of them to be in their top six come playoff time. So I think that Myers gives you that depth even to another level of a veteran guy. Obviously he's hard to play against. He takes up half the ring just to stick. I think that's the way they kind of looked at it was we would all love to go out and get a true you know top four gonna play here all the time and love to extend them so we

12:29have our answer. Yeah but when they didn't have the money they didn't have the assets and they just went out and they got the next best thing they said have gotten and really they didn't give up a whole lot. So I think it was really good work to get. Hi this is Pablo Tore from Pablo Tore finds out and today I want to talk to you about boost mobile because we spent a lot of time analyzing inefficiencies in sports over value contracts money tied up in the wrong places and so on but those inefficiencies aren't just on a roster. Sometimes they're in your own monthly expenses. Boost mobile says switching to their $25 unlimited forever plan can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's $25 a month for unlimited data talk and text when you bring your own phone. If that money is trapped in a pricey phone bill it might be worth a second look visit boost mobile dot com to learn more after 30 gigabytes customers may experience slower speeds customers pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the boost mobile unlimited plan saving claim based on a January 2026 boost mobile survey of a thousand Americans with single line unlimited plans comparing average annual

13:30payments of major carriers to 12 months on the boost mobile unlimited plan for full offered details visit boost mobile dot com. The hustle doesn't have to hurt if performance pressure is making it hard to breathe grow therapy helps you navigate stress set boundaries and actually feel like yourself again whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you not the other way around you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and get started in as little as two days there are no subscriptions no long-term commitments you just pay per session grow helps you find therapy on your time whatever challenges you're facing growth therapy is here to help grow accepts over 100 insurance plans including Medicaid in some states sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan visit growth therapy dot com slash start now to get started that's growth therapy dot com slash start now growth therapy dot com slash start now availability

14:36and coverage vary by state and insurance plan so where does Michael bunting slide in here and slot in here i'm sure his role will change once once pardon me a few of these players come back from injury yeah he's he's similar because he played a little bit up the lineup in his history and he's not a he's not a sport right but he's not a ten goal guy or eight goal guy either he scored 20 his career sort of he's for 24 23 with Toronto uh one of his seasons with them he's able to put you know he's i think you're comfortable saying he's a 15 to 20 goal scorer and that gives you a little bump up uh from the guys like dan steele uh just their it's kovian all the guys i just mentioned who have played up the lineup and done well up the lineup that are maybe more on the ten goal maximum chart and and steele or it's kovian all these guys they've actually been great and i think steele's on pace for like 15 goals so it's amazing yeah but it just gives you that little extra depth just like mires where if you feel like that guy's not able to you know finish a

15:40play from right and consistently enough maybe bunting can be the one who does it or maybe or then all of sudden maybe rift kovian can do it and bunting really looks good on your third line it just gives you a little extra level of depth and then i go back to what i just said about the way they're trying to play the game and if you don't know about Michael bunting just google his name the first video that comes up is him getting shoved out of an arena by a lineman because he's nothing off too much that that's Michael bunting and he will stay there after the whistle he will get in your face um and and i already saw it in his first game uh he was all over the place and he was here in chicago and sunday uh getting in people's faces throwing a couple slashes the shins he's got that to his game as well so i think it upgrades both sides it gives you a little more depth and scoring and it gives you a little bit more of what you're looking for come playoff time so maybe you can push around a few adventurers this time we'll see what happens sam nestler from the lll sports sports our guest on the kevin keri show here on sports 1440 uh i can guarantee you glen golletson would say if he was asked this question about mural heistkin and that he never gets

16:43mentioned at all when you talk about the norris trophy but this guy has been really good for a long time i sort of pencil him in in that rasmus d'aline area because with mccar and and hues and and everyone else and and uh were rensky that get all the headlines these are the guys that play so hard and are so important to their teams uh success every night but what have you seen from from heistkin in uh this year is he he's just that that same quality player that is so so consistent that you've seen for what seven eight years now in dollars yeah it's just what you expect right hey it feels it feels bad because we don't even talk about him enough because he just he's not the mccar that you're wow did you see that goal or did you see that incredible odd band rush where he made those three passes it's just it's most of the stuff he can do that let's be fair about that he can make those plays he's going to be overtime winner uh to their day against chicago but he's not consistently the yakuza guy and actually this year he was on pace early on people thought

