[MUSIC PLAYING] Canucks Central Tuesday at Stan Reichow, Satyar Shah here in the Kintech studio. Canucks centralist friends on Pacific Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Todd, Rand, and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Canby and Maine, or at enzymepacificrisler.ca. Kintech Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sorefeet, what are you waiting for? It is a game day for the Vancouver Canucks, so we're going to have pregame with the Vegas cold tonight's coming up. After 6 o'clock, we'll join up with SportsNet Pacific after 6.30 as well, so you can tune in on television for the Canucks Central pregame tonight. It's an interesting match-up, Sat. And now that we are close to seeing the finishing line, it's a lot of looking ahead to the playoffs, while also knowing, hey, Canucks still got some work to do to close out the Pacific Division. Yeah, it's not quite like pre-season, where there are no stakes. It's not like you're counting the games. You're like, man, there are six more of these to go. You're always so hyped for pre-season. And then you get through training camp. You get to the first game, you're like, let's get to the real thing. And it's not quite that, because the games matter. You mean something. And not only for the teams individually you're looking at throughout the season, too. And we know there are a number of Canucks that are up for awards, for instance, and strong finish matters. So there's still a lot to play for, even though we're counting the days down to the playoffs. Just eight games remain for the Vancouver Canucks. There will be seven after tonight. Let's get to the open here on Canucks Central. - Welcome to the open. - Oh, that's your home! Are you too good for your home? Answer me! - The open, it's what's pressing on your Vancouver Canucks. And we dish it to you here on Canucks Central. There's a lot going on with the lineup and some mystery a little bit, as far as how it's going to look tonight. We'll dive into some of those things, but I did want to take a moment to appreciate Quinn Hughes. It kind of popped into our conversation during the pre-show meeting today of Quinn Hughes. Do we really appreciate how special this player is? And I think we do, but also, do you appreciate it when you have the second best? And right now, how he's played over the course of the season, the best defenseman in the National Hockey League, considering this Canucks team has ever really had a superstar on defense in its entire franchise's existence until Quinn Hughes showed up. - They've had some very good defense, some excellent defense men you might even say, right? Like, I mean, you're K. Lume was incredible. I mean, they had Paul Reinhardt, he was towards the end of his career, but still an incredible defenseman. And if you look at the numbers from the past, obviously guys like Currents, what they did, and there have been a lot of players that I put up points over the in the past and been really good, even as sometimes a player that people would differ on their opinions in terms of how good he was, but clearly a high-end defenseman. But nobody's been Quinn Hughes, not even close. Like, he's a Hall of Fame talent. And even beyond that, this is a player who might go down when he's finished. That was one of the greatest defenseman to ever play the game. Like, that's how talented he is. And it's pretty incredible that we say that about him, yet there are perhaps a handful of defenseman that may be in a similar, might be a similar ilk by the time they retire, given what they've done and what they're doing currently at the ages and how talented they are, obviously in my car with the Colorado Avalanche. But I'm not quite sure we truly yet realized how special he is, 'cause we also talk about how we normalize the things he does. We're so used to watching him just dummy people and evade four checkers like it's nothing that we just kinda like, oh yeah, Quinn just doing Quinn things. Whereas if you saw anybody else, if you weren't watching Quinn Hughes every day and saw somebody do that, you'd be pretty astounded on a regular basis. - There are five defenseman in NHL history that have a better points per game average than Quinn Hughes does. One of them is still active. It is kale macar. But other than that, the four retired defenseman that have a better points per game average than Quinn Hughes, Raybork, Dennis Potnay, Paul Coffey, and Bobby Orr. - It's a pretty good list. - It's a decent list. - Pretty good list. - All cup winners, I might add. Even kale macar you throw into that list as a cup winner right now. So I'm not saying that's going to equal Quinn Hughes winning a cup at some point in his career, but-- - If you want to finish your career and be spoken about in the same terms, you kind of need to win a cup though. - Yes, you will, yeah. And Quinn Hughes, the best points per game defenseman from the United States, all others Canadian on that list. I mean, you look at so many different numbers and it's almost laughable. When I mentioned yesterday, Conor