[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to "In the Booth" on SportsNet 650, with my self-branded bachelor and Randy Janda. We are the Canucks broadcast team on the radio, and we host this show every week as well, which, if you're listening on the radio right now, you can get it on SportsNet 650. It also lives as a podcast on the Canucks central podcast. Feed and Randeep, it's been a quieter week here with the Canucks playing last Saturday, playing Wednesday. And now they don't play again until a Saturday night match up with the Washington Capitol. So lots of practice time, lots of days off for this group, not as many games for us to talk about, but no lack of talking points with this team coming out of the overtime loss to Colorado on Wednesday night. Yeah, heading into that game, very positive around this team, the structure. 40 minutes of that game, very positive as well. And then the third period rolls around batch, and it kind of just goes to the wayside where there are some positive things to talk about. But you mentioned the practice time. Right now, Rick Talkett, making a focus for this team to say, we've got to clean up some of the details of the game, which we'll get into on this podcast. But this is a time where you kind of look in the mirror a little bit as you prep for the next month of hockey and playoff hockey to say, how do you iron out some of those details that have some wrinkles showing, especially after that last Colorado game? Yeah, and Rick Talkett was very firm about this when speaking to the media over the past couple of days at practice coming out of the Colorado loss. And I thought on Friday in particular, he really sort of laid the hammer down and said, look, we've got not that much longer till the playoffs here. We can't just turn on that intensity once we get to the postseason. It's got to be now. We've got to be playing like it's the playoffs right now. And he's not seeing that from this group. And he's asking for it from them as soon as possible. And this really puts a spotlight on the game against the Capitals on Saturday night because this is a Washington team that they're going to be playing for their playoff lives. They're going to be desperate. They actually only sit one point back right now. So it's still there for them, although they're in the mix, with a lot of other teams like the Sabres who the Canucks are going to see next week, like the Red Wings who are in free fall, like the Islanders who have surged back up the standings. And we've seen the Canucks over the past couple of months in particular have trouble with some of those teams that have that desperation in their game. Yeah, you have to tap into something. And I remember Ian Cole talking about, yeah, you have to sometimes manufacture it. You've got padding, but batch at the top of the Western Conference, it's a fight. There's three central teams essentially trying to get the number one seed. The Vancouver Canucks are trying to get the number one seed. So urgency is something that this team doesn't have to manufacture. If you're looking for home ice advantage, definitely in round one, which is something that you can guarantee. If you win that, you want to ensure that maybe the round after, if you get to the third round, do you have that benefit of home ice advantage? So to me, it's not about manufacturing. There are reasons to play for, but one thing that Rick Talkett mentioned about finding that and cleaning up these elements in their game with some of these teams that can flip the switch. I'm looking at a Tampa Bay, if they get in, which they're fighting for right now. I'm looking at a Vegas right now. I'm looking even more so in LA Kings where it doesn't seem like they have that high end, but they've been there before. They have that experience as a unit that, hey, we've been here before. We understand what type of game we have to play. And it kind of acts like muscle memory. The Vancouver Canucks don't have that as a collective. They're going to have to develop that. So that's why this time right now in the lead up to the playoffs is not much more important because you're in a situation right now of, even though you're one of the top teams in the NHL, playoff hockey is different. It's a different animal altogether. Can you react? Can you stay composed? Can you stick to your details in that environment? That's something that the Canucks haven't shown yet because playoff hockey hasn't started, but that's something they have to prove to the NHL were some other teams that have been around for a while. They already have it in their DNA. And that maybe is the most concerning part about these kinds of things emerging at this point of the season. And look, it's not entirely surprising that a team that's had a great year would go through a down stretch out of the all-star break because they basically know they're in the playoffs already. With the way they've been playing in the cushion, they've got to top the division. Unless they really go in the tank, they're going to finish first in the division. They're going to have home ice advantage through the first two rounds in particular. And you're right, they should be motivated by trying to make sure that's three or hey, even four rounds potentially if you can win the president's trophy and stay in that conversation. That's always a positive. But the fact that they were so good after two periods with a lead all season long and now it's in the second half in February and March that they're having some of these stumbles, that they're blowing some of these leads. This is the time of the year where you want to be honing in on that stuff and focusing in and yes teams are desperate and yes teams are elevating their game. Guess what? You've got to elevate your game too. And that's part of the message that we heard from Rick Talkett on Friday after practice is basically no excuses. You know, you're not traveling right now. You've got multiple days between games. You've got practice time to hone in on things that you need to do to be more successful. You need to be executing at a high level now because if you're not, then you're not just gonna be able to flip that switch. Come April 21st, 22nd, whenever they start the playoffs. And if you're not ready, then before you know it, this great season could be by the wayside very quick because regardless of who you get in the first round of the playoffs and that's something I'm starting to realize more and more watching this Western Conference playoff picture develop. Like you might win the conference and your reward could be the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round. A team that