Nux Central Monday, it's Dan Ritcho, Satyar Shah, here in the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, Power by thousands of 5 star Google reviews. More feet, what are you waiting for, Kintec Central is for Enzhan Pacific Vancouver's Premier Chrysler, Dodge Ram and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Canby and Maine or an Enzhan Pacific Chrysler.ca. Man, the weather's been gorgeous this weekend. Delightful. I'm almost like mad about it though. Why? Because like I looked at the forecast afterwards and then for like the next three weeks we're going to get back to the spring rain season. So it's just like thanks for teasing us with this beautiful summer weather this weekend. Now let's go back to your regularly scheduled programming of endless rain for days on days. Or you could enjoy the moment and not worry about the dread that's to come. You know, you can enjoy today tomorrow and then worry about that when it comes, you know. It's not supposed to rain all that much. Yeah. Just a big cloudy cooling down. It was supposed to be cold, the lows were like, the highs were like eight or seven degrees and then it's changed. Now the lowest, you know, it's going to get over the next few days is like ten or eleven so it turns out weather is hard to predict and the whole weather thing. So it's not bad reach, it's not bad. How about it? It's a nice little preview for what's to come. Yeah. And well, maybe it gets the Canucks kicked back into gear as well after Saturdays. Well, maybe they were also distracted. I mean, Saturday was such a beautiful day. It was. Do you think they were a bit, you know, distracted by the nice weather? I'll say this. My beer league hockey team last night, we had great, like, we had a full team. It was like 13 skaters signed up. We were ready to go. We're going to have three lines, four D for the first time in weeks. By the time we got to game time, half the team dropped out. Yeah. Yeah. Nope. Too many day beers. I'm good. It was too nice. It was too nice. I got to five o'clock hockey on a Sunday when it's this nice out. Come on. Maybe the Canucks need the rain. So they can stay home and focus and think about hockey only. All right. Let's get to the open. Welcome to the open. That's your home. Are you too good for your home? Answer me. That last clip, Windham Clark, on 18 at Sawgrass yesterday after he basically went in and out to tie Scotty Scheffler and force a playoff, but it didn't happen. Really a lip out as the ball mostly is on the outside. That entire ball was in the hole. Like I swear that ball was in the hole. I don't know why. I just genuinely dislike Windham Clark for absolutely no reason. Last year of the US Open, I was cheering against him. Yesterday, I was cheering against him for absolutely, like the guy's never done anything to me. Because his name is Windham? It might be. It might be. I don't know. Like a random name. Get out of here with that Windham. So there was maybe a little small fist bump that it came all the way out of the hole. But man, that was a heartbreaker. Wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, except for Windham Clark, of course. It's Dan Recho and Satyar Shah, the Canucks on Saturday losing 2-1 to Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. The more I thought about this game, and I re-watched a little bit of it yesterday morning, Sat, and genuinely depressed that I actually re-watched some of that game, but it was about as bad, especially the second period as we've seen the Canucks play at any point this season. Right? And I almost felt like, and I thought about it, okay, you had great performances against the LA Kings and you beat the Vegas Golden Knights pretty handily and you have Colorado as well. You have that four game win streak, you smashed Winnipeg out of the water and you have that game against Colorado where you play pretty well, for most of it, and the back half of the game, it sort of lets up. And then you got a couple of days off before you play the Washington Capitals, kind of a outside looking in desperate hockey team in the wildcard race of the Eastern Conference. But the more I thought about it, it almost, instead of maybe overthinking and over analyzing how poor the Canucks were on Saturday, was it just a natural letdown spot for the team after what was a pretty good stretch of games, a very good stretch of games outside of one period against Colorado that maybe I should have seen coming more? I mean, I don't know. I thought the way they played against Washington isn't exactly excusable. That's how I viewed it. But at the same time, I'm not really worried at all. So yesterday, I checked some of my mentions and I was like, "No, I'm good for the rest of the day. I'm good. It's too nice out. I'm not dwelling in this." I'm not, you know, I'm not answering these questions, like you were like, "So how's your boy P.D. now?" You know, they shouldn't have paid them the money. It's like, you guys need to relax, right? Like