(upbeat music) - Canuck Central Wednesday. It's Dan Reachow, Satyar Shah here in the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Soar feet, what are you waiting for? Canuck Central is for Enzine Pacific Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dodge Ram, and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Canby and Maine, or at EnzinePacificCrisler.ca. 24 hours later, or less than 24 hours later, I guess 21 hours later from Buck drop of what was the golden nights giving the Canucks a good old-fashioned whoopin'. They were humbled. - Yes. - A humbling. - A whoopin' in Sin City last night by the Las Vegas Golden Knights. - Yeah, they got hit around pretty good, right? (laughing) - And you know, we'll get to it in the open, and I just kept thinking about it all night, last night, what the head coach had to say about their performance. - Right. - And I kind of had to dig into my Thesaurus coming up with a few different words to describe that performance. Well, let's get to it, (laughing) it's the open here on Canucks Central. - Welcome to the open. - Oh, that's your home. Are you too good for your home? Answer me! - Yeah, it's the open here on Canucks Central, Dan Reachow, Satyar Shah, where we bring you the latest on the Vancouver Canucks, and our takes on it. So last night, we don't normally spend a lot of time looking back, but last night's game did provide enough red flags for many that we should take a look back at what exactly happened to the Vancouver Canucks against the Vegas Golden Knights. It's a story that's been all too familiar in the Vegas Golden Knights franchise history where they just beat the living snot out of the Vancouver Canucks whenever they visit Las Vegas. Doesn't always happen that way, Canucks won in Vegas earlier this year, but it has happened quite a bit. - Honestly, it's probably the most related to the terrible thing that the Canucks can do with their fans. Like most people that go to Vegas and, you know, play gamble lose, and they're not going to Vegas and lose, so you lose. Generally, you go to Vegas, you lose. Now, sometimes you lose a big, sometimes you lose a little bit, and every once in a while you come ahead, but those are few and far between. Like, it's most-- - The advantages of winning in Vegas is probably about the same as what you are gambling in Vegas. - Pretty much. - So they're just like you. (laughing) - That's the most relatable thing the Canucks have ever done! (laughing) Okay, so there's a lot that we can go through and parse through on the game. I'm listening to the post-game show last night. Rick Tockett comes on, and then listening to some of the rhetoric today and hearing some different takes on everything that was going on. Well, Tockett didn't go in on the team as much as he could have last night, and then I'm thinking to myself, did I not hear Rick Tockett called the team soft, essentially, when Rick Tockett says, quote, "I just thought we were a little light." Is that not a very harsh comment? - Yeah, I mean, light means soft. Like, it was just a nicer way of saying soft. (laughing) That's what it was! That's what we talked about on the post-game show. And Bix, like, yeah, the regions of the Saurus come up with a different word to describe soft, and it's like, yeah, that's right. Like, what are some other words he could have used? - I just thought we were a little mushy tonight. (laughing) Like a, what, a little feeple, not feeple, maybe? A little delicate. (laughing) We're a delicate tonight. - I thought we were a little doughy tonight. Boys were a little doughy. That's a fluffy performance. Boys are a little supple. - Is supple delicate? - Supple's like pliable, I guess. Yeah, I don't know a delicate, but it's... No, well, delicate doesn't mean light doesn't mean delicate. - Yeah. - You know? - Is supple soft? - Supple could be soft. Yeah, soft. - That's what my the story says, okay? - Yeah. - Sorry. - They were spongy. Squishy could have worked in a squishy. A squishy, someone squished a text and then squishy. Those are some words he could have used. (laughing) - In other words, they were soft. - I mean, it was a little gentle last night. (laughing) - Yeah, they were gentle. (laughing) A little gentle in the corners. (laughing) - Maybe a little too easy going. Or Rick Tockett's liking in Las Vegas last night. - A little too laid back. - A little too generous, permissive, little too liberal. (laughing) - Oh, man. - Soft-hearted, no, that has soft in it. - That's something you can't go soft. - Yeah. - They're too cozy. (laughing) But I mean, you know, it's one of those things. And you mentioned red flags earlier. - Yeah. - You're not wrong about red flags because it's kind of funny. - Well, a couple of things, my E and Cole stock took a big hit yesterday. 