It's Dan Reecho and Satyar Shah here in the Kintec Studio. Getting you ready for a Canucks weekend against the LA Kings. We've got a lot coming up. Gannick Hanson is going to join us and a mailbag a little bit later on. Canucks Central is for enzyme-Pacific Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dodd-Ramm and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Canby and Maine, or at enzyme-Pacific-Crisler.ca. And of course in the Kintec Studio, Kintec Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews, sore feet. What are you waiting for? The people were very upset that we did not give them a mailbag Friday last week, Satyar. Yeah. I mean it was good Friday and all, so we were observing and we decided to have the day off, so we figured we'd save it, we have more questions for people, so it makes it twice as good today. Now we've got two weeks worth of questions to get in on. That's the way I already had it. I already apologize to the people that we don't answer their questions. We haven't waited two weeks. All right, let's get to it. It's the open here on Canucks Central. Welcome to the Open. That's your home. Are you too good for your home? Answer me. So the Open, we bring you the latest on the Vancouver Canucks. They practice today in LA ahead of their matchup with the LA Kings tomorrow and we don't know much yet, but we do know that Dr. Demko wasn't skating, so we'll get more into that when we get to the Canucks Central roundup in just a little bit. But one thing that I found pretty hilarious, actually, as I was doing some reading and some prep for the show today, Satyar. I'll admit, I have been as critical as anyone recently of the Canucks record against quality teams because facts only 0, 4 and 1 in their last five matchups against teams currently sitting in a playoff spot. Actually it would be actually 0, 3 and 1, because the Washington Capitals are no longer currently sitting. No, they're not a spot. The caps have really screwed the pooch here. So four of their last five losses have come to teams against that are currently sitting in a playoff spot. But my point is it was just funny, I was going through my prep and Justin Bourne has a new piece up at sports at .ca going through and asking himself and wondering, you know, which of the playoff bound Canadian teams fared the best against top opponents and is that instructive on how they could potentially do come postseason time. So Edmonton, not very good against top 10 teams. Not at all, really. The Toronto Maple Leafs decent, 11, 9 and 3 against top 10 teams, most of that damage being done against teams that are in the 6 to 10 range. And then you get to the Vancouver Canucks with a pretty incredible record against top 10 teams in the league, 12, 6 and 3. And here is Bourne's blurb on it. Vancouver might be Canada's brightest hope if you believe there's any meaning to having a good record against good teams. The Canucks are 12, 6 and 3 against the 10 best teams in the league, which is good because the top of the Western Conference is a murderers row of contenders and they're going to need to be able to hang with those teams. They'll also need that Trudeau back doing his team, doing his thing. So there is Justin Bourne on the Vancouver Canucks, 12, 6 and 3, 8. Sometimes you need an outsider to take a look at things to kind of, yeah, exactly. And this is something we've talked about a lot, it's like, hey, like, yeah, the Canucks have had some problems recently, but their record against good teams is probably a lot better than people think. And for all these narratives about the can't be good teams, it's more narrative than fact. But the recent trend has not been good against playoff teams. And there is a difference between a recent trend and what you've done all season. And even if you want to take away those three games against the Oilers, that would make them 9, 7 and 3. Let's say you want to take away those two games against a 9, 6 and 3. If you want to take those two games away against the Florida Panthers, because there was early, they still make some 7, 6 and 3. So even if you want to slice it any way you want to make the numbers not look as good against good teams, the Canucks still have, they have a winning percentage. It gains good teams no matter how you slice it. So that is bad as you'll make it out to be. Who do they win? That's it. They have one team, one top team that they have not beat at some point this year. Yeah. And that's the only one. And as much as against the abs, right, and they choked it away last time, they had a three goal lead. And we've all kind of agreed the abs may be in a tier above most teams in the league when they're at their best at times, right? But even the games against Colorado, there was the one game which was a bad one outside of that. Like the one, the game was a close game, you got into the third, they lost it in the third, the game that a three goal lead