just loaded up at the deadline or hey, the Nashville Predators are the one that's even hockey right now, right? So it's you two. It's not like there's not like there's, there's gonna be any cake walks or easy matchups even in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So the margin for error as they go down the stretch here gets slimmer and slimmer. And I'm gonna be fascinated by what the next month looks like for the Canucks, basically a month left in the season now because as Rick Talkett has talked about and he mentioned this again on Friday when speaking to the media, this group hasn't had to deal with a stretch run where, hey, practices in March are really important. What you're doing to hone in your game in game 75, game 78, game 82 actually matters because guess what? They've been mean nothing games down the stretch for the last few years for this team. Even when they went to the playoffs in 2020, they didn't have a stretch run because of the pandemic and the bubble and all of that that we know about. So this is now uncharted territory for the Vancouver Canucks and organizationally, regardless of whether things go well for them in the playoffs or not, they will learn a lot about their players and what they have in that dressing room by how those guys perform in the next four to six to eight to 10 to 12 weeks potentially. - The current stretch right now though of practice time you mentioned it, but the nine game homestead, it's a really interesting time of the year for this team 'cause I remember I was asked about this on one of the shows of a nine game homestead. And ideally for coaches, nine game is a lot. I don't know how many coaches would feel comfortable with a nine game homestead because it kind of takes you out of the order of what a hockey team goes through on a yearly basis, right? Four or five game homesteads are probably great. You have a little bit of a stretch and then your business like you pick up your briefcase, you're going to work. - Even six or seven. - Sure, right? But that sweet spot might be around five where you're saying, all right, we're doing our thing and then eventually we pick up our briefcase or our lunch kit or whatever we have and we're going to work. It's not, you don't get so comfortable. You've got a lot of practice time, which is great, but Batch, there's certain elements of this that it probably takes away from the experience you want heading into April, which is, all right, this is every single game matters. Every single practice matters. Every single play you make on the ice, every detail is something that you have to hone in on. At this time of the year, and I'll give you an example, against Colorado with 1.8 seconds left in that period, couple of guys don't really play to the whistle or to the buzzer, right? JT Miller maybe doesn't close as much as he probably should on Devon Taves along the boards and then two Canucks players, Noah Juleson Elias Lindholm, in front of the net, allow Miko Ranten to get in the middle, nobody takes the body, nobody takes a stick, and those small details, those things hurt you in the playoffs. So right now, you know, you're in a situation where yes, you're going to practice, yes, you're going to have this homestead, but you want to make sure that you hone in on those specific details and game in, game out, you're not making those mistakes. So yeah, you're right, this next month at least, beyond that for sure, is going to be a big moment, but the more we watch this team play, can they eliminate those mistakes that maybe will cost you in a playoffs, because the mentality is entirely different. One of 82, you're seeing a team like Colorado, and guess what, Washington comes to town, you don't worry about it. The momentum from game to game, in my opinion, is a thing. If a team feels like they have a mental edge on you in the playoffs, they're going to flex that. They're going to go back to your pressure points and go after that until you correct it or until you're knocked out of the playoffs. And that's why right now, they have to get rid of those pressure points. This is kind of like foam rolling. There's pain, but it's pain, but you got to go through it to kind of relax and be composed into pressure. And that's why this stretch right now, this nine game homestead, is so important for this team because they have to really work on those details. I'm talking about a 92 point team here, which is, you know, they've done an amazing job this year, but the playoffs are different. When you're preparing for a seven game series, the players have to treat it differently. And of course, the coaches do too. And speaking of the coaches, I was on the people's show with Bick Nazar on Thursday and talking about that Tave's goal, you know, this is going to be a part of the season now where not just the players come in for criticism, but the coaching staff will too. And Rick Talkett had a depth defensive pairing and a depth line out there against Colorado's top players. And there was an icing call involved. I believe he would have had a chance to make a change and get a matchup he elected not to. And he's spoken about the fact that, you know, with Linholm, Patterson, Miller and Blueger all playing down the middle, he doesn't feel like he needs to chase the hard match as much as he might otherwise. But I think it's just an example of how the spotlight gets brighter on everyone in this organization, not just the players, not just individual mistakes, not just what happens on a certain sequence, but how the coaching staff is going to manage in game match ups, how they're going to manage practice time and rest time. And, you know, this is a group and you and I grew up in Vancouver. We know what playoff hockey is like in this city. Most of the people listening to us, remember how intense it gets in this market when this team goes to the playoffs and not just goes to the playoffs, but goes to the playoffs with legitimate expectations to go on some sort of run. And, you know, you speaking to every individual fan, some fans will say, hey, I'm just excited they're back in, some fans will say you got to win around, some fans will say you got to win two or three or even four. But no one that is currently in that organization has experienced what this market is going to be like four plus weeks from now when the puck drops for game one of the Stanley Cup playoffs. And aside from their opponents ratcheting up and their opponents honing in on their game, guess what? This city is going to reach a fever pitch in terms of the noise around this team positively when they, you know, when they play well, we know that Rogers Arena is one of the