The Lowdown with Lowetide - Kevin McCurdy (Sept 2nd)

0:00Whatever bike you're looking for from Mountain to Road, either pedal powered or electric, we've got what you want ready for super fast delivery. Quality gear at prices you won't find in your average bike shop. Bikeshomeline.com, ride more for less. Mr. Recurdy, how are you? I'm doing well on how are you doing this week. Good, I had a little days of boo about your dad this week. Did you know that? Oh, really? I think you're going to need to tell me more. Well, what happens is sometimes I'm looking for material for the blog or for the athletic articles and I have access to every post I've ever written since 2003 on my blog. So I go back into the archives and I look at it and I did a review back way back when of the 1979 80 oilers rookies, except I included the guys who were fresh in the league and the NHL didn't want to call rookies like Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. And in that article that I wrote a thousand years ago, I had quoted a Bruce

1:04McCurdy conversation that I had with him in which he said, I said, when did you know Gretzky was the greatest player of all time? And he like, he said to me like by Valentine's day of 1980. And I'm like, wow, I know I didn't feel that way at that time. And Bruce, as you know, your dad was not a one to embellish or to, you know, tell tall tales. So I instantly believed him and, you know, he would have been seasoned tickled owner of that time. And, and I know he would have announced it to us all of his friends. I just thought that was pretty wild that, that, you know, that's a, that's a, a brazen statement. And yet he was absolutely true. He was the greatest by, you know, six months into the NHL and Bruce called it out and good on him. Yeah. One of his, this price possession that he had was the complete season ticket set for the 90, the inaugural 1979, 1980,

2:05or your season in which he has all of the season tickets plus the exhibition game with Moscow and all of the preseason games. And I still have that to his day, but, uh, you actually used that ticket. I told the story a couple of times and other venues, but he used the season one game one ticket to win a contest to go to the heritage class. I wish on ironically was the last time that Wayne Gretsky laced them up through the orange and blue, um, in any capacity. And so it kind of closed the loop on a, uh, what can only be said is totally storied career. So just, just to, to bring it to the end of that loop to watch Dretsky and all of the others, um, you know, play one final time and to see old plays and habits come out of them, you know, 15 years after the last time any of them had played together was really something else. Uh, Kevin, we're going to call an audible here.

3:05Do you want to, uh, we're going to call you on the phone. I think there's a little clipping going on. Is that fair guys? We're going to go ahead and do that. Right. All right. Kevin, according to our guest, uh, we had him on the video, uh, but there's, you know, I blame Josh, but it isn't his fault. You're not responsible for that, right? That wouldn't be you, uh, but it sometimes happens when we're, you know, um, one thing I am very proud of, sometimes on, on Twitter or whatever, I'll see these, uh, teams meetings where people are doing inappropriate things, uh, or sleeping. Well, meetings are happening and then they show the video of it. Uh, I believe everybody who's been on YouTube with me and I have not fallen asleep or done anything inappropriate, although what Declan's doing over there is the talk of the town. Do we have him? One minute, one minute. Hey, Kevin. Do you hear me? Hey, Kevin, you ready to go on with low tide? I always want to think that they're saying no, I really don't.

4:06All right. So, uh, that's a nice little reminiscence. Uh, I, I, when people ask me of Conor McDavid's the best player ever, I always say, um, he's the most exciting player I've ever seen. Uh, Gretzky was a different type. He was more, uh, cerebral, uh, and he, he, you know, he was like, I always felt like Gretzky was, was more like a, a, a slide rule guy who figured out where he, he already Curry would be in three seconds and sent the puck there. Um, McDavid, obviously a different player, but I think it's safe to say McDavid's the most exciting player we've ever seen. Uh, he's definitely the most advanced skills wise. I mean, it's, so I don't, I'm not a person to overuse the word generational talent. I think it gets overused a lot. And to me, someone who is up generational talent is somebody who's fundamentally shifted how the sport of hockey is played. So, to me, that list, uh, at least in terms of, of active NHLers is just to its Sydney

