[MUSIC] Tuesday, Tuesday, Canucks Central Tuesday on Sportsnet 650. It's Dan Reachow, Satyar Shah, game two on the horizon. And yes, you can hear it in the backgrounds. Roger Zarena is getting ready for a big one tonight. >> It's alive, man. The building is alive. The towels are on the seats. Nobody's in here but us and people getting ready for the game. But they're doing their rehearsals and we get so jacked up when we hear the song. I'm about to jump on the ice right now. Can I dive down? >> I feel like there should be a narrating video happening right now. The Canucks without their star gold for game two. Thatcher, Demko, down with an injury, Kasey to Smith in. And the team steps up with a big defensive performance. That could be the game story afterwards, potentially. >> Hopefully. >> One would hope. Mind you, Canucks Twitter was not feeling that way today by my estimation, Sat. >> It's always something, Dan, it's always something. And just when you think you turn a corner, something creeps up. Doom and Gloom, what is it, four straight playoff series now? Or the starting goalie has gotten hurt or playoff appearances, playoff runs, what do you like to call it? >> Yeah, sounds about right. I mean, I thought I Mac nailed it on Twitter. He said, here's another situation, ambushing Canucks fans. That's really what it is, an ambush out of nowhere. >> It didn't come out of nowhere. I was in the Canucks room the other night. And to be honest, when the PR staff came out and said, Demco was not going to be speaking to media so that he could get treatment. Personally, I didn't think too much of it, right? He had just come back from injury. It sounded like a completely normal thing. And lo and behold, the next day, he doesn't practice again, does skate a little bit. But obviously, not good enough to go. And now, Thatcher Demco is questionable for the rest of the series. Game two going tonight, Dan Rachel, Sat, TR, Charlotte, get to it, it's the open. [MUSIC] >> The open. [MUSIC] >> Welcome to the open. >> That's your home, are you too good for your home? Answer me. >> Yeah, it's the open where we bring you the latest on the Vancouver Canucks. And our take on it and Demco is out. And immediately, you know, for me, it wasn't all doom and gloom, Sat. I took the news as another chance for the Canucks to show themselves against a bit of adversity. Of course, it is unfortunate. Of course, you're a better team with Thatcher Demco in the lineup. But I didn't think for one second that, now Nashville is in the driver's seat of this series because Thatcher Demco is unavailable. >> No, I mean, the Canucks should still be able to win this series, right? The only way it doesn't happen is if the goal is just completely implode and the Canucks completely lose confidence, right? There's a difference between can you win this series without Thatcher Demco and can you go in a long run without Thatcher Demco? For now, all you have to focus on is beating the national predators. And I do think as much as this is a big blow, the fact they won game one, and they're in such a good position here if they can win game two as well, that for this series, I think you'll be able to get through, you'll be able to survive it. We can have a conversation about the longevity of this team and the run they can make if they don't have Thatcher Demco. But that also means we have to find out more about Demco's status. And right now, we don't have a ton of information about what truly happens to him. I don't far-hand tweet it and he mentioned that there may have been a play late in the game, a very simple post-to-post play where he injured his knee. Whatever that injury is, it's not the same injury, it's the same knee. Now, we can sit here and guess what the injury is. None of us really truly know. There are a lot of ligaments in the knee. There are some that are scary. If it could be one of them, you're like, well, if it's the one that people worry about sometimes, then you're not coming back. That's not happening. If it's something else, you can come back, but usually it's a week or a couple weeks. And what are you going to be like? And that's the question here. Is it truly day to day or is it something longer term? And right now, we don't have the answers for it. The team says it's day to day, but how much confidence do you have that that may actually be the case when they themselves are saying we still need more information? Yeah. And you know, when we spoke to, I was on with Jamie Dodd earlier today on "Kurakstok" and Elliot Friedman mentioned, there's still an uncertainty here as far as just what the injury is, the extent of it, and how long it could keep out patch or demco moving forward from here. But we do know he is out for game two. And one of the, you know, one of the things that's been so apparent for this team all season long is how they play defense. As a club, they've been really stout defensively. All year long, they've limited rush chances against. All year long, they've been pretty good at suppressing shots among the best in the league at suppressing shots against. So these are all things that help them in the conversation of can they survive even without that, your demco? And I do believe that they can. But one of the things coming out of game one was using her own it were very good, as good as you would expect them to be. But the rest of the Decor was also really strong. And now is a big opportune moment for this Decor to show out once again, Sat, and show that maybe they are one of the more underrated groups in the league. When they play at their best, they make the evening very easy for their goal tenders. And the ceiling for this defense, when they're at their best, is very high. Now we had Ian Cole on the post game show the other night, and he said he thinks that Canucks have the best Decor in the entire national hockey league. Now he's biased, he's on the team, right? But it made me kind