(upbeat music) Welcome to In the Booth on Sportsnet 650. We are your official home of the Canox. I'm Brendan Batchelor alongside Randy Janda. We call the Canox games for you here on Sportsnet 650 and we do this show every week in the booth as well. And Randy, another eventful week for the Vancouver Canucks as we get closer and closer to the post season. Two games done on their three game road trip, the first a disappointing 6-3 loss in Vegas against the Golden Knights. And then they followed that one up with a hard fought 2-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday and that game kind of resembled the win over Anaheim to me where, you know, it was a game where the Canucks led, were the better team for most of the game. They let the other team back into it in the third period but ultimately found a way to get the win. Yeah, the Vegas game was very high event. The Arizona game was very low event. So going back to that Vegas game just briefly, that's a type of game you can play in the playoffs. And Rick Talkett was very, very clear on the assessment of that. Was saying four or five players were not ready to play. The response by the Vancouver Canucks against the Arizona Coyotes was, hey, for 40 minutes they didn't allow anything. And calling that game, Batch, we joked about it during the game. There was Michael Flatley and Dean Lenko references in the first period because there was not much going on. From a defensive perspective, you don't mind that. Offensively, you like to see a little bit more but in the end you get to two points. You create a gap on Edmonton who's got a very tough stretch of games right now. You know, playing Dallas, playing Colorado. So you get the two points but of course, there's a way that this team needs to still build on this victory and improve their overall play. I think from a confidence boost though where you do give up that lead and then before the 60 minutes is up, you get that game winner. There's still a group coming out of that game feeling good about themselves and that's important heading into LA. - Yeah, and they did really well defensively in that game and I know people will say, oh, it's the Arizona Coyotes but Arizona didn't generate much, didn't get many shots on goal. And that is the kind of hockey that will allow this team at least a platform to have some success in the postseason. And other than the Vegas game, which was an outlier, this is a club that is one of the best defensive teams in the league. And yes, we can talk about the scoring, drying up here a little bit of the shooting percentage, coming down and talk about how much harder it is to generate offense at this time of the year. But if you can win games two to one and you can limit other teams ability to score on you, then that puts less pressure on your offensive players. And again, only Arizona, only Anaheim, it's been a tough go for the Canucks lately in terms of winning games against teams that are in the playoffs. I believe it's March 9th against Winnipeg. The last time they beat a playoff team and that was Thatcher Damco's last game before he went out due to injury. So there may be a correlation there. But the defensive side of things, I still have a lot of confidence in this team that regardless of whether they have a tough time scoring goals, they'll at least be in games because of the way they defend in the quote unquote staples that they're able to fall back on. - That's defensively the Canucks have played well. And I think one thing we got to mention is the Arizona Coyotes, yes, in name they are the Arizona Coyotes, they have a history. But in the last 11 games prior to playing the Vancouver Canucks, they had scored 42 goals. This is a team, even when they lose, they score goals. So I think given the Canucks a little bit of respect on the defensive side of things is really important because they have been the best defensive team in terms of goals against per game since March 1st, alongside Carolina, Carolina team that when we talk about being so good post trade deadline and especially the last month, Vancouver's right up there in terms of goals against per game. So defensively, they're getting the job done offensively. Arizona's also a pretty leaky team defensively themselves. So you'll want a little bit more offensive production, but what do we know about the games as they get into the playoffs? It's lock it down hockey. It's who's going to make a mistake? Who's going to break down defensively first? That's generally the team that loses it. You can't take penalties in the playoffs. And also you got to make sure you're air tight defensively. So I look at it from a glass half full scenario for the Vancouver Canucks, your top of your division, you're playing really good defense. Would you like more offense? Absolutely, but I think that will come here in, and they just need to get to the middle of the ice. But defensively, they've been really solid here going back about a month. - In terms of the offense, what do we make of what's happened here with this group in terms of some of the struggles to score? And Dakota Joshua coming back in has helped. He's had an immediate impact. That line has really been driving the offense for these team in the last few games. But there hasn't been a lot from elsewhere in the lineup. And I know we talked about this on last week's show when you brought up Patterson and him needing to drive play on his line as an underreported story in this market or one that we're not giving enough focus to. As the season carries on, as we get closer to the post season, as the pressure ramps up on these guys to have their game at the level that you want, how much is that collective team pressure to produce tied to individual pressure for Elias Patterson to produce? - A lot of it is tied to that because as the season progresses, as you get into the playoffs, you need your top six players to produce like top six players. And sometimes the offense dries up in the playoffs. I understand that, but it's about winning matchups. It's not a point per game player for me. It's not how many goals do you have. It's are you limiting what the other team can do? And are you getting those timely goals? And Elias Patterson has had a very strong season, but I'm still kind of searching for the best. We know what the best duo with him is. It's Hoaglander and him, but who's that third piece? And with Brock Besser playing on that line, we've seen some good things, but at the same time, we haven't seen that real upper echelon production. And we saw that with JT Miller and Brock Besser as a duo. Right now, the duo on the second line or the first line, depending on how you look at it, is Joshua Garland and JT Miller can play with anybody, and he's