(upbeat music) - Canoque Central Monday. It's Dan Reacho Satyarsha 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. - Kintec Central is for Enzahn Pacific Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dodd-Ramm, and Jeep Superstore on Second Avenue between Canby and Maine, or at Enzahn Pacific Chrysler.ca. How was your weekend, Sat? A weekend off. - Delightful, it was my first weekend off, other than being sick since February. - Yeah. - So it was a couple months. It was nice to have two days off on the weekend. - It was nice. - Yeah, caught up with family, caught up with friends. People that forgot I existed. - Yes, I know exactly that feeling. Like, do you really exist? Yes, I do, still here. - Sorry. (laughing) - I, it was my wife's birthday weekend. We went to the Abbotsford Tulip Festival on Saturday. - Oh, wow, was it beautiful? - I was in pure Instagram husband mode, you know? Just like taking all the photos, the selfies. - Which color tulips were your favorites? (laughing) - The pink and white were quite nice. I think they were called first class. - Oh, wow. - So you took, you know what, that's how you treat your wife. - Shouts to all the listeners that were there laughing at me. Someone, I don't know. - Yeah, they're like, what are you doing? - Yeah, no, man, aren't you reached? Like, yeah, this is how you're using your weekend off? - Yeah, you're married. I'm married and my wife has a birthday. Does that not tell you everything you need to know? - It was quite nice. Outside of the like, pungent manure smell, it was, it was quite, quite nice and relaxing. - That's always the, the downside of it all, right? - The downside of it, yes. - Now you saved the best of the weekend for tonight though, right? - Yeah, Pearl Jam concert, let's go. - Yeah, I don't know what gave it away though. - I got a new Pearl Jam hat, did you notice? - Yeah, I can see, yeah. - You like it? - Did you purchase it before the concert though? - Yes, I wore this. - Yes. - Wow, veteran dude. - They got the, they got the merch truck lined up right outside Roger's arena. I was like, I, I got it. Gotta get it, get it in before you get into the concert tonight. - Looks sharp, yeah, looks good. - No, it does. - I'm not even chirping. - Sat and Joss are just fighting over Kendrick versus Drake and I'm just like, what? - Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam? - Yeah. - Sure. - It's fired up. - All right, 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. - The open, it's the latest on the Vancouver Canucks our take on it here on Canucks Central and the latest, although you may not have noticed given all of the extra attention being given to the Toronto Maple Leafs after yet another first round exit. - Yes. - There is a couple of Canadian teams still in the Stanley Cup playoff still competing for the toughest trophy to win on planet Earth. - Are we sure about that? (laughs) And it is your Vancouver Canucks against the Edmonton Oilers. The series will start on Wednesday and there's, so it's funny because I tweeted out earlier today, like if you are using the Canucks series sweep during the regular season of the Oilers as a reason as to why they could go on and win this series, I think that's misguided. At the same time, I did not expect to go around NHL.com and ESPN and daily face off in all these different places only to find that 94% or some crazy number are picking the Edmonton Oilers to win this series as if the Vancouver Canucks don't even exist. - So should we just fast forward to the off season then? - Why even play the games? - Why even play the games? - Yeah, one more minute. - It's determined, honestly me seeing such a huge discrepancy between the two teams and the fact that 94% of the picks are going Edmonton's way is the best indication that the Canucks are going to upset the Oilers. - You think so, right? - Oh yeah, honestly. Like usually when we see things be like this lopsided, when things shouldn't be that lopsided in terms of how the series matches up, I just can't see going that way, you know what I mean? Now we'll get into our predictions tomorrow or whatever. And yes, I mean Edmonton has more firepower, 100%. Edmonton is a team that's the hottest team down the stretch this season, for sure. McDavid and Drycidal ran rough shot in Hyman over the LA Kings, absolutely. - Yeah. - For sure, right? - All those things are true. - They are true, but they're not a perfect hockey team, you know, and one thing, and it's funny because they get this benefit of doubt, you would expect from a team that's been to multiple cup finals. - They haven't been past the Western Conference final. - Yeah. - And how many games do they win in the Western Conference final? - That would be, let's see, carry the one, zero. - Zero, yeah, right. So how are we so sure that they're going to come in and take care of business so assuredly in this series? Like, I'm not sure I buy it. You know, I think it's going to be a long series. And I think the way you look at these teams, like you're telling me that number one, Stuart Skinner is that good that you have no concerns about him. And you're telling me that you watch Evan Bouchard defend, you watch Darnell Nurse try to call something defense when he's out there. - Yeah. - And you watch even, you know, guys like Dejarnay, you're telling me these guys can't get worked? - The problem is-- - Tell me, Evan says it's super fast team, that's the fastest team in the NHL as well. - How fast did they look in that