McDavid is more assist than any other player has points since the all-star break, that was a blow your mind kind of moment. I'm looking at Quinn Hughes stats today. Guess what? He's going to be the highest scoring defenseman in Canucks franchise history at some point next season. He is two points away from tying the T.S. Oland for second on the list. And then next year, Alex Edler will be on the radar. He's at 409, Quinn Hughes will be somewhere around 70 points off that range. They're about one season, so it's very much on the radar. He's got a point per game season done and dusted 'cause he's now up to 82 on this year. I mean, the numbers are laughable. They are video game like for Quinn Hughes. And I think you look at the numbers sometimes and yeah, you're wowed by them, but I don't know if that even tells the whole story about how good Quinn Hughes is at. No, not with how he's able to control and dictate games and how he's able to create space for himself and his teammates. And there are defensemen that are offensively inclined. We've seen a few like, you know, Roman Yoshi's incredible. He's been doing it for a few years now obviously he'll have a car too, but they're the engines for their teams. And that's what Quinn Hughes is, right? And come post season, I think it's going to be really interesting, especially where control of the game matters so much more. How much of an edge is that going to give Vancouver? 'Cause when you look at that teams like Dallas, one of the big reasons why they're so good in the playoffs is they have Mural Heisken controlling games. And you have Quinn Hughes controlling half of your game, it just changes everything in terms of what you have, the way you can control games, but also the way you can ensure that the game is dictated by the way you want it to be. And if the Canucks kind of have four centers obviously with Lindholm healthy and you have Quinn Hughes dictating, like it gives the Canucks a really big edge, I think in the post season. But you see also how his offensive game has evolved in the offensive zone, that overlap play him and her own heroic make, but now you're seeing him and JT Miller in a forward dude as well. And the way he's able to start against Anaheim, I mean, the way you can make that exchange at the blue line, but then stop on a dime and cut the other direction. I mean, just types of things that he can do just puts teams and blenders. And I just think that I know in Torgy mentions 100%, he thinks the fans appreciate him. I certainly do think fans appreciate him. I just think we all sometimes maybe don't realize like how rare this truly is, you know? And there aren't many players that can do it. They can do it like high skin and can, but the way Quinn does it with his overall skill level too, it's just kind of a notch above. - Well, even just the idea of having a point per game defensement, right? But also like, I don't know if people really know how few times that's happened in NHL history. Like the list is like 50 players deep. - Yeah. - That have done it in a single season. Like as good as Adam Fox has been, like he's got 66 and 65 this year, and that's the closest he's going to be to being a point per game. - NHL defense one that have had more than 80 points in a season 62 players long. Some of them are repeats obviously, but it's only happened 62 times in NHL history. And one of them is Quinn Hughes. Now, so he's going to get probably to 90, which is an even smaller list. He's got eight games. If he gets the eight points in those eight games, you're looking at a top 30 NHL season of all time by defensement points-wise. Like this is what we're talking about here. And you don't really see this in the NHL. The Canucks fans, you as a fan base, have never really seen it. And now you're seeing Quinn Hughes do it. And in the moment, I just wonder if you truly appreciate how rare that is. You know, one of the things that stood out to me the other day against Anaheim actually. And we brought it up a little bit when we talked about, you know, who should be the most exciting player for the Canucks this year. But one of the things Quinn Hughes does that maybe no other player on the Canucks does on a game to game basis, is make other NHL players look like pylons. Yeah. And I know that sounds harsh, but it's a reality. Like the way, as you mentioned, the way he can change directions on a dime, it's like an NFL running back, cutting back against the linebacker and just leaving him in the dust. But Quinn Hughes does that almost every single game at some point in the offensive zone in his own end when he skates the puck away from oncoming forecheckers. It's just, it's a natural habit. As I've said in the past, it's like a, it's like watching too many horror movies and then you get desensitized to it. So you don't appreciate it as much as you did the first time. That's kind of what Quinn Hughes has become just in a good way rather than a horror-hautious way. Oh yeah, and he puts guys on their heels, right? I mean, you can't get too close to him