high end with anybody. So I look at that scenario and to say, okay, right now it's working, but in the playoffs, how are you going to get the best out of Elias Patterson? And part of his line mates, Rick Talkett said, hey, listen, there's 60 goals between two wingers on that line, I don't know how much better we can do in terms of wingers. This is on the player to up their game. And I do want to be sensitive to one or two things. It's been a long season. There's a maintenance day last week for Elias Patterson. Is he dealing with something potentially? You just don't have a maintenance day for the sake of it this time of the year. So yes, it comes down to Elias Patterson being that much better, but when I look at these lines, I'm still, especially on that top six. I'm still searching for something. Maybe his name is Elias Lindholm. We don't know what the status is there, but it just feels like they're pushing Garland and Joshua down to that third line, just gives us line up so much more balance. But in order to do that, you need to have a winger you can trust next to Elias Patterson. And that right now is not there because ideally you want to bump Brock Besser down to JT Miller's line. So right now, Elias Patterson is going to have to ramp up his game, but I also think the lines are kind of in flux right now as we are sitting in the first week of April. - And that's not the time of year you want your lines to be in flux, really. You'd like to have things sort of rolling on all cylinders. You'd know what you're getting. You'd know who's going to play with who. They've got built in chemistry, but that's not the reality of the way that this season has played out for this team. Now, for most of the season, we knew what the lines were going to be for the most part. Like we've talked about Miller was with Besser, Joshua and Garland were together with Blueger or early in the season. They played with Pew Souter. And that's just what you were getting with the lines. And then, you know, Patterson, there was the Lotto line briefly, but Patterson was mostly on his own line. He had Lindholm there for a bit. I think the common denominator in terms of the lines being in flux is Patterson. Because I don't know if we can say for any extended stretch that Patterson has had the same line mates this year. Like he had Mikayev and Kuzmenko early in the year. Briefly, it was Mikayev and Lafferty now Hoaglander's up there. Besser's been on that line. Like they've been trying to find line mates for Elias Patterson. And that's been the biggest struggle in terms of consistency within this forward group. So the pitch I would like to make, and again, I'm not Rick Tockett. I'm not an NHL coach. I'm just a guy that talks on the radio a lot. So I take this with a grain of salt. But I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to put Patterson between Joshua and Garland and say, okay, we know what we get with Joshua and Garland on a game in, game out basis. Maybe them getting in on the forecheck, them creating turnovers and getting the puck to Patterson allows Patterson the best chance to have success. And then you can go back to Miller and Besser on a line together because you know that they give each other a good opportunity to have success. Now what that does to your bottom six is a completely different conversation. And Elias Lindholm being able to come back and anchor a third line in that scenario, I think is pretty critical to sort of stacking things up at the top of your lineup. But the closer we get to the playoffs, and the more we talk about Elias Patterson and his struggles in needing to produce and needing to get going, I wonder if the cure to that isn't just put the most consistent winger pairing you've had on this team on the wings with Patterson and see if they can't create some magic. - That might be a short-term fix. And I agree like, hey, at this point, when you're trying to find that answer to get this guy going, get him more confidence, more assertive is another word I would use with Elias Patterson. And we talked about this earlier on this year when he wasn't cutting to the middle of the ice, maybe the shots on goal were low. And you know, that's the area that I think with Elias Patterson, when he's going, he's got one of the best shots in the game. He can pick corners like very few players in the league, but we go back the last three games batch. He's got two shots on goal in the last two. He had one against Anaheim. Against Dallas, he had a few more. That was a more maybe energetic performance for him, at least in terms of shooting. He didn't pick up any points. But you know, in the last five games, we're talking about a guy that has gotten more than two shots on goal once. And he's got one assist in those five games. So you need him to be a little bit more assertive. Dakota Joshua and Connor Garland, I'm open to that experiment as well. But here's the problem with experimentation at this point of the season. Right now, I would say the next two or three games, maybe four for sure, or where you can do that. But batch, if this team has got the division locked up, you're probably resting guys. Experimentation time, it's probably done by the time you get to the flames game, or maybe the Jets game, unless the connects are playing for, you know, top spot in the Pacific still. So I doubt some of the star players might be playing the final two games. So right now you have to find that spot. And whether that's with Dakota Joshua, Connor Garland, whether that's with Brock Besser on his right-hand side, and Neil's Hoaglander on the other wing, whether that's with Elias Lindholm. And I know it's been a while that that experiment played out. But when I look at this Vancouver Canucks team, I think ideally Lindholm or Patterson playing on the wing, they got to try that again, because if Lindholm's healthy, the balance you have with Blueger, Joshua Garland, and the third line is a match-up problem for the opposition. J. T. Miller, Pew Souter, and Brock Besser has had success this year. Throw in a different winger there aside from Souter as well, if you want to go McKay, or somebody different. But, you know, Patterson, as of right now, needing that winger, I go back to Elias Lindholm because as much as he'll be a good third line center for you, I feel like he can do more in the top six. And if health has been a concern, I think he needs another look in that top six to say, all right, we understand you were dealing with something before. Let's see what you can do in that top six now if you come back healthy. - Well, and I think injury management is an important part of this conversation too, because you already alluded to the fact that Patterson might be banged up. I would imagine