I'm a staunch Pierre McGuire fan. I've had to defend him to others who think he's a blowhard and know it all and explain to them that it's how it is. It's not arrogance, it's just a really big wealth of knowledge and love for the game.
I haven't been listening to TSN1200 lately due to being on Pat leave and being busy with a newborn, so my opinions of his talks with JR and Steve are limited, but any time Pierre is on for the Sens on NBCSN, I have their feed to listen to because I enjoy the stories and commentary. I'm probably one of the few.
For the Rangers game, he was very complimentary of Karlsson and the Sens; nothing too negative and if he did say something, I generally agreed with him. If Ottawa does something stupid on a penalty and he calls them out on it, I will usually agree that Ottawa did something stupid and deserved it.
But the Pens vs Sens series has been testing me a bit, lately. Pierre is going pretty hard bias with the Pens. While I totally get it: He won a cup with them in the 90s, sometimes you can easily see the bias and the love he has for the Pens still and that he doesn't really think that Ottawa should be up against them. Pierre would have had them win in 5 and just throw one game to Ottawa because of the 'darkhorse' title. But now that we had them on a 2-1 lead, it feels like he's been giving passes towards the Pens and either calls that aren't called for them, he complains about it or calls that are called for them, he compliments about how great of a call it is.
I get that Crosby is considered far and wide as the best in the game still (EK and McDavid are very close to him in my books this year) but sometimes, it shows that the NHL has a very odd view about Canadian teams and that they tell their media branches to pump up the sexy picks. The Pens are just that. All because they won the lottery and got Crosby.
It's unfortunate but it's something I've learned to just accept: Pierre will always talk good about the Pens versus any of the teams facing them if he's with it. Until Crosby is out of the game there, I think we're in for a while longer for this.
But I totally agree with some here: If he used the whole transportation issue about the practice as an excuse, then I'm sorry, that was kinda weak and good on El Predicto on calling him out on it. And they're both professionals and have known each other for 15 years now. I'm sure they know they won't agree all the time and will call each other out on the radio when an opinion is wrong. Pierre just comes off as a lot more condescending sometimes than anything, but that's just the wealth of information he has.
Just food for thought for those hating on Pierre; he loves the game of hockey and the guy is a pretty smart fellow when it comes to the game. Does he have bad takes? Yeah, we all do. Just gotta take the good with the bad.