in of course, they end up losing in overtime and coughing that lead up in the third period. But it wasn't like they didn't deserve to be on the same sheet of ice in many of those games. They were close contacts, close doesn't mean good enough if you don't win, I get it. But to the point you're making, we can be concerned about the Canucks, the recent trend and everything. Oftentimes, narratives get made out to be facts and it's not true, and people will be like, "Well, Patterson has a score against good teams." It's like, "Well, recently he hasn't, but overall it hasn't been as bad." And those are the types of things that I think sometimes people will create, make their arguments sound better or they believe it anecdotally. But in reality, every single playoff team or every single league has had some struggles against other good teams. It's kind of hard to beat good teams consistently and I think that's true for every single squad in the National Hockey League. Raymond on the Dunbar Lumber text message inbox, so people shouldn't overreact to four losses with a backup in. I, for one, am shocked. Brandon and Vancouver, it's more about the record against the West playoff teams lately, but we have a chance to get them back alluding to the games against LA and Vegas that are upcoming. Look, yes, they more recently lost to LA and Vegas in the last couple of weeks, but you go back a couple of weeks prior to that and guess what, they beat LA and Vegas, both in their own barn. So if you go into the rating wins thing, then you'll start to get in trouble. I think there's a couple of things that are somewhat concerning about the way the Canucks are playing right now. And I'm, I'm of a few different minds on this, like it feels like a very strange part of the schedule right now where the Canucks have pretty much clinched the division, they've worked so hard all year. Now this shouldn't be an excuse, but I am realizing that they've worked so hard all year to get to where they are and you can kind of see the finish line and maybe you let your guard down a little bit in some of these games because outside of the big loss to the Vegas, the nights on Tuesday, the knocks have still been pretty sharp in a lot of these games. They've just had some critical mistakes, some bigger than others in some of these games, but they've made critical mistakes that have led to them on the losing end of these losses to LA, Dallas, and, you know, some of the teams that they've lost to recently. That's where I'm at with how this recent run is going. And as I've said and stated multiple times, it's also about Elias Patterson and getting Elias Patterson going. Am I overly concerned about Patterson's long-term value to this team? No, I'm not at all, really, I'm not, but, you know, getting him ready for the playoffs and getting him going for the playoffs is still something that the Canucks are very much working on. Yeah, of course. And I think when we're looking at the postseason and how far this team can go, I mean, trends do matter, right? And we are going to talk to Yannick Hanson coming up in a little bit and we'll peel the curtain back a little bit. The players' perspective? Yeah, and we pre-taped with them, so we did ask him about all these sort of things. So you do want to hear what Yannick had to say about things, right, and that's coming up in a little bit. But I do think like trends matter to some degree, but for me, it always comes down to two things. One is health, and the other one is individual confidence. And how confident can players feel once a postseason begins? And if you feel like, all right, you're healthy and you have confidence and the playoffs begin, I have less of a concern about, you know, the trend and how things may be going. But that's the kind of thing you're trying to determine here with this Canucks team. How good are the guys feeling about their game and how healthy is this team going to be for the first game of the playoffs? Well, that's, I mean, the health part of it, Demko is on his way back. Lindholm has been skating, but not practicing necessarily with his teammates in a way that, you know, you would say he's going full practice. So those are the two right now that are somewhat concerning. But as Jim Rutherford said in his piece with Ian McIntyre, he's not too worried about that. As we've talked about with Lindholm, it feels like a rest will be the best thing to be able to heal his current injury more so than anything else. And when you want him to return, he should be able to manage his way through it. But you may never get the version of Elias Lindholm that you were hoping to get when you made that acquisition in the first place. And that's, that's the frustrating part of how that trade went down. Yeah. And, you know, today he was skating after practice and the question is, when is he going to come back? He was an extra, is he going to be ready to go for the playoffs? I