last meeting between the Canucks and Oilers when they did not have Conor McDavid? They're not a fast team, they have holes. But they still have Conor McDavid and Leon's rise. - They do, 100%. I mean, they're a good hockey team, right? And they also have another 50 goal scorer on the team. Oh, and by the way, they got Ryan Nugent Hopkins who had over 100 points last year. - Yeah, and this year he had 64 had 18 goals. So I mean, he's not scoring at the same rate. If Andrew Kane doesn't look like the same if Andrew Kane-- - Definitely not. - Right? - I agree with you there. - You go down the bottom of their lineup. - Yeah, they got some stuff, but I mean, it's not like they're getting tonned from their fourth line production-wise, right? Their third line, they got a little Fogle's been decent. But I mean, McCloud and Holloway at times. I mean, Holloway's got some speed, but he's not consistent, right? - Canucks got to win the bottom six. - Yeah, I mean-- - Because chances are you're not gonna be able to outscore McDavid and dry settle, but if you win the bottom six, I think that levels it out a little bit. And also, like, you're still gonna have to get some production from your guys. Those are obvious things about this series. But are the Oilers as big of a juggernaut as everybody seems to be making them out to be? Sure, if you give them a bazillion power plays and they're able to just go run right over you with the man advantage, then you're gonna have some trouble. Even the best penalty kill in the league during the regular season, of course. The LA Kings had no answers for the Oilers' power play. You listen to Rick Talkett today, don't give them extra power plays. I'd love it if this series is played mostly at five on five. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge. Don't take any stupid penalties, boys. Like this series, of course, every series comes down to special teams. But there shouldn't be this like chasm of the quality of these teams that seems, that you would take away from seeing how many people are picking the Oilers. If you just looked at these two teams at five on five and judged them that way, then why would you think the Oilers are that much better than the Vancouver Canucks? One team can score pretty well. The other team can defend really well. To me, it's like a story as old as time. Hey, good defensive team against a really good offensive team. Let's see which one wins out. And if we look at NHL history, which one eventually wins out? The defensive team. Yeah, and not to say Edmonton can play defense. Like they've done a good job tracking back and everything. The best defense is playing off. For sure, but I do think you're right. People are underestimating how good the Canucks have been defensively. Yeah. And yeah, not just some systems play in how they play, but also the pillars they have defensively, especially, you know, it's pretty amazing that we're sitting here and talking about Tyler Myers this way, but how well he's played, how hard he's been to get through. Right, Zadorov, the way he's played in this series, Ian Cole, Carson Susie. And then of course, using her own to do their thing. But those four guys, especially, there's a reason the coach leaned heavily on them. The coaches leaned heavily on them to being from the net and played 20 minutes a game each guy pretty much. Because they were stout when they were out there. And I think those guys are gonna make it really difficult for Edmonton to live in front of Vancouver's net. It won't be as easy for Hyman. It won't be as easy for those guys to get to the net. But that's not to say Edmonton's not gonna have a bunch of trust chances from time to time. They may even dominate a game or two in the series. Like I could see it happening. It's a seven game series, right? And if you see it going the distance, you're gonna see some haymakers get thrown. Yeah. And there may be a game where Edmonton blows out the Canucks. That may happen. And I'm sure if that happens and the series is one-on-one, there'll be this huge dread or whatever. And Edmonton's gonna be all hyped up. And then the next game happens and maybe Vancouver wins. And it changes again, right? So I think you have to be ready for some of these big swings in a series like this. 'Cause Edmonton in a seven game series might have a game or two with a score six goals or seven. Like that might happen, you know? But that doesn't mean you're gonna lose a series. All it takes is for you to be really good defensively and four and win those games. Narrative Street is gonna have a lot of parties on it. You might have some panic on it as well over the course of this seven game series. But of course, it's so easy to look at the Edmonton Oilers the way they finished the season and how well they've played, how much they scored against the LA Kings and determine if so facto, like they're just gonna run over the Vancouver Canucks who couldn't score and struggled to get by the Nashville Predators. You know, the three of the games they won were one goal victories. The other game that they won was technically a one goal victory with an empty netter tapped on top in game one of the series. Of course, the four two win. It's all one goal games against Nashville. And sure, you can play that against the Canucks. No team led less in the entirety of their series that's moved on than the Vancouver Canucks. I think it was just over 60% of the entire like time on ice that they led against the Nashville Predators. But you