'Cause I had a game and I'm sitting here arguing about it. - I don't know. - I don't know. (laughing) I mean, to me, it's still applies. It's like everyone has a bad spot. - I mean, it's a little mushy right now. - It's not going well. It's not going well. That's a take that age poorly within like 24 hours. But I mean-- - I said Teddy Blooger, so, you know. - He wasn't much better. (laughing) He wasn't much better. - I said, "Arshteepin." (laughing) - No, I didn't. - But, so I mean, he had a tough night, obviously, right? But one of the things we mentioned yesterday too, another take, not a take that age poorly, but it was kind of funny because we mentioned how over the course of the 25 games leading to tonight, to last night's game, that yes, they've had some bad performances here and there, like they've had some bit losses and everything, but they haven't had too many bad, like bad games. They're not getting blown out. You know, they're not having any types of games where they're making uncharacteristic mistakes, following up one mistake, the effort and other mistake. I'm like, how many odd man chances have they given up over these 25 games? And then again, it's Vegas, like all the red flags came out. - Oh my God. - It was a red flag game, right? - It was, we went into a time machine, okay? It's like the Canucks went into a hot tub in Las Vegas. They went into the hot tub time machine and came out, what were the 2021 Vancouver Canucks with Bruce Boudreau as head coach? - Yeah. - Or, I guess, 2023, I don't know. Time doesn't really make any sense to me anymore, but the Bruce Boudreau Canucks of last year, that's what they look like. Turnovers at the blue line, just throwing pucks into very dangerous areas, not having a care in the world, throwing caution to the wind, and saying, "Ah, this should work." No, no, definitely not gonna work, not against this team. - And I mean, we were joking about the Carson Sousie play. - Yeah. - His pass, I didn't, he just stands there and looks at it. I'm like, "What are you doing?" (laughing) Was he just confused about what he did? Like, was he thinking to himself, like, "Wait, did I just do that?" (laughing) - Do you think, it's one thing if you give a nice pass, you know? - Yeah, you're admiring it. - It's when you like, find the seam pass and hit your forward streaking through the middle, catch him right at the blue line, and he goes in on a breakaway and scores. Like, there's a pass you can admire. I don't know, Carson Sousie was admiring last night. - I know, it's kind of funny. I mean, it was like a space cadet moment. (laughing) - And the Canucks had a bunch of those last night, you know what I mean? - It was a bad game overall, right? - Carson Sousie just threw that puck in the middle of the ice, he was like, "No rag rats." (laughing) - Yeah. Oh man. So, yes, a red flag game, but again, like, and I mentioned this on the post game, showing people were angry, they want a blood, right? It was like, you have to get a pound of flesh from these guys, they want a tongue lashing, that's what people wanted for these players. And I was like, "Yeah, sure, we can criticize the game, "but I'm not sitting here saying, "Oh, they're doomed in the post season." They're things they had to do better, of course. Last night was a horrible game, but that has to be your worst game. Like, this has to be, and I don't believe in a rock bottom, I've mentioned this before, but this kind of has to be like, your last bad game of the season. - Yeah. - Like, this has to be it, this has to be your wake-up call. - This should be the one that's like, all right, we have seven games to go now after this, and if we don't get our act together, like, we might mess up, so we have to be serious, we have to be more engaged here. I was actually surprised of how bad they were, considering the stakes of the game going into it, and I'm not gonna make excuses for how the first bit of the game happened, and why, perhaps, they went into a shell a little bit, or whatever, and fell apart, but they fell apart, and they should have had far more intensity and urgency in that game. They didn't, but that has to be it. If that's not it, then I may join the brigade that is very, very concerned, but I'm not quite there yet, but this has to be your last performance, that's as poor as it was. So it wasn't the Dallas loss or the more recent Los Angeles loss, even the one to Washington, like, there was maybe similar signs to the one that this game had with the Vegas Golden Knights, but they only lost to one, they stayed in that game, Colorado, maybe the third period, was the most alarming, but otherwise, you know, they were up three nothing in that game, and then coughed it up, they played largely well, but one common theme through all the games is, bad mistakes, right, giving another team freebies, giving, making mental mistakes, whether it's focus, whatever it is, it's getting away from their staples, what they've been so good about this year is, you know, even if we're not playing well, even if we're