(upbeat music) - Dan Reacho, Satyar Shah. We are in the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star global reviews. Soarfeet, what are you waiting for? Canucks Central is for enzyme-specific Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dodge Ram and Jeep Superstore on Second Avenue between Cambi and Maine, or an enzyme-specific Chrysler.ca. What may have been a must-win game for the Buffalo Sabres tonight to hold onto whatever slim playoff hopes they had alive. They are down for nothing in the first 10 minutes of the first period against the Ottawa Senators. - Not good. - Yeah, they're just not really interested in a true playoff race. As soon as they got a little close, like, eh, do we want to spend our-- - Yeah. - Feels like food drinks playing hockey. (laughing) Get allergic to actually making the playoffs. - Yeah, we're a little too close to missing golf season right now. That's way the Buffalo Sabres started their game tonight. Tough look for them as they are down for nothing in the first period to the Ottawa Senators in what is certainly a must-win for their slim playoff hopes if they were even still alive to be true. All right, let's bring our next guest in. He is one of our favorites, and he joins us every single Wednesday here. On Canucks Central it is Kevin Woodley. He is a presentation of White Rock, Hyundai, the goalie guru in goal magazine and NHL.com. What's happening Woodley? - Not much, boy, not much. As Rick Tockett said, dog days, right? Like, we're kind of, everybody wants to gear up, but nobody wants to look too far ahead, so here we are. - It's the end of March. Beat the hell out of a death march. - Some of those games, with all due respect to Ottawa, Montreal, and Calgary last week, they did feel like somewhat, not quite training camp, like a little bit higher intensity than training camp and pre-season games, but it does feel like the Canucks are in a mode where they're trying things for the playoffs now that they know they're pretty much going there, and all they got to do is see this out to finish top spot in the Pacific. - Yeah, you know what I mean? Obviously with some of the experimentation we saw the other night, you know, obviously much was made, and you guys had probably discussed at length the splitting of Peronic and Hughes as an example of that. You know, it's hard to kind of miss that, and yet it is a delicate balance. I was talking about today after practice of not wanting to let that dog days mentality slip in too much. I mean, I worry a little less about it with this group just because of what we saw in that four game win streak, sort of just as everyone was starting to get a little, you know, wow, like what's going on here? They go in and they beat Vegas and the Kings and come back and beat Winnipeg. Now there's some back-to-backs that were part of that, but we've seen what this team is capable of, and it's, you know, I talked during the losing streak that preceded that, like it's just really tough when your game is predicated on defensive excellence and the work rate required to achieve that excellence is hard to maintain for 82 at that level. So I've given them a little bit of a pass at times, but this is kind of a tough spot where it's really, it's a fine line between making sure you're trying some things and making sure you rest some guys without losing too much of the intensity that has driven so much of your success this year. - Yeah, and they've been so good at the fundamentals of the game. And, you know, we've kind of talked so much this year about how through the exact opposite of what they've actually been the last few years in terms of not doing things, right? And we've spoken quite a bit about Elias Landholm, of course, since he's been acquired. Now he's injured too, and we don't quite know what his status truly is, but at least me from watching it and evaluating it and I don't know, reach kind of feels the same way, but we feel like when he's at his best and they have those four centers down in the middle, they've actually been better defensively at stretches this season. Is that actually bearing out? Are you seeing the same thing in terms of, when they get to their peak with those four guys down the middle, they're even stouter defensively? - Yeah, no, it's fine lines 'cause they've been top five for pretty much the entire season with a couple of temporary blips, but even sort of during the stretches where they were giving up a little too much, they still overall on the year maintain that top five profile. But certainly since Landholm, top five becomes top two. As a matter of fact, since he's been here, high danger chances against five on five, the only team that's been better than them in the NHL, the Los Angeles Kings, who we just saw here. And that's sort of overall all five on five. Rush chances against, it's pretty much them, Boston and the Kings as the top three. So you're right, they've been really good all season, but since he arrived, even better. Now, don't ask me about the offensive profile during that stretch 'cause it's down there near the bottom three in the league in terms of