of wonder and think about it, when you compare the Canucks blue line to other teams around the league, and we've done this exercise earlier this season on Canucks Central. And you come away looking at it and saying yeah, their defense is probably a top 10 defense in the league. Now where you want to rank it in the top 10 really depends on how you view other blue lines and how strong you think they are. Like to me, Colorado used to be in a class of its own, but once you moved by rim, now I know Sean Walker is really good, but there's a big difference between Sean Walker and Bull by rim. So that blue line went from being by far to me, the highest end blue line in the league, to being very good, but the gap has kind of narrowed a little bit here, right? And I think if you look at the Canucks blue line, they're probably underrated in terms of their overall six. There's a lot of focus on how good Quinn is and of course for good reason. And there's always talk about how the Canucks blue line isn't good enough beyond Quinn Hughes. And I don't agree with Ian Cole that it's the best defense in the league, but they're probably underrated because when they're at their best and Zadorov plays his best, Myers plays his best, and those guys are consistent, they're really hard to play against. The problem is, with Zadorov and Myers, sometimes you'll get that 9 out of 10 performance, even almost 10 out of 10 performance, then you'll see the lows too, where it's like a three or a four out of 10. And that's where sometimes the floor can be lower for some of those guys, but I do think it's intriguing to wonder if the Canucks blue line based on the personnel might be underrated when you compare it to the rest of the league. It's a decore that, you know, when you talk about Zadorov and Myers, there is a lot of variance in their play, but in these playoffs, I think Myers had a really strong game, a pretty calm game the other night, Zadorov threw a couple of big hits. But what has pretty much everybody said about the Canucks? What did Shane O'Brien mention with us yesterday on the show? It's the size of the defense that makes it that much more difficult. And look, it's the same old staples that are going to matter for them with Casey to Smith and goal as they would with Thatcher Demko, but they're even more pronounced. You can't afford breakdowns potentially, right? There is maybe not the ability to make the Anthony Beauvilla safe that we saw in the first period the other night, but making sure you stop Nashville's transition rush offense, of course, huge and allowing Casey to Smith to play half the net boxing out because he is a little bit more susceptible to giving up rebounds. These are little things about how you have to defend with Casey to Smith in goal and how you have to level up with Casey to Smith in goal. But that doesn't mean that the Canucks can't allow this to happen. Casey to Smith is a lot like a number of other goalies. He could go on a hot streak and really help you get in further to the playoffs. Can you go on the ultimate run with Casey to Smith? That I very much have my doubts, but did anybody think Aiden Hill was going to be the Savior for the Las Vegas Golden Knights last year when they had to turn to him? Yeah. Probably not. It's happened in Stanley Cup playoffs past where goalies have stepped up in the moment to save the number one guy. And this is Casey to Smith's chance. For him, it's the ultimate chance to get a bigger contract in the summer, right, after he may be blew it during his more recent spelling of Thatcher. Yeah, absolutely. And I do think, though, there is a clear limit to what Casey to Smith can do. And he has some weaknesses in his game, right? Like, I heard Woodley today was on Canucks Talk, too, and he mentioned, I saw the clip of it, and he mentioned the post play of the Smith as something to kind of keep an eye on and something that you wonder if Nashville starts to go after a little bit. And when we've seen him, you know, be off his post a bit. He's not the tallest guy either. So it could be a little bit of space there, something to kind of watch for. And one of the things, one of the weaknesses in his game is his overall rebound control. He'll kick out a lot of rebounds, but the Canucks, when they were at their best defending in front of him, this again comes back to how well they can defend, when they box out, clear guys out and win those pucks off rebounds, he can be more than fine. But if national players get inside on this Canucks defense and he kicks out rebounds, that's where it could be a long night. And that's something that you really have to play towards. So each goalie has more strengths and weaknesses, right? They have different strengths and weaknesses. His is, he's not the biggest guy. He'll kick out a lot of rebounds. And it's really incumbent, not only on the defense, but also something that coaches talked a lot about, or real guys. It's the fours that have to play in the middle as well. Like, you have to really aware of winning a lot of pucks when he kicks out those rebounds in front of your own net. Yeah, and boxing out of not allowing those second chance opportunities, that's huge in any playoff series. The other part with dismiss, I would say, is the penalty kill? I mean, you have to be even more disciplined moving forward now because, you know, the Canucks penalty kill really struggle. It was probably the part of their game that really struggled in Demko's absence more so than others, because you look at the five on five numbers, they were still really strong defensively, and they weren't getting as many stops on the PK. Now, they're not the sharpest PK in the world, but, you know, they are a penalty kill that ended up, what? Middle of the pack, just a little bit below middle of the pack, can be even a little bit better. But I'm not sure that's an area where Casey Desmith is going to be able to save you over and over