THE FLORIDA PANTHERS ARE DIRTY AS HELL… MORE VICIOUS HITS REVEALED (Aaron Ekblad, Sam Bennett)

THE FLORIDA PANTHERS ARE DIRTY AS HELL… MORE VICIOUS HITS REVEALED (Aaron Ekblad, Sam Bennett)

[Music] I never thought I’d see the day because in 2025, watching the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, I Lego Rocks 99, I’m cheering for the gosh darn Leafs, baby. What the hell? What kind of inside out reverse mirror world are we living in here? I’ll admit there are going to be some folks that are going to call me out and talk about how I used to say that the Maple Leafs were one of my favorite teams. I think they might have been second at one point behind my Canucks. And a lot of folks would bring it up in my comment section. Hey, how are you a Canucks fan and a Leafs fan? Simple. It’s because I hadn’t opened my mind yet to the external world of other fan bases and other fandoms. But all personal history liking Toronto and other teams aside, is anybody else like fully on board with team Leafs in this series? I know it’s so easy to go out there and say, “Hey, haha, Toronto, y’all suck and y’all never make the second round and y’all always lose and y’all will choke away leads and your core can’t win. So, I’m cheering for Florida because it’d be funny, but I can’t for the life of me.” look at this series and say with all my heart that I want the Florida Panthers to win. This Panthers team is so damn dirty that it’s getting unbearable. Like, we watch these games and we look at the highlights and we slow-mo replay the hits and the confrontations and the elbows to the goalie’s heads and everything else in between. We watch all this and it’s so easy to cheer for Toronto when you look at everything that’s going on. Not only are we seeing the Leafs actually exercise their demons, they win the first two games of the series, they’re up with six wins in the 2025 playoffs. They hadn’t gotten six wins in a playoff run in two decades. They’re now in the second round and they’ve gotten more wins than they did last time. But something is different about this series. It’s not like, “Oh, I’m watching it and the Toronto Maple Leafs are really playing so amazing and I love these guys and I’m cheering for them.” It’s more like, “Yeah, just take him out, bro. Take out this gosh darn dirty Florida Panthers team.” Not only did you see the Sam Bennett elbow to the head to Anthony Stolar’s very clear as day elbow to the head. People talk about, “Oh, the guy was already concussed and he blocked the shot with his mask and this and that.” And yeah, I can understand that vomiting on the bench after a situation like that doesn’t indicate anything positive, and you can very well come to the conclusion that the shot block with the mask was the biggest determining factor as to what caused Stolars to get hurt. But the Bennett elbow doesn’t make it any better. And that kind of thing is just not allowed in hockey. And the crazy part is we saw the same thing happen again in game number two between Toronto and Florida two days ago. Aaron Ecklad, for some reason he’s in tight in front of the goal, jumping into the crease trying to catch a puck out of midair. And as he grabs the puck and tries to settle it down, he ends up like totally clocking Joseph Wall in the head. I get it. This was a situation where Aaron Ecklad, you can debate. Yeah, I know. He’s looking at the puck. He’s trying to make a play with the puck and he just happens to get wall in the process. But come on, this is not something that anybody watching this series will look at and fully believe in their heart of hearts that yeah, no, Aaron Ecklad’s just trying to make a play. You can probably infer from a split second’s worth of time that Aaron Ekbad probably knew that Joseph Wall was right in front of him and he probably recognized that there was an opportunity to give him that little bit of a touch. The Panthers have this game plan. It’s simple. It’s very straightforward, but it’s very violent. And we even saw this in that famous clip of Paul Maurice in the playoffs. Oh yeah, go out there and beat these guys up. Make them hurt so they got nothing left in game seven. You guys stop making plays. Just keep it up with the intensity and the physicality. And that mentality embodies the spirit of what playoff hockey is today in the National Hockey League where the NHL as a whole is transitioning towards this speedier, more skilled puck play style of gameplay that we see beautiful goals scored, end to end rushes, Michigan goals and Michigan passes and really nice plays. We’re getting more scoring in the NHL, but the playoffs have been a different animal this entire time. And we recognize that there is a difference. It’s just the Florida Panthers play into it more so, I think, than any other team. And you can debate that now it’s getting to the point where if they’re head-hunting Toronto goalies every game, it seems like the Maple Leafs better finish this series off quickly if they want to have themselves a chance of surviving and potentially having a moment in the third round. This is why it’s gotten to a point where I and many other hockey fans that I talk to in my personal life are like, “Yeah, I’m cheering for Toronto now.” Not necessarily because I love the Leafs, but because the Panthers are a dirty freaking team. It’s hard to cheer for those guys. Toronto can embarrass themselves whenever. in the third round, in the finals, whatever have you. But this Florida Panthers team, who already won a championship last year, they made the finals two years in a row, playing this style of hockey, it’s hard to look at that and be like, “Yeah, I support this. I support going after the goalies and head-hunting them.” You know, I get that there will be some folks that call me out on my own timeline as a hockey fan and cheering for specific teams. So, I guess I’ll address it here towards the end of this video commentary because realistically, we didn’t have much to dive into in this video. I just wanted to speak about my thoughts on this playoff series considering game three is today. But thinking about the Habs, a lot of folks would go out there and say, “Hey, they are your second favorite team, right?” And I’d be like, “Yeah, the Montreal Canadians are my second favorite team.” It wasn’t always like that. In the 201718 season, I was pretty much making videos on the Canucks only with a few other videos sprinkled in there. Montreal stuff, some Toronto stuff. Honestly, I was just kind of feeling out the market at that time trying to distinguish which teams I could make videos on and consistently get views. Toronto was the easy option because, hey, they’re the most popular team in hockey, so just make videos about the Leafs and you’ll be good. But it’s difficult to make videos about the Leafs and consistently have them gain traction as a channel that’s focused primarily on Vancouver stuff because obviously Vancouver and Toronto fans don’t like each other. This is why there was a decent focus on Toronto Maple Leaf Center content in the 20189ish era of this YouTube channel. But that quickly fizzled away when I realized that I could make videos about Canadian stuff and they’d get a lot more views. I’ve always been transparent about this, but part of the reason I became a Habs fan is because I made videos about them and just following the team, following the stories, following the prospects, making so many videos about them because they got a ton of views ended up making me just like the team in general because they’re a likable bunch. And I think this also goes without saying, but Canadians fans and Kucks fans aren’t as hostile towards one another as Leafs fans and Kucks fans are. Same thing happened with Detroit. I just made videos about them because they’d get views and it’s easy to cheer for them. Plus, I have a lot of friends in my personal life that cheer for the Red Wings and the Canadians. So, it is fairly easy to emotionally invest into these teams. So, for folks that are going out there and trying to talk smack about my former preferences and talking about the Leafs and saying that they were one of my favorite teams, yeah, I think it would be fair to say that they were at one point. It also helps being a Steve Danielle fan, which I think a lot of us can relate to if we are fans or not. It’s like, hey, if we engage with the content within the fandom, then it becomes easier to fall into it ourselves, right? So, while I may not necessarily have the same quote unquote love or emotional attachment to Toronto like I did a few years ago, there is still a very good reason, in my opinion, at least to cheer for them versus the Florida Panthers in this series right here. So, let me know your thoughts in the comments section below about the Dirty Cats and what they’re doing against Toronto and whether or not you are on the same boat as I am. I’m a Canucks fan cheering for Toronto in this 2025 second round series. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. I hope you enjoyed this Ash roll 999 and bye. [Music] [Music]