best buildings in the league. We've seen it in past years, but if things don't go well, or if some of these, you know, issues that we're talking about crop up at the most important time of the year, then we know that this fan base can be ruthless and they will be if they see a team that could and should be delivering more on the ice and off the ice when it comes to the coaching staff too. - And there's people maybe in their cars or listening on the podcast saying, hey, the bubble, the bubble was different. This was a team that was playing with house money in a lot of ways. - And they were isolated too, they were not in the city. They were not like the media they had to do in the bubble was you go sit at a podium and you get a bunch of questions from faceless people on Zoom. You only have to do the media maybe once a week because it was just two or three token guys that would talk, you know, before a game or after a game or on a practice day or whatever it might be. What it's like in this city with the media, with the fan base is like nothing any of these players have experienced before and I'm including the veteran players that have had success in one Stanley Cups like a guy like Ian Cole because guess what? It wasn't in Vancouver, it wasn't in a Canadian market and you've got no idea what your goal is. - As a guy that was there for the Stanley Cup parade when Ian Cole wanted in Pittsburgh, it was cool but it's not this, it's not where every play, every deployment is either praised or it's criticized. - Scrutinized for sure. - Yeah and go back to 2014, 2015 when the Canucks made it to the playoffs against the Calgary Flames and Willie Desjardin was behind the bench and what did we say at that time? How can you roll four lines in a playoff series? They are shredding you in that series and you aren't reacting, like that's the level of scrutiny that can be expected and that's the way it is. And then I love that about Vancouver because Vancouver hockey fans talking to some of the colleagues we have in our profession, they don't talk about it this deeply in those markets. That tells you how educated the fan base is and it demands us to be that much better when we're talking about it. But the reality is you're right, the players, this is gonna be especially coming out of the COVID years where there was an element of separation, every play is going to be Scrutinized and praised for that matter. If you have a great series and if the Canucks in the first round, you know, JT Miller goes off for Leah's Patterson, guess what? The whole world's gonna know that you had a great series 'cause Vancouver Canucks fans and the media in this city are going to be praising it and saying look at this, but it also goes the other way and that's gonna be, you're right, it's gonna be something very new for a lot of these players and they gotta get ready for that. And, you know, there has been, I would say the last year or so it's been, the heart rate hasn't been increasing in the city, whether it's the players to a certain extent because they've always kind of had to wrap up the season in April, the fans, because, you know, how excited do you get over a losing season and losing seasons? Now, every play matters. So, I think for the players, getting used to them, that play, that goal that Renton and scored is a classic example, but at least Patterson, give away to Yakov, Trenton, and Josh Manson, that leads to the penalty. That's another player, if that's in the playoffs, guess what? We're talking about that for probably an entire podcast because it started something and that's the level of scrutiny. You can expect here in Vancouver, but I would say a lot of Canadian cities. - And in Patterson's case, that's for a guy that already gets a lot of scrutiny in this market, especially since signing the contract extension. So, off the ice, that's what's to come and we're gonna see how this group manages that. On the ice, they need to get back to their, quote unquote, staples with this game against Washington on Saturday. And the funny thing is that there's been all this talk about them blowing the lead coming out of the Colorado game for the first 39 minutes and 57 seconds or whatever it was until the Avalanche got that goal from Renton that gave them life. That was one of the best games the Canucks have played this season. I thought that first period is up there for one of their best periods of the entire year. When you look at how they dictated, how they dominated, how they scored early and often against a team like Colorado, the challenge for them and it's something we've talked about all season long is sustaining that, sustaining it over 60 minutes. And it seems funny to talk about that with a team that's right near the top of the standings, but as Rick talk, it talks about, and as we just alluded to with what things are going to be like come playoff time, there's a raised bar in this market now. And that includes an expectation that this team play that way, shift in, shift out, night in, night out the rest of the way this season. - Yeah, and the 39 minutes and 57 seconds or whatever it came out to, that's good. And if this was the Vancouver Canucks earlier this year, you might even say, hey, you get the point out of that because you're still trying to set up that bar or set that standard of play. This is a team that's first in the Western Conference where you lose a three goal lead, you lose a three goal lead. It doesn't matter who you're playing. If you've in that position, it's something that you look back at and the players are not happy, the coach is not happy. Now, on that start though, two goals in the first two minutes and 44 seconds. One of the things I liked about that and I thought the first two periods that they did really well was to play with speed. You know, they identified some weaknesses with the Colorado Avalanche, especially down the wings. If you look at the second goal by McCabe where J.T. Miller attacks along that left-hand side, they were skating. The third goal as well by Zadorov, it's on the right-hand side where Garland, instead of playing a cross-sized feed, ends up playing when the Zadorov closer to the point who's creeping in, scoring, and they attacked and they played fast. Of course, Colorado makes adjustments, but the third period, really what the issue was, you eat a lot of pressure, your foot's not on the gas anymore, and you're flipping pucks out. You're just getting it out of the danger zone and what does that do? It, A, extends your shifts. You're not keeping 30-second shifts, Batch. The other thing is, when you do get out of the zone, you're just flipping it out. You're just trying