(upbeat music) Canucks Central Friday. It's Dan Racho and Satyar Shah here in the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Find your perfect fit at kintec.net. It is Canucks Central, and we are for Enzyme Pacific Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dot Ram and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Cammy and Maine, or at Enzyme Pacific Chrysler, Dot, CA. It's a game day. It's a Friday, and it's a game day. Canucks and Nashville Predators, another elimination opportunity for the Canucks. Put it away, yes. Just finish the series off. Just win, baby. Win, finish it off, and-- I felt very Al Davis of me. It was. It was very Al Davis of you. Do we know who's playing goal for sure yet? I believe it is. The second goaltender in Canucks franchise history with the first name of Arters. Okay, so Latvian guy. Yeah. Okay. Arter Shilov. That's the one. That's what we're led to believe here. Things changed in 24 hours. It is wild. We're gonna get into it. And the decision about Arter Shilov's, what it means for Arters, what it suggests the Canucks are thinking as well. Moving forward with their young net-minders, Casey Desmith now seems to be the backup during these playoffs and not so much in a tandem. We'll get to all that, but first let's get to the open. (upbeat music) Welcome to the open. Oh! That's your home. Are you too good for your home? Answer me! It's the open where we bring you the latest on the Vancouver Canucks and our take on it and Sports at 650's playoff coverage. Brought to you by Threadco Print Shop. They make custom decorated apparel easy. Speak to their friendly creative team for your next screen printing or embroidery project today, threadcoprint.com. So one of the big stories that developed this morning, beyond who the Canucks starting net-minder may or may not be, which we'll get more into, especially during the pregame coming up in an hour's time. Rick Talkett officially nominated as a Jack Adams award winner. So, right along side, yeah, nominated as a Jack Adams award nominee and he is alongside Andrew Burnett and Rick Bonas of the Winnipeg Jets. Now Andrew Burnett was asked about it today just like Rick Talkett was and Bruno said, "Well, I hope I keep this jug longer "than the last time I was nominated for this award," which is when he was with the Florida Panthers and he immediately got fired after he took the second round of the playoffs. But it is an interesting award in that, like if you look through recent years, like there's a lot of guys on the lists of nominees that were not long for the job, but I think that's also more of a league-wide story of how many coaches have been overturned in the last number of years. - Yeah, and what's really amazing about this year is, is that only one of the nominees is getting past the first round. - Yes. - It's either Talkett or Bruno. - Well, it's like, it's just like a general rule of coaching awards voting that like guys who coach good teams just don't get like, don't get nominated for these awards. - They don't get as much recognition, yeah. And that's kind of the why it's so fleeting, I suppose, 'cause people would look at what's been the biggest improvement, who's the team that's improved the most and-- - Lindy Ruff last year, not in a job anymore. - Right, and how much of those improvements some are actually sustainable, is it how much of it is a one and done, or is it actually, this is a team that's actually good, and what voters will generally go towards the ones that have made the biggest impact in a given year, but is that always the greatest indication of who the actual best coach in a given season has been? - Yeah. - The reason I think Talkett is so deserving is not only have the Canucks made a huge jump this year from last year, it's a second best year-to-year improvement this organization has ever had. - Yes. - The best they ever had was back in '74, '75, coming off the '73, '74 season. They had 59 points in '73, '74. Jumped to '86 and '74, '75, a 27-point improvement. The Canucks this year improved by 26 points from last year. - Yeah, that's pretty massive. - It's a huge improvement. The second biggest in franchise history, right? So that's why voters would probably look at it too, that it's a huge improvement from last year, 83 points, 109 points. But the Canucks, the way they play, has not only made them into a team, that's a playoff team, won a division this year, but one of the most formidable defensive teams in NHL. - Yes. - And that's where, you know, you look at the edge, it's not just that he's made this team better, he's made them one of the best at doing certain things in the game, and that's one of the other reasons why he's so deserving. - There's been a lot of improvement, right? And sure, he's got a pretty solid roster. You know, the front office had a lot of home runs in the off season with almost every complimentary player that they sign and role player that they sign to help out this team has seemingly hit. I think some of that is a deep understanding of front office knowing what the coaching staff wanted or needed to help this team out, and going out and acquiring those types of players, the Teddy Bluegers, the Ian Coles of the world, and helping this team really improve around the margins. But Rick Tockett got an incredible buy-in. Now, there's a lot of factors in that. You know, maybe there's certainly a part of this Canucks core that was like, okay, we need to fix this. We've hit rock bottom or close to it, and something's gotta change. And Rick Tockett was the guy to help ensure that that change began to happen here in Vancouver. But