almost. It's like if you're guarding somebody in basketball that has a really good handle and you get too close, like he'll just cross you up and get around you. And that's kind of what Quinn is. So you, you can't be over-aggressive on him. I know the best way to handle Quinn sometimes is the physical aspect, but he's so slippery too. Like unless you get him along the board, like you're not gonna be able to inflict damage on him. And I think that's the thing about him too, is that you can't square him up. And unless he's stuck in a stop position, that's the only way you can get a good lick in on him, right? And I think that's actually evolved even more as he's gotten even better with time. Like he's a faster skater now than he was, which is incredible to say. Like the one thing about Quinn before was he was an incredible, he's always been an incredible and an elegant skater, right? Like best, maybe the best player on his edges in the National Hockey League. His straightaway speed was solid, but he wasn't this explosive. Real pop too. Like he's really evolved that explosive burst the past few years to a level where it's, I mean, I used to say Kale McCar was unmatched with that. Like Quinn's not that far off. It looks different because Quinn, it looks so much more effortless. Yes. And I think that's sometimes what can be, I mean, it can play tricks on you, right? Because when you see Kale McCar do it, it's very similar to Nathan McKinnon. When they get up to speed, it's like, you feel it. They look like they're coming down hard on you and they're almost galloping at you. Whereas Quinn is very, he's elegant when he skates. And then with a couple of strides, he's pulled away from a player and you're like, how the heck did he do that? Yeah. No, exactly. I don't know how he gets a step-on guy sometimes, especially from like start. And he doesn't have to be like completely square the way he skates. He's able to create like being off balance and still be able to create a little bit of burst getting off out of it. It's really incredible. And it goes back to obviously his mom too. He was such a great skater that helped him along the way and everything. But he is truly one of the greatest skaters we've seen play hockey. And he has also gotten a lot stronger. I think for those, this text comes in. Gotta laugh at those tools who said Quinn was too small, laughable, funny to watch Quinn, four checkers coming in on Quinn, and then he makes them look stupid. That's one text coming into 650, 650 on the Dunbar Lumber text message inbox. And yeah, it's, you know, he'll skate away from them slippery as you mentioned. But now as we saw with the hit on Victor Olafson and we've seen more lately, I feel like the second half of the season, we've seen Quinn engage physically more often as if to get himself ready for the postseason. But he's always known he's gotta be a little bit stronger. He always knows it's not going to be his ultimate forte. But there are moments where you see him get engaged physically and not come out, you know, looking like a rag doll or something like that. Like some people would have expected when he was drafted. - Yeah, he does have a lower center of gravity. And as you get stronger doing that, you can hold your position and you see it along the boards where he will come out, come away with a... Like yeah, obviously he's gonna lose some battles. He's because of his size, and especially again, he gains some bigger players along the boards from time to time. But because of how good a stick he has and the tenacity he plays with and add a strength he's gotten now, he comes out with pucks quite a bit. - He takes pucks angles in body position too. - Exactly, it doesn't just come down to having strength and brute force. But I think there has been a level link up in that aspect as well where like he can battle guys. Like one of the best battles he had this year was against Shifelie behind the board. Shifelie's a big, strong center. And he just, you know, like he bodied him and took the puck away from him. And he can do that against guys. Yes, he'll lose some. But I don't think he's a liability at all on the defensive side of things. And people still mention that, you know, I'm sure we'll see them text them box and people that, you know, text them during the post game shows oftentimes will mention that while he is a bit overrated, they try to hide him defensively. He's actually a liability. Those things aren't true at all with how he plays. But yeah, I mean, he's never going to be a physically imposing defense man. That's just not how he's built. - Teddy from North Burnaby, great points about Quinn hit the nail on the head. Every time Quinn makes a great play, we must thank Ken Holland. Thank you, Ken, over and over. Yeah, you might want to do that. Ken Holland was the GM of the Detroit Red Wings when they took Philip Sedina ahead of Quinn Hughes. - And I do think, you know, Dan and Lady Smith mentioned something here. And I think he hit the nail on the head too. He says, I saw Quinn Hughes in person for the