to get a change. You're not getting it deep. You're not able to establish a forecheck and what does that do? That welcomes pressure where Kayle McCar, Josh Manson, whoever the defense minister is saying, "All right, we're giving space. "We're gonna make those passes. "We're gonna set up," and it's a cycle. It continues over and over and over again, and the Canucks were not able to really get it out of second gear when Colorado was basically, pedal to the metal at that point, and that's where the beginning was great, but that maybe that mentality of, "Oh, we've got this one under control," even though maybe they're not thinking that, but they were able- - Subconsciously, for sure. - Subconsciously, if you think you've got a three-goal lead, you're pretty safe. You got a cup champion in front of you. You got one of the best player in the world, according to Kita Zadora, in front of you. You give them a chance. You give them an inch. They're gonna take as much as they can get, and that's exactly what they did. - Yeah, it's about being ruthless, about not giving a good team a chance to get up off the mat. And for whatever reason, maybe it's that late goal in the second period that swings the momentum. Certainly the officiating played into it, although, as other people have said on these airwaves before, I'm not gonna use that as an excuse, because guess what? You are going to have bad calls go against you in important games the rest of the way of the regular season, and it's gonna happen in the playoffs, too. We've seen playoff series swing on bad calls. Think about the Cody Eacon situation. - Yeah, I'm the milky. - The Vegas San Jose series a few years back. Like, that's a series-costing call, but it only becomes that if you allow it to be. And that's what I come back to here is, you can have bad calls in a game, and it's about how you respond when that adversity hits you. And really, that's what this whole conversation is about, is it's not about individual execution on certain plays, although that does come into it. It's about how you deal with adversity. So how you deal with the avalanche, turning it up a notch, and pressuring you, and whether you're able to meet that pressure with pressure, as Rick Talkett says, or not. It's about how do you respond emotionally and keep yourself focused on the game when a call goes against you? How are you gonna respond and react when there's more spotlight on you in this market when the games mean so much come late April? It's all about this team's ability to overcome adversity, and because they didn't have much adversity for most of the year, not just with their results on the ice, but with injuries like right now, we're talking about Thatcher. Demko's out multiple weeks, Dakota Joshua's been out of the lineup, and I think with every passing game we understand more and more how much they miss him. This is where adversity hits, and this is where you find out what you're made of. Nobody's gonna care that you had the great start in October and November. Nobody's gonna care that you were great prior to the all-star break. If you don't show up when it counts, now down the stretch and into April and potentially May and potentially June. - If I were to write a self-help book, I know I'm going on a tangent here, the first chapter would be Embrace Being Uncomfortable. And that's what the Canucks need to do here because that's what the playoffs all about, and even looking at these guys as individual stories, most of them leave their hometown to play junior, they embrace being uncomfortable. It's not like they're new to this. They've been doing this their whole life. So, on the ice, the playoffs is just another level of that, where you're in a situation where it's going to be a war of attrition. It's going to be so difficult to break down some of these teams. And what excites me about the Vancouver Canucks is against LA, against Vegas, they were able to do that. They were able to play that style to say, you know what, this could be a playoff team because they have this element in them. But when you're playing a heavyweight, a heavyweight in the NHL, can you bring that game in, game out? And that's why Colorado, you could just say, hey, Colorado's got their number. Styles make fights and Colorado's style, and the punch that they pack is just not good for Vancouver. I can understand that to a certain degree, but Vancouver had them. So, you know, they had them there for two periods, but three nothing lead. So, to me, that was a situation where you're saying, this team in the last two games against the Colorado Avalanche can compete and can they do it, you know, can they keep their composure, can they embrace being uncomfortable? And that's what this is all about. We're Vegas last year. This was a team that, yes, they had depth, but at the same time when the going got tough and Florida brought that for check, you know what, they were so good at avoiding that for check and moving the puck up the ice and also leaning into being uncomfortable that they just elevated their game and that Stanley Cup final and Florida ran out of gas. Like, that's the element, that's the layers to your game that you need to have. The Vancouver Canucks certainly have that to a certain degree, but Batch, when you start playing the heavyweights and you mentioned it earlier on, Nashville's the hottest team in the NHL right now. If the playoffs started today, I don't think that many teams want to play Nashville. Edmonton, we know what they are. LA still got that DNA where they could grind games down. Vegas, as much as they are in mess right now, if it's the playoffs, they still are forced to be reckoned with and I'm not even gonna get into the central division because we know what they are. Those are really good teams. It's gonna be uncomfortable, whoever you play in the playoffs, so you gotta get comfortable with that. - Well, here more about Randeep's self-help book. When we come back, we're also gonna talk about Elias Patterson because he's kind of been under the microscope here for his individual play too and we will get into some listener questions and do the rose ceremony before we get out of here as well. It's all still to come right here on "In the Booth" on your official "Home of the Canucks" Sportsnet 650. (upbeat music) - Welcome back to "In the Booth" on Sportsnet 650 with myself branded bachelor and Randeep Chando. We do this show every week. If you're listening on the radio, you've missed any part of the program. It lives as a podcast too. On the Canucks Central podcast feed, make sure you subscribe to it to get Canucks Central every weekday with sat and reach. You get every