you look at through, I looked through the numbers just to remind myself of what a stark contrast there is between the Canucks under Bruce Boudreau and the Canucks under Rick Tockett. And when we think about the Bruce Boudreau Canucks, it's they were high-flying, you know, running gun. They got into a lot of pawn hockey games, scored a lot of goals, gave up a lot of goals. In reality, they've done everything better with Rick Tockett as their coach compared to Bruce Boudreau. Goals four per game, not a huge uptick, but over 2.7 compared to 2.6 with Bruce Boudreau. Goals against per game down by nearly half a goal, which is a big thing, like giving up close to three goals a game compared to like, you know, it was well over two and a half, almost two and three quarters, and they're at two and a quarter. So like, it's massive, it's like a lot. Oh, they're giving up half a goal less a game. Like, oh, I'm that bad. - That's 41 goals in a season, it's a considerable amount. 41 goals in a season, that's a lot of goals. - It's a considerable amount. So that makes a big difference. And the underlying numbers all compute with this, where their expected goals went up compared to the time with Bruce Boudreau, expected goals against, went down and so on and so forth. The amount of high dangers they created versus gave up went up and down in the right spots. Like everything about this team that you want to see in their actual results and in their underlying profile improved almost as soon as Rick Tockett became head coach and then it took another step further this year. - Yeah, I mean, so the connects with this year and goals against were sixth in the league this year and goals against, total goals against, 223. - Yeah. - Last year they gave up 298. (laughs) - That's just a lot. - 75 goals. - Yeah, 75 goal difference. - 75 goals. - That's a lot of goals. - Yeah, think about it. - That's a goal per game almost. - That's a lot. - Now, I know some of that it's also like you're losing a shootout, it gets caught, it gets caught, you know, it counts as a goal against and all the sort of things or whatever. So it's, you know, it's not a simple, but that's a huge, huge difference from last year. And I think all of us have also been really mesmerized at how this team went from the team with some of the worst habits in the NHL. - Yes. - You know, like they were doing things that players in Pee Wee knew what to do. And it's not like they didn't know what to do. It's just, it just shows you that what a mess that had become, you know, how far gone they were and how much they had lost the plot that even doing the basic things didn't happen. Like they weren't even, you know, aware of doing those things or they were so far gone. And now you come back and not only are you playing better, but you're excelling. Now, a lot of this also hinges on how you feel about the season with what happens in this series and I think that's the other part about this. It's, you know, the trepidation in the fan base too when this award gets, you know, the finalists came out today. It's like, yeah, it's great. But are they gonna pull this off? Yeah. Like how do you feel about this season and what the job Rick Talkett has done if they don't get past the first round? And I think that's kind of why it's somewhat muted today in terms of people gushing about, you know, what's happened here with this team and what Rick Talkett's done this season. Let's think less about how much Rick Talkett has brought this team along versus, all right, let's get this series done and dust it because it hasn't been good. We were the heavy favorite coming in and now it's been a struggle to say the least against the Nashville Predators. Even though, you know, they had the three one series lead and have another chance to end it today in six. But, you know, that part of it, for me at least, you know, it's the unfortunate sort of circumstance of like you're announcing these things as the playoffs are happening rather than as soon as the season's over. So you have a totally different look on it now than you may have had three weeks ago because yeah, a lot of people will change their minds on how they feel about Rick Talkett and this team if the Canucks blow this three one series lead. A lot of people, and you know what, on that note, I would say Rick Talkett himself would probably say, this award means nothing if we don't, you know, get the job done or at least continue some of this process and, you know, we're up three one. We should win this series against this team. We should be able to do this. Like, I'm sure Rick Talkett's not going to dislike winning the Jack Adams award but also like he wants to win this series more than anything else. - That's the most important thing here. I mean, and listen, I hope the Canucks get it done. - Yeah. - But if you have a three one series lead and don't win a series, it puts a damper on everything. Like for instance, and now the Canucks didn't win the president's trophy and blew a three one lead but that's what the Boston Bruins did last year. - Yeah. And they might do it again. - Might do it again this year. - And it's causing them to have all different kinds of different conversations and they were having at the end of the season where it's like, man, what a great season we had after losing Patrice Bergeron and David Kreichy and all these injuries that we had to manage through early in the season. - Yeah, and the playoffs are going to shade everything. - Yeah. - You know, somebody's texting in and saying, Talkett had a great regular season but it's transformation of Willie Desjardin and the