know what? You do hit the reset button after one round. And the one thing that stayed true for the Vancouver Canucks through that one round that was true about them as the season went on is their defensive structure, is their commitment to the defensive side of the puck. For as much as they did struggle at times offensively, they never gave up too much against Nashville. And you saw it most in games five and six when the offense started to come around and the Canucks out-chanced, according to Kevin Woodley's numbers, that clear sites analytics, they out-chanced basically the Nashville Predators two to one. You know, it was like 20 to 12 or something like that if my memory serves correct from what Woodley put out. So you're looking at a team that doesn't care so much about the shot clock, as Rick Tock had said today, doesn't care so much about how the other team is going to play. We know we have to defend well, and everything we do is going to depend on that. - Yeah, and I mean, Vancouver is good defensively, but they're different from the way LA plays. LA plays at one through one. So their biggest thing is making it difficult for you to get through the neutral zone. - Yes. - But if you looked at how that series went between LA and the Edmonton Oilers, that series was decided on the power play. - Yeah. - Five on five is not like Edmonton had a huge edge on LA. They actually, well, if you just go by goals four, it was against a five on five, it was 12, 12. - 12, 12, yeah. So I mean, five on five. - Could I have a better five on five goal differential in the first round than the Edmonton Oilers. - So five on five, Edmonton against LA. - Yeah. - It's the special teams that was a difference in that series. That's not to say that, you know, special teams can't kill you. Edmonton's power play might be the best power play of all time. - Yes. - Like it might be that good. The percentages they've hit, they've had the record for the highest percentage in a season before, right? Like this may be the best power play we've ever seen. It's not about keeping them off the score sheet. It's about, can you keep them to like 20%? Can they score one out of four times instead of one out of three times? - Yeah. - That's kind of what it is. You know what I mean? And if you can do that, you can stay in the series. And the reason Vancouver to me has a better chance than LA is not only do I think they're better defensively 'cause LA is more about the neutral zone how they play through it. In their own end, I think the Canucks defend better than LA does. I think their goaltending is better than LA's even which she loves in net. And the way the Canucks push forward, when the Canucks are at their best, they press too, right? They're really good with sticks through the neutral zone. They pressure guys really well. They contest everything all over the ice but they forecheck aggressively. And the Canucks, if they play their game, they're gonna forecheck. LA doesn't forecheck a lot. You watch that series and it's like, a lot of LA hanging back, even game five. You know, they're down 3-1 in the series and they're playing the 1-3-1. Very passive, waiting, waiting. Canucks don't play that way. - No. - You know, so I think defensively, not only are they better, but they're gonna spend less time in their own end too if they push forward with their forecheck and play better through the neutral zone. The Canucks are a formidable opponent. Like, even if you think Edmonton's gonna win, that's fine. But don't underestimate Vancouver. Like, the Canucks are not gonna be an easy team to beat. - Well, it's, people might say the Canucks park the bus or whatever. It's not really-- - No, they don't park the bus. - It's not really like that. - No, they don't park the bus. - They don't. LA. - I mean, the third, they can be, let's say, passive. They can be a little passive with their fortune. - I don't think by design, I think sometimes it just kinda-- - Well, the coach always says he wants to see them push forward. - Yeah, it just kinda creeps into their game. When you're defending a one goal lead or whatever it might be, you get a little tight, you make some bad decisions. It happens. But LA is more a park the bus kind of team. They try to stack the box, try to find a way through us, but we're happy to let you have the puck at times. But Rick Tockett said this again today, and if you watch the Canucks play all year, they play with the puck. They wanna keep the puck in the offensive zone, they keep the puck in the offensive zone more than a lot of teams do. I think almost as much as any other team in the league if memory serves correct on that. But that's the way they defend. They don't put pucks into bad areas. They don't let teams feast off of odd man rushes, generally going back the other way. Edmonton is a team that absolutely feasts on those opportunities. You put pucks in bad areas, you make a bad pinch. They're probably going to make you pay, especially if 97 or 29 is on the ice. So like there's some real keys to the series in staples that the Canucks will have to stick to in this series, but as long as they do that, I think the games will be close. - I agree. I think if they're, and their PK has a least trended in the right direction. - Yeah. - And yes, the national power play isn't this incredible power play, but they're one. - Honestly sat, like I don't even know if I can break down the PK, to me it's just like stay out of the box. - Yeah, it is. But even though, but with