Canucks post game show with sat and bick and you get "In the Booth" with Randeep and I as well. Elias Patterson has signed his new deal here, Randeep. He's going to be a Vancouver Canucks for the long term, a max term of eight more seasons beyond this one. And there was a school of thought that getting that out of the way, getting rid of the noise, getting rid of the distraction would be a good thing for Elias Patterson's game and would allow him to get back to focusing on what he does best, which has helped the Vancouver Canucks win hockey games. And I'm not going to sit here and say Patterson has been bad in the last few games, but I think it is fair to say there is another level that the Canucks would like him to reach, especially prior to the postseason and everything we talked about in our opening segment. What are you seeing from Elias Patterson right now? What isn't there? And what does he need to do about it individually and maybe from a team perspective, what can they do to try and get him going here? - Yeah, on Elias Patterson, I think when you start looking at his play and there was some good stuff in that stretch where the Canucks ended up winning four in a row. There was an element of, okay, he's playing a solid 200 foot game. Maybe the production is not necessarily there. And if you go back to those games, he had what two goals in the last five, including the Colorado game. But I thought there was trending in the right direction. But here's the question I have with Elias Patterson, not for his career, but for his here and now, is in those match ups, in those head-to-head match ups, when you are playing the best players on the other side, top two lines. And in that game, he mostly got the Casey Middlestadt line, which is a good line, but is it an elite line in the NHL? Not really, right? This is a player in Middlestadt that's trying to figure out who he is with the Colorado Avalanche as well. And that line of Patterson's suitor and Hoaglander was in the negative across the board. And it's not only the third period. It was whether it's high danger chances, whether it's scoring chances. They didn't give up a technically a five on five goal when they were on the ice. But still, they were hemmed in. They were not playing a strong game. So to me, when I look at Elias Patterson and the way his game needs to trend, we've seen this before. We've seen how he's been able to dominate matchups. Batch, to me, it's about winning your matchup because there will be, and I believe, I know Rick Talkett says he doesn't necessarily believe in our matchups, but I think those are gonna be a thing in the playoffs where you're gonna be playing a really good team on the opposite side. You've got three centers that you're comfortable with, but there's a hierarchy on who you feel comfortable with. Petey's gotta win his matchups, plain and simple. - Yeah, and you know, speaking of hard matchups, we saw it in the last game against the Kings on the recent road trip where Jim Hiller hard matched the Miller line and the Patterson line every single shift pretty well. Like I honestly was paying close attention to it as we were calling that game. And it felt like every time one of those lines came out over the boards, the line that was hard matching them came out over the boards too. And that ties back to what we were talking about in the first segment about how Rick Talkett is going to be under the microscope too in terms of how he manages the bench in a playoff series. But you know, that really is what it comes down to when you're playing the same team, potentially seven games in a row. If your lines win their matchups more than the other team or three of your lines win their matchup and only one of their lines wins their matchup, that's how you win. That's how you sustain success against the same team on multiple nights in succession. And that's concerning at least at the moment. And again, there's lots of time for them to figure it out. So I'm not, you know, pushing the panic button here yet by any means, but they need Patterson to win his matchups and they need that line to be a play driving line for them. And that was not the case against Colorado. And it's something where you look at Patterson and part of this conversation is always going to come back to who's he playing with? Because I, you know, I saw this earlier this week on Twitter when I tweeted out a quote from Patterson talking about what he needs to do in his personal game. And he didn't really want to get into it with the media. Kind of gave a bit of a frosty response when questioned on his game. But you look at some of the other top players in the league and the guys they have with them on their lines, like McKinnon has ranted and we just saw that. You know, we know McDavid gets to play with Dreycidal or Hyman, those are both great players in the league. - 46 goal score is that Hyman, you know? - Exactly. Elias Patterson does not have that elite level winger right now. And so for some people out there in the fan base, they're, you know, willing to let him off the hook to a certain extent for that. I feel like anyway, that's some of the sentiment I've seen, but that's not going to fly internally with this organization because this is a guy that's now signed the richest contract in franchise history. If he can't be a play driver and a difference maker for you, then who can't? - The key word there, the key word is play driver, right? That's something that where up until maybe his contract being signed batch, who was the best play driver on that line when it was a duo, it was Niels Hoaglander, who was actually, during a stretch of time, playing better than Elias Patterson, being more consistent than Elias Patterson. So yeah, he's got to make a difference in that regard. And the domino effect here is, if everything works out and you get back to the best of Elias Patterson, which we saw at the beginning of this year, you're not complaining about anything. He's amongst the best players in the NHL when he plays that way. But if you don't, that puts more pressure on JT Miller to produce. That puts more pressure on that Besser and Miller line, which is probably going to get the toughest match up there is in the playoffs as of right now because, hey, that's the one that Rick Talkett feels most comfortable with, you know, hard matching against potentially the other team's best line. But also, if you're looking at the opposition, if you're looking at Vancouver Canucks right now, you're probably saying, hey, if we're going best on best, JT Miller's the guy that's been really bringing it this year, that's who you're targeting. So more than anything, if