playoffs is almost complete. And in terms of stubbornness to not change his lines and stuff like that. But I also think that's completely, you know, the Willie Desjardin thing, it wasn't just about like he was stubborn then it changed his lines. Like he wouldn't take advantage of offensive zone face offs. Like he wasn't adjusting at all. Like nothing was happening outside of rolling four lines, you know, like you're seeing Talkett do different things in game, right? - There's a lot of line out there throw Lynn Holm out with Miller and Besser at times. - He shortened the bench. - She's giving guys a lot of minutes. He's played it up to the matchups. Like those are things that Willie wasn't doing. Like you can criticize them if you want for not changing the lines 'cause people want to see different lines, right? - The challenges. - Stuff like that. - Maybe how is it handling the goalie situation? - Those things for instance, sure. But in terms of adjustments in game, game plans. - Yeah. - Deployments, like all those things have been on point. Like I haven't had a moment where I've looked at like, what are they doing? Why are they not putting this line out? Like why is this guy out? Like, you know, why is this guy even playing? And why is, you know, a player who's a nobody playing 15 minutes a game in a minute more than Daniel Sidine for instance. You know what I mean? Like those things aren't happening in this game. - It's in this series. - It would be very harsh to really dive into a comparison between the Willie Desjardins playoff experience compared to Rick Tockett's playoff experience. For me, honestly, it wouldn't change much at all of the way that I think and how much I've appreciated the turnaround that's happened here in Vancouver under Rick Tockett's tutelage as head coach. Like, there is a stark contrast from this team compared to what it was before. And it's everything. It's the way they defend. It's the way they manage the puck. It's how they generate chances. It's how they consistently have a plan to go out and generate chances and how they want to generate offense. You know, one of the things when Bruce Boudreau first took over as Canucks head coach, I was asking around different people about, so what's Bruce's thing as head coach? You know, like, how does he want to see his team's play? Like, what's, why does he always seem to get the best out of his guys? And a lot of the answers I got were just like, Bruce kind of just says, go out there and make a hockey play. - Yeah. (laughs) - And hey, I can't take away Bruce Boudreau's record. He's one of the winningest regular season head coaches in NHL history, but it is of my opinion that the game had passed him by a little bit over time. And there could have been maybe a little bit more game planning and some of, you know, what he was showing as Canucks head coach. And we found that out over time. Right now, that's not an issue for the Vancouver Canucks. I do believe it's more on execution. And I think what we're seeing is, and some of this is filtering into coach not changing the lines, what's he doing? I think that's still part and parcel with this team being where they're at currently in their building. You know, this is the first year of a window opening with this front office and this core group of players. And they still have some pieces to put in place before they're anything close to a finished product. - Yeah, I mean, these guys are gaining, gaining experience for the first time in a real situation like this, a lot of these players, right? And the hope had always been that you gained that experience to learn, learn from it while you're winning. And that can happen here. I mean, if you take care of business and get this series done, don't play on the weekend. I think that shows a level of maturity, right? It shows you, okay, hey, listen, you were up 3-1, you lost game five. And instead of, when we see a lot of people texting in that have a bad feeling or whatever, I mean, hey, I get it. Like, you know, it's a nervous time, right? It's a big playoff game coming up. Fans are going to be a bit concerned, you know, a bit nervous about what's going to be happening here right now or whatever. But if they play their best game of the series tonight, they close it out and win. - Yeah. - The narrative is completely different. There's no like, hey, these guys don't know what they're doing, like, what is Rick Tocka doing, what's going on with Leah's Patterson. The narrative is, you know what? They got it done in six games, went on the road, finished it off, thus getting ready for Edmonton, right? And I think that's the beauty of playoffs too, 'cause the conversations around a team can change so dramatically game to game. Like, look at Toronto, for instance. They're down 3-1, it was like, trade everybody, fire everybody, win an absolute joke. Now they've missed Austin Matthews, last couple of games, they've won those games. Now it's 3-3 going to game seven. And the conversation around that team is completely different all of a sudden. - Yeah, entirely different. - Yeah, and it's just two games. So I think that's the thing about playoffs, like the despair you feel when things go bad, hopefully is not always, you know, it's fleeting and it goes away, 'cause when you win, it changes everything. And I think, you know, as long as the Canucks come out here and play their best game of the series, they're a game for the first time this series, this time of the series, it should be fun. And if they do that, then I look forward to looking ahead and talking about how you play against Edmonton, how you match up against