that even if Lindholm is able to come back in the regular season or the playoffs, he's not gonna be playing at 100%. I'm sure there are plenty of guys on this roster that aren't necessarily playing at 100%. We've seen many scratches. - Brock Besser. - Brock Besser as well. We've seen maintenance scratches for Ian Cole and Nikita Zidorov. So this time of the year, it becomes a war of attrition. And I know it's been a long time for Kanok fans since really experiencing the real playoffs. And again, I don't want to take anything away from the bubble, but the guys had been off for months and then they came back and played. So the Kanok's actually got some guys back that had been injured at the end of that regular season. That's not gonna be the case this time, but at the same time, it's not gonna be the case for all the teams around the league and part of having a successful playoff run and part of winning a Stanley Cup or getting close to it is not just being the best team, is not just winning as many games as you can, but it's staying healthy, it's managing injuries, it's getting bounces, it's getting lock in. These are all going to be factors that play into the overall story of what happens to this Vancouver-Kadok team when the playoffs begin in a few weeks. - No doubt, and this is, you know, the next three games, you want to say two games for sure, but I would say three of the next four. It's going to be a really interesting match-up. We've seen the LA Kings play Vancouver recently, we've seen the Vegas Golden Knights, you can bet Rick Taco won his team playing their best when they're back at home in Vancouver against the Vegas Golden Knights. That's six, three loss is probably still going to be fresh on their minds. LA, one last timeout as well, which was something that the Canucks did not like in that three, two game, but, you know, the Oilers. This is another team that's chasing Vancouver right now, so you got to bring your best game here, and I know there's been some conversation in this city of okay, you know, are you backing into the playoffs? We're seeing other teams struggle too, it's not only Vancouver, Vancouver has actually been picking up wins, maybe not playing to the same style that they were playing early on in the year, but go look at, as the team like Florida, Florida was being touted as, you know, the eventual Stanley Cup champion by many earlier on, I want to say about a month ago, and now they've really, really struggled, so this is kind of that time of the year where you got to find your A game and you got to ramp up because a lot of the first round is about timing, are you going in, you know, guns ablaze and are you hitting, you know, the level that you want to hit, and if you back into the playoffs or you're not playing your A game, you know, the first round can come real quick and you run into the wrong team, unfortunately, for a lot of teams, you know, it can be a quick series, so Vancouver, I don't, you know, fear that for this team, I just think, you know, there's a lot of good things in their game like defense, but you also got to find those line combinations of, all right, what can give you the maximum heading into the playoffs, who can give you everything and how can you build those habits that you're essentially saying, all right, this is a line combinations we're happy with, and this is the team game, this is a defensive game that they are already locked in, that is one thing for sure, but you got to get all of these things to try to click together as you enter the playoffs. - Yeah, and that's an interesting conversation too. I was talking about this with sat and reach on Canucks Central on Thursday, and they brought up the point that, you know, over the last few years, Vegas last year was on an absolute roll going into the playoffs and they just carried it through into the postseason and went on to win the Stanley Cup. The Colorado Avalanche had a real struggle down the stretch at the end of the regular season in the year that they won the Cup. I think the stat that was thrown out there was they won one of their last nine games or something like that, so they were sputtering and then they went on to lose what, all of four games in the entire playoffs. So, you know, not to say that it's a good strategy to just wait and turn it on when the playoffs arrive, but the postseason will bring another level out of players and, you know, let's say the Canucks go on, have a great first round, beat Nashville or whoever they're gonna play in five games, let's say something like that. They're able to play well, we see them play to that structure, their top guys score, their power play gets going and that's something we should talk about too 'cause it is starting to warm up at the right time now. All of this talk that we're having right now in early April about, you know, them sputtering a little bit will be forgotten and, you know, for a team that doesn't have a lot of playoff experience, I think there will be something to be said for the adrenaline that they can run off of from being in that atmosphere, from being in a packed, loud Rogers Arena that's reacting to every single play on the ice and that in and of itself might bring another level out of players. Now, you don't wanna just rely on that as being the thing that you need to get your team to the level that you need to get it to, but the playoffs are a completely different animal than the regular season and they bring out completely different things in the players that are taking part in them as well. - Yeah, with this team, it's interesting, you mentioned the experience, right? You've got a two-time cup champion, Ian Cole, but outside of that, some guys that have had a playoff experience, but not really at the upper echelon and, you know, reach the top of the mountain like Ian has, but two responses you see from a team that have maybe not that much experience. One could be deer and headlights where, wow, that became real hot real quick. Or the other option is you're not playing with baggage, you don't have history of, you know, essentially being a team that's lost in the first round or you don't, you know, tense up when those moments come because you don't know any different, you're just playing the game and we've seen that, you know, even a team like Florida last year, Batch, where that was a team that nobody had any expectation on. They came into the playoffs on the final of game, essentially, because Pittsburgh laid an egg in their final two games and they were going in with minimal stress because of their, sure, their standing position, but also a lot of young guys on that team that maybe hadn't experienced it to that level and you just kind of roll with the punches, you play your