This is the Canucks Central Post Game Show. Here, a man off-set inside of the night back on a crossword. Pause for himself, raw fights and code with the right pad. A tremendous lateral save for the Canucks net binder. He's back, baby. Audrey Book checked my shooter, gets it ahead to Miller. He's got a chance. Left-point shoots, he scores. Off the post, an end from J.T. Miller. He scores his 37th of the season, and it's 4-1, Ben Coover. With instant reaction from the players and coaches. Pass to the back door. Miller can't sell it. It rolls into the corner, but that is going to do it. For the third time in their history, the Vancouver Canucks have won 50 games in a single season. And they win their division. For the 11th time, the first time they've ever won the Pacific Division. They ice it tonight on home ice with a big 4-1 win over their rivals from Alberta, the Calgary Flames. Have your say on the official home of the Canucks. Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network. Canucks clinched the Pacific Division 50 wins on the campaign 109 points. What a season for your Vancouver Canucks beating the Calgary Flames tonight 4-1 to close out their home schedule. Only one more game remaining in the National Hockey League regular season 4, your Canucks. That's coming up on Thursday against the Winnipeg Jets. And the Canucks don't need to do anything in that game. Unless they want to finish first in the Western Conference. But that depends on what the Dallas Stars do tomorrow. And this is the Canucks Central Post Game Show presented by the number 5 orange on the home of your Canucks. Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network. Satyar Shah with Dan Arechio. Going to bring in Randy Janna into the conversation in just a moment. As always, you can grab a phone line 604-280-0650 or toll free. 1-888-275-0650 and get your thoughts in. To our Dunbar Lumber text unboxed 656-50 on the night. That the Canucks clinched the division and also marked the return of Thatcher Demical between the pipes who was sensational tonight, making 39 saves, stopping 39 out of 40 shots in the 4-1 win in Randy. I mean, what else can you ask for when it comes to getting the best out of your goaltender who's playing his first game in weeks tonight? Yeah, he was locked in. He made a couple of high-degree saves to that one on a phosphosol when he'd lost his stick, but ends up making a blocker save. There's one on cadre. There's a couple in the third period. Through 40 minutes, there weren't that many opportunities, great A's. But when they came, he was ready for it. So I think Thatcher Demical, you know, in those moments, even if he would have let one of those goals in, you'd excuse him for, right? He's been away for five weeks. There's some rust, but he didn't allow that moment. And the one puck that ended up beating him, guys, it was off Nikita Zadorov. Yeah. So anything he saw, he was saving tonight. It was, it was really impressive. You know, you know, I think it was the perfect game for Thatcher Demical. Come back, you know, Sat, you mentioned the amount of saves. You had to make 39 out of 40 saves. And he makes all of them only has a couple of like really five alarm saves that he has to make. I mean, yeah, the Canucks got a little bit looser than you would have liked them to in the third period, but even still, most of what Calgary generated was perimeter-based, Randy. I think the Canucks for the most part tonight stuck to their staples, and they allowed Calgary all the volume in the world, but not a lot of real quality chances. Through 40 minutes. And definitely in the second period, when the Canucks ramped it up, you could see one team was a playoff team, the other was not. And you could see that quite clearly. It's a great feeling to have when you're covering the playoff team. I turned to batch and said, we've seen this a few years, but it's been a while since we could say that Vancouver Canucks were the team. That was dominating play. And that's your Demko benefit from that. But he also had to make two or three saves that were, you know, maybe a little bit. This was a diving, you know, in the Olympics. We'd say, OK, that was a high degree of difficulty. Couple of those, but he was pretty standard. And I think that's a credit to the team. Calgary played it more aggressive in the third period, which you're going to do your down. They're pretty aggressive with their defenseman to begin with. But I thought it was a strong effort, especially for the goaltender, because that's what we're watching today, say, is there any rust on them? Is there any reason to be worried? J.T. Miller mentioned this morning. He's played with Hendrick Lundquist. He's played with Andre Vasilevsky. And in his mind, Thatcher Demko is that same mindset, that same type of player. And he showed he was locked in tonight. The Canucks, five on five, had 17 high-danger scoring chances. They allowed five. So for all the volume Calgary had tonight, not a ton of quality. But to the point you made, there was a couple of sequences. We had to go post to post. The best one I thought he made was late in the second period on possible goals across. It makes a great pass. Yeah, it makes a great save. And his show is OK. He's ready to play. He's not any worse for wear in terms of his movement. He looks very strong. He's got a chance on the power, please. Yeah, that was a good chance as well. And obviously the possible shot, he's coming downhill, and he ends up scoring. But not a ton of high-degree or difficulty situations he was put in, which is kind of the perfect night. One thing I didn't want to see tonight was him having to go post to post a dozen times. Really put a stress on that knee. And he got a lot of volume. I don't think he could craft a better game for him to see a lot of the puck, but also not putting them in bad situations for his health. Yeah, we talked about this pregame, where you want him to see the puck. You want him to get some work, but at the same time, you want to ease him in. I thought that performance was exactly what you're looking for. A couple of saves were, yeah, he's got to turn it up. But for Thatcher Demko, this is a guy that's so competitive. His mindset, going back to really his rookie season, was something that a lot of folks talked about to say. This guy is wired a certain way. Even in the lead up to this game, he was talking about how he was pushing this staff and getting them to pushing the program a little bit more to make sure that he could get in these games. And that effort right there, two or three times he had to make the high degree of difficulty saves. This is a guy that, when he's willing to push, not only himself, but that type of effort pushes everybody on that team to say, if this guy's been out for five weeks and he's at that level, a week can ramp it up, too. And there's moments of tonight's game where you see Sharon Gobich at a chance in the second, where he tries to sneak one in short side. But there's no holes. You know, like he had his net, he was very comfortable. He didn't seem like there was no signs of rust from Thatcher Demko, even after being off for more than a month. And communication with the defense, which has been such a big key all season long, there was one shot from Hubertow in the first period where it's clear the defenders stay off Hubertow and just say, all right, this is how we play. You take the shot, we make sure that there's no, like you don't have to go post to post here. If he beats you one-on-one, great. Good for Jonathan Hubertow, but we're going to let Thatcher Demko take that shot and make defending a little bit easier, take away that cross-ice pass. Well, the key word here, guys, even going back the last couple of years, but especially this year, because we're seeing it work, it's the word trust, where we trust the goaltender to make the save. And, you know, he trusts his guys to make the right decision. And that's something that we saw numerous times. And I'm glad you brought up that play. But there was that Conner's area tip as well, like an elbow save or right elbow save. That one had some danger on it too, but that's one where he's just positioned so well and just kind of doesn't have to do much. But the reaction, you know, when you're coming back from an injury, especially as a goaltender after five weeks, the reaction time was flawless. Even early on in the game, he made one save. It didn't seem like it was much, but the reaction speed off the face-off win for Calgary boom, shot goes on and he was on it. So I think from that perspective, there's the trust element, but there's also, this guy didn't have any rest on him. Well, the other thing, you know, when we talk about trust and communication with your defenseman, you look at the Joshua goal and it's a two-on-one, Linholm goes to the net, spreads out for the pass. The defender takes it away pretty well, but Markstrom creeps into his net a little bit too much and gives Joshua too much net to shoot at. That's a communication where Markstrom's got to know, "I can take the shooter and you're going to take away the pass." - Yeah, the aggressive. - "I can play that." But they don't, they're not on the same page entirely, so it opens up a little bit more of the net than Jacob Markstrom would normally give in that kind of a situation. - Yeah, I'm with you on that too. And I think one of the things that Canucks did well tonight was, I mean, I thought actually up until the second period, about midway through late in the second, the Canucks were in full control. They were pretty much what most of the games were like. We mentioned the third, got a lot looser, like, you know-- - Put off the gas a little bit. - Like reach alluded to. But I thought in the first period, it was really tight hockey. They weren't giving Calgary much of anything and it kind of suffocated the life out of them. They didn't have much position. - Well, they played Canucks hockey to a tee. - They did, and it was like, "Hey, we have a good 20 minutes. We got the lead and we can kind of cruise the rest of the way." That's kind of what it felt like this game. - Part of it was that and part of it was also, they took advantage of the mistakes that Calgary made, right? - That's Canucks hockey. - Yeah. - Is it not-- is it not? - Totally. In the neutral zone where you're supposed to play an aggressive style of play, if you're given that much room to operate, like that Tyler Myers goal, even though it's a man down, right? The amount of time that Teddy Blueger has to make a decision there, he's probably thinking early on to say, "All right, I'm gonna get it deep. Wait a second, I got a guy on the right hand side. I can make that play." - Well, give Myers a lot of credit on that play, 'cause you can see Susie say to Blueger, just get it deep. And then Myers is just belining it up the ice and forces Blueger to hit him. - If Myers isn't pushing forward like that, he's not getting that opportunity. - And that's one thing about Tyler's game. You know, he's got what, four shorthand goals in his Canucks career, which is only behind Matias Olin and Yerke Lumen. He's prone to do that. When he finds that open space along the right hand side, he's gonna take it and he's done it a few times in his Canucks career, but that was a great recognition of Blueger as well, just to say, "Oh, wait a second. I got a guy that's going down the runway. I got a big, you know, Airbus 350. A350 going down there. I gotta hit and stride, right? It's kind of hard for Tyler Myers to get lost in the ice, but-- - Calgary found a way to lose him. - Calgary found a way to lose him. You're so right about the Canucks waiting for the other team to make mistakes. And that's what I mean by Canucks, right? You all season long, especially through the early part of the season, we saw them build leads quick and then be able to play on those leads, get into their structure and wait for other teams to make mistakes and then increase their lead when the teams, when their opposition made those mistakes. That was essentially what happened most of the night. That's where the Joshua goal comes in in the second period. You know, you're going to try and pinch. You're going to try and make a play. We're going to crush you for it. And that's what the Canucks have made their hay on all season long and they showed it here tonight. You know, they knew Calgary was going to play the way that they do. They knew Calgary is like two ways. As Phillip Roneck said, two days away from holiday. And they're trying-- - All the guys that you would make that trip to, Phillip Roneck was not on that, I was not making that pick tonight. - I mean, Phillip Roneck is making the playoffs for the first time. - He's happy. - He's an angel player. - He's happy. - So he knows what it feels like being two days away from golfing at the end of a record. - You're like, boys, I didn't book any flights you did. - If I'm Patrick Alvino, I'm calling Phillip Roneck about, hey, you want to be two days away from holiday next year? Like, let's get a contract done. Okay, I'll kidding aside. The part of it though is it's what the Canucks used to be, that they flipped the script on, where they're the team trying to make a play, trying to force something that isn't there, throwing an