the show. And the family confines of Rogers Arena inside all by Alkintek studio and Kedok central is for enzyme Pacific Vancouver's premier Chrysler Dodge Ram and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Canby and Maine or at enzyme Pacific Chrysler dot C.A. A big one tonight. I don't know if you heard game five between the Canucks and Oilers happening this evening. I mean hyped up man. All Canadian matchup round two tied series. Yeah. Game five in Vancouver. Like it's honestly it's you can't ask for anything more in a season that's been terrific for the Canucks and you have a chance here to go up three to tonight against Edmonton. And I know there's some nervousness heading into this game. Like I say embrace the opportunity. Can't have nerves right now. Yeah. Can't have nerves right now. And we've got the entire city riled up and ready to chant. Let's go Petey for tonight's game and pick up the Canucks star. There were moments like think of yourself as a fan right now in twenty nineteen twenty twenty two. I just want to get to back to moments of the playoffs. Well, this is it. You don't need to be nervous. The only thing on the other side is angst stuff. Like, Oh, why did they make this trade? Just just enjoy this. Enjoy these next few games because they are going to be electric as always playoff hockey is that's big as ours. Well, of course, co co host of the Canucks Central Post Game Show and of course, host of the people's show. And why is he with us? It's Thursday and we're round table guys. It's time. There it is. As is Rick Talkett. It's time for the round table. I'm a round table guy. I love it. I could play that clip all day long. I totally forgot that was last week. You just lose yourself into the game day off day. I totally forgot that was last week. And what is the round table going to focus on today? Well, I like legitimately want to think about the round table that happened between the Canucks coaching staff last night after Rick Talkett. It's like, I'm not a liar. And then he lied to us about not changing his top two lines because we get to morning skate today. And Ileas Patterson is playing on the wing with Nils Hoaglander and Elias Lindholm. Sutter Miller Besser stay together. The third line is reunited with Blueger, Joshua and Garland and a brand new fourth line with Field Digis epic coming back into the lineup alongside Nils Oman and Vasily pod Colson set to make his playoff debut. We'll focus on those that are likely to get scratched in a minute. But Rick Talkett making the switch. And I guess for the first time in these playoffs, making his first big swing, making his first big change to the lineup, I guess outside of scratching Nils Hoaglander. But this is the first real big adjustment we've seen Rick Talkett making these playoffs. Yeah, I mean, he did say we don't lie here. And you know what? Fairness. Like you said, they probably got together and thought about it some more last night. I said, you know what? You know, you're allowed to change your mind, right? And that can happen. I do a lengthy conversation with PD. He also alluded to. Yeah. And especially with if you're going to put him on blast like he did, right? And then when the question of line mates come up and the discourse turns to true, he needs to be better. But what about his line mates? You had Sam Lafferty and McKay have playing with them. Both guys are who are going to be healthy scratch. Yes. What does that tell you about the quality of line mates he had in game four? So it's like, you got to meet me halfway. So if you're going to put that pressure on him, you have to also give him something. And I think that's part of the consideration here is, and we all know the Canucks are not going to go much farther than where they are now. If Patterson doesn't make some level of contribution to this series, dry saddles too good, McDavid's too good. Even Evan Bouchard is too good right now. Like those three guys are too good a productive for the Canucks to not have patterns to make some sort of an impact at some point in the series. Yeah. Well, those guys are scoring three goals a night. Doesn't even matter about the rest of the Oilers lineup. Like those guys, those guys alone are scoring three a night. That post presser round table. Yeah. I imagine, you know, Rick Target, you know, defiant of like, Oh, and I'm breaking those guys up. I just imagine it was like, you know, in good fellows, when Paul, he goes up and he's like, you got to go back. It's like, you got to go back. I just imagine the rest of the coaching staff, Rick Target strides us like, Oh, great press conference. Like, Rick, you got to go back. Yeah. We can't do this, man. We need goals. Like the oil is scoring three goals every game. Yeah. We need goals. You're playing fairly well against this team defensively. You're getting good goaltending and they're still scoring three again. So you need more offense and you need to get PD going. And that's really the biggest consideration here. It's like, what do we, what do we got to do to get this guy going? Because this is the thing that can help us win this series, but also long term, like if we want to continue this run even further, like bottom line is you got to get this guy going. Yeah, like that's, that's got to be the only consideration. But now for me, bick, there's, you know, yeah, let's go PD. We heard it on how for them, bruv. We're