game and that was what we saw from Florida. So Vancouver, slightly different situation. You've been at the top of the Western Conference or at least in and around that area for some time, but heading into the playoffs. Yeah, a lot of these guys are just gonna play their game and I think that's where the even keel mentality of this team matters where you don't get too high, you don't get too low, that's something we've talked about at length during the regular season, even when they have a huge win, they're not buzzing, they're just saying, all right, we did the job, they lose, hey, you know what, we could have played better but we'll fix it for next game. That is important to keep your eyes on the prize and the playoffs because if you start bouncing around and your emotions are everywhere, that's usually gonna get you in trouble. Yeah, it certainly is. Another thing we should talk about is the situation in the division and Wednesday night was a big night for the Canucks in terms of their hopes of locking up the Pacific Division with the Oilers losing in Dallas and Vancouver beating Arizona, Edmonton lost control of its own destiny again in terms of catching the Canucks and the reason they were kind of in control of that destiny is because of the head-to-head game coming up a week from Saturday between these two clubs. So that adds some pressure to Vancouver right now to get some points, get some results 'cause you don't wanna let the Oilers off the mat, you don't want to let them back into the divisional conversation but with so little runway left in the season now, the earlier the Canucks can lock up the division, the earlier they can shake off the Oilers who are now in a situation where even if they win their games in hand and they beat the Canucks, it still won't be enough for them to overcome Vancouver's point total, they then have to have a better record than the Canucks beyond that the rest of the way. A good week here over the next week, starting Saturday against the LA Kings means a lot for this team, for some of those things you were talking about earlier, like locking up the division early and getting guys some rest in the last few games of the season. - Yeah, and if you started looking at the percentages because I know there was a little bit of worry for Vancouver Canucks fans, maybe a couple of games ago, especially after that Vegas game to say, all right, you know, the Oilers are a real threat, this is gonna be a problem. As of right now, money puck.com's got Vancouver as a 90.7% chance of being first in the division. That is second only behind the New York Rangers who are an absolute wagon right now at 94.7%. So you should be feeling pretty good right now based on the fact that that's gonna be a pretty tough mountain to climb for the Edmonton Oilers who I should mention have a 9.2% chance of winning the division. So, you know, overall, it is something that's really important for this team on two fronts. Having home ice, depending on who you play in the second round, if you get there, it's really important. On top of that, that rest aspect batch is gonna be something that you want to get meaningful reps down the stretch for your team, but at the same time, you don't want your players to be playing essentially meaningless games or feel like, hey, if we had done this job before, we wouldn't have to do that. And I look at that game against the flames on the 16th, the final home game of the year, and then the final road game of the year, which is on the 18th and the final game of the season against the Jets. Those are two spots where you're saying, if we can give some guys some rest in either both of those games, ideally, that's what you're playing for here. So, you know, if you take care of business, not only against the Kings, Vegas, Golden Knights, Arizona, and of course, the Saturday night game on the 13th against the Oilers, you're looking at a pretty nice little stretch of the final week of the season where you're saying, all right, we know what we gotta prepare for. That's the first game of the playoffs, and you can kind of chill a little bit, but the division lead, it's not a slam dunk, but you gotta be feeling good about yourself, but you still, you win a couple of games here, and, you know, get all that much closer to being arrested for the playoffs. - We've gotta hit a break here in a moment, but before that, let's have a quick conversation about the power play that is now scored in three straight games, one for three against Arizona, one for three against Vegas, two for four against Anaheim. What are you seeing from the man advantage right now because they're having more success? I don't know if the process has been that much better, but half the time, I think, for a power play, it's about confidence and the fact that they're scoring more here lately should help them boost their confidence going forward. - Yeah, what I'm seeing is Quinn Hughes doing his thing, and he's the one that, you know, we've talked about, and Rick Talkett has mentioned about finding those broken plays and not being so set. So what's one way to create that? It's having your best puck handler, essentially, whether it's attack down the left-hand side, whether it's find the middle of the ice, find the lane and get pucks through, and Quinn's been able to do that a lot more. He's got two power play goals in the last two games. He's, you know, been able to, even in games where they maybe the power play was struggling, but we saw this early on where he was able to, at least just throw the puck on net, and guys are battling to get to the middle of the ice. So I like that part of the process where they're not forcing passes to the bumper, or they're not forcing passes to Leah's Pedersen. You know, when they're simply not there, the opportunity's not there, they're taking what the PK is giving to them when they set up, but I'm not entirely, you know, still confident on some of the casual play we see at times, Vatch, whether that's coming up ice, whether that's, you know, attempted zone entries, I still think that's pretty loose, and if you run into the wrong PK, like Vegas, who remember, Jack Eichl set up William Carlson for that chance, and I'm still unsure whether it hit the poster, Casey to Smith made the save, but, you know, that was a moment where as a little too casual, you're running an aggressive PK, they can attack you. So some good things, especially when they're set up in the offensive zone, but setting up to me is still a bit of an issue for this power play. - And we'll see how they do on Saturday against the LA Kings who have a very good penalty kill, as well. On the other side, we're gonna get into team awards. Canuck fans can now vote for the annual end of