extra guy into the rush, finding three guys below the puck in the offensive zone, all of a sudden it's a three on two, two on one going back the other way, turnovers at the offensive blue line, like all of those mistakes, big, huge mistakes that the Canucks would make on a regular basis in the past. That's what Calgary is now, and that's the team that Vancouver can take advantage of every single night. - And that's my point about the playoff team versus the non-playoff team, right? We've seen this before, but on the other side, the flip side, on that three-nothing goal, you talked about that shillington going on that pinch, even the two-nothing goal, it's just so much room for the Vancouver Canucks to operate. - There's, like, the hole-glounder goal, you know, Rick Tockett says it all the time, there's only so many times you're gonna be able to pull off the big tic-tac-toe play in a game. And tonight was that kind of a night, where, you know, they move the puck up, it's, like, zero pressure on the breakout, right? Pedersen's able to easily break that puck out of his own end. - Makayev's got all the time in the world. - And then through the, no pressure through the neutral zone, and they complete two cross-ice passes then in the offensive zone. You know, yes, it's a good play. Yes, you're taking what they're giving you, but, you know, that's the kind of time and space you will not be afforded next week. - For sure, and you had a team on that four-one goal in Calgary, Nazem Kaudry, who's really been, you know, a bright spot for this team, third star of the week, trying to force the issue, right? We've seen that in Vancouver as well in previous years, where you're saying, I got to do this by myself, we're down three-one, I gotta find that moment. What happens, pew-sooter with an active stick, boom, go in the other way. And what I liked about that play, guys, was up until that point, the Canucks are kind of sitting back. They're skating backwards. On that goal, suitor with J.T. Miller, combined to really be aggressive in that part of the ice, to say, all right, you're the last man back. You're gonna pull a move on this. We're gonna strip you the puck and J.T. Miller's going the other way, so a lot of good from this. Of course, the Calgary Flames are the Calgary Flames, but you have to build those good habits. You have to make sure you're in a situation where you're, you know, you're doing things right, and that's what they did. And, you know, I think the biggest takeaway for me for this game is Thatcher D'Amco, but also going back to Canucks hockey, as you mentioned, take advantage of the team's mistakes. And those, that offense that we've talked about sometimes, is it there, can it be there consistently enough? You play like that, if you're that aggressive in the neutral zone, you play with some speed, head up, you're gonna get those goals. - Yeah, and they showed some of that tonight. And I think even the, like they had 31 shots on the scoreboard, at least, but for a lot of the game when they controlled the puck in the offensive zone, there's a lot of moments where the Canucks could look for volume, and again, this is what Canucks hockey has developed into, they could look for volume, but they're looking for the tip in the high slot. Pedersen looking for the backdoor pass, that great play that he made in the second period, eyes in the back of his head, sees the door off, creeping off the backside, and almost finds him and connects him for a big, guaranteed goal if they connect on that play. But they got to a point where it's very obvious, they're looking for the better play, rather than just taking the available shot sometimes, which is what they did so much of early in the season that led to a lot of success. - I mean, wasn't the perfect example of that, the Hoaglander goal? - Yeah. - I mean, just tic-tac-toe, walking into the net, essentially. It's very much a soccer goal. I mean, you make that last pass, and it just goes into an infinite-- - We'll side foot into the back of that, right? - And you know what, that line, and we're seeing people text in Josh and Calgary, saying I don't wanna hear any criticism about, at least I'm a KF tonight. The goal doesn't happen if Ilea Mckayev doesn't make a great play. He says, I know Mckayev hasn't been a top six caliber player a while, but he's gonna play like he has the last couple of weeks, and I can live with it. And there was somebody else with Texan in about Mckayev and saying, I don't wanna hear any criticism about Ilea Mckayev with how he played, that's bungalow gym, the second goal doesn't happen without that beautiful pass that he made. - He had numerous quality plays tonight. - He did, he also had a couple chances early on, and remember on the backhand. - Yeah, two on the backhand, yeah. - After on the forehand. - Didn't have a ton of space to make a move there, but still, it gets himself into a good spot. - He doesn't skate through the play. What I like is, at some point, if you play that way, you stop in the blue pain, or right in front of the blue pain, you start looking for that rebound, credit to Markstrom. He sealed off the bottom of the net, didn't allow it. A lot of goalies aren't gonna be able to do that, and the fact that Mckayev did not just skate through this crease, he's gonna get one of them. I don't like the do factor, and that's not a great play, you guys are-- - You guys are making a move. - You guys are making a move. - You guys are making a move. - Part of your brand. - No, no, not anymore, I might have lost some money after that, so I decided to change my brand on that. - They're doing it. - You guys are making money, I gotta give you props on that. - Before we let you go here, Randy, I wanted to ask about the Lindholm Garland Joshua line. I thought they were a pain in the butt to play against tonight. There was that great scrum to Garland. I know it was a bit of a mixed shift there. Garland was on with Hoaglander, and he jumped in, but I thought Lindholm Garland and Joshua built on the chemistry they showed the other game, and maybe who hasn't had chemistry playing down the middle with Garland and Joshua, but that's very promising. Seeing Lindholm get a point tonight, but also be really effective, create chances, that line really looks dangerous. - Yeah, it does, and it has the identity of a playoff line, which is a little bit of heaviness too, with Dakota Joshua, you've got a player that is so good at puck retrievals with Connor Garland, you've got an individual in, you know, a last Lindholm's just good at everything, right? Like, sure, you might not shoot at the lights, you might not pick up the points, but when he's just that defensively responsible and he gets the opportunity, he can make plays. I love that line right now for the Canucks, but they do have an option where things get stale at some point, or you have to deal with something, you got Teddy Blueger there as well, and you got some options with Joshua though, like, he scores another goal, but guys, the way that he's being able to physically impose himself on games, like, today, he played physical, but it wasn't the most physical game, but we know he's got it in him, right? Against the opposition, against the right opposition, he can throw eight hits, which he's done three times this year, he can be even more of a menace on the forecheck, so I thought this was another solid game, I think this is gonna be a real difference-making line for the Canucks, because they can be that matchup line, and, territorially, they can dominate at times, so, you know, we'll see what happens in terms of who they play, of course, there's a lot of discussion about Nashville, and I guess the odds are now above 80% or whatever it is, but that's a pain in the rear end to play against that line. - Yeah, Joshua's also become, like, he's got a goal score of mindset a little bit, you see it on the goal that he scores, right? When he gets shooting opportunities, he's not passing them up too often, and I kinda like that about him, he's got a better shot than we gave him credit for, he's certainly showing it off a little bit more this year, but he's got a shooter's mindset in the sense that he's, when he gets into good spots, he's not shy about taking a shot. - He feels like he's more confident coming back from the injury, like, early on, don't get me wrong, he had, you know, more than 10 goals, he was 10, what, 11, 12 goals when he got injured, but now when he's got that opportunity reach, there's not a hesitation from him, where I felt maybe early on in the year, there were still moments of, he's kinda, you know, getting four or five chances, he's not being able to convert on them, but now it's just, it's automatic, it's instinct for him, which is a great thing to have, because that tells you, this is a guy that, when he came to Vancouver, we often thought, oh, he's a physical presence, he's a big guy, he can maybe, maybe he can be a bottom line for, no, he's shown that he can score what, 17 goals on the season, and the fact that he's thinking shot first, that's a potential game changer. - Absolutely, Randy, fantastic stuff, calling the game alongside Brendan Bachelor, one more regular season game to go, and then finally, the postseason will be here, and that may be as soon as Sunday, hopefully Monday, we'll find out soon enough, there's been, I think there's been more controversy around when the Canucks will play their first right playoff game than anything else going on with the team right now. - Yeah, this is a very exciting time, and guys, I gotta have to, I'm gonna have to plug something here. - What do you got? - Keep an eye on a good sorta tomorrow, there might be a hockey fan-related thing coming out tomorrow, so that's my, that's my plugger, right, that's my tease. - Businessman, always a business man. All right, great stuff, that is Randy, Janda, keep your thoughts coming in, to our Dunbar Lumber Textend box, 65650, you can also grab a phone line, 604-280-0650, your toll free, 1-888-275-0650. One thing I would say, and I'm seeing a lot of people saying, well winning the division isn't that big of a deal, and I'm not sure, in terms of playoffs, what it matters, I mean, you can't take what happens with regular season and apply it to the postseason, but the regular season is an 82-game marathon. - Yes. - And winning a division that includes the Edmonton Oilers and the Vegas Golden Knights, who just won this Stanley Cup, is no small feat. - Yep. - And listen, you can have whatever opinion you want on it, but I think it's very impressive that the Canucks are finishing this campaign winning the Pacific Division. You can enjoy it, and then park it for the playoffs, obviously it doesn't mean anything when it comes, but I don't think we should gloss over that this team, in a division that includes the Oilers and Golden Knights, that 99% of, about 100% of Parkinsonoscators had winning the division, was either gonna be Edmonton, or was either gonna be Vegas, and the Canucks just won it with 109 points on the campaign. They may finish the season with 111 points. It's a tremendous regular season, in one of the toughest divisions in the National Hockey League. - I despise the notion that championship or bust, I get it, there is one ultimate goal, and that is to win the Stanley Cup. Nobody is disagreeing with that mindset, with that notion, but what I will say is you should take more joy in the process that it takes to get there. Whether it is getting to a president's trophy, a division title, all of those things are a remarkable achievement, and should be applauded, should be, hey, I'm not doing the whole baseball, popping bottles in the dressing room after a division title, or clenching a wildcard berth into the playoffs. I'm not going there, but I am saying, you should enjoy, you should be proud, you should, as a fan, gloat that your team was the Pacific Division winner, over teams like Edmonton and the Vegas Golden Knights, because it shows that you were the most consistent team during the regular season, during the marathon. It is incredibly difficult to have the kind of success, to have the sustained success that the Canucks have had over the 82 games this year. And yeah, it may not result in a championship, but that doesn't take away from the building blocks they put together in a year where, I mean, we just haven't seen this kind of consistency out of the Canucks in a very long time. Sure, you can even go back to the first year of Willie D, but as much as we know about hockey now, we know there was a lot of smoke and mirrors that year. Even still, to manage that over a full 82, should be somewhat applauded. And I think they've accomplished a big thing tonight, especially after being a team, that nobody and a lot of people didn't even see making the playoffs this year. Absolutely, it's great accomplishment by the Vancouver Canucks. The postseason can't get here soon enough, but at the very least, it's been a fantastic regular season for the Canucks. Keep your thoughts coming in to our Dunbar Lumber text-in-box 650650. This one here from Chris and Duncan could have been worse, guys. We could have won the president's trophy. You know, the president's trophy curse, as some would have put it, that's not happening. What if the Rangers win the title? (laughs) Well, let's see. This one here says, "Agree with you guys, "this year has been so much fun, "so much has been accomplished." Absolutely, keep your thoughts coming in to our text-in-box 650650. Before we get to the foam boards, one thing I want to clarify for those wondering, the Canucks can still win the Western Conference, top spot on the Western Conference. What would have to happen is, the Dallas Stars would have to lose in regulation tomorrow against the St. Louis Blues, and if they do in the Canucks win against the Jets on Thursday, they would win the Western Conference, because the Canucks would have the tie-breaker in regulation wins against the Dallas Stars, so they can still, if they tie Dallas in points, they could still win the Western Conference. So it hasn't yet been determined whether they're playing Nashville or Vegas or LA. If they finish first in the Western Conference or playing LA or Nashville. I mean, LA over Vegas. Nashville's been decided as a wildcard one team whoever finishes second is gonna play them, so unless the Dallas Stars take care of business or get a point, we may not find out where the Canucks finish and whom they play until Thursday. The probabilities are that Vegas will win their final game, which is against the Anaheim Ducks, and finish above the LA Kings. That's at least where the probabilities are. So second wildcard right now, for probability's sake, will land on the LA Kings. So again, we've discussed and debated this so much. Can you lose whatever? I mean, you're not throwing any games. That's a ridiculous notion in the first place. Canucks are taking care of their own business and seeing where the chips fall as they fall. And that's the best way to go about it. - Absolutely. Keep your thoughts coming into our text inbox. 