not executing, even if we're not generating chances at the rate we would like to, as long as we do these things, we'll still be hard to break down, we'll still keep ourselves in game. Last night was the worst culprit of all of those things, they made a ton of mistakes, Vegas capitalized on all of them, and they just continued to make them. And the worst part was, you do it at 2-1, you get that goal from Nils-Hoe Glonder, and then right away, fourth line goes over the boards, Jack Eichl and Marcheso do the business, take advantage, you score the 5-3 goal, it's like, oh, you've got an ounce of hope, 24 seconds later, Carson Sousie makes that, I don't even know what he was doing, kind of play, and you've got a no chance for Casey Desmith to make a save, going back the other way, 6-3 in-game zone. - Yeah, and you know what, it's a wake-up call on that, it sends two, and also, I think, you know, we haven't really gotten to our steep beans, and I did think that he probably took more criticism than deserved, I mean, who was good last night, you know, we go through the last night, I know Queen had a couple of goals, but on the first goal, he gets dummied by Dora Foyev, so that's on the first goal. I saw like, he was spectacular, he scored a couple or whatever, but nobody comes away unscathed last night, but I don't think he's ready. No, and I think what they have to do now is, you talked about it yesterday, and you know, I mean, he was a big culprit of the two of the early goals. - Yeah, and he's, I think, next year in a training camp, I'm excited for him, I'm excited for what his, what the future holds for him, and Vancouver, and what he might become. I just don't know if he's ready for it right now, and I think you have to have guys out there that are ready for the moment, and that means PDG means Oman, and I think-- - I will say, like, I don't mind pod Colson right now, like, at least he's physical, he doesn't look out of place in the way that R.C.D. Bain stuff. - He probably had their best chance, the one we drove towards the net. - Yeah. - So, like, scored on, like, he had the one lone real power to move anybody made to cut into Logan Thompson last night. - Pod Colson looks a lot more ready than R.C.D. Bain's does. - Yeah. - Is what I would say, but yeah. R.C.D. Bain's is in the lineup tonight against Arizona, okay, sure, it's Arizona, but-- - Yeah, but to me, it's like, you have seven games now, and it's-- - That's part of it, too. It's, like, I get, you know, the players, and where they're at right now, and, you know, we've talked about how do you still manufacture the same intensity and the same focus that you've had all season long, now that you've got the X to your name, now that you are, even after last night, even the most pessimistic of probability models would still put the Canucks at over a 60% chance to win the Pacific Division. So, you're still in a very good spot. How do you manufacture that intensity that you need, but I also think of some of my criticism is towards the coach, too, in how much longer are we gonna keep up with these experimentation models that we've got going on with the forward group, and R.C.D. Bain's, and you've got, you've taken Miller away from Besser now after the whole season of them playing together. What are we doing here? How much are we cooking up in the lab when we're seven games out from the Stanley Cup playoffs? I do have some questions about that, too. I think there's a lot of blame to go around here. - I think that's fair. The one thing I am back brought up last night, and leave it to I am back to also kind of, you know, have the sage moments, but he mentioned he's like, 'cause that same take-- - You know me. I'm all about people that are being reasonable in these kinds of moments. - Exactly. So, I'll give you another reasonable take. I'm saying I love that for each. You're gonna love this one. But, and yeah, 'cause I asked him, like is it time to stop the experimentation, go back to the duos and really hone in on what you are? And the point he made, and I think it's a salient one, it's, that's only, the line juggling is a symptom of the problem. Like, he's not line juggling, because they weren't playing well in these lines. Like, they have problems with how they're playing in terms of generating and scoring goals right now. And the biggest issue is Elias Patterson. And until Elias Patterson becomes more of a threat to himself individually. And I thought last night it was not a bad Patterson game. I know people got mad at me for saying it last night. I mean, he created a few scoring chances. The goal they got in a whole glander, good work from him being part of it. Even the huge goal he does some good work on. Like, there was things that he did a lot of good work on that didn't get points for. He set up a couple of great scoring chances. The one to Phillip Pironic, who I don't know why-- - Yeah, I mean, his controller got stuck when he was, it was like, there's incredible chance. And he just waits like an extra second and a half and the theater closes on him. And he can't get the shot off or what Hanifin it was. I forget which defensement it was. So he was fine, but he's not a threat individually himself. So until certain players, he himself, number 40, gets going, I think the line juggling is only a part of, like, it's a symptom of the actual problem. 