This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the Sports Net Radio Network.

Can I start out today by complaining about something?

Well, it's your show dummy. You can do pretty much whatever you want.

All right, I want to start out the show by complaining today.

By the way, I hope everyone had a full eyeball full of NHL action over the weekend.

Some really good stuff, some funny stuff as well, some entertaining stuff, some violent stuff, some

surprising stuff.

But I'm going to start the show today and start the week off by grousing about something.

I'm curious to hear what Elliot thinks about it in a couple of moments here when he joins us.

There are five games on to go around the NHL this evening. Five games going.

And the marquee matchup is Bedard versus Austin Matthews. Austin Matthews with

back-to-back hat tricks to kick off the season for the Toronto Maple

Leafs and Connor Bedard is drawing rave reviews and cameras and microphones everywhere he goes.

Much to the chagrin of Taylor Hall, we'll get there in a couple of moments.

But there's some interesting match-ups tonight.

The Trent Red Rings are facing off against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

So I'll talk to Kevin Allen about this at the bottom of the hour.

We'll sharpen the pencil on the Detroit Red Wings.

And Alex de Brinket, who is right back to his goal scoring ways.

Pretty obvious that wasn't a fit with the Ottawa Senators and Alex de Brinket.

That was not his style whatsoever.

He's back in a system and on a team that plays much more akin to

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