[MUSIC PLAYING] Could not Central Friday. It's Dan Richo, Satyar Shah here in the Kin Tech Studio. Looking for some special teams, special plays, special players in game three. As the Canucks take on the Nashville Predators, we're in the Kin Tech Studio. Kin Tech, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five star Google reviews. Soarfeet, what are you waiting for? Canucks Central is for Enzyme Pacific Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Gambian, Maine, or at EnzymePacificCrisler.c. Hey, we didn't get to it yesterday, so we have a round table happening here today, as if Sat doesn't talk to big enough. [LAUGHTER] And I've got to watch it, and I look at him pregame too. Could we potentially just-- well, maybe we should get Big's mic to work. Test test? No, it doesn't work. No, it doesn't work. Classic mic reap problems? Yes. I still got to look at you, though. [LAUGHTER] Here, I thought we were just going to get a free reign to talk about the Falcons taking Michael Pennix in the first round of the NFL draft last night. That was wild. That was pretty crazy. Now it's working. Now we've got to pick. Yeah. Well, now we've got it to work. Mic 3 has to go through a rookie lap, I guess, sometimes. Sometimes, yeah. Well, we actually just need to get warmed up. Flummox faces behind the glass, because I don't think they touched anything. I don't know. Mic 3 is just-- We didn't really touch nothing. Yeah. Mic 3 is just not prepared enough. No. No. This is like-- It doesn't come to the rink prepared. A lot of poor starts. It's like Neil's hogging under the first two playoff games. Oh, wow. I'm just kidding. I was just saying, like, 2018 Canucks is kind of like-- Just kidding. Guys, we're 24 goals in the season has two off games, and Seth's just out with the knife. I'm just kidding. Yeah, but it matters now. No jokes. Two off games in the top six, man. It's his first two career playoff games. Why? Hey, it's 1-1 series, man. The only thing that matters is that you're 1-1. You need to win one of these games, at least, in Nashville. Seth's like, reach is going after Patterson. I'm going after his line mates. That's a hooklander. All right, it's time for the Open. Welcome to the Open. Oh, that's your home. Are you too good for your home? Answer me. The Open, our take on the latest with the Vancouver Canucks and what is happening. It is game day. It's game three, the Canucks getting ready to make some adjustments for the Nashville Predators and that's really the discussion here right now is what do we see in game three? What are the adjustments they plan to make after Nashville blocked 30 shots, tying a franchise record for them? It was all of the discussion after game two, along with Elias Patterson not being able to get it done in some big moments. But really, we could talk adjustments all we want and this and that, it's not just Patterson. It's kind of all of the Canucks top players have to get a little bit more and actually execute with the opportunities they're creating. When you're only getting 18 out of 84 shot attempts on goal, it's more than one player missing the net, right? There are a lot of guys that are also missing the net. He's still the main character. Like the main character on Twitter that you don't want to be mentally as Patterson. Calm down, slow your narratives down. We'll get to it. I started with a whole ladder. He's like, I gotta get it on Patterson. It's a competition. Someone else talks for 30 seconds. He's like, have you mentioned Patterson again? Patterson, Patterson, Patterson, Patterson? Patterson? We'll get to it. Calm down. But yes, there are a lot of players that can do better. So what are the things we're looking-- the coach mentioned today, right? He wants the guys to take advantage of how Nashville is playing. There are plays there to be had. And he mentioned maybe not the first five or six, seven minutes of the game. But if you stick with it, you're going to be able to get some of those chances. But two things I want to see is I want to see Preds players laying on the ice in pain because you make them pay for the fact they're shooting lanes, or are you getting more shots on goal? Like, those are the two things I want to see, right? Of course, goals, something you want to see, but in terms of adjustments, shift to shift. Yeah, if they're going to get in lanes, make sure they pay for it. And find ways to get those shots through. Yeah, but that to me is just fine or tuning what they were doing, right? Like, they created looks. They hesitated or tried to find another look. But if we're talking about just cranking up the velocity of the shots and making a natural field of pain, it's like, well, you had looks. You just have to shoot more. So I guess that's an adjustment. Is there anything structurally you're looking for though? Well, I think it's clear, like, some of you were