creating high danger chances. But defensively, they've been a great team all year. And you're right, Rich, I've heard you talk about a lot over the last week, sort of shot suppression. They've been one of the top two teams in the National Hockey League since he's been here. And so good news then, if you take pocket at his word, that they don't expect this to be long-term and it is just something that's nagging and they hope to have him back for the games that matter. - It is impressive the way that they've played defensively. And yeah, I mean, Linholm just adds another layer to that. But you mentioned the offense and I think that's where the concern sort of lies now with this team heading into the postseason. Do they generate enough? I guess, like, this is their identity, Woodley. Like, Rick Talkett has been building and trying to tell us this was going to be their identity almost all season long. And now we're getting close to the playoffs. So what matters more? How well you can defend or how much offense you can generate while defending that well? - Well, I would suggest you'd like your underlying offensive profile to be better than it has been, you know, since basically February 1st. Like I said, bottom three in the league in terms of high-danger chances for a five-on-five, you know, isn't great. But the defense has always mattered more when it comes to the playoffs. When you look at, like, even head-to-head match-ups, you know, from series to series over the last four or five years since I've had access to the clear side analytics numbers, like those high-danger five-on-five expected goals against, if you're better in that category, you tend to win series. And, you know, as I said, in the last couple of months, they've been not just better, but one of the best teams in the national hockey league now. The other one is one of the other ones is the king. So if that ends up being a match-up for them, you know, that would be interesting, not entertaining, but interesting. But I'm with you. Like, to me, it's more repeatable. It's more of a foundation you can work off of. And, you know, the one thing that I do think they'll need to be better at during the, like the power play to me, has the potential to be a series changer in either direction for this team. If the five-on-five, you know, continues to sort of profile this way, they were outscoring what they were creating for long stretches of the season. But when that dries up, when, you know, the shooting percentage starts to come back down towards norms, if you're only giving up, you know, like less than two goals a game and expected goals on a steady basis, like, you just lose your margins, right? You're not winning five, you're not winning five, two and four to one and five to one like you were earlier in the season. The question becomes, can you win two-one? Can you win three-two? And I think we've seen enough signs that they can. I still think within that underlying offensive profile, they do a lot of things right that I believe have a chance to translate in the postseason in terms of some of the net front stuff, in terms of some of the screen work. Even if that's accounted for in these totals I'm talking about over the last two months, by clear sight, I still think those are things that tend to work in the playoffs as well. You know, relying on being a rush team and tic-tac-toeing your way through opponents probably doesn't survive in the postseason to the same degree because you're not playing. Typically teams don't survive but give up those types of chances. So there's something about this that, you know, I think, you know, outside of the relative in experience of the postseason, the way they play to me should be a great fit for playoff hockey if they can maintain it, even if some of the underlying offensive stuff is a little discouraging on paper. - I've heard the point be made that once you get into the postseason that advantage to some degree diminishes because every team buys into playing a more complete, safer, more responsible brand of hockey. And while that is true, there's a difference between being experienced and doing it all season long and having the discipline ingrained in you and, you know, trying to just like click into that in the postseason, isn't there? - Well, I mean, it depends what you're talking about. Like we saw it like, I think back to the last time the Canucks were in the quote unquote playoffs. Obviously it was the bubble and it's a different situation, but, you know, when Mark Sherman goes down and Demko comes in and they just basically collapse in front of their own net, you know, like if that's how you're, you know, you're paying attention to details or how you're adjusting to shut down in the playoffs, that's a lot different than the habits we've seen the Canucks build over the course of the season. You've heard talk and talk about all sort of the staples that go into that the way they defend in front of their own net as much as that was problematic against the Kings the other night where they don't give up second chance opportunities in front of their goal tenders. You