Patterson's line can't figure it out, the offense has to come from somewhere. And that's probably the Miller Besser line. So you're actually loading up that line with more expectation, more responsibility. And JT plays a pretty physical game, which is only going to ratchet up in the playoffs. And if you look at that Colorado game, you're in kind of isolation. And that Josh Manson play was a dirty hit. I thought it should have been five. You know, there was a lot of text coming, a lot of tweets, the whole thing. But here's the thing, that's going to be the standard. If he's your big dog and you rely on him, guess what, every defense when you play against is going to be giving him an extra shot. They're going to tow that line to be. All right, we're going to make him a target. And if everybody knows JT Miller's the best way to for the Vancouver Canucks to win, he's going to be that much bigger of a target in the playoffs. So I think with Alias Patterson, you know, there's an expectation of you're now one of the best paid players in the league starting next year. But Batch, there's also an element of, you got to spread out the love here. So you got to have balance. Otherwise, that's a lot of expectation, a lot of responsibility for the JT Miller line. - So yeah, it would be interesting to see again, in terms of match ups, if you do end up having three lines that you trust, then in theory, one of those three lines gets a favorable match up. And that puts pressure on that line to create offense too. And, you know, for home games in the playoffs, maybe that's something that Rick Talkett's able to carve out for that Patterson line. But then you have to make the most of that opportunity if that's given to you. So I'm going to be interested, you know, we've already talked about how this team responds to adversity in the next month, telling us a lot about things going forward. I think that also applies to Patterson individually. And I've got no reason to doubt him. We've seen him elevate his game in the past. He was tremendous in the bubble playoffs in 2020, although, as we already talked about, this time around, it's going to be a whole different animal. So I have the faith in Patterson to do it, but again, going back to what Rick Talkett said on Friday after practice, you got to start doing it now. You don't have that much runway left and it's not going to be a situation where you can flip a switch, come April. - And quickly on the lineman situation, Rick Talkett has also said, hey, Sidney Crosby has had a rotation of wingers over the years. And not everybody is Sidney Crosby. That's, of course, the gold standard. But when you are paid a certain amount, when you are seen as a top 10 player in the NHL, one of the best centers in the league, there's an expectation that, of course, we're going to try to get you the best guy we possibly can, but there's an expectation you're going to be elevating the players next to you. So yeah, this is, you know, a stretch where I'm sure it's challenging for Elise Patterson because you want to play better than this, but you still have a month to figure your game out and really ramp it up to be ready for the start of the playoffs, whoever that match ups against. - Well, one thing we also need to talk about is tempers boiling over at practice on Thursday. And this was something that I tweeted out and it got a lot of run. I've still got, you know, mentions coming in from this tweet, you know, more than a full day later here at time of recording, but-- - You didn't have the video. I saw people are like, video or it didn't happen, apparently. - Well, nobody had the video. Like even the camera guys weren't ready and rolling to get it. And you know, I work for a radio station. So I never take video like that's not my job. Come on, people. But they did a small area battle drill and we've seen them do this exact drill in the past and we've seen tempers boil over in this exact drill. This time it was Connor Garland and Philip Hironic and the way I phrased it in my tweet was they came to blows. It wasn't a full on fight, but there were cross checks, there were shoves, there were gloves in the face and they had to be separated by teammates in particular Ian Cole who jumped in there and made sure that that didn't get any worse. And trust me, because I sent out this tweet, I've seen a range of opinions from, you know, Garland is a locker room cancer and needs to be traded to this is so awesome. And I definitely come down on that this is so awesome side of the ledger because to me, this is a group that should be unhappy coming off a game like that against Colorado should be unhappy and not content with the way that they've played really over the last month or so. And to see that boil over in practice to me is a positive because it shows that guys care, it shows that guys are willing to battle even if it's with their own teammates and then they can put it aside after practice is done and move on, but you have to have that intensity to level both in games and in practice in order to make yourself better and to make your teammates better. - Yeah, you wanna hit that level of intensity and show it's to Rick Talkett because he knows what he's doing here. This has been done before, Connor Garland mentioned it in the availability that, you know, these usually come after a loss, the small area of battle drills. This is intentional by the coach to say it. I don't know if you have the intensity that you needed to have in that third period. So let's bring it out another way. And Connor Garland had a similar situation with Dakota Joshua where Queen Hughes had to play a little bit of referee or third men in. He actually was doing some pushing and shoving as well. - Special guest referee. - Yeah, exactly. With a little bit of like not one of the straight up referees, there's also some pushing involved in that one. - It's like Stone Cold wearing the referee T-shirt. - Exactly. So that was at the beginning of the year. Roger Zorino, one practice, I remember I was sitting right next to you, we're chatting about it and they had a small area battle drill and it was Zadorovini and Cole. They collide and Zadorov big body that he is. He wants to set the tone early on this drill and yeah, down goes Ian Cole and Cole responds with a cross check. Two minutes later, they're cracking jokes and they're laughing about it. So that's kind of the nature of it. Sometimes the intensity of that drill is out there to see and for people behind the scenes a little bit as well. You know, there's generally one or two players that really set the tone. I mentioned Zadorov, JT Miller is like that as well. - Garland is one of