PK though, to me, honestly, like I think the Canucks have gotten a lot better at it. And I think even though Nashville's not this great power play, they were hot down the stretch, and the Canucks completely nullified the power play. - They were the second best power play in the league from the All-Star break on. - And the thing that's encouraging about how the Canucks play, they didn't let Nashville get set up very often. The best thing you can do playing against that PK, once they're set up on your own zone, you're hanging out to dear life, right? It's, if you're taking penalties, you have to continually get clears. And the Canucks were one of the best teams in the playoffs in the round, in the first round getting clears. They were one of the worst in the regular season, but somehow flipped that script. That's encouraging if they can keep that trend going. They're gonna need their PK to even, 'cause listen, they're gonna take some penalties. Like you can't, to me, it's impossible to say, stay out of the box, well it's a seven game series. You're taking penalties, it's gonna happen. You're still gonna have to kill some penalties. Can you keep them to 20, 25%? - Yeah. - And I know it sounds ridiculous, that's a good percentage, but these guys are clicking at 45 right now. - They would have to take fewer penalties than they did in the first round. - Yes, I agree with that. - Like 22, I think it was what the final number was. They only drew 13 penalties. Like it's gonna be a fine line, you know? The Oilers, I know, you know, people will say what they say, but the Oilers are one of these embellishment teams. We saw it, especially in game five. - Well, that's with the LA Kings. - Well, that's what I think, I think talk it doesn't just say things, for the sake of saying things. - Yeah. - And it was really interesting hearing him really go double down on the embellishment stuff. - I don't mean there's just about Edmonton. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Just a league wide, you're talking about Edmonton. And then he was like, he's essentially like, yeah, if these guys, if I saw a guy embellished, I would never give him a call again. I'm like, okay, now you're going, you're going a bit too far. But like the way he said it, I'm like, there's more in here. I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to send that message, right? He's putting the officials and everybody on notice. You guys talk about embellishment, make sure you call it. The guys were playing, they embellished a lot. - Yeah. - And I think that's a sign that he's really playing that game already here with the officials. - Well, you see it. I mean, Drysittle does it a lot for a big guy. He can go down pretty easy. So they like to sell the calls. They go full Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania and they make sure that the referee could see that there was some kind of infraction being placed on them. So I totally see all of those things. And it's part and parcel with how you look at this series. Yes, Edmonton has got the edge on the power play. Can the Canucks nullify that to a certain extent? Can their power play get going? So you make it more of an even matchup. As a lot of things do, it does come back around to Elias Pedersen. And a lot of our texts are saying like this one. Yeah, sure, but you know, our biggest problem is Pedersen isn't going and she loves, isn't it? That's why we are lopsided in the projections. That's from Justin and Surrey. And realistically like Pedersen was used, at least by time on ice and those types of things, was used as a second liner in the first round series. Yeah. He did not score a goal. Makes a good play on the winner for Pew Souter there in game six, keeping the puck in at the blue line. But he wasn't his normal self. He wasn't the Elias Pedersen we saw for much of the season basically all the way up until the all-star break. We all know that. But yeah, it's hard to see this power play clicking unless Pedersen does find more of his game because there's just, there's less of a threat for the Oilers to really worry all that much about. I mean, the Canucks power play at their best aren't Edmonton, but they've been the closest thing we've seen to Edmonton and Colorado outside of it. Like at their best, we saw Colorado go wild too, right? And we've seen Edmonton do it. The Canucks have shown at their best they can be in a high 20 percentage, right? Really in the season they were like 30% for the first month or so. And in previous years they've shown they can be in that stratosphere at times. Again, they're not there, but their best is the tier below. Yeah. They have to get to that. You know, and again, it comes back to Paterson. I know we haven't spoken too much about him and we'll get into this more throughout the week of couple of days, right, before the series gets won. A lot of time to break down game one. And we'll get our predictions in tomorrow and all that. But I think Paterson is gonna be real key here in this series now and they're gonna need him to, yes, score or whatever. But I need that defensive impact to be big too. You know, 'cause he's gonna be caught out there at times against McDavid and those guys. And that's where there's gonna be all hands on deck with Lindholm, JT and Paterson, five on five. Do you limit the deck? Can you limit the damage from number 97? So, you know, we talked about how this series is, some of the rhetoric outside of Vancouver has gotten kind of funny and how many