know, yes, everybody works harder in the playoffs and yes, you are gonna get more buy-in and that's essentially what defense is, is hard work. But there are details within that in terms of where you're supposed to be, where you can trust your teammates to be at certain, you know, at certain times in certain situations, knowing exactly where everyone is supposed to be and knowing that you can trust them to be there. To me, I'd much rather have that over the course of the season than just try and create it by everybody working hard and paying more attention to detail, you know, flipping a switch so to speak defensively when the playoffs start. And I think, you know, outside of Tampa Bay, not their first year because their underlying profile defensively all season long that year was night and day, the year before when they got knocked out in the first round, they were in the 20s, the following season they were in like number two and they went a cup. The years after that, they're one of the few teams that has been able to sort of just flip that switch defensively, it was ingrained, they got loose during the season, but once the playoffs started, they got back to it. You know, there's a reason I talked about these numbers matter and come playoffs 'cause they were established over the course of the season. So yeah, it's easy to say that everyone's paying attention, everybody's working harder defensively, but it doesn't typically bear out. The teams that have success in the playoffs defensively are the ones that did the same work throughout the regular season. So I don't know that I get why it's said, I don't know that I fully buy that the numbers back it up. - So Thattrademko, we did get, I guess, an update today. What'd you make of the update on Thattrademko from the coach today? - Well, kind of like non-update update, right? The LTIR is related to salary cap and like giving them the flexibility to call up on our steep banes and I'm assuming have Dakota Joshua come back on to the roster after he practiced in a full contact with the Besser and Miller line today. I think we kind of said that a month felt more like an accurate timeline and that we were thinking, sort of end of the first week of April was kind of the earliest I had in mind and that was kind of what LTIR still puts you at. Doesn't mean it happens then, but it kind of puts you in a window that I think a lot of us considered in terms of a month and when we think of what we believe to be in knee injury for goal tenors, like there's a couple of kinds. There's MCLs which are typically four to six even on the minor end. You can have a meniscus that you get cleaned up that guys can be back on the ice after three weeks after that. So we don't know exactly what it is but I don't think anything about today's announcement changes our understanding or belief in the timeline, nor does it change the fact that so long as he comes back and feels good about his body and trust it, that is plenty of time. Again, I throw back to the preseason, right? Three games for a starter and there was no goal tenor in the world that was better than Thatcher-Demko the first six weeks of the season. So, you know, is that maybe being a bit optimistic in terms of being able to get back to that right away out of the gate, perhaps, but there's enough time, at least comparing to that ramp up you would have of games played in a pretty season for him to sort of hit that form. Your fear a little bit is, as we talked at the beginning of what Dog Days is, you know, one of those games is against Edmonton. What if it means more to the Oilers, not much? Like, you don't want to get into a track meet where your team isn't paying attention defensively because it doesn't mean anything to them. They've locked up the Pacific, maybe locked up the West and you don't want your goal tenor back there if your team isn't paying attention to those defensive details and a talk it likes to say, sort of, allowing your goal tenor only play one half of the net. What you don't want is him trying to get his feet under him at a time when the Canucks are loose enough defensively that other teams are able to pull them apart and stretch him out. - Well, and I think that's going to be interesting whether they want to put Demko up in those tough situations or they're very, are a lot more strategic about getting his game ramped up and continuing to maybe put Casey to Smith and some of those tough response perhaps later in the season. And overall, given how Dismit's played, that may not be a bad idea. - No, he's been really solid, really. You know, like, it's interesting. I, when, and I can't remember if we've talked since or if I've shared this with you guys in your audience, but you know, once you all came through talking to Caden Premal about the impression Casey to Smith made on their goal tenor group in the short time he was there, I don't even think it was into the, you know, into training camp, but just even in summer skates and, you know, that a veteran like Jake Allen went out of his way and noted how quick Casey is, how fast he is, how well he recovers on his knees and moves on