season awards, so we'll have a conversation about those awards, give our winners and our thoughts on who deserves to be in the conversation for those, and we'll answer a couple of listener questions as well. That's all still to come right here on In the Booth on SportsNet 650. (upbeat music) Welcome back to In the Booth on SportsNet 650. We are your official home of the Canucks. I'm Brendan Batchelor joined by Randy Janda. If you've missed any part of the show, you're listening on the radio. It does live as a podcast as well on the Canucks Central podcast feed. Make sure to subscribe. You get Canucks Central every weekday with sat and reach. You get every Canucks post game show with sat and bick, and you get in the booth with the two of us as well. And it is award season now, Randy, but I know there's been a lot of conversation about Canucks players and their head coach, and potentially their general manager too, in terms of league awards. We're talking about Hughes for the Norris, Demko potentially up for the Vesna. I've even heard some conversations about Hughes being in the heart trophy debate, which I don't know if he'll get there in terms of a finalist with some of the other great seasons that some of the elite forwards around the league have had, of course, Rick Talkett for the Jack Adams, potentially Patrick Galvin for the Jim Gregory. But the Canucks now have voting open for their annual team awards. So we wanted to have some conversations about that, and we're gonna jump through the first two of these pretty quickly, because I think we'll probably both agree on who should get them. So the cyclone Taylor trophy is for the Canucks most valuable player, and the babe Pratt trophy is for the Canucks best defenseman. And in my mind, there is no one that deserves these two awards, other than the captain number 43, Quinn Hughes, who, as we kind of touched on that opening segment, is really taking his game to another level right now. - Yeah, I love seeing, you know, Quinn Hughes play all season long, but that Arizona game was where, hey, his team needed a win, and Quinn Hughes ends up creating the goal, not only to get the first goal of the game, but also just works his magic in the second goal that Connor Garland scores. And this is a guy that's been doing it all year long. He's not only the best defenseman on this team, he's the best defenseman on the planet, like the Norris trophy. And I'm gonna do a bit of a pat on the back here. Pre-season, I was asked by the social media team by SportsNet, who would win the Norris. I said Quinn, it's probably the best pick, I should have thrown some money on it, which I did not, but Quinn Hughes is right now the best defenseman on the planet, the things he can do, the way he can walk the line, the way he can separate, you know, from the four check when one four checker comes in, doing a little spin of Rama, and then a speed burst, just the way he's able to make it look so easy, Batch. We appreciate what he does, but I think, to a certain level, there's probably Canucks fans and folks that are in the city that take it for granted, because we all watch a lot of hockey across the league. There's not many players that can do what he does. - No, there certainly aren't. And I think we even take it for granted to a certain extent, because there are things he does every game that'll make you go, wow, that was impressive, but because they happen every game, it becomes sort of the norm. But let's talk about the fact that he continues to break records for this team. His individual records, right? He just eclipsed his own single season assist record for a defenseman in Canucks history the other night. He's already well ahead of his own record for the most points in a single season by a defenseman. He's second on the all-time list in terms of points by a Canucks defenseman, and he'll be number one, potentially next season, passing Alex Edler, and he's still so young that I think oftentimes we will talk about an era in the history of this team and go, "Man, we maybe didn't appreciate that as much "as we should have while it was happening." And I think you can certainly talk about that with the 2011 team and that whole era and how they won back-to-back presidents trophies. We're in the conversation to be a Stanley Cup contender for three, four, five years there. But I think we'll look back on this era in particular with Quinn Hughes and go, "Man, that was really special, "having a defenseman of that level." Because we know from the history of this franchise, these kinds of defenseman don't necessarily come along every 50 years, let alone every era. And it's pretty special that they've got a guy that could very well, should win the Norris Trophy this year, leading their team. - It's unbelievable. And it's Vancouverites and people that have watched a lot of hockey over the years in this city. What he's able to do, you're right, it's never been done by somebody on this team. And when we start looking at the point-tolls back, there's been so many great defenseman to play in the NHL. But we're talking about Quinn Hughes with his 86 points. This is the 35th highest scoring season of any defenseman in the history of the league. He ain't done yet. By the time he's done this season, he's probably gonna crack the top 25, up there with names like Ray Bork, Paul Coffey, Dennis Potvan. Think about that for a second. This is an organization. And I don't wanna, this is not gonna sound like a slight. It might sound like a slight, but it's not intended. But remember some of the names that we're playing on the back end just a couple of years ago. It felt like the back end of the Vancouver Canucks had so far to go to ever become, you know, relevant in the NHL. Well, you insert some really good players, some solid players, better fits, but the superstar that Quinn Hughes is and what he's able to do just makes not only other defenseman really good, but everybody on that team. And as I mentioned, this is a top 35 defensive NHL scoring season in NHL history. By the time he's done this season, we might be talking about top 25 season in the history of the league. - And we've heard his name thrown around in, you know, conversations with guys like Bobby Orr in terms of some of the things he's accomplished early in his career that other defenseman haven't been able to do. So we're in agreement, Hughes gets the Cyclone Taylor Trophy for the MVP, the Babe Pratt Trophy for the best defenseman. Now we're on to most exciting player. And I think there are lots of different directions you could go with this award. It's the Pavel Barre Award, Randy, who is your vote for this award this season? - Okay, and I want to have like a bit of a rule here for myself and I think you