650, 650. Sea legs texted in, and he was saying, what a great season, guys. I've always loved the Canucks. They should be so proud of themselves and how hard they've worked. I am. That's Sea legs texting in. Let's take a phone call here. Let's go to the phone board. 604-280-0650 or toll free. 1-888-275-0650. Let's go to Campbell River, where we have Daniel on the line. Daniel, thanks for calling in, pal. What are your thoughts after the Canucks clinched the division winning 4-1 tonight over the flames? - I honestly have, I have so many thoughts, but I don't want to be one of those guys that talks for so long. You have to hang up the phone. - Give us your strongest take. Let's hear it. - I said at the beginning of the year, whether you guys remember it or not, I feel like I made a point to say to every single talking head on the radio at 650, that if they hit 50 wins, I will believe again. And they did it, and that's an incredible feat. Now they just, like, how incredible is it that this year? We're talking about, should they throw the last game to try and pick their opponent because they have that power, or it's a death march? You know, like, it's unbelievable, and I can finally allow myself to truly believe again, 'cause they do it, they hit 50 wins. Thanks, boys. Keep it up. - It's better than the last ones, right? - Exactly. Hey, Daniel, thanks to the phone call. I appreciate Daniel. He listens and texts in all the time, so we always have time for Daniel. And a good phone call calling in as well. I mean, I know a lot of, and I know he wasn't saying the connection, try to lose. I see a lot of fans saying, "Hey, maybe they should do everything they can "to avoid playing Vegas or LA." To me, if you try to line up who you play, you're begging for something to go wrong. Like, I think it also shows, and I don't think the players would do this. I think it shows a wrong mentality, too. I think it shows a weak mentality that you're afraid of certain opponents, and then it shows that, are you actually ready to play at a lower opponent? If you're wishing to play X team instead of Y, are you prepared to even play X team? Then you might think it's too easy against you. I mean, hey, last year, Toronto fans won at Florida. - Yeah. - How'd that work out? So it's like, you gotta be careful what you ask for. - And generally, this is a fan notion, and it is something us talking heads will discuss. As fans want to talk about it, who's the best opponent? Who do they match up most best against? All of those things are very obvious topics. There is nothing out of the Canucks, out of the players, out of the way the coach speaks, that suggests they have any sort of that kind of mindset. Every single time they've been asked, "Oh, is this a measuring stick game? "Oh, what do you think about these guys? "How do you play against them?" Their answer is genuinely always the same. Go back and listen to the tape. Listen to When Rick Talkett, J.T. Miller, Quinn Hughes, or any of these guys are asked about the upcoming opponent, what do they say? If we focus on ourselves, we'll be in good shape. If we focus on what we need to do, we'll have success. All of those things have been talked about all season long. And so when it comes to, do they face Nashville? Do they face Vegas? Do they face the LA Kings? It's the same mindset for the Vancouver Canucks every single time, at least from what we hear out of that room. As long as we play the way we should play, the way that we play Canucks hockey, we think we'll have success. And I think it goes the same for who their potential playoff matchup will be. I don't think in that room, they care all that much. As far as what other teams might think, I think other teams might think Vancouver is the opponent they'd rather have over the Edmonton Oilers or whatever else. But reality's sake, Vancouver's not thinking that way. I hope they're not. And we'll see ultimately what happens. It may not even be in their hands in their control, depending on what Dallas does tomorrow against the St. Louis Blues. Keep your thoughts coming into our Dumbbar Lumber text in the box, 65650. You can also grab a phone line, 604-280-0650. We'll get to more of your reaction, and we'll hear from the Canucks head coach Rick Tockett. That's coming up next after a 4-1 Canucks win in the final regular season home game over the Calgary Flames. And this is the Canucks Central Post game show presented by the number five orange of Vancouver legend. They've got sports too. More than X and a home here at Canucks, sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Dan Reachow and Satyar Shah. Join us for Canucks Central, where we will set up the game and break down the latest around the Canucks. 4-6pm and post game on sportsnet 650, and wherever you get your podcasts. This is where you talk Canucks. You're listening to the Canucks Central Post game show on the official home of the Canucks. Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network. Myers snuck up the right wing side. None of the flames picked him up, and Blueger fed a perfect pass to him that sprung him in. And Myers rips it past his former teammate to get the Canucks to the lead. Now here's Patterson, luck link to the call center from the score, and he yells, "Hoe Glander!" A pretty passing play in the offensive zone. And the Canucks extend the lead to two to nothing. It steals Hoe Glander's 24th of the season. And that was just a smooth operation by the Vancouver Canucks. Started off by Elias Patterson at his defensive blue line. Gets the puck to the right-hand side to Ilya McCabe. Gets it back in the middle of the ice, and then sets up Hoe Glander for his 24th goal of the season. An easy one at that, but that started by Elias Patterson and finished off by Hoe Glander, who's got 24 even-strength goals as well. What a goal by Niels Hoe Glander. Incredible passing play from Ilya McCabe and Elias Patterson. It all started from the breakout out of their own zone. Great play through the neutral zone. And then a terrific feed from Mikayev to Patterson and then Patterson finding Niels Hoe Glander walking the puck into the goal. Doesn't get much prettier than that. Tick-tack toe, two-nothing. Ends up being the game-winning goal, and this is the Canucks Central Post game show presented by the number five orange on the home of your Canucks, SportsNet 650 and the SportsNet Radio Network. Satyar Shah with Dan Ricchio. Keep getting your thoughts into our Dunbar Lumber text-in-box, 65650. You can also grab a phone line, 604-280-0650. You're toll-free, 1-888-275-0650. We are gonna get to the Canucks head coach coming up in just a couple of moments, but a lot's popping on our text-in-box, 650-650. And obviously, there was a lot of love for Thatcher Demko with how he played. But also, one guy getting some love is J.T. Miller. Nuck in the sixth, says Miller, and the Rister off the left, off the left is, off his left foot is Shades of Messier in his prime. Not intended to trigger fans. That is Nuck in the sixth, texting in. And J.T. Miller, another goal tonight. And he did look like a man on a mission on a few shifts. Now, I wouldn't say he was dominant start to finish, but he mentioned he wanted to see, he wanted more out of himself before the playoffs began. And I think he kind of took that to heart. And definitely in parts of this game here against Calgary tonight. - 37 goals on the season, 103 points. I mean, the guy's been unreal for so much of this year. And there's another gear there. He admitted it today when he spoke. And we talked about this on Canucks Central in the opening segment. There is another gear for J.T. Miller to get to. We've seen it at different points. I think that period during, shortly after the all-star break when the Canucks were scuffling a little bit. And it seemed as though, you know, Pedersen wasn't going and even Hughes was slowing down a little bit. And Miller was trying to drag the team along, all by his lonesome. But he's had some big moments all season long. He's the most exciting player as they announced tonight. And that goal, you know, the one footed Rister is like, it's J.T. Miller's thing now. You know, it's a threat on the power play. It's a threat when he's able to get it on a breakaway. He is just absolutely lethal with it. One of the best shots in the league when he's in that kind of a spot. And it was a great goal to seal the win tonight. - Yeah, it absolutely was. In the Vancouver Canucks, 4-1 Victor is J.T. Miller getting on the board. And we'll break down some of the goals as a show goes on here for your Canucks tonight. But let's get to the thoughts of the Canucks head coach. We'll get more of your text messages and phone calls as the show goes on. But here is the Canucks bench boss, Rick Talkett, post-game after the final regular season home game and also clinching the Pacific Division. Here are his thoughts afterwards. - I thought he played great. They come out a bit unscathed. I think we gave him, I think that was the plan to let him get a lot of work tonight. For a game that didn't mean much. - I was joking. (laughing) Like, nobody's laughing at that one. I thought that was pretty funny. We gave him a lot of- - Is he serious? - I know, I was waiting for somebody to crack his smile. - For a game that didn't mean much in the standings, they played with a lot of feistiness tonight. One of the things I guess you got to be happy with, it was the quote Wolfpack mentality your team had tonight. - Yeah, I mean, you have to have that, you know, regular season, playoffs, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, definitely love that stuff. - Similar to the Edmonton game a little bit where you guys lock down the lead. What did you think of your team's ability to do that tonight? - Yeah, I honestly, I'm just happy to win the Pacific Division. I mean, the guys did a hell of a job all year. I mean, obviously, let's face it. Nobody really picked us to win the division. So you got to give the players a lot of credit. The game wasn't a Picasso, obviously, but you got to take the pause of, you know, we won the Pacific tonight. So I'm really happy for the guys. Really good. It's a big honor and the guys should enjoy it. - Sometimes you get into these games against teams you should beat and you kind of let them hang around. The Myers goal early, what did that do for the game? - Yeah, it was big. That was a nice shot. Misey jumping up the play, it was a big one. You know, it got us energized. You know, that tic-tac-toe. The other one, the PD's line was nice. And then we kind of, you know, I think we were just waiting for the clock to go and we stopped playing a little bit, but, you know, winning four to one, locking it down. And, you know, obviously, Denver, that Denver was excellent tonight. - The Pacific Division obviously means a lot to the group, but you might be in a position to win the Western Conference. So, you know, you've got some decisions to make. You knew it was going to change after tonight. So, what's your mindset going forward? - Yeah. You know, talk to the group. Talk to the trainers. See who's banged up. There's a lot of factors involved in, you know, we can't make them in five minutes, but we're going to have to do some research and figure the best way to handle this. But yeah, you always want to win every game, but you also, there's precautionary things too. - You talked about the pride and win of the Pacific Division. What about 50 wins on the year? It's