those guys too, yeah. - Connor Garland is one of those guys that does not take a step back, he'll lean into it. It's a good thing to have because that shows that yes, players care, but sometimes, sometimes in any team environment, let's take a group project 'cause I was definitely a member of this in high school where some guys need a wake-up call and Connor Garland, JT Miller, those are two guys that will lean into and say, all right, let's see what you got. Let's see if you're awake. I like that in a team environment. I got wake-up calls on those group projects too and sometimes you need that in a team environment. - Absolutely. So that was a big talking point from this week and it'll be interesting to see the level of intensity that the Canucks play with on Saturday against Washington. Another thing I wanted to talk about before we get to listener questions is the power play because it's come under scrutiny. They worked on it quite a lot at practice on Friday at UBC and they didn't just work on it, they worked on it in terms of full ice. So oftentimes again, to take people behind the curtain when they work on the power play, they already are set up in the zone and they work on what they want to do when they're in the zone. But on Friday, it was puck is 200 feet away from where you want it to be. How are you breaking out? How are you dealing with forward checking pressure from the penalty killers? How are you getting zone entries, which I think is a crucial factor that has really cut this power play off at the knees lately? And then once you've got through all that, what do you do once you set up in the zone to try and create offense and score goals? And Connor Garland remains on the first power play unit. I know that's a decision that is liked by some and not by others because again, Twitter mentions, I hear all about it from you guys. What do you think about the power play units, the way they're currently constructed and what are you seeing or maybe more importantly not seeing from the man advantage right now? - Yeah, early on I thought it was, once they set up, there's a lot of tentative players. That's kind of shifted here and the zone entries are the biggest problem area for me because you're starting to see a couple of things where it's either that same play where JT Miller kind of goes on to the right-hand side and waits to make that pass. Teams have done their homework. They know the tendencies of JT. They know the tendencies of the Vancouver Canucks. They do their homework. They do their pre-scout. The other thing is when it's not that play, it's very individual and you're starting to see players kind of trying to fight through there and make their own play and that can work to a certain point but you get crowded out and guess what happens? You lose the puck, nobody's supporting you and down goes the puck. So to me, those zone entries are the biggest problem that you have and that really starts with do you have enough speed coming through the neutral zone even on the power play where you have the man advantage of is it comfortable for teams to stand you up with the blue line? So batch, the zone entry practice is much needed for this team because I would say about, been about two weeks since we've been talking about it. Yes, they were tentative to shoot. Yes, they were forcing passes in but let's be honest, the zone entries have been an issue going about a month back and that's the biggest problem I see with this team right now in terms of the power play. - Yeah, absolutely because if you can't gain the zone and you can't get to a spot to create those opportunities then the rest of it doesn't matter. Like let's say you are tentative and not shooting the puck enough or not getting those opportunities when you're in the zone. Well, if you can't even get in the zone then we don't even get to analyze that and I think teams are doing a much better job of standing them up at the blue line and it's now up to this group of players to battle through that and that's one of the reasons Garland's out there is because he actually is pretty good at gaining the zone at times. He's a bit of a slippery player that can fight his way through defense and Rick Talkett also mentioned puck retrievals in relation to Garland too as he thinks they need to hunt down Poxon and maybe they're being outworked by penalty kills to a certain extent at the moment. Garland is one of those guys that if he's in a situation to get that puck more often than not he's not gonna let that happen. - And the Zadorov goal is a classic example. We're right hand side coming in with speed into the zone. Can you set that up? Can you set up other player shots? Or at the very least set up possession is the most important thing for this power play right now. - All right, let's get to a couple of listener questions here with a few minutes left on the show. Let's start with Scott on Twitter who writes in and says if Canucks management is unable to sign blueger Zadorov and Joshua to team friendly contracts which one would you prioritize given what's in the farm system? And I already think that Zadorov is not going to be a priority. We heard Elliot Friedman and Jeff Merrick talk about this on the latest 32 thoughts podcast that they think Tyler Myers is someone that the organization wants to prioritize extending and bringing back which may price Zadorov out of Vancouver in terms of what the Canucks can afford under the cap. But especially with what's gone on here over the last few weeks, to me Dakota Joshua has to be the guy you prioritize just because of how much they have missed him and his for checking ability in the lineup of late. - Yeah, I think in terms of Zadorov, especially for a player that is 20 years of age, you're gonna be looking for a pretty healthy contract at this point in your career. There is a bit of a crowding on the left-hand side as well where you've got Carson Susie, you've got Quinn Hughes, you've got potentially Ian Cole if you want to keep him around on a one-year deal or other defenseman that may be able to jump up into a third pair spot. So I don't necessarily see that fit for a Nikita Zadorov especially on a long-term deal. - And that might be a cost situation where if it's going to be your third pairing left shot defenseman, let's say they don't bring Cole or Zadorov back, but they like Susie in a top four role and based on the way he's played this year, you can understand why, it's about how many dollars are you able to commit to your third pairing defenseman and does Zadorov's, you know, the window of opportunity, he has to make money here on the open market. Does it exceed that? I believe it's going