'Cause no matter what you're doing, you can't get that guy going. You have to try to get that guy going, right? So I think that's part of the problem. So yes, it's easy to say, just go back to what you have to do, but is it solving things? - Yeah. It's not. Right now, it's not solving things. And I'd still feel more comfortable about going to the things that worked for much of this season for this team, rather than whatever it is that's going on right now. Okay, you don't have Patterson going? Well, at least we'd have Miller and Besser going. Maybe we could still rely on Blueger, Joshua Garland. Like, those are the staples of what worked for this team earlier this season when it came to the combos. And as far as Patterson goes, like, yeah, he did some good things last night, but have we gotten to the point where the bar for Patterson is like, oh, great screen on the goalie. Like, who is he? - No, it's Patterson. - It's true, but no, I think goes back to the point where people, like, it goes back to, I think the criticism kind of getting going too far. - Yeah. - I think part of it is when people say he's useless, he does nothing, he's horrible, they should put him on the fourth line, healthy scratch, and it's like, okay, well, relax, yes, like he needs to be better, but let's not act like he's doing nothing, and I think that's the point, but he has to become a threat individually. And whatever it is, preventing him, confidence and injury, whatever, we don't know. We can speculate, we can mention things, whatever, but all I know is he's not as threatening as usually is as a scorer himself. And until that changes on the power play and five on five, it's going to be a problem. So four of the last five games, right? Pedersen has one shot on net or fewer. The outlier being the Dallas game, where he had four. Prior to that, he had a bunch of games where he had multiple shots on net. So he's not even really attempting chances at goal right now. And that, to me, is indicative of what's going on with Pedersen. He's not playing it as best right now, he's not feeling confident, and when he's not feeling confident, he passes up chances and he's not attacking. He's not acting instinctively as he would normally. So there's a lot here. And you look at Jack Eichl on the other side. I think Jack Eichl might be the most underrated player in the league right now. Nobody talks about him in the same light as an Austin Matthews or a Conor McDavid, Nathan McKinnon. No, he doesn't score anywhere near the level that those guys do, but is his impact on the game all that much less than what they do? I mean, he's become, I wouldn't say, full Patrice Bergeron at this point, because that's the greatest defensive player of all time. But he's kind of feeling like that, where he's mostly just around a point of game and pretty much impossible to score against when he is on the ice. That's what it feels like when he's at his best. And Pedersen hasn't been close to that more recently. - I mean, I think that this may be overstating in somewhat 'cause he wasn't at the same prolific level. Like as good as Eichl has been, I don't think he's ever had a 100-point season. - No, not even close. - But it's kind of like Steve Iserman. When he went from being, you know, one of the most prolific scorers in the league, he was getting like 120, 140, I think 150 points in season. I think he had like over 100 points, five, six, six years in a row or something like that. And then just became his two-way ace. And then he was like around a point per game, 80 points, 90 points or whatever, but just dominant. - Yeah. - That's kind of what we're seeing from Eichl. And not at that level. I think Iserman again to me is like just incredible what he was, but that's kind of what I was thinking about watching him last night. I mean, he's kind of becoming Iserman-like as an elite top-line player. - Two of the three matchups with Vegas Golden Knights, Eichl has been far and away. Like he, the Canucks have been on another planet compared to Eichl in the two games that Vegas has won over Vancouver this year. And that is a problem when you think about where the playoff probabilities could be heading for Vancouver. So if we get to Canucks Central run down, Canucks against Arizona tonight, we don't know exactly what's happening with the lineup, but we do expect some changes from the coach. Archer Shillovs is likely to be, well, he will be the starting netminder for the Vancouver Canucks. He is