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00:00All right, the Stanley Cup playoffs have been fantastic.
00:02Every game seems to be coming down to the last few minutes,
00:05and so let's spend a few minutes with Shukri Reitz,
00:07who joins us to talk some National Hockey League.
00:10Shukri, once again, thanks for making some time for us here on the show
00:13and making the appearance.
00:14Let's get right into it.
00:16The Toronto Maple Leafs have to be feeling pretty good about their win last night
00:20as they take on the defended champion Florida Panthers,
00:23go up big, end up hanging on,
00:25but their goaltender Stolarz gets hurt in this one.
00:28They do win, and they're still favored to win the series,
00:33but not by much.
00:34Shukri, do you think that they're able to win a series like this?
00:38I haven't said this about the Maple Leafs in, oh, I don't know, 15, 20 years.
00:44Thank you for having me on, Craig.
00:46It's a pleasure to be back on here with you,
00:47and I want to first off start by saying that I do think that the Toronto Maple Leafs
00:53can win the series in six, but as far as last night's game was concerned,
00:57it was a statement win for the Toronto Maple Leafs in which that I believe
01:02that this postseason so far for the Toronto Maple Leafs has been a let's prove it
01:08to everyone that we can rewrite the narrative.
01:11And last night against the defending Seneca champions,
01:13they raced out to the 4-1 lead,
01:16and even though the Panthers did get back into the games,
01:19like the fact that the Maple Leafs were able to show that grip,
01:22especially with the big goal by Matthew Nice,
01:24was absolutely huge and yet again proved the grit that the Maple Leafs
01:28have shown during these playoffs has been absolutely for real.
01:31But as far as Anthony Stolart is concerned,
01:34I do think that the NHL absolutely made a major mistake by not suspending Sam Bennett
01:40for his hit, and Anthony Stolart's which knocked him out of the game,
01:44which became a big story after game number one between the Leafs and Panthers.
01:48But man, as you mentioned, the Maple Leafs, they deserve and they should be favored in this series.
01:54I do think that because of the structure that Craig Berube has brought to Toronto,
01:58it has certainly changed how this team has played it structurally and as well as how they defended their own end.
02:06We got game one tonight between the Hurricanes and Capitals.
02:09I don't know what will be in store for tonight.
02:11I guess you never know, of course, Ovechkin searching for a championship tonight
02:16with the Capitals being slight dogs at home.
02:19Hurricanes favored to win the series heavily and favored to win game one tonight.
02:24Minus 125, a total of five and a half.
02:27So let's dive in.
02:28How do you think this series goes?
02:31You know, what's interesting about this series is that this series,
02:34if you go back to the regular season,
02:36the Hurricanes and Capitals, they split the regular season series with the home team winning all four games.
02:43So what I will say is that I think one of the big factors in this series between the Hurricanes
02:48and as well as the Hurricanes and the Capitals is that the Hurricanes,
02:53they're going to need Sebastian Ajo to continue to be the game breaker that he has been.
02:58But not only just the fact that he's a game breaker,
03:00he's also a game changer who's always come up big in big moments.
03:04And as for the Capitals, I do think that it is going to be really important for goaltending,
03:10especially Logan Thompson, for him to answer the bell the way that he did for the Capitals in the first round
03:15against the Montreal Canadiens.
03:17But I do think one aspect in terms of the Hurricanes that is going to be huge
03:22is the availability of Frederick Anderson.
03:25That's going to be the biggest question going into the series.
03:28He did sustain an injury in game four against the New Jersey Devils,
03:30and he didn't play in game five, but he has been skating and practicing.
03:34So I do think that goaltending for both the Capitals and Hurricanes is going to be huge in this series
03:39when you look at both sides of the ledger.
03:43All right.
03:43So the heavyweight series out west tonight is Edmonton and the Las Vegas Golden Knights here.
03:50And the Knights are favored, but Conor David is on the other side of this one.
03:54So you've got to be forewarned.
03:57Six and a half is the total here.
03:59So we could be in store for a lot of goals tonight.
04:02Do you have any position, Shukri, you think, in this game one?
04:06I do think that Vegas wins game one against the Edmonton Oilers.
04:12And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, well, number one, on the Vegas Golden Knights,
04:17they're at home, which means they get the last change, which I think is going to be really huge
04:22for Bruce Cassidy, the head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights, to be able to dictate matchups
04:26and how he wants to defend against McDavid and Draft Seidel.
04:30And I think that what it's going to come down to is the depth of the Vegas Golden Knights
04:35is going to be tested in this series tremendously.
04:38Whether if it's the team depth itself or the depth of his defenseman,
04:43in which that you talk about Noah Hannafin, Alex Petrangelo, Shea Theodore, just to name a few,
04:50those guys are going to be really important in terms of trying to slow down both Conor McDavid
04:55and Leon Dreisaitl.
04:57But it's not just only about those two in Edmonton, even though those two players are two of the best
05:02players in the world, but they also have to figure out ways to be able to shut down other guys
05:07and get going in this series.
05:08The guys like, you know, Ryan Nutra Hopkins or Evan Bouchard, for example, and as well
05:14as Evander Kane, who was huge in round one against the Kings.
05:18But I do think that the Golden Knights will win game one at home to start the series.
05:24Now, as far as the total goal score is, the top one here, Shukri, we threw some, you know,
05:29prop at you here today and tell me if you like any of these.
05:31So this would be the leading goal scorer in the series between Vegas and Edmonton.
05:36We have Dreisaitl is three to one.
05:38McDavid is plus 430.
05:41I don't know if you can see our board here, but we have Hurdle and Eichel and Stone as
05:45well as possibilities here.
05:46Do you think it has to be one of the top two or can it be someone else?
05:49I do think it's going to be Dreisaitl because like Dreisaitl ultimately, like the way that
05:57he is, that he's able to just drive, drive and score in so many different ways.
06:02Absolutely.
06:03And I like the props a lot.
06:05I am going to put my money where my mouth is.
06:07I think Dreisaitl scores the most points, not just goals, but points in this series ahead
06:12of Conor McDavid.
06:13So I would absolutely take, take the prop bet to lunch and run with it.
06:18All right.
06:19And then finally, what do you make of those crazy finals that the Stars and Jets had?
06:23I know that they had to go all the way to the end to get past it.
06:27Is that something that can help them move forward with momentum or you think it hurts in the
06:30next round?
06:32I think it helps certainly, but especially more so in the case of the Winnipeg Jets who
06:37had so much pressure going against them in game number seven.
06:41And just real quickly, they had a number of headlines out the window.
06:47Number one, Conor Hellebeck can't come up in a huge moment.
06:50He did come up huge in game number seven.
06:52Number two, the Winnipeg Jets not being able to advance in the playoffs gets around number
06:56two in the recent seasons.
06:57They did exactly just that.
06:59So I do think that for the Stars, they're going to be rolling in with a lot of confidence
07:03along with the Winnipeg Jets.
07:06But I do think for the Stars, seeing Michael Ransom break out in game seven in a third period,
07:10absolutely a game changer.
07:11And it's going to come up huge in this series.
07:13Great to catch up with you.
07:15Thanks for all the breakdown here on the show.
07:18Absolutely.
07:19My pleasure, Craig.
07:19Thank you for having me on.