breaking down yesterday, Reach, about how you can get inside when they're fronting as far as they are, right? Like, there are ways of getting inside and for you to get body position on those players, right? So if you want to get it down to the nitty gritty, we can talk about how you go about getting those different looks. So two plays I identified that, you know, they were able to adjust or take advantage of Nashville's D zone positioning and the fronting, the aggressive fronting that they were going with in the defensive zone, the suitor chance at the side of the net where the puck hits the endboards and, you know, maybe you are missing the net on purpose a little bit more when a forward gets behind the defender and is able to get to that puck first. Like, that all happened. And suitor has, you know, body position, he has positioning on the defender because the defender is fronting and he's in front of suitor. So suitor is going to get to that puck first, naturally. And the other play was Miller's tip in the slot. I wouldn't say high slot, it's actually the low slot because he's underneath his defender and is able to get that position ahead of him because that player is fronting and is out of position to defend Miller in that spot. Doesn't end up going in, but it hits Carrier and then hits the post. But a Canucks got a great a chance out of that. Those were two plays out of a lot of other ones that they could have probably created from game two where they did make the most of Nashville's aggressive fronting. It all comes down to that, right? It's finding a better position in the offensive zone when you're controlling the puck. It's creating angles, moving your feet a little bit, maybe going for the on-purpose missed shot to get the predators in a chaotic defensive posture because that's what it does. It creates some chaos when you do get shots through. Like those are the types of things the Canucks have to do if they do have as much zone possession time as they had in game two. Yeah, you know, even when re-watching it, it's just like, it's so frustrating 'cause it's like, if you hit empty nets and re-watching was almost more frustrating than it was. Like I had to hit pause and like go for a walk in my apartment a couple of times. Like I see the lay off the spro right now. 'Cause like in theory, like, hey, work the passes and the seams, like that's what's so frustrating. It's like they hit the seam passes. Those are difficult passes to make and they hit them frequently. Well, that's why you can't, that's all some way. In sequence. That's also why you can't fully change what you're doing either. Well, the third period, you could see their frustration start to boil over. And I think in the third period, more than the first two periods is when they were just like throwing pucks into bodies and hoping for the best. My biggest gripe wasn't the way they moved the puck. They moved the puck well in the opposite zone, right? The issue was shot selection and how long they took to get those shots. They were shot selection at a moment where you could have just one timed one. He feathered it off so we'd know about the Garland one. You know, the Patterson one, like the empty net, it's like, which one? The empty net one at the end of the first period. That one you look at, it's like, oh, maybe did you just rush it 'cause there's one second left in the clock and did you get it off correctly? He could have looked up. He probably had, I don't know that he could. You look up, like, you know, the second is probably gone. I think he had a little bit more time than he thought. He had literally like three seconds and so you could have taken-- No, he had like, it was like, what, 1.8? Yeah, it was like two seconds. When he got the puck was almost-- That was like an eternity in the moment. Yeah, when he got it, he had about two seconds, but it was enough for him to just like take a slower motion than doing it, not stopping, but like the way that he just rushed the shot, right? He probably had a beat before it did. Here's what I want to touch on. And this is why I brought up like the adjustments you want to see in a text coming in, 650, 650. When players don't stay goal-side, you should be able to get pucks down low and back in front of the net to your own players. And this is the thing, like, fronting is not this new phenomenon. No. Like we've heard this phrase, non-stop, these last five days. Okay, this is not like something new that natural just discovered. You're like, you know what we should do? We should put the guy in front of the screener. Oh my God, we invented defense. This is not some new concept. It's a fairly basic, the New York Rangers actually used to do it a lot with Henrik Longfist. Yeah. And giving up the prime real estate in front of the net seems like a bad idea. And it connects best opportunities for me if come from the