only something that has now been accomplished three times in France. - Yeah. I mean, it's a hell of a feat going on to training camp, you know, working every day for this. You know, it's a resilient group, you know, bouncing back after some, whether tough play losses or whatever. We've had some good winning streaks. So, you know, we had to win the game tonight, which we did, so you got to give other guys credit. - Talk to you before the game about the depth that you have now with the Lions currently configured. Did you like the way that, you know, all four Lions performed in that regard tonight in terms of the shifts they gave you? - Yeah, I mean, you know, it's hard to evaluate this game. I didn't think we played our best, but winning the game is the most important. And, you know, we'll get to the Lions and figure it out, but yeah, I do like the depth part, yes. - Is there still more experimenting, more things you want, more combinations that you want to see from your lineup over the next? - Yeah. - I like to say, isn't what not heading into the playoffs here? - Yeah, probably not. I mean, maybe tweak here and there, but this is where we're going with, you know, you know, we've had enough times of experimenting and trying to figure a few things out, but I think this is where we're going to go with. Maybe there might be a switch here and there, don't get me wrong, but so far, you know, I think we're going to stick with this way. - And you've touched on winning the Pacific Division. - Yeah. - 50 wins. - At the very beginning of the season, Jim Rutherford said everything had to go right in order for this team to make the playoffs. How are you feeling personally at this point? - Yeah, I mean, it's just been a long year regular season and, you know, the group is bought in and it's been a, you know, it's an everyday type of team. We try to do the right things every day and then correct it. How am I feeling? I mean, obviously you're happy with the Pacific Division, but this is a whole ball, you know, it's a next Monday or two, wherever we play. It's a whole different ball, you know, ball game. So you're always confident in your group. So I'm excited about us opening night here. And we got, you know, two, three, four days to prepare for it. So is it four or five days, yeah, to prepare for it. So we're just, we'll get to the drawn board and figure out we're going to drop. - Rick, it looked like the four check did a great job, kind of stopping them at their own blue line. What did you think was working so well with the four check today for you guys? - Well, we wanted to be above, and I thought for the most part, being above them, because they're a pretty good transition team. You know, I give them credit, they played hard. You know, they only got a game left. But staying above is usually the best way and try to hold a blue line. And then, like I said, after that, you know, Dermot was excellent. - You know, it's a day by day mentality here for you guys and everything, but it's an emotional game there. And it felt like the guys kind of came together as a team. What was the feeling of the locker room after a game like that? - Well, I think there are still what they're doing in the Jersey, so I haven't really had a chance to talk to them. But no, you know, this one thing with this group, you know, I mean, I'm sure they're excited, but I don't think they're sky high. I think they're ready for the next part of this journey. So, but you know, you got to enjoy it. I mean, to win this, there's good teams on our division. That's a tough division, so you got to give these guys a lot of credit. - You said, Rick, when you came and took this job that the crest should mean something, what does it mean to you on a night like this and how far this season has the team come in building the culture identity that you want? - Well, I think it's a step forward. The crest means a lot to me and, you know, we always talk about the emblem on the front more than the back. And I think a lot of guys have bought into that. You know, we try not to preach individualism around here. It's good, you know, it's good for guys that got accolades and 100 points. Some guys, 40 goal, that's all great. Don't get me wrong, but it's all about the crest. And that's what wins in the playoffs that I think it's, so that's what I'm most proud of, of the guys really buying it at this year. And then you got young guys that we've drafted, and then you got the young guys like Ho-Liner and stuff. You know, they're feeding off this, you know, the culture, the crest, and it just permeates, you know, as a, as a, each level, you know, so that's the way I think you build organizations. - We'll go to Coos here, and then we'll open the room, guys. - Rick, you talked this morning a little bit about Ho-Liner. He was in the middle of everything there. He scored a nice goal, but gets involved in a scrum, gets involved late. Does he have to temper his approach for the post-season? In that respect, picking up how any company can be a big one there? - Well, it's a tough one because, you know, he's an energizer type of guy, right? So you gotta be careful, I don't wanna take his batteries out, right? But, you know, you have to be careful, too, right? You can't be, you know, taking an undisciplined penalty. So it's, I've lived that, you know, in my career, you gotta be able to plan the edge, which he's good at, but also not draw, you know, go to the line. So yeah, I thought he, I didn't think he'd be doing bad tonight. I thought he was just scored a big goal, and he was kind of in their kitchen a little bit. I don't think he was over the edge at all. I thought he was just involved in some, some feisty place. But he, like, I like that tonight. I don't think he did anything wrong tonight. Pretty good. - That is the Canucks head coach Rick Tockett after a 4-1 victory, and as you would imagine, he's not-- - Not surprised at all. - He loves the rough stuff, doesn't he? He lays like, "Oh, that was fun." - He's like, "Good on Hoaglander for getting a little emotion into the game." - Yeah, he's like, "Yeah, I don't want anybody to get hurt or anything like that, but, you know, I don't, I don't take his batteries out. You wanna keep the batteries in? Go out there and do your thing." - But that loves it. - The whole situation was hilarious. The way Brett Festerly, an analyst, during the Intermissions put it. You know, Braden Passhel was just thinking this was a no-hitter. - Yeah. - He's like, "What, what's going on?" - What does somebody, just so many just hit me? - Isn't this not a preseason game? - How dare you? - I mean, Passhel, I mean, hey, for a guy who hasn't been in the NHL very long, very entitled to that game check, okay? You gotta play a lot harder than that, man. Come on. - He was like, "What is this 4-check?" - It was 4-check. - What is happening here? - I can like a 10-year NHL event who got hit too hard in the preseason. This game 81, relax. Or maybe don't relax so much. Play a bit tougher. That is the Canucks head coach at the podium, brought to you by Tile Town. From Vision to Reality, Tile Town has everything you need for your titling project. See them today in Victoria, Richmond Langley, and online at mytiletown.ca. And you know, the head coach had a lot of praise for his team. And the one thing, and it's kind of funny, kind of comes full circle. He spoke so much before this season about the crest, and playing for the crest, and everyone buying into not individualism, buying into the greater good, and sacrificing for one another. But as we've discussed, and I know a lot of former players will talk about this too, when something really amazing happens when everyone sacrifices. 'Cause then everybody can eat at the same time. 'Cause if you sacrifice for your teammate, your teammate sacrifices for you, over the course of an 82-game season, you're all gonna have plenty to eat. And that's what we've seen here so far this year. I mean, look at the points they've had. I mean, J.T. Miller now is up to 103 points on the season. His 37th goal, Quinn Hughes' 91 points, Patterson has 89 points, Besser has 40 goals. Phillip Roanock has 48 points. Garland hit over 40, Hogan under 24 goals. Dakota Josh will career you in 18 goals, 32 points in 62 games, right? I mean, Pew Souter contributing. Sam Blafford hitting a career high end goals. Teddy Blueger having one of the better years he's had. Tyler Myers moving the 24th amongst right-hand defensive and scoring this year. There have been 134 right-hand defensive and playing at least one game this year in NHL. Tyler Myers is 24th in scoring, up to 29 points on the season. And it just shows you that when you all sacrifice for one another and a team starts having success, individual success also happens, and to him it all comes back to buying into the cross. Yeah, it comes back to that. You know, they bought into being a team and not a bunch of individuals. It's something that was desperately needed here in Vancouver and, you know, there's a lot to celebrate tonight as Rick Talkett mentioned. I know some of our textures appreciating the talk worked Picasso into the interview, into the post game. And he mentioned tonight wasn't a Picasso, but they got the job done. They won the Pacific Division. They won their 50th game of the year and they should be proud of themselves. Because yes, it's difficult to accomplish what they have, to beat out the teams that they did through the course of an 82 game season. Edmonton started off slow. Some of that because of the Vancouver Canucks. They've been able to beat Vegas this year. They've had some success against their opponents and the biggest teams in the Western Conference. The only team they really haven't beaten at least once is the Colorado avalanches we've talked about in the past. So they've done the things that they talked about, what winning teams do. And it took some time. But really, the script started to change from the moment Rick Talkett took over from Bruce Boudreau last year. We immediately saw differences in the way the team played. We immediately saw them cut down on their mistakes. We immediately saw them cut down on the rush chances against and the odd man rush chances against. And they've carried that into this year, built on it as the season's gone along and here they are winning the Pacific. - Yeah, it's absolutely unreal. And he also worked in a joke when nobody got it. - You know, it was kind of like the media was like possesal and not expected, or peshal, not expecting it was just a no-hater, no joke. I thought it was a no-joke song, what's going on? - Yeah. - He said he was pretty blunt about it. He was like, yeah, that was the plan. - That was the plan. - We gave Demko a lot of work tonight. - That was the plan. - They gave up 40 shots, probably a bit more than they wanted, right? In terms of how they want to play. But as we mentioned with Randipa Bitter earlier, it's quality scoring chances, five on five, only five high-danger chances for the Vegas gold tonight. - Most of them in the third. - Yeah, exactly. And the third was a lot looser. But overall, Demko made some great saves, but it was an ask to do a lot of high degree of difficulty maneuvering in the gold crease this tonight. And I think that's also a big part of them going away with the victory for one. The other thing he mentioned, and perhaps one of the big questions we're all waiting to find out about, well, two things. Actually, we get to the other one too, to be let us slip there. But one is, who's gonna be in the lineup on Thursday in Winnipeg against the Jets? And it sounded like he said, it's more important for us to rest guys, not get banged up and take the precautionary reasons. You wanna win every single game, but at this point, it doesn't matter. To them, resting a few guys is gonna be most important than more important than trying to squeeze out the two points against the Jets. - He essentially alluded to the idea that they're going to rest some players, maybe look at who's banged up and that sort of thing. But basically just said, have to figure out the best way to handle the final game. So what they're gonna talk about tomorrow, what they're gonna do here at the rink and figure out what they do as they get ready to fly out to Winnipeg, is who's going to fly out to Winnipeg? And they won't know that, essentially, because Dallas is playing tomorrow night. So they won't know if they've clinched first in the Western Conference, but they've done all they can do as far as being first in the Pacific Division. Now, it's about making sure you're healthy for the first game of the postseason, giving those who may need it more than others a couple of, at least a couple of extra days off, not having to travel. It just makes the most sense. We're gonna see pretty much every playoff team do it in these final games. Now that all 16 teams have clinched, there's no reason why the Canucks wouldn't do it. - Especially when you're finished the season on the road. - Yeah. - The last home game, sometimes, you know, guys want to play it 'cause it's tonight's atmosphere at the rink, by the way, fantastic. It was a bit of a celebration of the season, especially when the Canucks got a couple of goals. - Anytime there was a half chance, you could just feel