again. And Nashville, I know their power play was less effective as the game went on, but they still look pretty dangerous for a lot of the night in game one. So I think there's a real necessity to try and stay out of the box if you're the Vancouver Canucks. But it's still the same delicate balance, like you can't take away some of the physicality and some of the good things that they had from game one and risk because you don't want to get into the box, like there's just such a fine line you've got to walk there. It can't be the stick infractions. You know, like I don't mind the physical ones or whatever, but you can't have too many of those stick infractions, needless hooks or the high sticks. Those are the ones that they really have to be aware of. But in terms of the PK, so Thatcher Dempco on the PK this year, I think he was, he was seventh, the same percentage on the PK, Casey Desmith for goalies who have played 100 minutes or more on the PK this year. So guys are legitimate, you know, starters or backups. He's last in the league and save percentage on the PK 793, I'm sorry, last, last 59, like bottom, bottom. There are 59 goalies who have played at least 100 minutes on the PK this year. So the starter and backup for almost every team in the league and he is 59, 793, save percentage. So, and now the defense plays a part in it too. The PK is not just on the goaltender, but to your point, it hasn't gone well, whether it's on him, on the defense, whatever it is, when he's been playing and they've been on the PK, it hasn't gone well. You have to stay out of the box. Yeah, you got to stay out of the box as much as you can, a little bit of extra importance there. And of course, as a series goes on, you are, you know, you, the opponent's going to find more and more holes and places to attack on the opposing netminder. That's just the way that it goes. So Casey to Smith has to do his part and play better or play well, continue what he started against the Edmonton Oilers in that final start of the season that he had. But beyond that, he's got to, the team has to be better, it has to be impeccable in front of him if they are going to continue on and win this series, which I do think they should. And I do feel it makes tonight's game. I wouldn't necessarily say a swing game, but man tonight, it feels like one of those moments. You can draw a lot of different game scenarios and how they end up and the storylines that come out of them. But if the Smith has a tough night and the Canucks and Nashville ties the series up at one apiece, now all of a sudden you've got two days to figure out, are you going to show offs, are you sticking with the Smith? Does the team start to lose confidence because they don't have their number one guy in there? I mean, we've talked so much about the highs and lows of a playoff series and how you ride every win and every loss, whether you're a fan or a player and a team. It's just, I think winning tonight is like losing tonight for the Canucks would create a lot of storylines that you don't love. It creates a bunch of different issues, right? Now, even if you lose this game, it's not like a series is over. You can split or win both in Nashville and it's a completely different conversation. As much as it's a race in the playoffs, a series is also a bit of a marathon, like you can't, to your point, get too high and too low, like when you lose a game, you feel like you're going to lose a series. You have to let the first four games play out. The fact that the Canucks have won the first game puts them in a position where, and I'm not saying they should lose the next two, but even if they lose the next two games, they're one went away from being in an even series. Yeah, that's how pivotal it is to win the first game, right? But again, there are questions about what can this team do without Demko long term, but all you can do is put yourself in a position to win this series and then give yourself a chance that he can maybe come back for the next series. And the best way for you to perhaps get a healthy Demko is to take care of business tonight. Yeah, tonight you kind of have to play the best game of the series. Yeah. Like take full control of this series, put yourself in a position to win it and hopefully win it without it going to six or seven games. And if you can do that, then you really put yourself in a position to at least give yourself a chance with Demko to come back, hopefully, right? If you end up going in a seven game series and you know, you're, you know, it really takes a lot out of you, even if Demko comes back, like what kind of shape are you going to be in? Yeah. Casey to Smith does have one playoff game experience. It was in 2022 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, he made 48 of 51 stops, but did leave the game with an injury. Louis Deming then spelled him and it was the famous game where Louis Deming talked about eating spicy pork in between one of the overtime intermissions. So that's Casey, that's the extent of Casey to Smith's playoff experience. He is starting tonight. It will be his second career playoff start. You know, a couple of people are asking about shill-offs and you know, hey, shill-offs is good. You can play him. What's shill-offs record? Bottom line is when it comes to this and you know, I love talking to Woodley about this because he gives us so much intel from a goalie's perspective, but he mentioned, you know, essentially both guys were below expected, you know, they're expected, save percentage. Both shill-offs and to Smith ended up the season being below expected. I'm not sure if the Edmonton game changed that for Casey to Smith, but if so, it's still marginal. Yeah. It's still marginal. He's like right on the number sort of thing. So you know, basically what that means is there are guys that are, you hope, going to make the saves, you expect them to and you can't ask them to do too much