corners and below the goal line. Well, if they're giving up the front of the net, you should start creating your offense from the corners and below the goal line. Well, exactly. You can also create those low to high plays more. Yeah. I don't understand why they've pulled up at the hashes and gone retreated to the points and tried to create their offense so much from there. When you point that out, it's almost, it makes it so clear as to why Patterson's line has struggled more than almost any other line. They're enough. They barely forecheck. They barely win forecheck. His wingers aren't in any sense of the imagination considered playmakers, not Nils Holglinder and certainly not Ilya McKayev or Sam Lafferty in game one. Holglinder's had a fantastic year, right? Like he's blown away my expectations. But he also kind of played a Cy Youngyear, right? It's 24 and 12, right? And also being understanding of, yeah, his strengths and weaknesses as a player. And you're right, yeah, Cy Youngyear, 24 and 12. And so as much as I've, yes, talked about Patterson, his last couple of games and wanted more out of him, I also understand like there is an issue with the support he's getting from his wingers, from his line mates. And as I was looking through it and the one thing actually stood out a lot to me today, do you know what the Canucks third most common forward line is? - Through these playoffs or? - Through the first two games. - It's gonna be a trick answer. It's a trick question. It can't be like the top nine forward. - The tune called Joshua Garland. - Yes. - Miller Resto Shooter. - Yes. - The other one's gonna involve Patterson. - Lottoight. - Yes. - Yeah. - And the Lotto line is number three. - Yeah, that sounds believable. - Which is kind of incredible, but it also tells you how Rick Tockett seems to have an understanding that his Patterson's not getting a lot of support from his line mates right now. And that's a problem in this series. It could be a problem going forward, but he's trying to find a way to get Patterson some more support and the way that he's doing that is putting him into spots with Miller and Besser. It hasn't really worked so much so far in the series. Per natural statrich, four high danger chances against and just one four when they've been on the ice for the almost seven minutes together at five on five. So it's still not even a ton of time, but this is what they've had to resort to because that third line isn't going the way that they would like to. Like so far, Patterson's been most matched up with Colton Sizzans and the predators are getting the most out of that match up. Like Colton Sizzans is out dueling Elias Patterson. Is that because Colton Sizzans is better than Elias Patterson? No. Like there's other issues going on there and it's not all to do with Elias Patterson. - Well, the question becomes at some point and I don't think you're there yet 'cause it's a 1-1 series and I don't think the coach wants to show any sort of panic at all or any sort of distress about how the matchup is going. But let's say for instance that you don't win the game tonight and that line's not looking good. Can you afford to keep those three centers separated? Do you have to either, I don't people want to see Patterson with Garland and Joshua even? Okay, sure, whatever, the point, if you do that, what you're doing is you're loading up two lines and you're sacrificing the third line. - Like the other problem is you don't have a problem on the first two lines. Like you're almost, you're pretty much dominating when the other two lines are on the ice. - But given how Garland and Joshua have played together, is it worth, let's say if you don't get going here and hopefully they do, right? But like they don't get going here to just try to Lindholm with Patterson again. - Go, Hoglander, Patterson, Lindholm and then Blueger back with Joshua and Garland. - We know that's going to work. - Gotta be Hoglander. - Or McKitt, whatever, it doesn't matter. - Or McKitt, yeah. - The duo would be more about getting Lindholm and Patterson again. - Yeah, it's something I've been discussing these past two days 'cause you're right, like systems has won the goals for battle, but overall, I would bet on the underlying numbers if the Canucks go to the three standards. - Normalizing over time. - Yeah, but this is the thing about short samples. - Yeah. - Yeah, you have to win the goals for battle, I totally understand that. But like their edge almost feels surplus in a way. - Yeah. - And I don't even think going Blueger on your third line is gonna remove that edge. - Yeah. - Like if Blueger can't beat McCarron or can't beat systems in a matchup or at least play them to equal. - And especially with the wingers he'll have with the way they go. I mean, the duo is still Garland and Joshua. - Well, and even the fourth line in the last game, like