like everybody in the building was ready to celebrate. - Yeah, and it was a celebration of a great campaign tonight, right? And it's a good vibe to be a part of, even on bad, you know, bad seasons for teams in last home games, like a nice capper, and generally, guys want to be a part of that. So, for the Canucks, the fact that their last games on the road makes that decision a lot easier for some other top guys. But for those wondering how many guys can they rest, there's always a chance that you can, you know, play a game with less than, you know, the 20 required skaters, the 20 required skaters you would have for a game. But chances are, the Canucks rest four players. - Yeah. - They have two extra forwards, two extra defensemen. The Canucks can't call anybody up 'cause you're capped out at this point after sending she loves down and activating Thatcher, Demko, at the LTIR. They don't have any cap space. - Yeah. - So they can rest four players, two D-Men and two forwards. Now, they could dress, they could also rest three forwards and one defensemen, and then have freedmen play as a seven defensemen, a goal 11 forwards. So just for those wondering how many guys can they rest or saying rest as many guys as possible? There's only four guys you can take out of the lineup for that game on Thursday. So it's not even like you can rest five, six or seven guys. - It's, I think it would be somewhat pointless to speculate but I would imagine it's probably limited to the top guys. - Yeah. - You know, and does Lindholn need an extra day off? Maybe then you go that route. How banged up is Patterson Besser's, you know, had to take maintenance days of practice. So there's a few different ways they can go about it. I'm not going to speculate as to who it might be, but I think Rick Talkett made it pretty clear that he's going to think about who is going to get the maintenance ahead of the final game of the season. The other thing I would point out about what Rick Talkett mentioned, he was asked about the lineup and it's pretty obvious at this point, but what we saw tonight, what we saw against Edmonton on Saturday, that's essentially the blueprint for how they want to start their first round of the playoffs. - And we had a lot of people, and even we talked about this too, you know, a few, you know, maybe a week or so ago that the lines are still on the blender before Lindholm came back and it's like, hey, do you want to get to a point where you settle on your lines for the playoffs? - How much longer are they going to be in the chemist lab, you know, like trying to figure out what the best lineup is. - And I wondered if a lot of it would come down to Lindholm coming back and then it would allow them to get back to something more familiar of having Besser with JT again and having Garland and Joshua not playing with JT or Elias Patterson, and that's exactly what happened in game two of Lindholm's return. And since then it's looked terrific the game that they played and I don't think it shouldn't change, like to me, this is the ideal start for game one of the playoffs. Now, how a series goes is going to dictate what adjustments you make or what happens, but this is kind of what I wanted to see in terms of our lineup. And now I think we all feel a lot better about how it looks in terms of those lines being set heading into the postseason. - Yeah, and the way that it's looked with Lindholm, Joshua, and Garland, it gives you another like real scoring threat on your third line, you know? And they scored one tonight, they had the empty netter on Saturday, they were the match up line on Saturday against Leon Dreyseidel, you know, no matter who, okay, I shouldn't say no matter who, but if you get LA, you know, there's multiple centers you're going to need to match up against. So it's going to be beneficial to you to have Patterson, Miller, Lindholm, all on separate lines. Same thing if you go up against Vegas in the first round. The only team would be Nashville where they've got Ryan O'Reilly and then, you know, the Phillip Forsberg line with Gustav Nyquist, Ryan O'Reilly, and Phillip Forsberg. And then beyond that, they've got, you know, kind of a bunch of third lines almost, right? You know, they don't have another real like, oh my God, we've got to worry about those guys, but they have some pesky lines that chip in goals and do what they can. It's the only matchup where you're not as much needing to have the depth at center, but pretty much every other matchup in this Western conference, you love to have that. And it becomes an advantage the Canucks have over other teams. So that's why I think Rick Talkett truly, really likes having all three of those players on separate lines. Yeah, and you know, the way Lindholm's going with those guys, as you mentioned, he was happy with it and something we can talk more about as a show goes on. And he kind of said, he's let it, I don't know if he let it slip or we're just kind of speaking somewhat loosely. The playoffs, whenever they start, Monday 2s, and they kind of caught himself, they didn't say Sunday. - Monday 2s, yeah, whatever day it starts. - Yeah, yeah, so we're not quite sure exactly when the hot rumor today kind of making the rounds with the media and people around the team has been Sunday being the start day, but until it gets made official and we know for sure with the Canucks play, that can't yet be determined. So we'll find out. - Sunday is just like, it's madness. - No, it is madness. You know what, we'll get into that a bit more as a show goes on here. We have a lot of questions and comments. And I see the text messages, like this one here says, "Justice for Queen Hughes, not winning the team MVP." MVP, what the, you know, what is that? We can talk more about that. The team awards, that's coming up in a little bit. And I'll get more to more of your text messages a lot of takes we'll get to, but let's take a phone call here and let's go to Columbia. Yes, Columbia, where we have Jim on the line. Jim, thanks for calling in. What are your thoughts after this big Canucks win? - Yeah, well, it's fabulous. And you know, to listen to the whole game here, it's now 12.38 PM. So I have to keep my voice down, otherwise I'll wake everybody up. But anyway, I had three quick points to make. One was, I subscribed to you guys on Sportsnet 650 and I all, you know, I subscribed to a television package too, because I've made the habit of listening to you and watching the game, which I think is terrific because your color and play-by-play, I don't think can be beat. I was really ticked off when I noticed in the Edmonton game, Hockey Night in Canada chose to interview two Edmonton players after the Canucks won, which means they had us ticked out, probably to lose. So they wanted to put all their bets on interviewing after the game. Edmonton, oh, Edmonton, that I can't, it's hard to stomach it. Anyway, that was one thing. I think you're doing a terrific job. I'm glad I listened to each game. The other one is going back to the beginning of the year, I really started to tackle everybody on the web pages, on the tank for Burdard business. People that wanted us to finish last, or as far down as we could. So we got, look, what we have done, if we got Burdard, would we have done better than we have? I think that's incredible. And I think in this day of salary cap, it's important to get the best out of all your players. And to do that, I think we got the ideal coach to do just that. - Fantastic. What's your last take? My last name? - I know, your third take, you say you got third takes. What's the last one you have here? - Okay, yes, and in the days of salary cap, I really have got to again. I think we've got the ideal coach, and I think he's probably, I'll go even farther than just saying I'm impressed. I think he's maybe the pivotal brewery of coaches we could have. I don't know, after the season's all wrapped up, I'd like to hear an evaluation of that. Could we have done any better than him? I'd like to know your thoughts on that. - Yeah, that's great stuff. Hey, Jim, listen, thanks for calling in from Columbia, do it anytime, and I hope you didn't wake anybody up, but staying up late in Columbia, listening to it, thanks for all the kind words we do appreciate it very much. It's hard to beat Badger and Deep on commentating, on play-by-play, so fantastic stuff there. - Multi-defeecile. - And yeah, had some choice words for the fans, I guess, who said, "Tank for Bedard." And you and I talked about this last year too, we kind of rolled our eyes at the whole debate, like, why aren't the Canucks tanking harder for Bedard? It was like, unless you wanted them to not have Patterson Hughes and Miller on the line up, there's no real way you could have finished last, and they're like, well, yeah, maybe you could have lost a few games and finish where the flyers were, for instance, but in terms of actually having a real chance of getting in Bedard, that was never a real possibility. The only way for them to do so would have been to trade Patterson and Hughes and Miller, and we always laughed at that notion. - Keep going down the road with Bruce Boudreau when everybody was saying, like, just let the man out of his misery, let him go already. - Well, that's the thing that always got me too, it was like people were, they were like, you gotta let Bruce Boudreau go, but at the same time, we want you to keep tanking. - Well, shouldn't you have the tag commander remain with the team without things are going? - The team commander. - And the final point, being on the target, being the Pavel Burry of coaches, big praise, and hey, listen, it's one of those things where we won't know what Rick Talk, it's true impact is for a few years down the road. Well, without question, he's been part of one, the third best regular season in Canucks history, and before that, he might end up winning Jack Adams as well, so he's going down in Canucks history already, based on one campaign. Can he be the Burry of Canucks coaches? Well, they've had a few good ones. If he wins the Stanley Cup, well, he'll be even better than what Burry was, 'cause nobody's won a cup for the Canucks, so we'll see where that all goes. All right, keep your thoughts coming into our text in the box, 656.50, or do you have a take here before we break? - I just wanted to say, you know, the Jack Adams Award, Rick Talk had even mentioned it today, but the Jack Adams Award, it's pretty much guaranteed to go to Rick Talk. I think the Canucks winning the Pacific Division only furthers that notion, and always remember, when it comes to coach of the year awards, the coach that brought a team from outside of the playoffs, into the playoffs is always going to have a leg up on everybody else. Rick Talk had has done that more so than any other coach. Like, yeah, you wanna talk about Dallas, you wanna talk about even the New York Rangers, Peter Lavilette coming in, and getting the president's trophy while they were still a good team last year. All of those things apply. They've been coaches that have done some pretty good jobs around the league, nobody better than Rick Talk had. - Yeah, absolutely, well said, Rich. It's Dan Riccio, I'm Satyar Shah. I'll keep your thoughts coming in for a dumb bar lumbar text in the box. We'll hit more of your comments on the other side. You can also grab a phone line as the Canucks Central Post game show continues, presented by the number five orange. So the game is over, but as your night really done, the number five is open. More next in the home of your Canucks Sportsnet 650. - Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drans will dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on Sportsnet 650, or wherever you get your podcasts. - This is the Canucks Central Post game show. - Join the discussion on the official home of the Canucks. Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network. - Prasmus Anderson, right wing to the red line. Anderson dumps it in, Demko out of the goal to handle. Fires at high around the glass near side. Linholl knocks it down to Teddy Bluder, who's got some room and some time. And passes right side for Myers, short handed, hit alone. - Shoots, he scores! - A short handed goal for the big man, Tyler Myers, gets the Canucks on the board. They're up one to nothing. - Yeah, it was big. That was a nice shot. Misey jumping up the play, it was a big one. You know, it got us energized, you know, the tic-tac-toe. The other one, the PDS line was nice. And then we kind of, you know, I think we were just waiting for the clock to go and we stopped playing a little bit, but you know, winning four to one, locking it down. And, you know, obviously, Denver, that Denver was excellent tonight. - Saving his best for his last season under contract with the Vancouver Canucks, Tyler Myers, 29 points on the campaign, plus 18. Both are career highs as a Vancouver Canucks. He obviously had a 48-point season, the year he won the call of the trophy. When he debuted in the National Hockey League in 2009, 2010. But the last time he hit 31 points, 30 points, was 2019 with the Winnipeg Jets. This is the most prolific year he's had as a Canucks so far. And this is the Canucks 10 proposed game show presented by the number five orange on the home of your Canucks, sports net 650, Satyar Shah with Dan Riccio. Keep your thoughts coming in to our text them box, 650, 650. You can also grab a phone line, 604-280-0650. And we'll get to some of the team award stuff, 'cause you mentioned people are texting in about whom the team MVP was. But before we do that, what else are the people saying to the Dunbar Lumber texting box, Dan? - A lot of reaction to our last caller. And he called Rick Tockett, the beret of coaches. Keith from Haney likes it. It's a good take. Mike into Watson says this is the Pavel beret of post game shows. - I'll take that. We will most definitely take that. And we have Kevin from Kuquitlin. Great game just driving home now. I do think that Miller should have gotten the MVP. He carried the team on his back of all the years when Hughes was playing 100% have a good night. So some love for JT Miller being the MVP. I gotta be honest, I just, I assumed to the point that I didn't think there was any other real possibility other than Quinn Hughes being the team MVP that it was just him. And then when we started seeing it on Twitter and everything else, it was like, wow, okay. No, it was JT. - Oh, and Satan and Marpol says, the more I think about Hughes not getting the MVP, the more peeved I get. Come on, voters. Did we not watch the same team this year? Do you really not vote for the leading candidate for Norris? Well, the best season by a connect defenseman, by country mile calling out the fans on this one that is Satan and Marpol texting in. - Hughes is gonna ask for a trade now. I mean, this is just. (laughs) - These fans don't appreciate me. - And it's like, and people are like, you want him to get heart trophy votes? Doesn't even, his name isn't even the MVP. - He's not even the team MVP. - Like, come on. - His own fans don't even think he's the MVP. - And listen, you always have to take these votes with a grain of salt. And listen, I'm not taking anything away from fans that can jump in and vote or whatever, but hey, I wouldn't get to worked up about these sort of things. But to me, like the spicy argument would be for JT Miller to be the MVP of the team. - Yeah. - Offensively, he's been the most consistent producer start to finish. - 103 points. - He's been absolute monster physically as well for this team. He plays in every situation for them. His plus 32 only trails, Quinn Hughes is plus 39 on the team. Well, yeah, Corona calls say it was plus 33 as well. But amongst four, which has been incredible. He, up until the fact they got at the time they got Lindholm, he was getting all the hard match ups every single night as well. - He's been unbelievable this year. And, you know, it is a fan voted award. Personally, I would have voted for Quinn Hughes. It is a tight race. Like JT's importance to the team is immense. And it's been even more pronounced since JT, sorry, since Elias Patterson has had a little bit of a dip in form here over the last four to six weeks, right? So we look at JT Miller and you have a power forward who scored incredible goals. He makes all these great plays on the penalty kill. He's throwing big hits. He puts the team on, like he's so noticeable. His game is so loud. He's always like putting the team on his back and having a big shift and, you know, throwing hits and getting in the mix of physicality of the game. And then you have the fans chanting and it starts to add up. Like it's a fan voted award. Whose name has been chanted more at Rogers Arena than JT Miller this year? The answer is nobody. - No, Connor Garland was making a bit of a late push there. And tonight when the scrum happened, they were chanting Connor Garland as well. But then the JT Miller chants were louder than any chance tonight when he scored the goal. - Can Dakota Joshua qualify for the unsung hero award if you won it last year? Like how long does he have to be unsung for? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. And it's like same thing with Garland. Like how can he be unsung? The guy's making five million almost too. It's like he's definitely not unpaid. Grunder paid is definitely getting paid. - It's as if it's like we've traveled back in time to JT Miller's first year when he won the unsung hero award. (laughing) - Wow, that is the first year. The last time the Canucks made the playoffs was when JT Miller was the unsung hero award. The guy only had like 27 goals and like, you know, 70 some points. But nonetheless, I get it. It was a year where a lot of love for Pedersen and Quinn, he was in of course goal-tending with Jacob Marks from that year. He was sensational for the Canucks. But on the vote on these team awards, they're not actually sanctioned by the team itself. They're fan voted for those wondering and our textures texting and are calling out the fans for making these votes. I wonder if, should they also have like a team vote? You know how the fans vote? Like instead of having like, so you can name these awards like Ted Lindsey, for instance, is voted by the players. Like have, I don't know, like the Don, well I guess they already had the Don-Leaver award or something. They just come up with like a random player like. - The Stan Smill award. - Oh yeah, or like the Gridina award or something like that. Call it the Gridina award and then the players vote for who the MVP is. - Yeah, they could go a lot of different ways with this. This one, Quinn is by far the MVP. Number one points as a defenseman. He had more points than Pedersen. I voted, this text, I voted JT Miller as MVP. I thought I contributed to minority votes to give him love, though I did think Quinn Hughes would win it. Miller versus Hughes, hard to decide. The thing about Hughes, his game, I mean, look, he's gonna win the Norse, right? - Yeah. - First Canucks defenseman in history to win the Norse. - Well I would say, we keep saying this as if like NHL award voting has been an exact science. Listen, I'm not trying to take anything away from our fellow media brethren. - He should win the Norse. - I know one too many Mark media people that don't watch enough of the league. - Yeah. - I'm not saying, you know, that's all I'm saying. - That is still gonna be like, he's too small, he can't win the Norse. That shouldn't be the case. But, you know, the way Hughes, like he plays the most minutes, the way he controls the game, the way he controls the pace of the game, and how, like, if Hughes is having an off night, you really notice it in the connectivity of the Canucks game overall. And I think this team can survive an off night of Pedersen, of Miller, more so than they can survive an off night from Quinn Hughes. And that's why I think he's the most valuable. - Yeah, it's a great argument for Quinn Hughes, and honestly, it's a fun year, and I think it's a fun year to have a fun debate about it, and we'll get to more of your text messages on this, plus we'll hear from J.T. Miller himself and Canucks players after a 4-1 victory over the Calgary Flames, the Canucks have claimed a Pacific Division for the first time in franchise history. This is the Canucks have a post-game show presented by the number five orange on the home of your Canucks, sports in the 650, and the sports in that radio network. - Miss any part of Halford and Breath in the morning? Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast, and don't miss an episode. - Professionals know that you win the game by taking care of the details. Kubota Skidsteers, excavators, and loaders from Douglas Lake Equipment and Avenue Machinery let you be a champion on the work site. Now Douglas Lake Equipment and Avenue Machinery want you to master your own property with the Kubota PX-23 subcompact tractor, dig, mow, and move with the Kubota quality you'd expect. Find Kubota at Douglas Lake Equipment and Avenue Machinery together online at dlemc.com. It's sports training season. 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See VINFASTAuto.ca for terms and conditions in your nearest showroom. - Roemers has landed in Lynn Valley and they're serving up all your faves, plus some fresh new eats. From legendary burgers to hand stretched brick oven sourdough pizza, handcrafted cocktails to local beers and sipping tequila. There's a lot to love at Roemers. Now open in Lynn Valley. - This is where you talk Canucks. You're listening to the Canucks Central Post Game Show on the official home of the Canucks. Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network. - Miller, left wing shot, pass looking for a tip from Henderson, rolls into the far corner, best against it, back to Hughes. Eight seconds left, Hughes, wrangling for Garland, pass to the back door. Miller can't settle it, it rolls into the corner, but that is gonna do it. For the third time in their history, the Vancouver Canucks have won 50 games in a single season and they win their division. For the 11th time, the first time they've ever won the Pacific Division, they ice it tonight on home ice with a big 4-1 win over their rivals from Alberta, the Calgary Flames. - Well, I think it's a step forward. The crest means a lot to me and you know, we always talk about them. They're embling on the front more than the back and I think a lot of guys have bought into that. You know, we try not to preach individualism around here. It's good, you know, it's good for guys that got accolades and 100 points, some guys, 40 goal. That's all great, don't get me wrong, but it's all about the crest and that's what wins in the playoffs and I think it's, so that's what I'm most proud of the guys really buying it at this year. And then you got young guys that we've drafted and then you got the young guys like Hoaglander and stuff, you know, they're feeding off this, you know, the culture, the crest and it just permeates, you know, as each level, you know, so that's the way I think you build organizations. - Canucks head coach, Rick Talkett, after a 4-1 win over the Flames, the Canucks cleanse a Pacific Division, you heard the call coming in from Ben Brendan Bachelore, historic, conductive season and you know, it's gonna, it could go down if the Canucks win on Thursday, as we mentioned with IMAC last time and unfortunately IMAC most likely will not make it to join us tonight, game ran late and all the media responsibility, so he's gonna have a hard time getting to us here before the show runs out this evening, but you know, we talked about this year and how this Canucks team was able to accomplish as much as they were able to accomplish and I kind of lost my train of thought, I'm not gonna lie, I kind of lost my train of thought for a second, we'll try to come back to it in a moment, but how much the Canucks accomplished this year? - Well, yeah, I mean, it's been a historic season, yes, what I was trying to say was, we talked to the IMAC last game about biggest turnarounds from one year to another and 70, we're actually with Don Taylor the other day and about how in '74, '75, the Canucks had a 27-point increase from the way they were the year before, which was the biggest jump from missing the playoffs four years in a row to making the playoffs finally. If they end up winning tomorrow, it'll be a 28-point jump for this team, which will be the biggest improvement from one year to another in Canucks history, which is absolutely sensational when you look at where they were last year and where they find themselves and it completely exceeded any expectations we had. You had, I think you had the most optimistic outlook of the Canucks before the season reach and you had the Canucks finishing third in the Pacific Division. - Yeah, and people thought I was absolutely bonkers and I was the biggest homer, a bigger homer than Jack Edwards's for the Boston Bruins. - No, well, I don't know about that, but okay. Is that even possible? - Probably not, but the point of it all is, like the turnaround is unbelievable. And it started with Rick Tockett when he took over for Bruce Boudreau, but they brought in a lot of new players, right? You think about the off season and there's free agency, they bring in Cole, he has a big impact on defense. Bluegers had a big impact. Souter has played really well. Carson Soussey, when he's played, has been one of their sturdiest defenseman on the back end. And then you get to training camp, they're like, you know what, we're not done. We wanna do some more, they get Casey to Smith, they get Sam Lafferty, they did all these little things to make sure that the top players were finally insulated properly. With competent players that understood how to play winning hockey. And yeah, when you look at Teddy Bluegers hockey reference page, does the numbers jump off the page? Absolutely not. But he's been the most credible fourth line center this team has had basically since Jay Beagle, but he's not being paid the same way that Jay Beagle was. And that's a big difference for how they've gone about insulating the core of the roster compared to what was happening prior to their arrival here in Vancouver. I'm talking about Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alveen. And the other part that I think is really important to how they've set the team up for success, they continued to make tweaks in season, you know? Zadorov became available, they were the most aggressive in going out and acquiring