trying to get the people riled up. We love it. But there's no excuses for him tonight. Right. The only thing when he was asked about it yesterday, like what's going on with your game? I don't know. Good question. Any, any thoughts yourself? Nope. What about your line mates? Well, maybe, yeah, you know, and it's like, okay, I know it wasn't completely like that. It was quite like that. It was very clear how short he was with everything else. And then he elaborated a little bit when it came to the question about his line mates. But said he bad thing, but he also got to be better himself too. Yeah. Of course. I'm not saying it's a bad thing that he said that. But now there's there's no excuses. Like Patterson, we're, we're, we're giving you the opportunity to have success. And I think they were trying to give him that even before giving him some softer match ups, even though he didn't have the best, like the best set of line mates on this roster. But now you're getting to play with Elizelin home with knows old Lander who you had a time of success with over the course of the season or certainly for the early part of the second half until the all star break. Like this is, this is now a time where we need to count on you and you need to deliver. That's my feeling on the reason I say it's not a bad thing. It's, it's, I don't say it all the time. Like good players, a lot of play with good players. This idea is like, Oh, the good players always make everyone better. It's like, okay, sure. The example everyone always talks about it. It's like, well, Crosby made Kunis great. Chris Coons was still an Olympian. Yes. Chris Coons was still good. So, so was Pascal Dupuy, Ilya McCabe is not making team candidate, right? Like he's, he's not even close to the realm of the guy who can be not. Not this version of it. Yeah, not this version. Again, I really like McCabe game, not right now, but like he can be an effective player, but the line mates share a certain level of responsibility of like, I can also play with you and you will make me better. And that has disintegrated alongside Ilya Patterson's confidence and overall dictating of play. And it just has not been a good pairing. And so you're, you're at a stage, you know, you have to solve these things. And the only way to solve it is change it up. I know I was getting crushed for, for being the most critical person of Ilya's Patterson in the market today on, on the Twitterverse, but at the same time, I'll try to be fair about this. Like if you look at just last game, and sad, we talked a little bit about this yesterday, but when he was playing with McCabe and Lafferty, nothing good was happening. He had that one shift early in the second that he just so happened to be out there with Besser and Souter because Miller went off on a quick change and he generates a scoring change immediately. And then the last 10 minutes of game, he doesn't play with McCabe and Lafferty at all. He's out there with like Blueger and Oman and he's doing good stuff. So it's like, to some level, like I do, I obviously understand that the line mates are a part of the equation in why Ilya's Patterson is struggling. But also the struggles have been going on for more than just the last 10 games of the playoffs. It stretches back into the season. Yeah, I mean, of course, and we all know like he has to be better. I don't know how much more we can say he's got to be better, right? Like there's there's, and we know it didn't work with Lindholm. Hopefully it works now. In theory, the coach talks about holding pucks. That's something Lindholm has done a really good job of. He's been a straight ahead player. Maybe that forces Patterson to skate a lot too. And if they can get going and he talked today about Hoaglander as well. And he's a guy who's been stationary a lot as well. So if these guys get skating and get going, maybe they'll find some chemistry. And we know that Blueger can play with Garland and Joshua, right? This was, I think, always one of the cards they had in their back pocket. And you mentioned the coach finally making a big, big adjustment. I don't think the Canucks ever had to make a real big adjustment until this point of the series. Yeah, because go back to even last series, it went one one. You stuck to what your plan was and you never looked back. You went on to win that series, right? Ended up being a six games. You were leading two one up until now it's two two. Now is the first time in the series where it's like, okay, you're, you're not in danger, but it's like you don't have much margin for air. You can lose one more game. That's it. So if you're at that point, now you have to play that card. And if you know that Blueger can work with those guys, it gives you more confidence to get to this stage now. I just hope that it's not just Patterson, but Lindholm, that they can actually find some chemistry in this game here tonight. Like that's the big thing. It's, it makes sense in theory, but is it going to have a different outcome from what we've seen in the past? The trio of Patterson Lindholm and Hoaglander played 57 minutes together in the regular season, scored five goals, gave up to or about 50% on the expected goal share per money puck. But the flip side of that, uh, Blueger, Joshua Garland, bar none, one of the best lines in the league in the 300 plus minutes they played together during the course of the