Saturday Morning Special - May 7th

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With the CHL Playoffs, round 2 in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the RBC playoff round and the World U18s over, the WHL and OHL drafts, there was plenty to talk about on Saturday morning. Dean and I were joined by guests across the continent to cover all of the above plus we spoke with a top prospect of the Toronto Maple Leafs as well.

We began the program by speaking with Neate Sager from Yahoo!'s Buzzing the Net. We began with his take on the QMJHL finals between Saint John and Gatineau and whether an Olympiques victory would be a major upset or not. From there we chatted about the OHL Priority Draft and the notion that it's not quite on the up and up. A lot of interesting discussion there especially when we asked Neate whether he felt the three CHL leagues should all go to a draft of 15/16 year-olds instead of the 14/15-year-old Bantam Draft that the WHL uses.

Segment 2 brought in Chris Peters from The United States of Hockey. He was in Germany calling the USA games during the World U18s so we asked him for his opinion on several players in the event. 2012 eligible Russians Nail Yakupov and Mikhail Grigorenko led the tournament in scoring and Chris agrees with us that 2012 could see the first draft with Russians going 1-2 since Ovechkin-Malkin in 2004. We also asked Chris for his thoughts on 2011 eligible Euros Nikita Kucherov (RUS), Joel Armia (FIN) and Mika Zibanejad (SWE). Of course we had to ask about Team USA so Chris told us who he thought would get chosen first between T.J. Miller, Tyler Biggs and Rocco Grimaldi.

We went Behind the Mic with the voice of the Owen Sound Attack in segment 3. Fred Wallace gave us an excellent break down of the OHL final and an in-depth look at Owen Sound, a team largely made up of unheralded players plus Joey Hishon (COL). The goaltending situation is worth following there as well.

Hour two began with a visit from Cam Moon who is Moon-lighting from his Red Deer gig to help out Shaw TV cover the WHL finals. Mooner broke down both the Kootenay Ice and the Portland Winterhawks for us and told us who he thinks has to stand up for both teams in the series. We also got an update on WHL MVP Darcy Kuemper and his contract status with the Minnesota Wild.


Daren Millard joined us to discuss the NHL playoffs and especially the goaltending woes for Philadelphia and how the Flyers might address that subject for next year. Which NHL rookie performance has been the best in the post season - Boston's Brad Marchand (below) or San Jose forward Logan Couture?

Finally we heard from an old favorite and former guest player blogger - Joe Colborne. The former Camrose Kodiak talked about his past in the AJHL and at the RBC, his days in the NCAA with the Denver Pioneers and also about the trade from Boston to Toronto.

It was a jam packed show with a lot of great guests and discussion. If you missed any of the interviews or just want to hear them again you can do so by hitting the archive... HERE.