everyone needs to be like, "No, it's only just begun, Seth." You know, and then, you know, there are other ones coming in about, "Yeah, this team is terrible now." It's like, you know, what about like, you know, Pedersen's on a horrible contract, Horvats on a bargain deal, and it's like, "Well, you know, Pedersen's only four years younger and signed the contract early." And everyone needs to relax. That's how I feel about everything. I want to need to calm down. It seems like every time this team loses or has a couple of bad performances, it's an existential crisis, and it's like, "Is this team ever going to figure it out? Are they just a pretender? Maybe they're not as good as we thought they were. They're going to lose in the first round." And perhaps those things are true, but we can't have that reaction after every single time to lose a game or have a bad performance. And I think the way they play the season, and as you mentioned, that four-game winning streak, they showed a lot of good things again, right? So I'm not concerned. I feel like they're going to figure it out. It's just one of those things that they're going through right now, and the good thing is they're sitting there with 92 points, and they still have, what, 14 more games to go on the season. Yeah. When like eight or nine of those, how about you do that, and then we don't have to worry about anything anymore? Yeah. Yeah. The door is ajar, slightly ajar for the Edmonton Oilers to maybe get back in this, but the Canucks very much really hold the keys to that. And if they take care of their own business, then it really won't matter all that much. Yeah. I mean, Edmonton has three games in hand. Yes. If they win all three, they'll still be two points back of Vancouver. Yes. Now, if they're going to win all three, they have a tough schedule as well. Vancouver just needs to take care of business, and I feel like they're going to. Like, I'm not concerned about what's going on with this team right now. Saturday night had a lot of elements that were not great, but I am willing to give them a mulligan since I am feeling the golf season right now. I am willing to say they've got a mulligan on this one, just given that they did play so well for much of the games in the lead up to Saturday's loss to Washington outside of, of course, the final period and a half, maybe two periods against the Colorado Avalanche. So we're going to get into some of the stuff that happened at practice today and some of the new looks that are happening, but did want to touch on Patrick Allvey making some comments to Pierre Lebron in the athletic and mainly saying that they'll wait to sign unrestricted free agents until after the season, unless some of these upcoming UFAs are willing to take team-friendly deals. What did you make of this comment from Patrick Allvey? I think it's kind of on par with a lot of things we've seen from them in terms of the values they put on players, and we'll talk about her own it coming up in a second, but they clearly have a value set for the players they want to keep, and they don't want to go above it. And as we discussed about Blue Gur and Joshua specifically, I think those two are players that connect would love to keep, but are you going to pay them whatever they want? Probably not. If they're looking at, you know, three million plus per year, I just don't know if that's going to happen with these guys, right? Especially given what they've shown to be an ability to find players and find players that can fit in with their team. Yeah. And if you trust in your ability to find players, especially guys that are going to be playing more supporting, you know, cast roles for you, should you be paying a premium to keep all your guys that are having good seasons? So I think it's kind of in line with everything we've seen with them. They'd love to keep guys, but they want to keep them at a number that makes sense for this team. And if they're not going to play ball, there's no sense of sitting here and talking about it. Even as much as the the salary cap is going up, you still have to be careful of over committing to secondary players. I don't mean to be disrespectful at all to the bluegers and Joshua's and Lafferty's and these types Cole, even Myers. But that's just the way of the NHL. And we saw this with the previous regime, you just, you can't over commit to secondary players. You can't give them too much money. You can't because then it ends up being death by a thousand cuts against the salary cap because you've given this guy 750 K too much. This guy's making a million and a half too much and this guy's making two million too much. And it adds up. And now all of a sudden your roster is very inefficient. One of the things that's been great about the roster this year is you actually look at it and it's pretty efficient the way that it is lined up right now. It's not perfect, really no team in the league is, but from where they were to where they are today, they are very efficient