to. So unless he wants to take a haircut and take a discount to stay in Vancouver and be a part of what's happening here, it's going to be difficult for them to keep him around. - Yeah, good players, probably bad timing with where he is in his career and how much he's probably going to command. But going back to Dakota Joshua and Teddy Blueger, we were asked this question, I feel like a couple of months back, my answer at that point was Teddy Blueger. - Your mind was as well. - I am shifting that a little bit here because the forecheck, the size, the unicorn that Dakota Joshua is, it's much needed on this team, but here's the issue, price point. Teddy Blueger is an easier deal for me I think to get done. Dakota Joshua, that's a tricky one because there is a walk away number. There is a walk away with number and just saying, hey, this is a player that really helps us, but what is that number? And how much is too much for a player? That's still going to be a bottom six forward for you. - Another question in this kind of dovetails from this conversation from Clark who asks, which line should Joshua play on when he returns to the lineup? And to me, there's only one answer to this question. It is the third line. It is in Podkoles in Spot where he is in the lineup right now. And that doesn't necessarily mean I'm bumping Podkoles and out of the lineup, but I think the more interesting question around Joshua's return in the next few weeks here is not where does Joshua go? 'Cause I think it's pretty clear Joshua and Garland should and probably will go back together with the partnership they were able to create earlier this year. The question for me is, does Elias Lindholm get a chance to be the centerman on that line? Or does Teddy Blueger get his spot back right away? - Yeah, and I'd like to see Blueger, Joshua, Garland at some point, but I think Lindholm to me is the one you start off with because that offensive ceiling is much higher there and he is a good 200 foot player. 'Cause remember, Teddy Blueger, even though that line has been the best third line in hockey, how did Teddy Blueger get that job? Remember, it was Sutter, Garland, Joshua and then Blueger ends up being elevated in that spot when Sutter goes down with injury and they run with it. So I wouldn't mind seeing Lindholm in that spot just because there's more offense in his game. He brings a defensive commitment. He's not as physical as a Teddy Blueger and maybe that's where you'll lose out. But to me, that's a scoring line as well. So I'd like to see that, I think with Pod Colson, if you bump him from that third spot, you're probably having a competition between him and PDG on the fourth line. Whoever's playing better, whoever's bringing that four check consistently, that's who I want to see on the fourth line and that's not a bad spot for a facility, Pod Colson. - Okay, one more question Randy from one of our listeners. Let's go to the last one, you've got it, right? - This one's from Puckmama. Is there a stat that tracks how many times a player gets hit? I feel like one of the reasons Hughes is so effective is that he avoids hits and thus hasn't missed any game. So we aimed to please your in the booth and I had a conversation with our friends at SportLogic and right before we recorded, we got that number for you. Quinn Hughes has been hit 76 times this year, which is ranked 124th in the NHL. For a player that possesses the puck that much and to be ranked 124th in that stat is pretty amazing. - Yeah, it is and it shows how elusive he is and how much he's able to avoid pressure. That's such a key part of Hughes' ability to transition the puck so well and long may it continue for him because the way he's doing it right now, he's almost in touchable. - One thing is different though and we've talked to players in the past who are in the playoffs, you know, one of 82, you're not able to play as a forecheck or maybe hard every single game. The degree is, you know, the temperature's going to go so much further up for every defenseman but it's going to get more difficult for a Quinn Hughes too. So he's excelling right now but avoiding those hits in the playoffs batch, it's tougher because every player, every forecheck or every F1, they're trying to dispossess the puck, of course, but they're trying to inflict damage. It's that war of attrition. So it's a great skill set to have and you expect him to thrive in the playoffs too but I also wonder about the rest of the back end because they're going to experience something that they haven't experienced this year at all. - All right, before we get out of here, let's get to the Rose ceremony, Randy. You can do the honors, who are you giving your Rose to this week? - It's got to be Nikita Zadora, right? Like you're talking about a player that over the last two to three weeks, he's an individual that's playing physical, he's got swagger, he's got that intimidation factor which is what we saw into Winnipeg where he threw a couple of hits on Adam Lowry and guess what? You didn't hear much from Adam Lowry in that game and he's chipping in with goals and points. I don't know if the long-term stay in Vancouver makes sense as we just discussed but to me, this is a guy that just makes his teammates. He makes them play bigger which is what you want, especially as you trend towards the playoffs. - I'm gonna give my Rose to Casey to Smith this week as a guy that is being thrust into the spotlight here with the injury to Thatcher Demko and gave his team a chance to win against the Colorado Avalanche the other night. Unfortunately, they didn't take that opportunity but you don't hang that loss on to Smith at all in my mind. I thought he had a pretty solid outing and it'll be interesting to see how he manages this workload going through the rest of this nine-game homestead. All right, Randy, before we get out of here, Hockey Night in Canada, Punjabi coming up Saturday night. What do you guys have on the show? - We got Montreal in Calgary in game one, a rare 4 p.m. start in Calgary this weekend is Montreal's going through town and we've also got Colorado Edmonton, which is a battle of McDavid McKinnon. Let's see who's the favorite for the heart trophy. My opinion's Nathan McKinnon but that's on Hockey Night in Canada, Punjabi this weekend. And of course, I'll be watching the Canucks game and Washington on tape delays. So we're ready for next week. - Yes and I will have the call not on tape delay but live on the radio with Brett Festerling, Canucks in Capital, seven o'clock Saturday night, the pregame show begins at six and we'll talk to you then right here on the official home of the Canucks Sportsnet 650.