agree with this. No more awards for Quinn Hughes because who is the limit? I think you have to-- - We could give them all to him. We could do everything. - Yeah, we could, but like we're gonna set that rule. For me, the most exciting player this year, J.C. Miller. The way that he's been able to A, of course, produce points. But this is a guy that for a number of years, there's a question of, okay, can he lead a team? Is he too frustrated in the ice? And he's been just perfect this season in terms of being a passionate player, being aggressive, being physical, being, you know, a playmaker, being a goal scorer, that's excitement. And it's not simply just, oh, does a player have dangles, yeah, or can he skate really well? To me, it's about J.T., you know, landing those hits. This is a guy that will, you look at the box score and he's got eight hits and you're saying, all right, this guy was a physical presence. He's going, you know, on the first shift of the game, he's setting, you know, two or three big hits right off the bat to set the tone. Points are one thing, but the way that J.T. plays is one of the premier, in my opinion, probably at this point, him and Philip Forsberg are in the conversation as the premier power for power fords in the game. Most exciting player for me, easy J.T. Miller. - Yeah, I have to agree, which doesn't make for great debate here on a talk radio show, but especially because Miller's not going to be the MVP in our minds. And I think if you are going to have any sort of conversation around the most valuable player on this team beyond Quinn Hughes, there's only two more names you can add to that list. And those names are J.T. Miller and Thatcher Demko that, you know, Miller, absolutely the most exciting player. Just in terms of the offense, he generates your right, the physicality, willing to drop the gloves to, you know, is a part of sustained offensive zone shifts, is a part of pretty power play goals. So I'm going to agree completely with that part of this conversation, J.T. Miller for the most exciting player. Now, the unsung hero is one that I think we can delve into a few different guys on this team. And here's the hard thing about the unsung award for the Vancouver Canucks and you and I were talking about this before we recorded the podcast. In a hockey market like Vancouver, where there's so much scrutiny on every player in this lineup, no one is unsung. Everybody has been sung this year. So I don't know if you necessarily want to call this the unsung hero award more than maybe the guy that overachieved most in relation to his expectations award, but I'm going to go with Niels Hoaglander for this. And again, everybody's sung in Vancouver, but he's a 20 goal scorer in the league now. He's doing it in spite of the fact that he doesn't play a lot of minutes. And even though he's been elevated into the top six since early February, he's still averaging about the 10th most minutes amongst the forward group. So even though he's deployed as a top six forward, he's not playing top six minutes. He's not playing the same amount as guys like Alias Patterson or JT Miller. And yet he continues to produce, continues to score. He's a guy that I would maybe put in the conversation for most exciting as well after Miller, just because of some of the pretty goals he scores and the work he does on the four check. But the offense is one thing for Hoaglander, but there's also the relentlessness battling for the puck. The fact that he routinely gets under the skin of opposing players on most nights when we're calling games. We see guys get frustrated because he'll just outwork them for a puck and win a battle down low. So that's where I'm gonna go with this, although I understand there are a multitude of options in terms of the Young Song Hero Award, but I'm giving it to Niels Hoaglander. - Okay, I will disagree with that pick because I have my own pick, but Niels Hoaglander and what he's done from questions being asked of Canadian everyday NHLer to then being asked, can he be a player in the top six? And now there's no questions of can he stay in the top six? He's there, he's not going anywhere. And that jerk factor that he has in his game, it's been fantastic to see his growth, but my unsung hero, it's gonna be the guy that everybody's talking about in this city for the last month, especially seven weeks when he wasn't playing, it's Dakota Joshua. This is a guy that, you know, essentially, coming in from St. Louis, nobody really knew what he was. He played 42 games for them and had four goals in two years. It wasn't a real development to sign Dakota Joshua. Last year has a good season, 23 points above expectation. This year starts off poorly by not being conditioned as he showed up to training camp. And since then batch, 15 goals, 13 assists, 28 points total in 57 games. Remember, he was injured for six plus weeks and the way that he's able to build that chemistry, not only with Connor Garland, but whatever center he's playing with, playing physical, now we're seeing the hands as well, where the through the legs goal against Anaheim was fantastic. This is a guy that at the beginning of the year, it was, all right, let's show us what you can do in the third or fourth line, maybe give us another 20 to 25 points, and that's probably your ceiling. Now the ceiling is, we're talking about it, and there's a lot of trepidation, I think, as well, to say, you know, what's that price gonna be? But for Dakota Joshua, this has been a heck of a season, and he went from not only being a, I wanna say a friendly giant or a sleeping giant to being an absolute menace to play against, he's good on the forecheck, he's excellent in the neutral zone, rangey and able to just break up pox in his own zone too. We've seen him kill penalties and he's been effective at that, so for me, the unsung hero, I know he's sung a lot in Vancouver, but everybody is, you know, the 13th forward sung about in Vancouver as well. Dakota Joshua is my unsung hero. - Yeah, and that's a great shout as well, and I think we always understood that Joshua had turned into a pretty important player for this team, but I don't know if we truly realized it till he went out of the lineup, and we saw how much they missed him in terms of the forward group, how much it also affected Garland's play, not to have Joshua with him and on his line, so, you know, now the conversation will turn to what does the contract look like, and how are you gonna bring him back, and is he the most important player for you to bring back this summer, and a lot of people in this market would say yes, and I'm inclined to agree, I'm trending in that direction now, even though I was saying Teddy Blooger for a lot of the season because