Blueger, PDG and Lafferty, they were fine together. You know, so it's really, like again, I don't like to make it all about Elias Patterson, but he is the main character in the conversation and you talk about the power play needing more over at six attempts, could be changed if Patterson hit an open net or took the shot rather than trying to finesse a pass through to Connor Garland. So like there's a lot there, but yes, it still does a lot come down to Elias Patterson, unfortunately. - What if it was like Joshua Patterson, Garland? - Souter Miller Lindholm, McKay of Blueger Besser. - But that's like doing the lines you have and like- - Totally. - So my problem with like going just in a completely different direction here if you're Rick Tockett, I think players can understand little tweaks, but if you're making drastic changes from everything that worked for you during the season, aren't you not kind of like raising a red flag of some sort? It's like, hey, we're panicking, it's a one-one series. - I'm talking about in a series where they lose- - Where they lose game three. - Big game three. - Yeah, well even that, I think if you go to me, that's like you're in a big trouble. - Sure, yeah. - You know what I mean? Like you're down three one or something and you have to do something completely different, but I think more than anything right now for the time being, I think they feel like they can win with their current lineup the way it's been, and they'll have to be proven wrong with that before they change it. - Do we think Nashville will go with a more aggressive play style here in game three? Like they were, especially after they took the early lead. Do we expect them to be as conservative as they were? 'Cause that wasn't their identity during the season. - I would imagine they're gonna take a few more chances. - What's the more aggressive version of Nashville though? - More of what we saw in game one. - Well, I think- - Yeah, I think- - defensive zone trying to stretch the connects. - I feel like they did a lot of that in game two, to be honest. - Yeah? - Like I thought the- - Why not in a goal? - No, no, no, no. Yeah, but you have a three nothing lead, right? - Yeah. - To me, like for, well, we've spent so much time talking about like win the game and through 40 minutes, they've already won the game, right? So like the three one goal is created by them still being aggressive, right? There's a loose puck in the neutral zone and those ones are like, all right, I'll be the fourth guy in. - Yeah. - Needs up the ice. - Yeah. - And Julesin sweeps that puck back into the zone and that's how it gets created. So like I've seen a very aggressive version of the pred so far. - Well, they have been aggressive. They're not afraid of turning and you know, to their credit, they will reset really quickly. They'll tag up really fast or forward and they go straight in. Like there's no like tagging up taking your time. Like they're very quick. So they'll try to catch you a lot. I do wonder, given how much they did retreat in the third period and how to a man, they talked about that's not our hockey, we have to be more. Do they overcompensate slightly? To be like, hey, we have to be more aggressive and you end up doing a bit too much? - Yeah. - Is that the hopeful way of looking at it? - That might be the hopeful way, but I think in general, this, the first five, 10 minutes of every hockey game is so important. I think tonight it's going to be huge. The Canucks need to get a lead. - Yeah. - You haven't led in the first or second period in either of these two games. - They've, so during the regular season, the other game tied or leading was about 76% of the play. - Yeah. - For the Canucks. - Which is insane. - The lead for 9% of the series. And I think tied has been 27 minutes through two games here. So a total of 36 minutes of 120. So about 25% give or take. 'Cause that was a terrible math. So this is somewhere in that range. 30% that they've been tied for. - And they, like the pred scored in the second minute, the other night, first goal, like both of these teams lived off scoring the first goal. I think the predators, you mentioned the Canucks numbers, predators scored first 50 times this year. So it's, both of these teams love to get out in front early and then play with a lead. That's part of their identity. It's part of one of the ways that they identified. They could have success as a team. And the Canucks just haven't gotten to that. So tonight, do you see an amped up crowd in Nashville and the Nashville players wanting to play to that? - And you're able to maybe take advantage of them getting cooped up in the moment. I think that's the glass half full approach of it all, I think. - Yeah, I suppose so to some extent. I think the most important thing in the game, we'll get into this more in the game is Kasey the Smith. - I'm