season. Now, you know, Joshua got hurt, Lindholm came in. We didn't really see it after the all star break, right? But, you know, if that line, if it's like riding a bike and they get their chemistry back right from the get go tonight, like that's, that could potentially be a problem for the Oilers to handle. The best stretch or one of the best stretches of the clock season, right, is when the bottom six was feasting on competition. And it was a big part because, uh, the Blueger line, but you know, Hoaglander was on a fourth line and it was really productive and that was an edge. And so today, you know, I imagine it goes power power. And then that Blueger line, it's not even just about, oh, go get a match up and do your job. Do what you did earlier in the season. Yeah, production. But also, I think what you're going to see is that fourth line is probably not going to see a ton of ice time. Sure. Tonight, right? So it's going to your point. I mean, I think it was generally played less than 10 anyways, right? But I think it's more about to your point that you just said power against power. Your strength was never going two lines against two lines or one against one that they were always going to win that. It was always going to be, do you have another layer of offense or another layer of forwards that Edmonton does not have? And you want to have the four lines, but it wasn't happening because Patterson's line wasn't going. Can you now create three lines to get going? And can that be your edge here tonight? It should be, right? Because five on five hasn't been the issue. It's you've been beat at special teams. And you've now also exposed, I know you've mentioned this a lot, like the flaws of the Oilers, right? Defense, goaltending and depth scoring. I'll keep saying this. I don't fear more than four guys scoring. Yeah. If you're a Canucks fan, if Hyman, Drysidal, McDavid, Bouchard have the puck. All right, you got a little bit of fear. Almost anyone else. And if it's not Nugent Hopkins on a two or one, I'm just okay. Fine. And again, I really like Nugent Hopkins game, but scoring goals is not necessarily the thing I'm looking for. Scoring at five on five isn't really new to this thing anyway. Yeah. I mean, Kane can be that player. He just hasn't been able to do it consistently. And we know he has a hernia issue or whatever, but he just hasn't been able to bring it. That's part of it. Yeah. Outside of those guys, it's really just echo him. Yeah. Well, Kane's biggest impact on the series was blasting Ronik on that on the winning goal of their night. Yeah. Yeah. Like we said, other than that, he hasn't really done much. And so if that's the edge, it's got to be that that blue girl. Like a lot of a lot of strain as much as we're talking about PD and all that. But there's a lot of pressure and a lot of strain on Hoaglander who gets this opportunity and blue girl who gets this opportunity. So the way I see that line sort of working or trying to work, you know, if you're if you're Rick Tockett, it's just like, okay, Hoggie, we need to be F1 tonight. Like this is your only job on this line. Be F1, get in hard on pucks, try to win them. And that's got to be your job. And I think you simplify the game for Hogglander a little bit in that in that kind of a role. But one of the things that when in the very limited time we saw Lynn Holman and Patterson play together and even when they've been on the ice situationally together at times, I think if you watch, sometimes they get mixed up on which one of them is supposed to be the high guy who's going to be F3 and who's technically playing center. And you know, those little beats of hesitation can, you know, disrupt the Canucks forecheck and garner essentially ineffective. So that that is maybe something I'm going to be looking for tonight. But if in the previous iterations of this line, Patterson has generally been the one to start off as the center, I think tonight it'll likely be Lynn Holman. We'll see how that works. Yeah, now the coach said today that hybrid. Yeah, it's kind of like it's really about who gets to the spot first. Yes. And the draws will depend on which side they're being taken on. Like I'm sure they'll kind of depend on the situation where they're going up against matchups and stuff like that. And you know, one of the because Patterson hasn't had a good year and because he's had any even worse playoffs, one of the things that's really gone under reported this year, even though we've brought it up is the fact that he's become a strong face off. Yeah, we'll break even what that's strong. Yeah, like I think if you hit 50%, that's strong, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, he's not a guy that's going to go out there and win 55% or whatever. But if you want 50% of your draws in the NHL as a center who takes a lot, that's good. The first signal of improvement there. Yeah, there are times where he is the guy to take a face off on the left side on the strong side, even ahead of Miller, right? Like we even saw that with the draw on the time goal and he gets a big win there. So yeah, that is an area of improvement for his game. But to your point about the discrepancy at times of who's managing what scenario on a fork check, especially if you want power versus power, if a scene opens up and suddenly now it's McDavid skating through and it's dry settles getting through this little