the expected starter. On the second half of a back-to-back after Casey Desmith played yesterday, Edmonton has the Dallas stars. Edmonton five points back of Vancouver. They still have nine games to play, two games at hand. And game 80 between Vancouver, four Vancouver is against Edmonton. That will be the second half of a back-to-back for the Oilers. And in that stretch, they're playing five games in seven nights to close the season. So it's still a very tough slog for Edmonton, but also, I'm not saying this is a must win, but this is, what does Elliott Friedman like to say? It's a game you gotta have if you're the Vancouver Canucks tonight against Arizona. - Absolutely. I mean, and honestly, there's nothing they're going to do tonight, even if it's a dominant win, that's going to, all of a sudden, be like, oh, they're back, they've figured it out. Just like last night to me isn't like this huge indicator of what's going to happen in the future. I don't think tonight is necessarily an indicator of anything, but you have to get the two points. At this point, I want to see good performances, but I do think, I want to see as many guys as healthy as possible for the playoffs. I do think that matters more than anything else and getting the division. - Yeah. - It'd be nice to win the conference, but just you gotta get the division. At this point, you can't screw this up with the final seven games, right? I don't think they will. I think with their opponents and what they have going on, and even the game in Vegas, like if you think about the eight games remaining, - Yep. - Including last night, we said, if you go five and three, - Yeah. - You're going to lose two or three of these games. They have some tough opponents. If last night's game is just a loss along the way for you to get 110 points, 108 points win the division, who cares, bring down the playoffs? If this is a sign of you're going to let this slip away, that's what becomes a concern. But like you mentioned, the odds are still very much in the Canucks favor. They just have to take care of business. - So depending where you look, I think they're over 60% at the athletic to win the division. It's over 70% at Money puck. So it depends on the model, what you're looking at as to how likely the Canucks are to win the Pacific Division. But with the way they're playing, it's less than maybe it should be. They are making it a lot more of a conversation than I thought they would a week ago, two weeks ago. And to me, that's somewhat a little bit, I wouldn't say concerning, but there's a caution flag out here on the Canucks winning the division. So at the end of the day, you want to win the division. You don't want to have the disappointment of falling out of first in the Pacific going into the playoffs. And also the likelihood that you play the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round if you fall out of first in the Pacific Division. I believe the Canucks, most likely opponent in the first round is Vegas, but that's simply because there are two pathways to that happening, Vancouver falling out of first in the Pacific and also Vegas, if they fall out of third spot in the Pacific, it end up in one of the wild card spots, Canucks stay in first in the Pacific. That's also a possibility. But if the Canucks stay first in the Pacific, as is most likely, and Vegas stays third in the Pacific, as is most likely, guess what? You missed the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round of the playoffs and Vegas is a bad matchup for Vancouver, maybe more so than any other team in the Western Conference. So avoiding Vegas in the first round would be a very good thing for Vancouver to say the least. - Yeah, no, I think so too. I mean, the last team you want to face right now in the first round is a team like Vegas. - Yeah, you got to face these teams at some point anyways, but if you want to set yourself up to have a chance in the postseason, things to go on a deeper run, things have to align for you as well, and you have to give yourself some favors, and avoiding a team like that in the first round is what you want to do. - Yeah, I love to watch Edmonton and Vegas go out in the first round, but that's kind of like a conference final type of matchup. You're getting it in the first round. - And those two will do some damage against each other, being the big time rivals that they are. All right, we're going to dive more into some of the other storylines. Kevin Woodley is going to join us. His take on Casey DeSmith's play last night. How bad or not bad was it? And was it the Canucks defense that was more the issue for Vancouver last night? It's Dan Reicho, Satyar Shah. You're listening to Canucks Central. - Hey, it's Big Nizar. Have your say and join me on "The People's Show" with big takes and even bigger bets. - Weekdays, three to four on Sportsnet 650, or wherever you get your podcasts. (dramatic music)