and that's why you just, you can't over commit to support players. No, you can't. And also when we're looking at having to pay your top guys money, right, I mean Patterson's now got a big contract. I mean, hey, JT's outperforming his deal, but still eight million years is making almost eight million. All these numbers start adding up and we know that they still need some more high end talent. Like what this team still needs is another play driving forward. Yes. You know, now Lindholm, his fit is, you know, the hope had been to keep him, but is that actually going to happen? You know, he mentions the piece too about Lindholm that we'll let it play out and we'll see if this fit actually works right or side, especially given, you know, what the contract demands may be, it might be very difficult, but if it's not Lindholm staying, I would imagine they were looking to add another significant player to the group at some point, right? You can use Jake, Jake Genswell as an example, perhaps let's say he is a free agent and let's say that's a guy they pursue, well, what's the money going to be for him? Eight million, nine million. So if you're looking to still add a big time player, whether that's retaining Lindholm, a player like Genswell or somebody else, right? How can you be paying him eight or nine? Yeah. And then, you know, you're giving Joshua through, you're giving Bluegour three, you know, like you just can't do that. So you have to make it, this is just this decision somewhere. And as much as it sucks, because all these guys have been a really nice contributor to this team, is Dakota, Joshua, the type of player you have to pay anything to keep? Or do you want to keep him at a number that makes sense? Now, given his absence, I know a lot of people say maybe they should, you know, do what they can to keep him. He's a more rare player profile type. But if you can get three million plus for four or five years, yeah, I just don't know if that's something Vancouver is going to want to do. I just, I don't think Dakota, Joshua is really in that in my mind yet, right? Like he's a great player and has been a great find for the Canucks. But at the end of the day, I mean, he was on pace for 20 goals this year. And that's great as a third liner. But it's also great as a third liner when you're making less than a million bucks rather than between three and four million dollars. Yeah. But at the same time, he has a rare player profile. He's big. He skates well. He can score a bit. And he's a good defensive player. He's good on the PK as well, right? Yeah. And he's got some toughness to him. He was one of the league leaders and hits before he got injured. He's not afraid of dropping the gloves if he has to. That's how he got injured even, right? I agree. Like I look at Tommy Novak's contract and I don't think there's a market for him to get more than Novak got who different positions, but similarly late bloomers. But Novak's been even more productive and he's taken three million, like 10 and a half over three years, for instance. Nashville, no tax state though. It's different, right? Yeah. But at the same time, that's not a player that he is. Do they feel like they can go to free agency? Like somebody would overpay for him. And if that's the case, Vancouver is not going to be outbidding teams. So I think what Alveen mentioned is, yeah, like we love to keep guys if they're willing to give us big discounts to stay relative to what they can potentially make on the free agent market. And I think that's how you have to approach things. Like, I don't look at any of those guys as you have to do everything humanly possible to keep them. I like to keep them, but I'd go look for, you know, the next Dakota Joshua potentially as opposed to paying him, you know, the type of value, the type of contract that may not make sense. So Elliot Friedman was on with Donnie and Dolly Don Taylor is going to join us after 4.30. And while he was asked about Philopronik and the ongoing negotiation between the Canucks and their start offense. But of course, here on this show, Patrick Alveen mentioned that they had tabled an offer to Philopronik. Here is what Elliot Friedman is hearing about how that negotiation is going and what it might take to get to Philopronik done on a new contract with the Canucks. I think if he wants to be a Canucks and they want him to be a Canucks, there's a deal to be made. And I have no reason to believe at this point in time record on that he does not want to be a Vancouver Canucks. So I think there's a deal to be made. That's number one. Number two, look, it depends on what the number is. You know, I think if we're talking max seven and a half, I think there's absolutely a deal to be made there. I think if we're going higher there, then we could have a problem. But as far as I sit here today with you on this Monday, March the 18th, I have no reason to believe that a deal here is impossible to do. So there is Elliot Friedman on what the negotiation