first time on Sunday. And I was absolutely mind blown. It's impressive on TV, but it's an entirely different level in person. I think that's a great point from Dan. If you see him in person, we've seen hundreds of times in person, right? Like, it's just different. I don't think you can truly understand how good he is until you see him in person and see what he does and see how little space he has and how he's able to evade guys. The game looks too easy on TV sometimes. And even sometimes when we sit on our perch, a little higher up, the game looks a bit too easy. Like, it's really not as easy as he makes it look. - It really is it. - No, it's definitely not. And, you know, it affords the Canucks options, right? We talk so much about Philip Ronik and what that contract's going to look like. But if you're the Vancouver Canucks and you're looking at Philip Ronik and you're saying and questioning whether or not you want to give this player, maybe what they're asking for is this reported over 8 million per season by Frank Serra Valley is the ask out of the Horonik camp. If you don't have Queen Hughes, you're in a much more difficult spot. But when you do have Queen Hughes, you also sit there with the knowledge of, we like you a lot, Philip Ronik, but we also know the reason you are playing as well as you are, have had the season you've had is because we have Queen Hughes. And you've played next to Queen Hughes for most of that time. It gives you a little bit of leverage because you know Queen Hughes can have success with a lot of different player types on the ice. And you don't have to necessarily over extend yourself to somewhere you might be uncomfortable going to keep a player like Philip Ronik. It at least gives you options rather than just staring down the barrel of like, well, what else are we going to do? We have to give this guy the money. - Well, you can be firm on your line in the sand, right? Especially if you're putting numbers on guys and saying we can go above this, like you're never going to feel like you have to overpay another defenseman. Whereas in the past, then we saw with the Myers contract, for instance, if you're in desperate need of helping your blue line out, you have to overpay guys. - Yeah. - Now you really don't need to do that when you have Queen Hughes, right? And that's not to say you don't need other guys, of course you do, but you know, Gray and East Van asked, "Does Ronik make the top five best "defensement of all time, assuming he resigns?" I mean, we'll see, this is only his first year, but I don't think so. Like I can easily name five other defenseman other than Queen Hughes, that have been far better than Phillip Ronik. Like he's really good, of course, but like I don't think he's that caliber a player, but the numbers, he might get 50 points, he might repeatedly get 50 points, that's going to be something that's very rare, right? But is he truly that good? Like I don't think he is, like I don't think Phillip Ronik is going to go down and connect history as one of their top five or six defenseman, but maybe you can feel that he is 'cause he's playing with Queen Hughes. That also tells you what Queen can do in terms of elevating guys around. I'm like, Ronik's really good, but I don't think he's that good. Yeah, he's been a great find for the Vancouver Canucks, but again, I think as the season's gone on, you've been able to take a more sober look at the player and see someone that's a two, three type defenseman rather than a stone cold number two defenseman last league. And that's not a huge difference, but it's not worth eight million per season, if that is what ends up being the number four Phillip Ronik. All right, let's get to the Canucks central rundown as we got a lot still to come on the show. Just one real quick one, Jake says, "This reminds me of Myers, except the opposite. "Every time he messes up a thousand times a game, "it's like, oh, I've become desensitized to it. "But it's the opposite with Queen Hughes." And it's the opposite, it's a good point. Good one by Jake, all right. Canucks central rundown, a couple of things happening with the team. So a couple of notes for tonight's game. Same forward group, they are not changing the forward group against Vegas. Nikita Zadorov will draw back into the lineup. I would just say maybe the smart guests would be Noah Juleson. At least that would be my guess. And as far as the forward group goes, I guess the question would be, do you keep the same forward lines as you did against the Anaheim Ducks? - I am a bit surprised. - Yeah, because I didn't think that fourth line was very good. - You know, I know a lot of people have talked about, you know, do you keep Joshua and Garland with Miller and what do you do with Pedersen? And yeah, that fourth line, it did have a tough night. There was a couple of penalties. I felt Podkolzen, you know, didn't, probably could have taken some shorter shifts than he ended up doing. Bain's had a tough return to the National Hockey League in that game on Sunday. - You made a good point