5:06Crosby and, and Conor McDavid. Um, and the reason for McDavid's inclusion in that list is he is fun. His, his attack style and his method of playing the sport, uh, through speed and pure skill has fundamentally shifted how the league has played and how the next generation of talent has developed towards playing in the league. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, as an Edmontonian who's lived through, uh, both of those areas, the, the Gretzky and the McDavid era to this point. Uh, I, I'm astounded that the, the good fortune of the, the, the, the, the good fortune of Edmonton and these kids come from Ontario, Kevin. No wonder, no wonder Maple Leaf fans are upset. Um, it looks like I always want the orders to give us the, the training camp rosters as soon as possible. It looks like we're going to have to wait another week. We'll probably have the list by then. So let me ask you, uh, some prediction questions, which begins with, do you see any PTOs on

6:07this roster? Do you think they're going to run pretty straight? No, I don't think so. And stand moment, I'm pretty sure I didn't get to listen to the interview yesterday. I've been, uh, been a busy week already. But, uh, the clip I did here was basically that there were no planned PTOs at this point. And that is just fine by me. And I think that if trades were being made, we saw one today of Angelista to the, uh, New Jersey Devils from Nashville for a couple of impressive picks. What a deal. Yeah. What? Deal. You liked that one for New Jersey? Yeah, I do. I think I think sunny media is absolutely cooking with that trade, um, you know, by, by, uh, Mike, Blake McCurdy's metrics, uh, for, you know, synthetic goals. Uh, he runs a 12.6 on the scale, which is really not that far behind the most elite stars in the league. Um, pretty hard to say that was anything but an absolute slam dunk for New Jersey. Well, what, what I like about it is that, that it, it goes, um, it goes to an area where,

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8:15your game. You can never go wrong with skill, right? And, and you know, the two picks that they sent away are 2028. So that player is unlikely to help you if everything works out for New Jersey. Unlike it to help you till at least 2030. So you, you, you've improved your team for the next four years without any real like material costs. Yeah. And that, then you know, it's, it's arguably a late first round pick and a late second round pick, right? Like they're not. I don't think they're particularly valuable picks on their face. Either of them. I just, I love the deal for New Jersey. It's such a, it's such a clever pickup. And, you know, he's a really, really underrated player that was playing on a terrible team the past couple of years. He's an elite shooter like, there's nothing, they're from New Jersey. There's basically nothing that can go wrong with that deal.

9:18Yeah, it's, it's, I like it because it's just pure skill and you can never have enough of it and, and, you know, somebody will get hurt and maybe it's him, but you're, you're betting on yourself and you're betting on the now. And I never think that's a bad idea. We've, we've put it around with this. And, and I think we're at a point now when if we say that there's no major players coming in that we can assume Terracenco's not coming here. So at some level, I think they're going to try, I coward with a good center, whether it's a tough minutes line with dry side or McDavid or a soft minutes soft parade line with Ryan Newgen Hopkins. I would like to see Howard with Leon dry side. I don't do you have a preference or would you like to see him in Bakersfield? No, I want to see him with Leon. I think that's the right play. How is a shooter, right? In the same way that Jeff Skinner was a shooter. If you put him in position to shoot the puck and he's playing response, responsible 200 foot hockey and being as being held accountable to that,

10:21I think he is the top six forward. I think he just needs to be given the reps to to grow into that expectation. One of the problems we're having Kevin McCurdy joining us at 112 on low down with low tide on sports 1440 in YouTube is we like this is this reminds me of the Pat Quinn summer into fall, which was like 2009, I believe, where we have a body of evidence about what Mike Babcock did a decade ago, but we don't really know if we can apply it like verbatim onto this roster. Because I'll tell you that the Babcock, you know, he employed young, unproven players like highman had played a little bit the previous year, but he had Connor Brown. He had some other players who weren't like high, high picks, although Matthews and Mariner and Neil Andrew were, but he had no hesitation if they played the game that he wanted them to play. He would throw them into the lineup. So, you know, I keep reading, well, you know,

11:21Ike Howard's not going to be able to play for Mike Babcock, but it's a guess, right? Like it's not even a terribly well informed guest because Babcock hasn't been around the game for so long. No, I don't think it's an informed guest at all. I think that Babcock is a bit of a loose cannon in terms of him sort of driving to the beat of his own drum, but also consider that this is a different arrow, right? Like we have an incredible analytics staff that's put together, been put together over the past four or so seasons. We have DJ Smith, who's outwardly said that they're going to use the analytics that they have to their best advantage. I think that, you know, we might see some of Babcock's, you know, trust in young players and, you know, and there's some going to be some mistakes made. I'm sure, but overall, I just kind of want to watch and gather