his knees. And there's a couple of times where we've seen, like there's given taking everything goal tenning. So if the give is, man, he's so quick when he's sliding around on his knees, the take is sometimes you might overshoot a position or hit a post and have momentum, you know, carry you through that position and take you out of the net a little bit and have to recover that space. And there's been a couple of examples recently where that's happened, but it's kind of the, you know, that's what you get, that's sort of the expense of the speed with which he moves. The goal against Calgary from distance off the rush was only the third low danger goal he's given up all season. And as I've said a few times before, that's all you can ask for out of your backup is to not give up the bad ones. And he's done that as well as anyone in the league this year in terms of the amount of games he's played, the amount of shots he's faced. And, you know, there are very few guys that have that low of a total when it comes to sort of bad goals or low percentage goals going in. I think we've seen in the last little while, especially along the ice, Bang Bang plays in front. Like we've seen that speed, we've seen that quickness, we've seen him shoot up those pads, we've seen him make some really tough saves in key moments for this team. So that kind of matches what we saw earlier in the season. He's a guy who can give you a good game once every two weeks. But you give him a chance to sort of get his feet under him a little bit and he's capable of giving you more. Maybe not, you know, best in the level like Demko was early in the season, but more than enough for this team when they play well to have a chance to win. - Jake Auttinger is one of those guys that we just expect to be among the best in the league. He's kind of built himself that sort of reputation. And the record looks great this year, 28 and 13, but then you look at the save percentage at sub 900 and I'm kind of wondering, all right, what's going on with Jake Auttinger this year? - Yeah, Shocker, for me, I did a big story on sort of USA hockey recently 'cause they've got a few initiatives coming up and frankly, compared to what we do up here for youth hockey and young goalies, it's night and day. And when I looked at the NHL, I think at the time, they were seven of the top 11 save percentages in the league were American-born goal-tenors. And the real shock is that Jake Auttinger wasn't anywhere to be found on that list. Like when I looked at his adjusted numbers for the season, his adjusted save percentage is 67th in the NHL. It's below expected. So the raw stuff doesn't lie. This hasn't been a season to his standards and yet I would caution to read too much into that 'cause you know what he's capable of. I haven't had a chance, they didn't practice today after the game in San Jose last night here. The Kings did, the Canucks did, the Stars did not. So, I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it, but I know there was an ankle injury he was playing through in the postseason last year. And he wasn't at his best in the playoffs either last year, especially as they went on. And I know it cost him a summer of training. I wonder how much, you know, that's a factor here. But again, the other part is we know what he's capable of. Like he didn't forget how to play goal. And it's interesting that they sort of gave him a mini reset here. He had six days between starts. And since then he's won three straight. And his adjusted numbers in those three games as tiny a sample as that is, is off the charts. This was not the Stars buckling down defensively in front of him. His expected say percentage was like 8.74 in those three starts and his actual as well into the 9.20. So, you know, anybody that looks at his overall standing and is like, oh good. Like we got Jake Autinger tonight. It's a break. He's, you know, he's lost his game. There are some signs of late that he's found it. And that shouldn't be a surprise. I mean, you don't have the pedigree that he has. You don't build the reputation he's built without having a lot of ability. And I guess the curious thing is, you know, what happened at the start of this year? And hope to get some answers, talking to him a little bit tomorrow. But also this trend towards just giving guys a break. And I think it's mental as much as physical, right? Like we saw it with Sam Sonoff in Toronto. As much as the game has never been harder physically for goalies because of all the speed and the East, West and the attacks. A lot of guys have talked about it's never been hard, harder mentally. And so I do find it interesting. I don't pretend to have an answer, but we see guys like Sam Sonoff, like Autinger, where they just sort of give them a late, like just take a breather here. Igor Shishterkin had the same thing in and out of the All-Star game and spent a bunch of time with the goalie coach Ben Lawler after that. Took a few starts off where Jonathan Wick went ahead of him. And he's been dynamite down the stretch. So, you know, might be talking myself into a column here if I can figure out