Edmonton, and what they need to do to take that series against a very formidable opponent, just get it done, man. That's kind of how I view all of this. And they've done, they've had such a terrific regular season. - Yeah. - The coach knows what he's doing, despite what some people may think. - Yes. - Their star players are capable. - Yep, their star players have been, well, I mean, one in particular has been the one that maybe has been the most disappointing. - Yeah, I mean, even if Paterson's not at his best, I think there is a, like, you should still be able to win a game here, right? - We've already won three games. - Yeah, exactly. - And so to those texting, like, the team that has a 3-2 lead in this series is, it's wrong, you know, it should be the other way. Canucks have been lucky. Look, it's your opinion, I'm not going to try and fit you on it, but I do disagree that the Canucks are lucky to be up 3-2 in this series. At the end of the day, it's been like razor thin, the margins between these two teams. And ultimately, I think, you know, if I were to actually grade on who was the better team in each game, I'd say Canucks were better in game one, they won it, and then every other game of this series has been won by the team that was maybe not as good as the team that ended up winning the game. - Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, you can make the point that it's 3-2 for either team. Like, you can make the case for either team that it is 3-2, right? - The results are results. - It is not there up 3-2. - Exactly, and the thing about playoffs, and I think, you know, sometimes people kind of forget about how a playoff series unfolds, it's so random sometimes, too. Like, it's not necessarily about who played better. You see it often times where a team plays really well in the series and loses. You don't get the bounces. Over the course of 82 games, yeah, you'll get, if you don't get the bounces early, you'll get them later, as long as you're processed, you stay true to it, you play well, it'll even out, you'll be fine, but a seven game series, there's no such thing as it'll even out eventually. - Yeah. - There's not enough runway for that to happen. - No, then it's due or die in a game seven series. You don't wanna leave it up to chance in a game seven. So yes, get it done tonight, as a lot of our textures are saying. As this one says, anything can happen in a single game seven, let's hope Canucks win tonight and get some rest. I mean, I don't think there's any guarantees that game one between the Canucks and Oilers wouldn't be on Sunday to replace where the game seven would be. I think it's unlikely, it would be unfair to the Canucks, but I mean, I've seen stranger things with the NHL scheduling of late. - You know what, I'm gonna save my outrage for something that's not even confirmed yet. - Yeah, so I'll just leave it at that. - I don't believe in bad juju, but I don't know if I wanna waste energy on something we don't even know is gonna happen yet. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - It's totally fair. Totally, totally fair. Save the outrage, that should be our... - Save the outrage. - That should be the t-shirt that we have for Canucks Central. Save the outrage. All right, Dan Racho, Satyar Shah, it is Canucks Central. Let's get to the Canucks Central roundup. They are back in Nashville. It is a four o'clock puck drop here on Sportsnet 650 with the Canucks and Predators. Official pregame show will start up at three o'clock. We've got a mail bag coming up just after 230 here. So if you have some questions for us to answer, then get them in as quickly as you possibly can. Still unconfirmed officially, but everything points to it being Arthur's shill-offs as the starting netminder for the Vancouver Canucks. In this game six, his third consecutive start since Casey De Smith went down for the injury and somewhat surprising given it felt as though it was trending towards Casey De Smith being the starter yesterday. But here we are, our friend Erfang Afar reported it and then Arthur Shill-offs was the first goalie off. The ice at Morning Skate, all those things started to happen. It seems as though Artur's is the guy going for Vancouver. Yeah, and the coach really likes the guy, hey? It seems that way. And the thing we wondered about-- Keep saying calm. Calm, yeah, is that just code for it doesn't kick out as many rebounds? Yes. And again, both goalies have strengths and weaknesses. The weakness in Shill-offs' game so far has been tracking the puck through traffic. Didn't see the puck on the Carrier goal, for instance. Right now, hey, how much of that is also the screen and stuff like that, all part of it. But it's other moments where Woodley pointed out to us that shots are coming through that missed the net, but he couldn't track it, didn't see it. And sometimes, yes, kicking out rebounds is bad, but consistently making the initial save is very good and not seeing the puck is not great. So that's the thing where I'm curious now if Shill-offs is indeed going to play, how is Nashville going to approach it? And are they confident that the goalie is going to fight through that and be able to track the puck? 