earlier. We were talking about this pre-show. You're like, what does that say about Oman and PDG? - Yeah. - Like, is he trying to like still get those guys going a bit more and you may as well give Bain some run here? - Yeah. - I think some of it is that you may as well give Bain some Podkolzen some run. We may need them in the post-season, right? So let's get them as much experience as possible. But I just, I don't look at either of those guys right now and say, oh, they're gonna make a difference. - Yeah. - I look at them and say, yeah, I'm playing the fourth line if you need here and there, sure. But like, I need Bain's to have another off-season. Like to me, like, if Bain's is gonna make an impact, it's gonna be next year. - Yeah. - Like, any expectations of him playing up your lineup or being like an X factor, like I just don't see that. Like, I think he's a guy that can give you some minutes, fourth line minutes, but don't expect anything else. And Podkolzen, I think he can give you a fourth line minutes and give you physicality, but is he anywhere ready to play up your lineup if need be? Like, I don't think he's there. - No, I mean, he's played 12 games down. He still doesn't have a goal. - Yeah, so I think-- - I feel like he's pressing for a goal now too a little bit, which is never a good sign. - And there's been a lot of improvement in his game. - Yeah. - But I think he's also a guy that it's, realistically, you have to wait until next year to see him maybe pop a little bit. And I think that's a reality for both him and Bain's. - Thatcher Demko did end up making the trip. He practiced today while he came onto the ice after the Canucks finished their optional morning skate, did some work with Ian Clark. He is not eligible to return off of LTIR 'cause he was placed there retroactively last week by the Canucks. He's not eligible to return until Saturday. So at the very least, it's a good sign. And it shows that Demko is as of right now on track to come back to the Canucks probably as soon as he's available to come off of LTIR Saturday. - Yeah, and does he play Saturday? I mean, I'd be surprised, but he's on the trip. The coach had mentioned after the Anaheim game that he wasn't going to be on the trip and then he was on the trip. So obviously, something changed. Do they feel like he can actually play? I guess maybe it depends on how these first two games go on the trip. - I suppose, but it's not about, you can't play him because of that, can you? - You shouldn't. - No, I mean, you definitely shouldn't. - And I don't think, so I don't think they'd be, I mean, they have 100 points. They're making the playoffs. - Yes. - Like, I don't think there's going to be the desperation's not going to be there, right? I don't think you can do that. But is it an indication of him? They really want him to get three games in here. 'Cause like, after the next two games, like there's six games remaining. - Yeah. - And you're probably not playing him three out of five if he doesn't play the Saturday game. - You're probably not playing him Saturday against LA even though he would be eligible to return. Maybe this is just, you know, Demko wanted to get some work in with Ian Clark, so he's on the trip, kind of a thing. But I would say maybe next Monday in a return match against Vegas, seems like a more realistic scenario. Then there's five games remaining and you can almost rotate, dismiss in for the games against Arizona and Calgary and give Demko three tune-up matches before the playoffs against Vegas, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. That's, I would say, probably the most likely scenario or how I would play it if I were the Vancouver Canucks with Thatcher, Demko coming back. But also, I'm sure Demko's going to just want to play as much as he can, assuming he is healthy. And that's always the difficult battle. - Yeah, I mean, I was always kind of waiting, assuming the Monday game. - Yeah. - But now Saturday is on my radar. - Yeah. - It's at least on the radar. - Yeah. - 'Cause why would he be on the trip? - I mean, it could be 'cause he's skating with the guys, right? Get some shooters with him too, right? And that just has the skills coach, 'cause they'll have a couple, they'll have time for at least one real practice, Wednesday and, sorry, Thursday and Friday, 'cause they have the two games, two days before games, between games. - So, Thatcher, Demko did make the trip. They did say same forward group, which means Lindholm will remain out of the lineup for the Vancouver Canucks. Thomas Hurdle did practice in full today for the Vegas goal of the night, but he is not expected to play tonight. So, you don't have to worry about Thomas Hurdle just yet for Vancouver. All right, we'll get to a couple more things. Coming up next, Sean Gentile of the Athletic, started to look through some of the potential playoff match-ups. We'll talk about that with him, Canucks and Nashville Predators, what he thinks that would look like in a first round playoff series, and much more. That's next on Canucks Central.