could look like, mentions the number seven and a half. And if it goes above that, then maybe things go a little bit haywire. Well, it's, you know, like I've been saying, I don't think the Canucks have any interest in paying him anything close to eight million per season. Yeah. I'm not even sure 7.5 to be honest. No, I'm not saying they wouldn't. I'm just saying I'm not sure about 7.5. Like I said before, I think they would love to keep it under seven. I don't know if that's realistic, right? So would you do seven one seven two somewhere in that range potentially, right? But if you're willing to go there, maybe they look at it and say maybe we just, you know, plug our nose and do it because cap's going up, he's productive, it's working. We're talking about a couple hundred thousand here. We're now talking about an eight million figure, right? Maybe 7.4 or something, right? So I think what Elliot is mentioning it being doable, I think 7.5 might be tough for the Canucks to do in terms of this, not where we want to go. But like Elliot mentions, you go there, you deal probably gets done. Yeah. And if you were talking about say the team might be sitting at, and again, hypothetical here, right? Let's say the team is sitting at 7.1 and they're at 7.5. We're talking 400k per year. Do you split the difference 7.3? Let's all be happy and get it done. Or do you look at it and say maybe we get closer to 7.5 and get this deal done, right? Because if that's the difference of what we're talking about here, then maybe there is a deal to be done. My biggest concern had been if they're trying to get eight million plus, there's no deal to be made. Yeah. And I think the fact that Elliot mentions this, I don't think Ellie comes out and says this if he doesn't feel pretty good about the info. So I think it kind of tells you that the range that perhaps her own ex-campus pushing for may not be the eight million plus because that wouldn't work. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the message has been received, like eight million is not going to happen here. Right. So now you're kind of figuring out what the number in the sevens is. Yeah. And the whole eight million thing, not to dispute Frank's Air Valley's reporting on it. But sometimes when you're going into a negotiation, you're starting in a negotiation, you start on the high end of where you're willing to accept and you eventually come down to what you know the market is willing to bear or closer to what the market is willing to bear. And one of those things too, where it's, this is something you could get, but it's not what you could get in Vancouver. Yes. And there's always a difference between what you can get elsewhere versus what you can get in the market you're currently in, eight million out of things on the table form in Vancouver, elsewhere potentially. So how badly do you want to be a conoch? That's ultimately what it comes down to. And for total money, like what does that mean? Kind of like we talked about with Earth last Tuesday. And as we've talked about this, probably a little bit more than 50 million. But it's, if it does get done, I would imagine it's in that 52 to $56 million range total money. JT Miller got 56 million. Right. Yeah. So if you're doing, so it now depends on the years. Right. So it's 7.5 over 7, then well, I mean, just short of 56 million. Yeah. Your, your shortest 56 million, right? It's about 53 million or so, right? So okay. But does he want the eighth year? And if you want eight years, is the number 7.5 versus slightly less, right? So I mean, the 7.5 really to me, the bigger thing is, is over talking six to eight years. Because it, we mean 7.5 over seven years. It's a lot more digestible than 7.508. Yeah. So we'll, we'll end up seeing where it ends up with Philip Herronik. Because if you were seven and a half over eight, yeah. That means you're paying him more than total money than JT Miller. JT Miller. Now, does that matter or not? I don't know. Like I'm just saying, I don't think they want to pay him more on an AAV than. That's 60 million. But he gets more years. So he's going to get more money. So if he signs even point 7.5 over seven, that's still more money than he uses getting a shoe sign for six years, a 7.85, right? So does a total money matter or not? I don't know. But if it does, then maybe you want to keep it to under 56. But if it doesn't, that's 7.5 over eight is actually more money than JT is getting in total money. 