why. And bad news for Canucks fans, because Jay Gondier, since getting that break, has been really, really good. I'd expect him to be back in that tomorrow after Wedgewood played last night. - And also in terms of, you know, good luck in terms of how Canucks fans feel about who they play in the postseason. It's either, it seems like, unless like one of our textures pointed out, maybe the Winnipeg Jets can slide out and the national predators have been red hot, get into a top three spot in the central division. They're only four points back. So, I do think it is, well, five points back. So, it is within the realm of possibility, so to speak. But, how afraid should people be of facing the press, but especially UC Sorrows in the postseason? - Yeah, I mean, whether it's Sorrows or whether it's Helibuk, I think Helibuk might have a few, 'cause a few things he does that you might target a little more deliberately. You know, that said, UC Sorrows, I mean, I'm as big a believer and as big a, you know, tire pumper of UC Sorrows as anyone. But at the end of the day, when you think of his size and how well the Canucks do manage net front play, is that something they can take advantage of? What Helibuk, it's about creating East West plays, making sure you don't give him a chance to make clean reads. If you can go, make him go side to side the numbers. They don't fall off a cliff, but they go from being one of the best in the world to being just around where everyone would be expected to be. And I think when you think of what Vancouver does well, I hate to say it, and it'll probably bite me in the ass if this happens, but I might lean towards wanting to face Sorrows instead of Helibuk, just because the type of offense that tends to work against each guy, you know, the Canucks don't create a lot of dynamic East West stuff off the rush, right? Like that's not necessarily the strength of their offense, whereas they are very good at layered screens and things like that. So I don't think you're getting a bargain no matter who it is in the postseason. You know, even with the Kings, you look at how well Talbot's played of late, and frankly, David Rich's underlying numbers are even better than Cam. So there's probably, you know, the Oilers too, right? Not a lot of experience, they'll play off success for Skinner, but he's had a great year. Like there's just, this is the reality of the postseason. Maybe Vegas, I guess, if Aidenhill once again isn't able to play, and then Logan Thompson goes out and pitches a shadow to get, or a 2-1 overtime win with a penalty shot, save in overtime for Vegas in St. Louis. So probably not a lot of easy outs, goal-tending-wise, but there certainly are, as we get there, different matchups and specific things and strengths and weaknesses that you can target, you know, that once we have that name, I'm sure we'll be digging into here. Final one, it's gotta be quick as we are late. Me? (laughs) But there's a piece up at the Athletic with Martam Broder. My biggest takeaway from it is just that Martam Broder wants goalies to play all 82 games. And I don't know how realistic that is, Woodley. You're probably not. I do know a few young guys that still think it can be done and would like to be the guys coming into the league. Like, I could be that guy. I could be the guy that plays, you know, breaks. I don't think it's fair. I think it's actually Grand Fierce is 78 games, but listen, I think within the same, as much as that was the takeaway and sort of the poll quote, so to speak, that ends up in the headline. Even within that Broder conceded that he understands why things have changed. And with all due respect to Marty, you know, not only were the Devils a shut down team, and listen, his Pac handling played a big role in that. Do not dismiss the fact that he contributed their ability to play that way by being one of the best of all time at that. But like we didn't have this East West, like teams had not figured out dynamic offensive attacks the way they have now. Like there were no skills coaches to the degree we have now. Like there's a reason, even guys who have been in the league a long time, Pekka Renee, right after he retired, told me the same thing. It's getting so much harder for the goal cutting position to keep up with all this skill. And so I think part of that is finding ways to rest guys. And hey, man, Marty's hips didn't hurt 'cause he didn't butterfly. Like that's the other reality of this. He's not wrong. It's not good for the body. The way the game is played now. But don't forget, Marty was one of the last ones to sort of buck that trend. Whereas, yeah, he did drop to his knees, but not as absolutely as often or as compromised away as pretty much, well, not pretty much. Every goaltender in the NHL does now. - Woodley are the best. I always appreciate it. Thanks for this. - Thanks, guys. - There is Kevin Woodley. When he joins us here on Sports at 650, he's brought to you by White Rock Hyundai. Visit the showroom on King George in White Rock or whiterockhunday.com. Lots to get to still, including overrated, underrated. That's next on Canucks Central.