of the center ice depth, but credit to Dakota Joshua for the level he's taken his game to, and I'm sure we'll see him take it to yet another level in the playoffs, and he's exactly the kind of player that you want to have on your team in the postseason as well. So that does it for the fan voting player awards, of course, there will also be team awards given out to the three star awards, so the most three star selections this year, the leading scorer, and the Daniel and Henrik Sidine award for community leadership as well. Okay, we got a couple of questions here, Randy, that we can get to from our listeners, and they're kind of both down the same line, so I'll start with Austin, because he's got a couple other things, he says, can we get another update on the record since the hashtag apology? Is batch also responsible for the top six offense disappearing? What else can we blame on batch, and what is still Riccios' fault? And look, I'm not tracking the record since the apology, Austin, that's your thing, so you gotta track it. - You gotta own it. - But things have turned around since the apology, I can't deny that anymore. Although the Canucks have gone through a little bit of a bumpy stretch here. In terms of the top six offense disappearing, I am not going to take the blame for that, certainly. Maybe we can hang that on reach. And that ties in to the other question we got from Ernest, who asks, "How concerned should we be "about this team's ability to score in the playoffs? "Do you see them having a similar fate "to the 2020 bubble playoff team?" And that's an interesting way to phrase it, because if you went to game seven of the second round and lost to the Vegas Golden Knights this season, I don't think that's an unsuccessful playoffs. Now, there will be some people, and everybody's gonna have a different marker for this. Some people will say it's Cup or Bust. Some people will say, "We wanna see you in the West Final." Some people say, "When around, some people just happy "to be back in the playoffs after not having been able "to go to playoff games in Vancouver in nine years." But if this team wins its first round match-up and has a hard-fought match-up in the second round against a team like the Oilers or the Golden Knights, which is the most likely second round opponent based on the way that the standings are sitting right now. And they go out in seven games in the second round. I could absolutely see that being a realistic possibility, and I don't think it would be a disappointment for this team if that happened either. - To the beginning of that question though, how concerned should you be, or what should we be about this team's ability to score in the playoffs? I think that's a real concern, right? Jay T. Miller's line, I don't have any issues with, but we talked about it earlier on in the show. It's the Alias Pedersen question, where is he able to produce offensively? Is he able to drive offense until we see that consistently? I think it is a concern. Any time when your top two centers is not able to do that, or is having a bad stretch, that should be a concern, because as much as depth matters in the playoffs, you're driven by your star players, and that goes for every team. You need your game-breakers. In batch, you talked about it earlier on when Colorado was struggling down the stretch, and then eventually went on a tear to win the Stanley Cup. What was the reason they did that? It was, yes, they had excellent depth, but when Nathan McKinnon and Kale McCar play their best hockey, you're more likely to win those games. That's just the reality of it, and the same goes for Vancouver, whether it's Quinn Hughes, Jay T. Miller, and of course, Alias Pedersen. Now, a similar fate to the 2020 bubble playoff. To me, this is about matchups, right? If you get a favorable matchup, let's just say something happens, and you don't get Vegas in the second round, and the Canucks are the favorite, of course, going to the second round is a success in a certain way. But if you're playing Vegas, that's a tough matchup. That's one where if you can take it to the wire, I think that's the goal here. But if you end up getting a lighter matchup, then, yeah, that goal post does move, so-- Well, based on the way the playoffs are built right now, that lighter matchup would be the Edmonton Oilers. Which I still think is a better matchup than Vegas. My worst-case scenario is coming true here as they're starting to heat up. Yeah, it absolutely is a better matchup than Vegas, but at the same time, let's say you lose in the second round to the Edmonton Oilers. They are a team that has two of the best players in the world. They're a team that has more playoff experience in recent years than you do. I don't think that would be a disappointing outcome. Now, may it be a missed opportunity that you don't have to go through Vegas to get out of the Pacific Division portion of the playoff bracket, especially with how consistent the Golden Knights have been a good team over the last few years and how the road out of the West may go through them for a decent part of this window that the Canucks are entering right now? Yeah, absolutely. I'm here for that conversation, but if you're telling me the Canucks lose to Conor McDavid and Leon Dreycidal, a team that's already been to the Western Conference final, I could see that happening for a team that's just back in the playoffs for the first time, really, with this core group. Well, let's put it this way. Vancouver versus Vegas, if it were to happen right now, who do you think would be favored on like the odds and everything? - Oh, Vegas, Vegas for sure, yeah. - And right now versus Edmonton? - Probably Edmonton, maybe a pick-em, at best. - Yeah, I'd be interested to see what the sports books do with that because that more of a pick-em than the Canucks, I think probably. I think because of the playoff experience, because of McDavid and Dreycidal, Vegas would give more respect to Edmonton than they do to Vancouver, regardless of the fact that the Canucks have won the Pacific Division or are likely to win the Pacific Division in this scenario we're building out here. - Exactly, and McDavid and Dreycidal, they set the narrative in that one. So, with that understanding, a second round series, I think the expectation question is a good one. The first round, yeah, this is a team that has expectations to win the first round. Second round, that matchup is going to be a difficult one. I think Vegas is the ultimate nightmare scenario because they're so locked in in the playoffs, they'll get healthy. Edmonton is not that further down, but the expectation in this market, I feel like it would be different, Batch, because with Edmonton, there still seem to