7.5 on a seven year term is 52 and a half. So we'll see where this plays out, but that's kind of the range that it is trending towards. Yeah. I mean, I told you. Way numbers like seven. I mean, I wouldn't go above seven, but we'll see ultimately what these guys do. Man, that's a hard negotiator, geez. I'm done at seven. That's it. Not going a step further. You got to man. You got to draw lines in the sand, man. All right. Can I central round up a couple of things that happen today? So new lines at practice. And I know sat is going to absolutely love these lines. Here they are. Alias Patterson centering the top line with Nils Hoaglander and Connor Garland JT Miller with Souter and Besser Lindholm with McKayev and Lafferty who have combined for all of two goals since the All-Star break Teddy Blooger with pod Colson and Nils Oman. Then there's Hughes, Ronik, Cole Myers, Zadora of Susie and Friedman Julesin as the extras at practice today. Too bad. It's not Christmas. All of them, the sand is a little helpers with Alias Patterson. Was that necessary? I'm just saying. I mean, sure, Garland and Patterson has never really been a thing in Patterson's entire time as a clock. When I first saw that the lines, let's just say that my reaction was not one of -- let's just say I was somewhat disgusted when I saw the lines. Let me just put it that way. So I'm not a fan of the lines, but listening to the coach explain it. It seems like he wanted the guys skating today and that's why he did the lines the way he did. Because to me, they don't really work. Yeah. I mean, from a chemistry standpoint, it is -- let's just say interesting and -- I mean, they're trying different things and I don't want to single out Alias Patterson, but they've got to try and find a way to get him going. Yeah. I mean, Patterson doesn't get going by the playoffs like you're cooked in the first round anyways. So -- I mean, that's -- yeah, I mean, if one of Patterson Hughes, Demko -- that's why we talked about Demko before. Yeah. If those guys can't be playing at their top in the playoffs, then yeah, it's a concern. So Patterson and Garland in three seasons with Garland on the Canucks, 534 minutes total time on ice together, this is over the course of three seasons, and they've had a pretty much even goal differential. They were negative when it came to shot differentials. So just a little bit of a baseline on Patterson and Garland together. Lindholm back on power play one, though. I like to see that. Yeah. And maybe finally going to get him going because McKay have been Lafferty next to him at five on five. I'm not sure that's going to work. He won't be scoring a ton there, although McKay has been playing better. He's got -- you know, he's been the most productive out of the trio the last like five games. He has sneakily been like one of the players that's really had a tough second half of the season. Well, he's been healthy scratch more than any other forward, really, outside of Niels Olamon. Yeah. Right? Like he was -- he's been healthy scratch like five games in the second half of the season. When I just did a quick brief check, you know, since the All-Star break, he's got one goal and he's also minus nine in that time. For a guy that doesn't play a lot most nights. Yeah. And you know what? Like I can live with the offense not being there, but like the forechecking speed, you know, the kind of nastiness he can play with at times is just not there as consistently, which is surprising because you thought that we would be the thing he can provide on a consistent basis. But I think he wants a contract extension and is worried. Well, he's not getting a big raise like we thought he might from how he played in the first half of the season. I just wanted to point this out because you know, Lynn Holm has had a tough go as a Vancouver connect to fully in Genssel off to great starts with their their new clubs. Genssel five games played goal and four assists as a shootout winner on Saturday against the Leafs and to fully four games, four goals with the Winnipeg Jets. What are you trying to say, Dan? I just -- I don't know. It's definitely working. Are you trying to say the connection and made a different trade? I'm saying. Is that what you're alluding to? I'm not saying the Canucks should have made a different trade. I'm just saying other guys, they were after are working better with their new clubs. I mean, that's fair. That's fair. Maybe the Canucks are the issue, not Lindholm. I don't know. When you're like just passing up shots at open nets, you might be part of the problem. Sometimes you just got to shoot at the goalie instead of the net. Yeah. I mean, it's like the same thing for Pedersen, right? Like, yes, we can talk about his line mates. They need to be better. But, you know, he can certainly drive play himself. Lindholm same thing. Yes, of course. You can probably put better wingers with them, but what are you doing yourself to help facilitate play a bit more? Yeah. And that's where it's been lacking. I believe in Lindholm's talent. I do. Like, I do think like there's something there that they can find. Like offensively, it just hasn't been there. And when he makes decisions like the one he made against watching them with an open net, it tells you he's not a guy that's beaming with confidence right now offensively. He needs to find something. Hopefully, back on Power Play 1, we'll get him going. All right. Don Taylor joins us every Monday. He'll be on with us next on Canucks Central. [MUSIC PLAYING]