people are picking the Oilers. But in Edmonton, it's been funny to hear some of their narrative going in and what they saw with the Canucks against the Nashville Predators. Here is Euler's media firing shots at the Canucks captain. And then Quinn Hughes to me has always struck me as the kind of player who, if you really start pulverizing him, he looks like he's gonna cry all the time. So now you see him in the last five games taking 17 hits. - You know, that's gonna make his way on Vancouver. - Yeah, he always looks like he's gonna, whatever, if I have to tap dance around that, so be it. But he's taking 17 hits in the five games leading into this one. So they're making a concerted effort and it maybe looks like there's paying some dividends. - What about? - That is Euler's now on 630 Ched, C-A-G-D. Euler's flagship station. - Well, first of all, don't hurt yourself tap dancing. We know the only thing you can do is a two step in Alberta. So let's start with that. Number two, if I'm talking about the physical appearance of something, someone, or another city, I'd be careful to do that from Edmonton. - Yeah, also fair. - So get those two things out of the way. So, but, but, but, I mean, Quinn looks the way Quinn does. Like we all know, I mean, I think the Canucks fans embrace it. They love it, they enjoy it and everything. It's Quinn face, whatever that is, right? But also, yeah, I mean, they're going to be physical on Quinn. - Yeah. - 100%. That's going to happen. And did it impact him at times in the series? Yes. But I do think that kind of reputation, Quinn has a small soft player. That's what those guys are playing into. And I think that's kind of unfair considering the season he's had. - Is it just a little bit of jealousy that their, what, nine and a half million dollar defenseman can't hold a candle to Quinn Hughes who's up for the Norris and probably going to win the Norris this year? Is that, is that part of this, this conversation? - A little bit. I think so. I think the Boucher I think comes in quite a bit. I mean, but Boucher I was really good. - I wasn't even talking about Boucher. I was talking about Darnell Nurse. - Oh, him. - They're highest paid defenseman. - Well, he's, yeah. - And looking like a tough contract. - Yeah, he's been. - And probably one of the areas that the Canucks are going to try to exploit. - Well, you watch him especially game five. - Yeah. - The two, the second goal that King scored happens with him trying to make a play at the blue line. - Yeah. - And he gets caught out of play. Two on one going the other way, he gets scored on. There was another play where they had an odd man break. Darnell Nurse makes a bad pinch. It's a three on one going the other way. - Yeah. - You know, honestly, over under how long does it take before the Canucks score on a bad Darnell Nurse pinch? - It's happening at some time in this series. - It's going to happen probably multiple times. - Yeah. - It's going to happen at some point. - It happened multiple times early in the season. It'll happen again. - Whether it's him wandering too far out. - Yeah. - Or it's him making a bad pinch. Yeah, and he's making a lot of money to do those things. I just want to like, also, like, because Quinn Hughes has a perpetual sad face, he's still going to win the Norris this year. You realize that, right? - It's going to be good. - He should walk up at the fat sad face. - Quinn's, it's not quite the resting bitch face, but it is a perpetual sad face for Quinn Hughes, I guess. Which makes absolutely no difference. And it's not a reason to knock a hockey player whatsoever anyways. - Yeah. - Listen, in terms of going back and forth in banter. - That's not bad. - No, it's not quite Kendrick versus Drake, you know? - It should be pretty good in that timeframe. Can I explain how I've covered John Sport that 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. A couple of things did want to get to in the Canucks Central Roundup. We talked about it, it connects our heavy underdogs against the Oilers. They are even at playnow.com plus 300 to win the series. So that would be three to one odds, basically. - Three to one odds, yeah. - At $10 you get 30 bucks back. - It's not bad. - Yeah. - It's not bad, do it. - Demko not ready to start the series as we know. And a couple of reports saying it would maybe be a little bit surprising to see at some point in the series. - Yeah, did skate again today though. - I think it's one of those things that take everything you hear about Demko with a grain of salt, not because anybody's reporting anything wrong, because playoffs are different animal in terms of what players do to come back, and how this type of injury too with his process, like, you know, we'll see what happens over the next little bit, but I still wouldn't count 'em out for this series. So I think we'll still have more to talk about on this before it's all said and done. - And quickly the Abbotsford Canucks down to all in their series with the Ontario rain after a four-nothing loss yesterday. Game three to avoid the sweep of the series on Wednesday in Abbotsford. So yes, Abbotsford Canucks playing in Abbey and Canucks playing the Oilers in their game one in Vancouver, Wednesday. Stan Richeau, Satyar Shah, Don Taylor is next on Canucks Central. - Hey, it's Big Nizar. Have your say and join me on The People's Show with big takes and even bigger bets. Weekdays three to four on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. (dramatic music)