precious. - The first 10 minutes, that's the guy I'm keeping an eye on in this game. - Well, the reason they go down in the second minute is partially because Kasey the Smith is a little over aggressive, a little over amped as the crowd is chanting his name. - But also on the road, you wanna have confidence? - Right, and like, hey, you wanna feel good with Demko out? We'll get to Demko here in a second, but I think with everything else going on too and them losing the last game mentally, you don't want him giving up a couple goals in the first 10 minutes. - I wonder if Nashville's impression of rewatching Game Two is also, have we gotta just shoot more? - Yeah. - If you wanna say something about them being more aggressive, just taking more opportunities to shoot. 'Cause the one, the play that's stuck in my head from Game Two is the one they didn't score on. Is Forzberg shooting it and lands right at his feet. He's got no idea. And Forzberg's poking away at it. And there's that same moment happened in the first period. Spills in front of him and he gets swept away this time by the Canucks. But if I'm Nashville, home crowd, all these things, I'm launching as much rubber early against Kasey the Smith just to see how he reacts. - So Thatcher Demko, he's on the trip. We talked about this yesterday and now yesterday, oh yesterday, we had, Sat, you were mentioning yesterday, you're hearing that there's a chance he could return at some point in the second round later last night, some reports that Demko's out for the rest of the playoffs. Elliot Friedman, Rick Dollywall continuing to say, that's not the case or that's not what they've heard. What's the situation here with Thatcher Demko? - I have not heard the ACL stuff. - Okay. - I haven't, that's not to say, they may not know something I don't know, right? I haven't heard that. And when asking, I was told the same thing I was told yesterday, which I mentioned, which was the timeline is perhaps the second round. We'll see if that comes to pass. First of all, you have to beat Nashville, for that to be a consideration. And the second part comes down to his rehab. And I'll put it to you guys here, right? Like I said, 'cause I think it'll depend on where he's at. Given that he came back from his injury on the slightly early side of expectations, something that Woodley talked about, why right? Are they going to bring him back as quickly considering his knee couldn't hold up? So he could be back potentially the second round. That's kind of what I've heard. In terms of that being likely, or that even being a good idea is a completely different matter, right? But yeah, I haven't heard the ACL stuff, ACL stuff. - It is interesting, the ACL stuff, it almost feels like a similar situation now to what was going on with William Nielander, where there isn't exact information out there. So we're left to speculate as to what exactly the issue might be. And that's where we're headed with this thing. And that's unfortunate. I would imagine if Demko is cleared and he feels good, it would be very hard for the team to keep him out of games. Should he want to get back in? - Yeah, but I think the question more than anything is what is the true nature of the injury? Is it a four to six week injury? Is it a two to four week injury? 'Cause then it's like, okay, if it's a two to four week injury, him being back on the four week side, well, you're taking your time. If it's four to six, and he's coming back of week four, which puts you at end of the second round, these are things you don't have answers to. But I do think the overall sense I've gotten, and I know Dolly Law and Friedman have had the same thing, is I know even Sarah Valley mentioned the same thing that maybe second round potentially, and maybe it's more likely it's the conference final, depending on where his rehab goes, given what happened when he came back from his last injury. I think in many ways, he's not imminent on his arrival, right? And even if they win this round, they won't expect them back in game one or game two. We're talking about if he's back, it's gonna be sometime perhaps late in the second round. - You know what strikes me to? The amount this has been discussed, do you think it comes with a little bit of hubris that they're still like, oh, well, they'll be in round two? - Well, he has a thing to be careful about. - There's some big problems to sort out for game three in game four, that even Thatcher Demko's recovery might prove to be redundant if the attacks aren't there in round two. - Well, exactly. It's really getting ahead of yourself in many ways. - And in some ways, it's taken some attention off of the Canucks being in a 1-1 series. So maybe they've drawn some positive out of that, because not everyone's mentioning Lee as Pederson's name every minute. - So only-- - Reach is focused. - I changed my two in 20 minutes