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We’re going over the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs series, and how dirty the Cats are.

This video is taking place after the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, and after the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The 2024 NHL Draft 1st Round went as follows:

1st) San Jose Sharks, Macklin Celebrini
2nd) Chicago Blackhawks, Artyom Levshunov
3rd) Anaheim Ducks, Beckett Sennecke
4th) Columbus Blue Jackets, Cayden Lindstrom,
5th) Montreal Canadiens, Ivan Demidov
6th) Utah Hockey Club, Tij Iginla
7th) Ottawa Senators, Carter Yakemchuk
8th) Seattle Kraken, Berkly Catton
9th) Calgary Flames, Zayne Parekh
10th) New Jersey Devils, Anton Silayev
11th) San Jose Sharks (from Buffalo Sabres), Sam Dickinson
12th) Minnesota Wild (from Philadelphia Flyers), Zeev Buium
13th) Philadelphia Flyers (from Minnesota Wild), Jett Luchanko
14th) Buffalo Sabres (from Pittsburgh Penguins via San Jose Sharks), Konsta Helenius
15th) Detroit Red Wings, Michael Brandsegg-Nygard
16th) St. Louis Blues, Adam Jiricek
17th) Washington Capitals, Terik Parascak
18th) Chicago Blackhawks (from New York Islanders), Sacha Boisvert
19th) Vegas Golden Knights, Trevor Connelly
20th) New York Islanders (from Tampa Bay Lightning via Chicago Blackhawks), Cole Eiserman
21st) Montreal Canadiens (from Los Angeles Kings), Michael Hage
22nd) Nashville Predators, Yegor Surin
23rd) Anaheim Ducks (from Toronto Maple Leafs), Stian Solberg
24th) Utah Hockey Club (from Colorado Avalanche), Cole Beaudoin
25th) Boston Bruins (from Boston Bruins via Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators), Dean Letourneau
26th) Los Angeles Kings (from Winnipeg Jets via Montreal Canadiens), Liam Greentree
27th) Chicago Blackhawks (from Carolina Hurricanes), Marek Vanacker
28th) Calgary Flames (from Vancouver Canucks), Matvei Gridin
29th) Dallas Stars, Emil Hemming
30th) New York Rangers, EJ Emery
31st) Toronto Maple Leafs (from Edmonton Oilers via Anaheim Ducks), Ben Danford
32nd) Edmonton Oilers (from Florida Panthers via Philadelphia Flyers), Sam O’Reilly

This video is also taking place after 2024 NHL Season, and after the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, where the Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers in the Finals.

Twitter: @LR99Gaming
Portfolio: http://giopalermo.ca/
Twitch: legorocks99

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Hi. I’m “Gio Palermo”, also known as “legorocks99” (“legorocks99Gaming”, “LR99Gaming”, or “LR99”). I post video game commentaries on YouTube revolving around “hockey”, with a primary focus on “Vancouver Canucks”, “Montreal Canadiens”, “Detroit Red Wings”, and top “NHL prospects” topics. These videos are uploaded with “NHL 25” gameplay in the background. I enjoy making these videos and I hope that you enjoy watching them!

legorocks99 and all its denominations function under “Gio Palermo Media Inc.”