17:46he finally gonna be in the conversation because he actually was somewhat near the top of the pace of points when they really needed the points in their defense but that's kind of dropped off here he's not the hundred point guy he's I think he's I can't remember his exact top year I think it was 70 something points yeah uh in a couple years ago yeah so a couple years ago with feet so and that was a huge offense a year so I don't expect that to happen you know more than maybe one more time throughout his career but he just does everything right and I don't know I don't know if I've seen a better skater in terms of just consistent flow skating like you have to make David than the mechanics that are the fast powerful skaters that no one can keep up with but Miro just looks like he's floating out there and I bring up my David because for me when I first started watching Miro he had the best entry into the NHL because Dallas was not as good as Edmonton right Edmonton had way more skill they were they were a good team but they didn't have the same amount of skill they just put me hasty an economic David this is probably 2020 2021

18:47area they just put him on make David and said he's not getting the puck and that's all he did they went for and for and it was hilarious to watch because you're thinking this is like middle school puck where you're saying hey that guy can't get the shot don't let them get it we'll figure it out over here but that's really how they did it and he kept up with them I mean David if you look at me David stats against the star of earliest career he didn't have much at all and that's just a token to how Miro is so smooth so good on his edges so able to just conserve energy that he can play with those type of guys and then play 28 30 minutes a night I mean the guy the guy played 28 minutes a night for Dallas then he goes and plays 30 for the per game again for Finland the most of the entire tournament and then he comes back and doesn't miss a beat and looks at the same guy so it's just been unbelievable to watch him and it's rubbing off a little bit like Thomas Harley starts to kind of see where because I think Escalandale and Miro haste can and have really good at conserving energy if you watch them I mean Escalandale stays out there for the full two minutes of penalty kills for Dallas but he doesn't look tired because he's not wasting any energy or movements

19:49in the play and I think Harley can learn off of that a little bit where he can take some of that away from his energy so that he has a little more when he needs to have that final burst to make a defensive play at the end of a shift or things like that and that all starts with Miro so I think personally I think there should be a defensive defensive award because I believe he'd be right up there Escalandale will be up there but it's just not the way it works now it is. How's Harley look Sam since coming back from the Olympics where he was a big part of that Canadian defense? You know what totally different guy? Wow and I it's just crazy to me what he does actually is tournaments I mean last year the good news last year was he was already playing well right he took over from Miro because Miro got hurt I think it was mid-January when Mark Stone kind of took out his lights there and hurt his knee so Harley was already thrusted to the big I'm the big man on campus I have to play the big minutes I'm the number one power play guy and he took it and ran with it and then he was great for nations in relief and then he was great down the stretch. This year he wasn't great to start he really just looked kind of a little bit lost

20:52and he had a contract up that he finally he finally just signed a big extension in the fall then he had the Olympics you know way in over him it just felt like that was all weighing down on his shoulders and it's such a cliche to say but it really looked like he was thinking too much it just looked like he was trying to make that play that he doesn't normally make or trying to maybe cover for those partners that I was just talking about that maybe maybe he didn't believe in them and so he comes across the ice a little too much to cover for them and all of a sudden his backside is open for a two on one or whatever the play might be since the Olympic break totally different guy totally different guy looks confident looks calm making a bunch of plays with the puck they've really pushed the weak side defense and after this Olympic break to activate more and try to get more from that that offside and he's in a big part of it fish was in a big part of it so I don't know if it's just he needs to go play with the best if that's the case they need to ship him somewhere at the beginning of every year to go play some camp in September or something

21:52because they need to start that way but it's been really cool to see that it's not just a you know just passing off the season and saying you know this isn't going to be a good one from Harley he's really turned it around and that's been huge for this team when they needed it wow hey Sam excellent stuff really appreciate you coming on enjoy the game tonight and the stretch run and the central division's just going to be awesome to watch in the playoffs as always appreciate it thanks for coming on yeah of course Kevin great talking to you doing the game hi this is Pablo Tore from Pablo Tore finds out and today I want to talk to you about boost mobile because we spent a lot of time analyzing inefficiencies in sports overvalued contracts money tied up in the wrong places and so on but those inefficiencies aren't just on a roster sometimes they're in your own monthly expenses boost mobile says switching to their $25 unlimited forever plan can unlock up to $600 in savings a year that's $25 a month for unlimited data talk and text when you bring your own phone if that money is trapped in a pricey phone bill it might be worth a second look visit boost

22:56mobile dot com to learn more after 30 gigabytes customers may experience slower speeds customers pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the boost mobile unlimited plan savings claim based on a January 2026 boost mobile survey of a thousand americans with single line unlimited plans comparing average annual payments of major carriers to 12 months on the boost mobile unlimited plan for full offer details visit boost mobile dot com with its two juicy beef patties three slices of melted cheese and tangy bigot sauce the bigotch is what happens when you start making a McDonald's burger and never stop the bigotch the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet for a limited time