be some cracks there, so maybe amongst the fan-based, you can tweet me if I'm wrong, but I feel like with Edmonton, the expectation is that you might be able to take out this team more of a pick-em. - Yeah, I mean, one of my takes has actually been, and lots of people disagree with this, but I actually think Edmonton would be a more favorable matchup for Vancouver than LA would, and Edmonton isn't really a first round possibility at this point in the season, but while the Oilers do have that high-powered offense, they are a little bit more loose defensively, and we know how good the Canucks have been defensively, you give the edge to the Canucks in goal, you give them the edge on the blue line, and then basically it comes down to, can you limit Conor McDavid and Leon Dreyseidal, and what can your top scorers do, which brings us back around to the conversation from the initial question, which is about the offense, particularly in the top six, and it's part of the reason why I pitched that new look line combination scenario with Pedersen playing with Joshua and Garland earlier in the show is because, yeah, that's a concern right now, and maybe if you can get the power play going, we already talked about how that's heating up, that can help you, but at the same time, the Canucks have been one of the best five-on-five scoring teams in the league this year, and they cannot afford to have that element of their game dry up at the most important time in the playoffs. Now, as we've talked about the game tightens up, you're not gonna need as many goals. You better not need like five or six goals to win a playoff game. If so, then something's gone really wrong for you at the other end of the ice. But all of that said, that has to be the focus right now for these team is getting more production from the top six, especially against teams that make it hard to get to those scoring areas, because as I mentioned in the show earlier, they're coming up on a month since they beat a team that was above the playoff bar. And looking back at the lineup though, that's where I think having players that can get to the middle of the ice, that experiment where we saw Dakota Joshua playing of course with JT Miller, and that's still going on, we'll see for how long, they've done a better job of being able to get to the middle of the ice. And we saw that against Anaheim, where since Joshua's been back, he's been able to do that, scored a couple of goals in that game. How often can you do that consistently enough? Because that's the name of the game. This is a team that has been amongst the best when it comes to high danger goals in the NHL. That means they're able to get to the blue paint. The team that we've been talking about a little bit here, the Edmonton Oilers, lead the NHL with that because Zach Hyman's had 50 plus goals in that space. He hasn't left the blue paint to score goals. So Vancouver's in that discussion, but in the last little bit, we haven't seen it so much. And that's why what Quinn Hughes is doing and creating a little bit more space, being a little bit more freestyle on the goals that he's been able to score and help generate is so important because what it does is it creates chaos in the offensive zone where Quinn Hughes is skating around trying to find that lane and it gives his teammates a little bit more space to operate. So Quinn's very important to that. But even beyond, there's a lot of the game that's played when Quinn Hughes is not on the ice. You still have to find ways to get those lanes and crash the net. And that's something that the Canucks do need to get better at here, even against Arizona. We saw a better second period. They were dominating territorially, but they were still up one nothing after 40 minutes. So you have to make sure that you break through, especially against a really good defensive teams. - All right, Randi, it's time for the Rose ceremony before we get out of here. And this week, I'm going to give my Rose to Dakota Joshua. And I know we already gave him some love for the unsung hero award potentially at the end of this season. But the goals he scored at the weekend against Anaheim, the importance he has in terms of his roster and helping drive play, the physicality he brings, he's back leading the team in hits after JT Miller had briefly passed him while he was out of the lineup. For the way he's been playing lately, helping drive things for this team through a little bit of a tough stretch for them. Dakota Joshua gets my Rose this week. What about you? - Can't disagree with that one, but I'm going with the obvious pick after that Arizona game, Queen Hughes and what he's been able to do. Special player, we get to see him every single game. This is a guy that, you know, prior to that Connor Garland goal, he had scored three goals on his last seven shots for the Vancouver Canucks. The last three goals that the team had scored dating back to that Vegas game. This is a special player, and he showed it again against Arizona when the team wasn't generating all that much that he can grab the bull by the horns and will his team to victory? It's exactly what he did, he gets my Rose. And I'm going to give an extra Rose here as well to Arthur Shilovs who came in and played a couple of great games to the point where there were some people in this market debating whether he should start against the Kings on Saturday. I don't think that's going to happen. I think if anything, they want to get Casey to Smith back going and get his confidence up after the loss in Vegas, but credit Shilovs going in against a couple of teams in Anaheim and Arizona and having good games this past week as well. All right, Randeepe, you've got Hockey Night and Canada Punjabi coming up on Saturday night while I'm going to have the call of the Canucks and Kings on the radio side with Brad Festerling. But what do you guys have coming up on your show on Saturday? - We got Montreal, Toronto. So we'll see what Toronto can do against a weak Montreal team, but also beyond that, we've got the Battle of Alberta. So Edmonton potentially playing against Vancouver, maybe in the playoffs, but definitely on Saturday, April 13th, I'll be covering them this weekend, seeing what they got and what they can do to those Calgary flames right now that have pulled off a big victory last Saturday against LA, but since then have been stinking it up here. So let's see what they have in store. - And that'll be the second half of a back-to-back for the Oilers after they played the Colorado Avalanche on Friday night as well. But that does it for our show this week. If you missed any part of it, download the podcast on the Canucks Central feed and we'll talk to you next week right here on Sportsnet 650.