12:23a body of evidence before I make any judgment at all. Yeah. I more and more when Stan Bowman said about making this roster in the summertime early in the summer, I noticed that he had layered solutions, you know, like if you look at Frederick as say the third line left winger, well, you've got Doc and you've got Joseph and you've got, you know, maybe even Jones, if you wanted to use him there. And on left defense, Maccoma Dullin could end up replacing Ryan Shea and Shea could replace Walman if it came to that in goal. They've got three goal tenders. The one area that I think they haven't addressed to the point where where we can say well, they've got, you know, enough depth there is center. And I do wonder, I wrote about Josh Semensky on the blog today, looking at his numbers in the age. I'll again, Kevin, he looked really good. When he got here is expected goals against per 60 were excellent. He was over 50% during the regular season at five on five goal share in the

13:28playoffs. He looked good. I wonder if the oilers not only have a guy, but are aware that they have a guy and there is a difference. I think I think both of those things are likely true. I doubt that that's going to be missed by anybody who is watching, especially once the numbers are applied. The thing that Josh needs to do a little bit more of is to learn to trust himself and not have to cheat for defense. His defensive instincts are excellent. There's no doubt in my mind that from a defensive point of view, he's a very responsible player. And I think he just needs to learn to to trust that and maybe take a couple more risks on the offensive side of the puck without being irresponsible about it. Right? And I think that that's mostly him being a rookie and coming from a league where, you know, that it's played a little bit differently than the NHL has played or the AHL even has played. And I think that that's just a seasoning time in the big leagues.

14:29Yeah. And, and, you know, it's funny because the he has to move the needle offensively. And that's that sort of, you know, it can stall players. I remember when Magnus Pyarvy and Anton Landr both great skaters, both terrific like defensive forwards, but they couldn't score enough. And I think that that Samansky is a guy who's proven himself away from the puck. If he can, if he can even put like 10, 12 goals in the net every year, you know, he's going to play a have a long career because he's improved a lot of his game. Even since coming to Edmund, he was playing in Germany in the spring of 2025. So he's made great strides and probably will continue to the list of players we know are coming to camp Kevin. Who are one or two guys that you're really looking forward to watching and kind of evaluating and seeing where they might be on the roster? Well, Samansky is one of them for sure. I do want to see where, um,

15:30Shay is at. I want to see where Walman is at. And I know, but, uh, Visalie Pock holes and that's been putting in the reps. And I'm really excited to see what he looks like. I haven't seen much about where Samansky was training, uh, training over the summer. So I'm very interested to see what he looks like. I know like basically half the, half the NHL was at the Muska Kahaaki. Yeah. Confap there a little bit ago. Um, so I'm, I'm interested to see what those guys look like. I mean, you know, sort of a who's who's of the Euler superstars. So, um, yeah, it's, it's an exciting time. We're almost back into watching Puck instead of speculating about it. And we'll see how these injuries play out too. It sounds like Freddy's injury is going to be a bit longer than the voice. Um, and I'm still unsure. Keep hearing mixed reports about Matias, the Ann Marx readiness. And, uh, I hope he's okay, but I won't be surprised if we don't be in for a

16:33while. I just, when they sign Joseph, I thought, man, they, they, that's the guy who's going to replace him. Didn't know that the, the injury news would come out the way it does. But I, I mean, I think he, either he'll play in front of Joseph or he'll be the extra in the press box, or he's going to spend the year on LTIR. That's it. They've got that position covered very well. Kevin McCurdy, thank you and tried to go on down memory lane and your thoughts on the autos as we look forward to 2627. Thank you. Just two wheels, two pedals and you. At Bikes Online, we share your passion for everything cycling. Whatever bike you're looking for from Mountain to Road, either pedal powered or electric, we've got what you want ready for super fast delivery. Quality gear at prices you won't find in your average bike shop. All bikes are pro-built and tuned before shipping to get you riding quickly. If you find a better deal, we'll beat it by 5%. Shop now at bikesonline.com and ride more for less.