think he will be ready for the postseason. But the fact that his game hasn't really materialized to the level they wanted, but more importantly, it hasn't been the fit they had hoped in terms of finding a running made for Elias Pedersen, it still has it seeming somewhat awkward. And I think that's why we've kind of reframed what success for this Canucks team looks like. They were this juggernaut, high scoring, you know, team at the beginning of the season. I call them a swashbuckling team, right? Like just scoring a ton and just getting after it and everything. That's really kind of leveled out. So what's their best pathway to winning hockey to me is it's playing a good overall team game. And if you have four centers and you can dictate play, that's your best way of winning. And hopefully the power play gets going, but it's not going to be running another team out of the building. It's going to have to be being in full control and just suffocating teams and being really good with your details because you have four centers that can really push play forward. And I think that's the framework that's going to be successful for this hockey team. And that's how I'm viewing this team. And I think for those that want to see this team go out there and running gun and beat this prolific high scoring team that's going to, you know, smack teams around, that's just not what they're going to be. And if that's what you're waiting to see to feel confident, that may not happen. So with all this in mind, Canucks record against good teams has been very good. If you look at the overall, if you look at their overall track record for the season rather than just these recent few games and another texture says, you know, if I look at their record since the all star break, six and 10 against teams that are currently in the playoff picture and that would include the capitals game. So sure, the two capitals games, of course, but we all know they haven't been quite as good since the all star break in any metric, more so than anything else. So yes, their trend going into the playoffs isn't quite as strong as it was before the all star break, that in mind, they've played pretty well against a lot of the good teams in the league. They've beaten pretty much all of the good teams in the league outside of the Colorado Avalanche. Should we really worry all that much about who they're going to match up with eventually in the first round set? So I'm of two minds when it comes to this, number one, obviously you want to avoid playing Vegas in the first round. I think that's clear as much as yes, Nashville's been playing better and yes, LA's that an easy team, I would rather face those two teams. But I don't think you can go about things trying to line things up for you to face the opponent that you want. Like the only, you know, the best way for the Canucks to avoid Vegas is, is to beat LA on Saturday and then lose to Vegas on Monday. But you can't go about things like that, you know, you can't. You know, I know they're probably a question coming up in the mailbag too about what the Canucks should do for that game, for instance, but like, for instance, what are you going to do? Throw arter shillobs in that in the like for that game and is he worse than dead than the Smith? That's the thing, right? That's also part of the question. Right. So I think that's part of it. The other one is, do you rest guys? But I mean, how do you look guys on the team in the face and say, you know what, Quinn, you're not going to play today. JT take the night off because we're not so serious about winning this hockey game. That's not, that's not realistic. That's not realistic. Exactly. It's like, it's not. And I think the only thing you can control is trying to play good hockey before the end of the season. And, and I don't think the Canucks can worry about that stuff. You can control, you can control in terms of your effort and the dedication and discipline you have in each game. They need to be close to 10 in terms of their discipline and dedication the rest of this way to head into the postseason, feeling good about your game. And if you end up winning the division and if you end up finishing first in the conference and you play Vegas, hey man, that's what happens. Now you have to live in the reality of you trying to beat Vegas in the first round and perhaps it's not a bad thing if you beat them and the overall confidence boost you get by beating a team like Vegas at some point you have to beat Vegas or Edmonton anyways. So it's not going to be easy. Yeah, I'd love to avoid Vegas, but I'm not sure there's anything you do about it. And would you rather have the Canucks finish strong or finish meekly and avoid Vegas? And I think most would say they want to see the team finish strong. I mean, right now people are saying with the way the Canucks are playing, they're not going to beat Nashville. So they're going to play poorly