him. And really, you look at when Zadorov was acquired and how their results turned because it really filled out their defense. And at the time, Carson Sousie got hurt too. I mean, it made a big difference. So their active front office played a huge role in filling out the roster and making moves at the right time that really helped this team have the chance to have the success that it did in the season. And the players did their part by buying into the culture set by Rick Tockett. Well, and if you want to even take it back farther, they brought in Casey the Smith right before training camp and making the move with Tanner Pearson solidifying their backup goal-tending position. And even the Sam Lafferty trade. Yeah. That's a trade they make right before the season begins. If you try to make that trade at the deadline, you're probably paying more than a fifth round pick than what you gave up. I don't know about a third or anything, but you're probably paying at least one round up. Well, and they took a lot of heat for like, why are they giving up a fifth round pick for Sam Lafferty? What did you really have to pay more than everybody else for Sam Lafferty? And I mean, yeah, I know he's cooled off in the second half of the year, but still 13 goals. It's a career high for Sam Lafferty. Pretty good for a guy that's played mostly as a fourth line forward this year. And that's the type of player you look to pick up ahead of the deadline, has some size. It's good on the forecheck, some speed, some toughness. That's a type of player that in the playoffs can be a real benefit to you. Now, could the Canucks still use some size and grit on their roster? I mean, you would love to see it. Could they use another score up front? Yeah, you'd love to see it. But most teams in the NHL this year, and that's why it's an open year going into the playoffs, are imperfect in many ways, right? But in terms of giving management, it's due. Dean Abbissert says, Canucks management have a high attention to detail with a roster. It's impressive. And they do. I mean, they've been really meticulous and talk and spoke about that in the clip you heard about the development process, the young guys that are coming in that they've drafted that are showing progress, what Hoaglander is becoming. And a lot of this is happening under the new umbrella of management and how they're developing players, the amount of resources they have spent in Abbissert developing players. And just look at Hoaglander from where he went last year to where he is this year, and what he went through in Abbissert and through this campaign to become the player he is today. And a lot of that can be attributed, obviously, to him and his hard work and dedication, but also to the environment that this management team has created that has allowed players to be the best versions of themselves. And you mentioned Blueger before. He just matched a career high end points this year, 28. Well, even Vasily Podkolzen, who I know is still with a bagel next to his name in the goal column. But you watch Podkolzen play when he's out there on the ice. He makes a lot of smart plays. And some of the things that Tockett has mentioned so much about body position, winning the battles along the walls, getting to your spots, getting to the right spots and winning those battles, like all those little things that this organization preaches ad nauseam. You see Vasily Podkolzen do those things. And it's why he's won the 12th forward job going into the playoffs. Like, for as much as I appreciate Fieldie Giuseppe, what he's brought to the team and how he was a fixture with J.T. Miller and Brock Besser when Rick Tockett first came in and did brilliantly with that spot. I'm smart enough to also know Podkolzen's doing some of the things that Fieldie Giuseppe was doing, but also has a higher level, right? And so, yes, the goals haven't come yet for him, but it's a sign of how a lot of the players in this organization have taken to heart what the teachings have been, how the sedines are working with these guys on body position, when to make the right plays, when to do this, when to do that, those types of little things, situational development for each player that ties into how they want to play and their structure of how they play as a team and their staples and all those cliches. But like, you see Vasilipod Kohlzen put those into action. And I think if he keeps playing this way, eventually he'll start to see some offense come out of him. Is it ever going to be worthy of the 10th overall pick that he was taken with a couple of years ago? Maybe not, but he's developed here into a, I think, a credible fourth line forward. And I actually really like what him and Lafferty do together as a winger tend them because they both have speed and they both have size, they can actually bring something that other players on this Canucks roster don't really do. Yeah, and I think for the most part, he's been physical. I get, they get a tweet from Paul Berry who kind of mentioned, do the Canucks have a better, tougher option in Abbysford than put Kohlzen? I don't think they do. Like, I think in terms of their best options up front, they're all playing here right now. You know, and I think because of the size and speed combo you mentioned, but Kohlzen's still your best bet to provide that more physical impact. And could he do more at times? Sure, I mean, every player who can. But outside of the scoring, I think he has done that well. And he's also made a lot of smart puck management decisions. And I think when you look at late game situations as well, there was a few shifts against Edmondson and we mentioned even games against Vegas where he's been, his line has been spending some time in their own zone. And then when he gets a chance to get to a loose puck and get it out, I mean, he's fighting like heck to get there, right? He's battling to get the puck out. And then he'll fight through contact through the neutral zone and ensure he gets the puck in deep. And then he'll go off for a change. And sometimes those things people don't look at enough or take much into consideration. But all that means is like his line is surviving. And if he gets caught out against good players, he can still find ways to get the puck out and get the puck deep. And yeah, it's not sexy. He's not going to go out there and score. And you want to see him provide a bit more. But when you're looking at playoff hockey and being stuck out there in tough shifts, can he help you survive? And I think he's shown he can do that. And that's no small small thing when you get to the postseason. Well, when it comes to the postseason, he might play what, six to eight minutes, realistically, in playoff games here. Because minutes are going to tick up a little bit for J.T. Miller. Minutes are going to tick up a little bit for Elias Petterson. And who's that going to come out of? That's going to come out of guys like Lafferty and Pot Coles and more than anybody else. But there's a lot to like in Pot Coles and his game. And I think that goes and ties into some of the stuff that Rick Talkett mentioned earlier in his news conference. Absolutely. We'll hit some more techs here before we get to play our audio. Cam from Victoria. Huronac with the coldest trip of the season. Two days until vacation. Checkmate. That's Cam from Victoria texting in. And yeah, we haven't talked about the scrum too much. But the scrum that happened, Niels Hoeglatter. It's all fading into it. He gets everybody going, Hoeglander and Garland jumps in. Five foot seven or whatever he is. Pulling Klepka down like he's-- and he's like six, seven. It was really funny. Six ages pulls him down. And then you-- the sports net cameras. Caught Filiparonic giving a few chirps to-- You have holidays in two days. Let's go. You have holidays in two days. It's a fantastic chirp. It's a type of chirp you would expect NHL players to make when they're going to the playoffs and an opponent isn't. Yeah. You have holidays in two days. What are you talking about? Get out of here. That's so good. We did joke about it a bit with Randy too, right? I mean, hey, this is the first time Huronic is going to be in the playoffs as an NHL player. Yeah, and his teammates back in Detroit, they will not be going-- You have holidays in two days. They have holidays starting right now, actually, for the Detroit Red Wings. It's been a remarkable season for Filiparonic. And I'm curious as to what happens here with him in the playoffs and how him and Hughes fare together, can they find that top, top form that they had for so much of this year? Because I think that's maybe one of the things that hasn't really clicked as well lately. But we'll see how it goes come playoff time. It's an elite chirp. And that whole scrum all starts because Nils Hoglander just gets into it with Braden Passhel. And then he goes for the crossjack. Passhel does the big snapback on the head. It tries to make a meal of it to the point where they actually call a major on Nils Hoglander and the play. Eventually, it gets overturned. But I loved that scrum. The only thing I hated about the scrum was like, do we really need Quinn Hughes and Alia's Patterson to be in a scrum right now? Two games away from the start of the postseason for the Vancouver Canucks. That's the last thing they probably need. And well, Quinn still got a little bit into it. Patterson was very much like, this is not ideal for me. I don't like this right now being in the middle of this scrum. But you know what? He participated a little bit. Yeah, he was definitely a participant. He was a little bit of participation. It was a lot of fun to see, right? And Phil says, it's not possible to be a bigger homeer than Jack Edwards. I agree. He said, come on, Seth, that was reached. That was OK. Well, tell that to the people who were mad at me for calling the Canucks to be third in the Pacific Division. And I undersold them in the end. I know. Well, I mean, and speaking of that, the other day, people were texting in with us and saying, oh, I mean, a while back about how the Canucks are going to miss the playoffs. And, I mean, sorry, they're not going to win the division anymore. They're cooked in the first round. I don't know how you guys think they even have a chance to win the division. It's over. Even in that, even yesterday, people were like freaking out at us that we said, Nashville is the most probable opponent for the Vancouver Canucks. And then LA goes and loses to Minnesota and makes it even more probable that the Canucks play the Nashville Predators in the first round. Absolutely. OK. Yes. I got this text from Kevin Woodley. He says he was in the room with the flames. And Braden Pekl had a chirp about Hoaglander saying, it's a good thing. He's 5'3" or he would have hit me in the head. That was a new 5'3". A great chirp, Braden. Sounds a good one. I still don't know what Braden Pachl was so mad about. It was like, no, Hoaglander just went in for a four check. I can't believe somebody threw a hit in this hockey game. That means absolutely nothing to us. It was pretty funny. They got him mad. I mean, hey, Braden Pachl's like, you're going to ruin my golf career. I'm supposed to be on that. I got a tee time Friday morning. Can't go-- I can't swim with a bad back. I'm not Tiger Woods. I can't make it work. My fight for Cabo leaves on Friday morning. What are you doing? OK, we're getting people asking us to what are their playoff scenarios. So the Canucks can still win the Western Conference if they beat the Dow of the Stars. And if they do that, the Canucks would face either LA or Vegas. So the Canucks can still face one of LA Vegas or Nashville. Yes. Nashville is still their most likely opponent because there's a couple of ways that can happen. Dallas is getting a point tomorrow that it's over. Or the Canucks losing, for instance. That would also do it. But outside of that, like-- sorry, Canucks winning and-- Or losing, they would not finish first. Ducks need to get a win over the Winnipeg Jets to possibly catch the Dallas Stars. But if Dallas gets a point tomorrow against the St. Louis Blues, then that is all done in dust. Yes. Vegas and Dallas can still have Vegas and LA can still finish 8th or 3rd in their division. If Dallas gets any kind of a point tomorrow night, it is official. The Canucks will play the Nashville Predators in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So the Canucks may not have to do anything in order for that to happen. Now is Dallas going to start everybody? How is St. Louis going to play that game? Who knows? It's game 82 of the season for both of them. It's a crapshoot. It's essentially a preseason game. The reality is the least likely opponent right now for the Canucks is the Vegas Golden Knights. And the reason that is is because Vegas has Anaheim on the final day of the season. And that means they're most likely to win that game. As long as Vegas wins that game, they finish 3rd in the Pacific Division. And there is no way that the Pacific Division winner can play against the third-placed team in the Pacific Division. So it is the far-likely scenario that the Canucks end up with the Vegas Golden Knights. Most likely scenario is for the Canucks to play the Nashville Predators. And then in