'Cause I don't think they make this decision. Again, if Woodley points those things out and sees it, they see it, they're aware of it. And they're taking that into consideration. So it tells me one of two things, either one, even with that shortcoming, they still feel better about his game than Casey the Smith, or they feel like that's something he can still work through and it's not as big a hindrance as it could be. They, here's what we know, they really like Artur Shill-offs. - Yes. - Like really, really like Artur Shill-offs. And he's a guy that Ian Clark had a big hand in drafting as we remember in 2019. So, and I could see why they have a level of trust. You still have to wonder if Casey is 100%, how much whatever little injury that made him the e-bug in game four is still lingering, though if he's good enough to back up. I don't know how much of that is a realistic question to be having about Casey the Smith. He hasn't given up a bad one necessarily yet, you know? And not that Casey did really either, but maybe outside of the first goal in his first game, right? Game two, but he hasn't given up a bad one. He's calm in the net. - I just wonder now, like if you're continuing to go with Shill-offs, is he essentially your guy? Like is that one of the messages being sent here by the Canucks, like this is now the guy we're riding unless there is a blow-up game or something else changes our mindset on this? - Probably, you know, and not to say that you wouldn't see the Smith at some point either because it's still your third stringer coming in here, but it would be the biggest indication that he is the guy. The first game, yeah, okay, the Smith's a bit banged up or whatever. Second game, he backs up, okay, sure. You wanna go with the guy that won, you know, won the game, the previous one. Then loses and you don't go back to him. I think that pretty much, you're tipping your hand that he is the guy, right? - Well, let's say there is a game seven. Like now, to Smith has been cold. He's been out for over a week, you know? You're gonna go back to him in that spot. - But yeah, but he's also been a backup all year. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? So he's used to that, you know what I mean? Mentally, I wonder more about like, how prepared would you be? Are you upset or are you frustrated or whatever? But in terms of being ready after a week, I think that's something a backup should be, you know, well positioned to handle and do, right? But as long as he's fine, it's okay, you know? And I don't know if people will say, maybe dismiss that 100%. But if he wasn't 100%, okay, true. We don't, none of us know 100% what's going on, but there's been no indication that he's still not fine. If anything, they really even push back on like, he probably could have still played. - Yeah. - You know, we really wanted to be extra cautious about it or whatever. But I do think too, are they, so the Canucks have played their two best games in front of Demko and Shilov's, right? So game one was their best performance. Game five on home ice was also one of the better performances of the series. Game one, of course, Demko played, Shilov's played. In front of the Smith, they were not nearly as aggressive, right? I know the coach, and we spoke about this yesterday with Landon Ferraro too about the week's ID, being able to jump in and stuff like that. And I wonder, maybe it's not the team, you know, telling them to play different. But if you're a level of faith in your goaltender, - Is it a subconscious? - Yeah, whereas I'm just not gonna take this chance, especially for the D-men or whatever it is. And I wonder how much of this decision comes down to how they feel the players feel and how they feel the players play in front of their goal tenders. - It's gonna be an interesting one. We'll dive more into the goal-tending conversation as we get closer to Puck Drop and get to our official pregame show after three o'clock. Couple of things on Nashville's end, Coach Andrew Burnett saying he may have some game time decisions due to illness. - So the flu is running rampant. - Through the Nashville room-- - Did Myers get them all sick? - I don't know, it could have been somebody. - Like, that Myers in the first game, like, cough into one of his towels and throw it over the throw it into the Nashville bench. - Just plant it. Somebody like walked into Nashville's room before game two and just started coughing up a storm. - Who knows? Luke Shen did say it was the most sick he'd been in 10 plus years that caused him to miss the last game. He did skate earlier today, but you know, there's obviously no, he was not like a full participant in line rushes or anything like that. - We were having that discussion about the other day about illness, some players missing time because of illness or whatever and migraines. Well, people play through this and it's like, well, not every illness and flu is the same. And not every migraine is the same. Like, there is such a thing as being so sick, you literally can't get out of bed. Like, there's such a thing as having such a bad migraine that you're so nauseous and in pain that you can't leave a dark room. Like, there are degrees to illnesses, you know? And I think sometimes because of the way we glorify sports and we often times exaggerate when somebody's sick. Oh, this guy fought through this and played. It makes it seem like they were playing and like their lambs are like hanging off by a thread and that's how they're playing. And it's like, yeah, they're injured, but there are people that are so injured they can play. And I'm not everybody with a messed up knee can play, you know? - Yeah, Cole Smith also did not take the skate this morning. One of my personal favorite players, Euso Parson, who I like very much. - You love the name, that's why. - He took his place along with Cody Glass. So, we'll see, Nashville clearly having some game time decisions to make. It's Dan Reicho, Satyar Shah. Coming up, we'll get to the mail bag here on Canucks Central. [BLANK_AUDIO]