to avoid Vegas. How is that going to help you? Yeah, it's, I mean, people are always living their existential crisis. We live in Vancouver after all. Well, the rent's so high and Morgan's is so high. I get it. Every day is like an existential crisis. Well, we can't afford to go out and do things. So we just sit at home and wonder how the Vancouver Canucks are not going to have success in the playoffs. That's, that's pretty much what people are doing these days. So kidding aside, you're so right about this. I really can't even debate it all that hard because, yeah, in a perfect world, you'd love to avoid Vegas in the first round. Nobody's going to sit here and tell you otherwise Vegas has found their game. They're going to get hurdle back, maybe even as early as tonight. And that could be a very formidable opponent in the first round. Currently, they said a point above the Kings and they do have a game on, in hand, on the Kings as well after LA beat the Sharks to one last night. But you can't do anything other than play your best hockey and let the chips fall where they may. And you know what, chances are Vegas still finishes ahead of the LA Kings. I know the Kings have the Canucks on Saturday and then Anaheim, Calgary, Anaheim, Minnesota, Chicago. What do all those teams have in common? Not playoff teams. They are some of the worst teams in the national hockey league when it comes to Anaheim and Chicago specifically, whereas Vegas still has games against Vancouver, Edmonton, Colorado mixed in with some non playoff teams in there as well. So look, you're going to just have to see how this plays out and whatever happens happens against LA, against Nashville, Canucks would be considered a favorite in my eyes against Vegas. You wouldn't be. So it's pretty obvious how you would want this to play out, but there's really nothing you can do other than taking care of your own to make sure you go into the playoffs with the right mindset. Yeah. And that's kind of where I'm at too. And especially with, you know, how this team has been trending and what we're looking at in terms of can the power play get going to and then can you get your star players getting on a roll? I'd rather see that than them somehow doing what they can to avoid an opponent and not feeling good about where their game is going. And I think Austin and Langley just nailed it to our text inbox. Being a better hockey team is also a good strategy to beat Vegas in the playoffs. That's a good point. Like the better you play and the better you are, the better chance you have to be a good team. Yeah, and you know, you may have to, you're probably going to have to face Vegas at some point. Well, I shouldn't say probably because I think a series between Edmonton and Vegas would be very hard fought. So man, I don't know who to pick in that series if they face in the first round, honestly. Well, if you go by Edmonton's record against good team sat, they're just four, seven and one against top five teams, three, three and two against teams in the six to 10 range. And even after that, so like bubble playoff teams in the 11 to 15 overall range in the league, they're just seven, six and one, just a shade above 500. They've done most or all of their damage against the lower lights of the national hockey link. Pretty incredible. Yeah, it is pretty incredible. And again, it shows like we get so caught up in, you know, the myopic view in Vancouver and what's happening with this team and everything gets so overanalyzed and it's like again, like if you go through other top teams and their records against good teams, it's not a sparkling as you believe. I mean, we saw Colorado loose a Columbus recently. They're not having an existential crisis now. I think part of the reason too, and this is in fairness to a lot of fans, we're talking about a lot of scar tissue built up over, you know, the past eight, 10 years here in Vancouver. There isn't this backdrop of recent success that you can glean on and say, hey, they'll be okay. They've been proven that they can handle these things and we don't have that frame of reference. It's a lot harder to be confident. So I will, to some degree, excuse some of the sky is falling narrative that happens on a pretty consistent basis every time the Canucks don't have a great game or lose to a bad team. But if you go through every single team around the league, they all have stinkers. Even good teams have stinkers against great teams. Like it happens all the time. Like for all the talk about Vancouver and Anaheim, I mean Montreal took Edmonton to overtime recently. Yeah. What happened to Vancouver people will be losing their minds. Yeah. And I mean Edmonton lost five nothing didn't even look like they belong on the same ice as the Dallas Stars overnight. We'll see how it plays out in the playoffs. All right. Canucks Central round up some of the news bites you need to know here on Canucks Central. Thatcher