more. And shill-offs is while there's a ton of talent there, he's still very much in the development stage of his pro career and it would be pretty tough to rely on him in such a big spot. Yeah. And especially with how Smith played the last game, and to your point, as much as he had some good moments on the totality for shill-offs, it wasn't significantly better. And this is something we talked about, if we had some passionate debates on this, especially on the post-game show, we're big about, you know, dismiss Mr. Shill-offs and if the situation did arise in the playoffs where you have to go to your backup, who do you go with? And sadly, that has come to pass and we're here talking about that scenario, I maintain it will be to Smith getting the first crack at it and he is getting the first crack at it, right? But he doesn't have a super long leash. Yeah. I mean, it's like maximum two games here, right? Like he'll get tonight and if tonight doesn't go his way, if he then gets, he'll probably get game three as well. If that doesn't go his way, then to me it's like, okay, they may go to shill-offs because the question too is you can't get so desperate that you go to the next guy and he has a bad game, then you go back and you start doing the yo-yo with your goalies and your alternate goalies every game. So I think like, Smith would have to be pretty bad for me to go to pull the shill-offs card. I think for two games, I think if he's not great, this game and they lose game three, I think that's when it would get more serious about shill-offs. Like if the Canucks lose tonight, but he plays fine, I don't think they're going to shill-offs. Like to me, it would have to be you lose a couple and now you feel like you can't put yourself in a position to be down three-one or something in the series. There are instances where backup goalies have come up big. You mentioned Aidan Hill last year or I mentioned that. I was thinking about Corey Crawford today when he got dumped in Chicago's 2015 series with Nashville, poor performance in games one and two. They brought in Scott Darling, Scott Darling, ended up winning them the series, but Corey Crawford took over for the rest of the playoffs. Beyond that, Rick Tockett was asked about Kenny Regut back in 1992 with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The year before that, Frank Pietrangelo took over for Tom Barasso in the playoffs as well, and he was actually a friend of mine that I grew up with. His dad was a drywall and Frank Pietrangelo in the summers when he wasn't playing. Goldie for the Pittsburgh Penguins or whatever, IHL team, he was doing drywall in the summers and they were like, "Hey, where's Frank?" "Hey, where's Frank?" "Oh, he's playing in the playoffs with Pittsburgh." "No way, that's amazing." So it doesn't happen all that often. A backup tendee has to come in and save the day, but that's the situation the Canucks are in for right now. Game two going tonight. Canucks Central round up, game two with the Nashville Predators. They have the 1-0 series lead, Canucks had an optional skate again this morning. Of course, the biggest news, Casey Dismith. He is the one lineup change. Casey Dismith going in net for the Vancouver Canucks, Thatcher Demko out with the injury, and as far as like no lineup changes, yeah, there is no lineup changes as far as who's coming in and who's going out from a skater's perspective. But I don't expect to see Sam Lafferty playing with Elias Patterson and Nils Hoaglander tonight. At least that's my hunch of it the way game one ended. Yeah, and Taka did also kind of mention that he's going to change it depending on, like he kind of said like last game, because last game, Patterson played with a bunch of different guys, so maybe it will be more fluid, but I wouldn't be shocked either that Mikayev starts. And it's not the same Mikayev as necessarily a bigger threat to score goals because he's not scoring more goals in Lafferty. But is he at least better at connecting play and on the four check playing with Patterson? The answer would be yes. At least you saw Mikayev get some chances. You saw him be able to get in on the four check and keep the puck moving. And even though the offense is in there, I'll take that over the one and done. So I'll wait till we need one and done. So we broke it down last night yesterday to on Canucks Central and a lot of the shifts where, you know, Patterson did, you know, help to play along. But you know, Lafferty and Hoaglander had a tough time and Taka was very critical. You were there at the skate yesterday too. You asked them and he mentioned it was very critical of the wingers and how they played on that line. Yeah. It wasn't quite simply, it wasn't good enough. It's part of the reason we saw the Lotto line as much as we did. I think in the game, not that they played a ton, but I think Taka was just saying, I got to try and get Patterson into into spots where maybe he can have more success. And so we saw the Lotto line for a couple of shifts in the second and even after they took the 3-2 lead, we saw for a couple of offensive zone faceoffs, hey, let's go Lotto line. Let's try to ice the game here. Yeah. So Rick Tockett is, you can see him being pretty active with how he's trying to get his guys going. And so I do expect to see a little bit of a shuffle with the skaters in tonight's game. As far as Nashville goes, they, Andrew Burnett said they've got some game time decisions, but also just had an optional this morning and we're not sure exactly what Nashville's lineup is going to look like. Qadante Fabro, Cody Glass, those types come into the lineup. We'll have to see when warm-ups begin after 6.30. Stan Reicho, Satyar Shah, coming up, Landon Ferraro is going to join us former NHLer. He's taking in the Stanley Cup playoffs and he's going to help us break it down, what he saw in game one, and more. That's coming up next on Canuck Central. [BLANK_AUDIO]