here, reach is focused. - Well, I mean, say for the team's perspective, it's better to have people guessing about what your situation is, but then like they're talking about something that's not relevant to today, to your point. Number one, that's caught up against Demko, not Pederson's struggles with team one, one, going into Nash. - Brock Besser doesn't have a goal, the team hasn't scored a power play goal. - And then even so against for your playoff opponents, do you, we'd rather have a little uncertainty about, you know, them not knowing when you're, they're gonna face Demko, right? So I mean, as long as you feel good about the information internally and you're all on the same page, do you care what people are saying on the outside? - Could be a happy, happy coincidence for the Canucks that maybe some of the focuses directed elsewhere. Since we're on the topic, and I did want to point out on the Elias Pederson factor, I'm actually-- - Here we go, Pederson again. - No, just, it was a really good piece. - IMAX piece with, with Pederson yesterday and-- - Wait, you're telling me IMAX had a good piece? - Well, it just seems like the players really trust IMAX to discuss these kinds of things, but at least from the quotes, Pederson seems to have the right mindset in the situation. You know, he mentioned it, I was in the room after the game, you know, you could tell how distraught he was knowing that he missed some glorious opportunities to score goals and he factored in on some of the goals against. But, you know, him just simply saying, I've been wanting to do too much instead of staying with and playing my game. Of course, play hard and use the adrenaline, but I've definitely been trying to do too much instead of playing my game and letting the game come to you. One of the things that has even perturbed me a little bit in some of the discussion around Pederson, and some of it is mostly from outside media, national media focusing on his game and how he struggled in game two, is like this idea that he's disinterested. But, you know, my view of it is more in line with these Pederson quotes is that he's trying to force it. He wants it so bad that, you know, he's gripping his stick a little bit too much, not realizing maybe he does have an extra beat to take, make sure he takes the open net as it's gaping in front of him in that first period opportunity from game two. I think the quotes were, it's at least what you want to hear out of Elias Pederson. - Sure. The comments about like disinterested, like I think they're unfounded, but if you look at a moment, yeah, let's say when a battle against Pavilion, - Yeah. - Like what's the problem? You have position, your stick is gonna get to the puck first. Why didn't you finish that play? - Yeah. - The pass into the middle of the ice. You made the right read to be there for support up the wall. Why didn't you know where Besser was? So it's like there's pivotal moments that I understand where the disinterested claims come from, but man, he's also been on the puck. He's also put in a lot of effort. It's just, you gotta convert a chance. - Yeah. - It'll alleviate so much stress of this series if someone in the top six can score a goal right now. - I actually, I took a look at the individual event map for Pederson on natural stat trick I posted on Twitter. And you look at like all of his opportunities, everywhere that he is taking shots from, these are spots you want Pederson to take shots from. It's just too many of them have an M next to it, which means he missed the net or they were blocked. And that's the difference that needs to come for Elias Pederson and the Vancouver Canucks. Bick, thank you so much. - Male Bick Friday today? - Yeah. - Male Bick Friday. - Can I put in a submission? - Sure. - Who will play Sat Shaw in the movie that's produced? - I knew you guys heard us hitting Nashville, man. They were like, "Sat, we need a movie about your life." So who's gonna play Sat in the movie? - They were hyped. - Yeah, they were hyped. - Who's gonna play Sat in the movie? Probably Brad Pitt, 'cause both of them are always eating all the time. (laughing) - That sounds pretty much up getting hungry. Should we have a snack? - Break. - So we're all big fans of the Seahawks pick, right? - Oh my goodness, what a home run. - Yeah. - Woo. - I put that in the universe, wish casted it and it came through, huge. - All right, that's Bick Nazar. You'll hear him again on the post game show and of course through intermissions during the Canucks and Predators game three. Stan Racho, Satyar Shah. You are listening to Canucks Central and playoff coverage on Sports at 650 is brought to you by Merritt Kitchens, Canadian made beauty, strength and craftsmanship. Find an authorized kitchen designer near you today at Merritt Kitchens.com, your tailored kitchen awaits. This is Canucks Central. [BLANK_AUDIO]