Demko, his status right now still a little bit uncertain. He did get on to the ice towards the end of practice. We are led to believe today in Los Angeles, but given that he wasn't a full participant in practice would suggest that he is very much unlikely, more likely than not to remain on LTIR through tomorrow and possibly into early next week's at, which might take them coast status pushed back till Wednesday against the Arizona Coyotes for his potential return. We know that Demko has been skating and practicing and stuff. He's been out there, but he hasn't really been part of a full skate. And what do they always say about players coming off injuries? They wanted to have at least one or two full skates with the team. So then he may have one skate with the club on Sunday if they see it on Sunday. And now that depends on what they would be a travel day. So yeah, they're good. So I mean, unless they fly back right after the game on Saturday from LA, you know, which is a possibility. Now it all depends on what their science tells them and then they've obviously they have- What does the science guy say? Let's ask docket. Well, that's what talking always says, you know, the science guys tell us that the science says that. So it really depends on what their internal figures are. But if they practice on Sunday, I'm not even sure they do. So is he playing on Mondays? It seems more realistic that they practice on Tuesday. He practices then and plays on Wednesday. That's kind of, if you're trying to line things up, that's what it looks like to me. The fact that he didn't practice today with the main group tells you he's not just one game away. He's probably two games away. So the Smith goes back in goal for tomorrow night, right? Well, I mean, so I'm of two minds and a bit can I got into a real spirited debate about this about should they have she loves or Casey the Smith like I'm not going to lie when I watch she loves play, I feel better than I feel when I watch Casey the Smith play. But that's not necessarily, you know, something built in fact is just how you feel. And the fact that it's a very small sample for she loves in the regular season and we've been fooled by small samples with goalies in the past or not fooled. But maybe you got ahead of ourselves a little bit Spencer Martin, you know, a case in point for instance, a couple of years ago and then, you know, put him into a bigger, tougher situation with a bigger sample size. It wasn't quite as good. And now he's having success in a small sample with Carolina people like, oh, look, you figured it out. It's like, well, yeah, but there's small samples. It's a lot different when you ask a lot more of a player and the situation isn't as consistent as it was in the past. So my biggest thing comes down to in the postseason, who's going to be the backup? Is it going to be the Smith? Yes. So if it's going to be the Smith, who's the guy you need to have near the top of his game in case that goes down on the playoffs, the Smith. And that's how it is now, you know, I can live in a hypothetical world where I would love to see she loves be that guy, but if he's going to be a third string goalie, isn't that more incumbent to make sure that you have Casey the Smith's game as good as possible before the playoffs? Yeah. Again, the Smith hasn't been bad, right? He's played at expected, even going into the Vegas game. Maybe that ticked him down a little bit since he's taken over for Demko as the starter. But it's, it's more so like, I don't know, pick your poison. You're just losing with Demko, you're losing a difference maker at the position and that's a position you kind of want a difference maker at. So yeah, that's, that's kind of the issue, like to Smith or she loves like, I don't, I don't have nearly as much confidence in either one of them. I'll do respect than I do in Thatcher, Demko. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of the way I look at it. But right now, I think, uh, to Smith, probably getting the start tomorrow against the LA Kings. That's how I would run it at least and even against Vegas on Monday, Canucks magic number still sitting at nine Edmonton visits Colorado tonight and Calgary tomorrow. So any dropped points by the Oilers means that number would shrink. If they lose an overtime, then the number shrinks to eight. If they lose in regulation, the number will shrink to seven, which is a good thing for the Vancouver Canucks. And finally, this one comes in at the Dunbar lumber text message inbox. Hey, Dan, Ovi scored again. Well, I took a few games. What is that 28 now that's 27 or 20 score last night? He scored their only goal last night. So he's got 28 now, he's going to get 30. He'll get 30. Unbelievable. Uh, capitals are up one nothing on the Carolina hurricanes as the Eastern conference snail race continues. Dan Richeaux and Satyar Shah, Yannick Hanson joining us next on Canucks Central. [MUSIC]