the middle is the LA Kings because LA, even if they win their final game, it's not up to them where they finish now because Vegas can finish ahead of them. And they don't hold the tiebreaker on the Nashville Predators. Absolutely. You know what? We lied. Oh, I lied. You lied. I lied. I always had an inkling that I'm at would show up. I said we're probably not getting I'm at. We're going to play a player audio. So I teased JT Miller audio. That's not happening because the man we call the triple threat just stepped into the studio. You hear him on radio. You read him on digital and you watch him on TV. He's I'm at. I guess I'm the one who lied because I did tell you I probably-- Oh, there we go. Sorry. Sorry, Jimmy Hendrix. Carry on. All right, that's fine. You know, the Canucks win a division once in every 11 years, whether they need it or not. So the least I could do is hustle over here, which I did. They've taken my breath away. That and the run across from the other side of the arena has taken my breath away. But you know, a great night, most of the guys taking a lot of satisfaction at the same time down playing it. Yeah. And Connor Garland said it'll be forgotten in game one of the playoffs, but it won't be. I mean, I think we're all going to place it in the proper perspective as of game one of the playoffs, but it's not forgotten. This has been a remarkable season. There's going to be a banner hanging from Roger's Arena next fall because of this season, regardless of what's going to happen in the playoffs. And maybe this is a different Canucks team, given especially the last two months in some ways. Although the team was just above 500, in some ways to me, it almost defines how different this team is than so many that we've seen in the past, because there was plenty of opportunity to fail. There was plenty of circumstances that went against them. And even this race to the finish line in the Pacific Division, honestly, if you're like us and you've been here a long time at Vancouver, especially if you've grown up here and remember watching them as a kid, you always expected doom. You always expected the worst. And this race, with Edmonton closing and the Canucks scuffling, it kind of would have been a very conucky thing had Vancouver not won the division. I mean, 2003, that was classic Canucks. The we choked, basically, speech by Marcus Nelson. When they lost the division on the last day of the season, well, they didn't lose the division. And they won it in a convincing way, going to Edmonton and beating Connor McDavid's team without Connor McDavid. So yeah, but it's still a team that I think, if you took a poll, is probably going to be the most favored to win the Stanley Cup. They won that game on the road, then they come home and they take care of business tonight against Calgary. And we'll see what next week brings. But it certainly has been a redefining season for the organization. It has. But also, you know, you refer to the West Coast Express here and Marcus Nelson, the we choke that's going to go down in Canucks Law forever, right? But I think, foundationally, this team is-- and I'm not saying different, it's different because even through some of their struggles, for the most part, they played the right way. They played Canucks hockey the right way for, I'd say, what, 80% of the season? No one's going to do it for 100%, right? You want to get to close to 90, where the Canucks there, I mean, you can argue that, especially towards-- but even after the All-Star break, games they lost, they weren't giving up a ton. They've always had this foundation of good, clean hockey for the most part. They know what to do. They have a real identity of how they play. So that level of now is justified that if you weren't concerned that it wasn't going to fall apart. But I think that's one thing that this team has, that we haven't really seen a ton of Canucks teams through their history. They've been either high scoring teams that have some issues with goaltending or some issues defensively. Of course, we know the 2011 team maybe was close to being a perfect hockey team. And I'm not saying these guys are perfect, but they're foundationally a really strong hockey team. They've proven that this year. Well, they were one of the best high scoring teams in the NHL through the first two-thirds of the season. And they were one of the very best teams defensively in the NHL in the final third of the season when the offense dried up. They've shown what they're capable of at each end of the ice. So imagine if they actually get those two things working in harmony, in unison, at the same time. They would be a very tough out. And I think what you're talking about, SAT, is grit. And it's not something that we would have associated with this team before the season. There's a lot of things that happen this year that we wouldn't have thought possible before this year. But it's not just that they have these really talented core players, who, for the most part, have driven them. But down the stretch here-- I mean, Quinn uses Magnifson every night. And Thatcher, Demko, in the world tonight. He picks up where he left off. Looks like a Vesna Trophy finalist. But a lot of these games down the stretch, it's not just the stars carrying the other 12 or 14 guys. It is very much. Look at the depth scoring in Edmonton. They won the game that really won them, the division. And I just think there's a lot of substance to this team that did not exist previously. Yeah, they had some great young players. But in hindsight, that was really empty calories. So Pedersen getting 100 points. JT had the great year the year before. Quinn has broken records the last two seasons, breaks them again this year. But there's a lot more substance to them and this group this year than what there was in the past. And does that mean that they're going to have playoff success? No, of course not. And no matter who you play, and not just the Canucks series, but almost any of the eight first round series, no matter who you play, it's going to be a toss up. Like people will be able to make the argument about who should win and how big is an upset really if the team that opens at home doesn't win. But they have components that they haven't had before in terms of their character and their structure. And then of course, there is the talent. And undeniably, they have some high end talent where they have enough of that. We'll see whether they have enough of the other stuff and whether they can produce it under pressure. That's really the biggest question. There's no doubt that this team has shown through these 81 games that when it's on its game, it can beat anybody. Doesn't mean they're necessarily going to, but they can play with anybody. They don't need to fear anybody when they're on top of their game. But now they have to do it in the seven game series. And if they get through that, then the next series is even tougher, seven games and so on. And that's really the question. So little playoff experience in the group. Everybody's saying, acknowledging that until you're there, you don't know what it's like. I mean, that's now the challenge for this group. It's not about, are they not enough this or too much of that, they're going to lose or about, are they tough enough or anything like that? It's all about now. Do they have the mental capacity to under extreme pressure, unlike anything that most of them have seen in hockey? Can they execute and play the way they need to play in late April and hopefully into May, the way they've played for most of this season? Well, you think about Demco, well, two years ago, when they finished up that first 56 or whatever games it was with Bruce Boudreau and they came just short of making the playoffs and Jim Rutherford starts his end of season news conference, be like, we need to be a team that doesn't rely on our goalie. And then the next year, it starts with Demco coming slow out of the gate, then he gets hurt and they never recover from that. And here you have this chance to potentially lose out on the division, they go seven, five and two without Demco, it's not an amazing record, but it's enough to get the job done and close out the division title. Yeah, but last year even had Demco not been hurt, there was no way, the way that they were trying to play was gonna have any kind of last. And the benefit of this is like, now they've created a team that doesn't rely on their goaltender to stand on his head every single night for 58 minutes of the night or whatever it's going to take. They just, they have Demco to bail them out when they have their odd breakdowns. Which is what happened tonight, they're probably, you know, as talk had made the point, you know, they just won the Pacific Division. Yeah, so let's enjoy that. I'm sure they had too many of those breakdowns for his liking. They didn't want Thatcher, Demco to have to face 40 shots, especially since this last period, since the offense disappeared and the team started scuffling two months ago, you know, they've been giving up what? Like 24, 25 shots a game. So they've been a very good defensive team. So you're right, they don't need the goalie to necessarily steal them games, although at some point you do. Like if you're gonna have one right at some point, you need your goalie to be better than the other team when your skaters aren't as good as you would like them. It's kind of like, well, some nights you're gonna need your fourth line to win you a game or come up with a big goal. Some nights you're going to need your goalie to come up and steal you a game, but you know, you just can't have that be the only way you win hockey games. - Right, and I think that's something that this team has shown as well, that they have multiple ways to win games now. I mean, what has Elias Pederson, I know we've talked a lot about him, but what has he contributed in the last month? He's had some really good games and contributed some goals and points, but he hasn't been driving this team. He hasn't been carrying guys on his back. J.T. Miller was less enthusiastic about his scoring than everyone else was this morning when he was asked about it, 'cause he knows that he can play better. Quinn Hughes, as I said, he's magnificent every night, so he's just a unicorn. I don't really know what to make of it 'cause I've never seen a guy play this way in Vancouver and the only guy I've seen comparable in the last 25 years is his playing in Colorado, Kale McCar. Maybe it's got Needermire, but Needermire didn't have the offensive thrust that Quinn Hughes does. This might long-winded way, just saying it's not Demko. It's not about him. It's not only about Miller. They don't maybe need Besser to score every second game, and they've shown that they can be successful even if PD's not playing at an elite standard. They need all these guys. They need everybody to raise their game, but there's enough there. We've seen it with the garlands and the Joshua and this fairly outside of Vancouver, anonymous but massive defense behind the first pairing. We've seen that there's enough there now that you can find different ways to win games. It's not only gonna be on, as it was, say in the bubble, which we all recognize, was nothing like a real playoff tournament, but back then it was still all about these top guys driving the Canucks and if they went basically as far as Pedersen Hughes, Miller, and then Mark Strum and Demko at the end took them. I think this team has much more going for it now than just that core. - Yeah, absolutely, and that's why they're going to the postseason as division champions. Only one game remaining, and that is in Winnipeg on Thursday. I'm Mack, you'll be there, so we'll chat with you from Winnipeg and I'll definitely have time for it. - Oh yeah, early or start. - Two hour time change. - Oh, we're good, and hey, listen, we look forward. - Why don't I just do the whole show? - Hey, let's say two hours. - You're welcome to join us. - I'll take calls. - Yes, you know what? I'm Mack from Winnipeg. - That would be great. - That would be fantastic. - I do love that. - I think they would be all about it, but-- - Everyone but me. - Yes. - We'll get into all your contributions in the regular season tomorrow. We always appreciate your time and the fact you ran over here to make some time for us. - This evening, and I look forward to reading your latest on SportsNet.ca, but it's not like we're saying goodbye on Thursday anyways, 'cause we have playoff games to talk about as well as talks. - It's happening. - Yes. - Just like Jim Mora. - Yes. - It's actually happening. - Surprised, but in a different way. - Yes, in a good way, exactly. I'm Mack, thanks again for your time. Fantastic as always. Make sure to read us latest on SportsNet.ca. He's Dan Ricchio. I'm Satyar Shah. We're back on Connect Central tomorrow. Thanks to Eddie back at the station. Lina here at the rink and all of you for listening, participating, being part of the Connect Central Post game show. We appreciate every single one of you. We'll be back on Connect Central tomorrow, but also the next post game shows coming up on Thursday. This has been the Connect Central Post game show presented by the number five orange on the home of your Connect SportsNet 650. [BLANK_AUDIO]