miscommunication, like that's something that's going to be you're gonna have to be on alert for tonight. Do we, how does talk it and manage the matchups? You're on home ice. So you get last change. I expect Miller will probably go up against McDavid as he has for most of this series. Does the Lindholm Pedersen line go up against dry settle or do you give that duty to the Blue Ger line? I would imagine it's still going to be well against McDavid. It'll still be J.T. I think they've kind of gotten done done that the whole time. They were never really shy of having Blue Ger out there against dry settle or McDavid like they always felt comfortable even in the previous three games for Blue Ger to take defensive or offensive zone draws against those guys. So I don't think there'll be there'll be too afraid of having any of those lines out there, but I'm pretty sure they'll still have J.T. go head-to-headwood Connor. But it's the Lindholm versus dry settle ones. Yeah. Like I would advocate for either one of those lines to do it and if you want to create offense then put Blue Ger against dry settle and then it's Lindholm Pedersen. I think that's going to be by committee a little bit. Sure, yeah. I don't think they're going to have those guys be hard-matched either way. It'll be whoever's kind of out there. And the fourth line tonight, like I wonder if that line just really gets buried enough fine with it. Yeah, like eight over under eight minutes. I think it'll depend on the game state. Like if you're trailing, you're going down to nine players in the third period essentially. Yeah. And how much they play like maybe D. Giuseppe and Oman still get some PK time, but Pod Colson could end up in with very few minutes tonight in his playoff debut. Just play a hair on fire game. Yeah. If you're a facility put Colson, just go balls to the wall every time you're on the ice. You might only get seven minutes and don't be reckless about it because he's not really a reckless player, but he finds ways to be physical. Yeah. And if you're being brought in, especially with the ineffectiveness we saw from Lafferty McCabe, and sad. I know you're doing the rewatch. I'm sure you did rewatch. We'll just create some contact at least like chip a body something that to me is the demand on the sleep of Colson tonight. Phil Giuseppe does a great job of it. Usually like the details of his game were pretty strong and but Colson it's you gotta just be fierce. I know like it's strange about this series how like I expected special teams to be more of a storyline, but it hasn't really been a storyline. I think until coming into this game, like the PK has given up goals, but the power play has done enough to negate that at least through the first three games of the series they were able to. And then when they don't score and how bad they looked, especially on that double minor in game game four, like that's where now you're looking at the power play and you're like, okay, what's the fix here? And is there really a fix because it just seems as though this is kind of the way that it's been for the last number of months? Well, it's been hot and cold. They'll have like a game where they look alive and we're like power plays back and then three games that go dormant and all of a sudden they come back again, right? I mean, so it is what it is and I think they've shown the same thing in the playoffs. It was a time in the national series where they won a couple games with the special teams and then you didn't see much from the power play towards the end, right? Same thing in this series as you outline. I think the ups and downs are just kind of what they are with this power play. But what really struck me watching the first three power plays, I mean, it was way too passive, you know, we mentioned this too and especially how with their entries and everything. And the Oilers are just super aggressive. Yeah, but one guy who I thought really hurt them and it's the same guy who sent the text message that had code apologizing for his performance with J.T. Miller. He's in many ways, like we've talked about this, like he's like Quinn's a quarterback, but the real, you know, playmaker and the driver on the peak power play is J.T. Miller. Like he's the guy that has the audacity to make plays, right? That forces the issue that that will be the guy that also is very fierce with his positioning. He was very passive. And so when the guy who's supposed to be like the beat to your power play doesn't have it, I think it makes it real tough for the rest of the guys to get going as well. And I expect J.T. to be on it tonight. And with him being on it, I would expect that's going to trickle down to the power play being far more effective. Well, he's got to be on it, right? He absolutely has to be. If you're going to take that level of accountability, the way he did, he met with media, he said certain things were on him and wasn't playing well. And then story comes out, him texting the head coach with a quick apology. And so the puck is going to find you tonight. What are you going to do with it? It's, uh, it's kind of like, I don't want this to sound like, I think J.T.'s game has been poor for much of the playoffs, because it hasn't, obviously. I don't think his game for was probably his worst of the postseason to this point. But the fact that this team has only gotten three goals from Patterson and Miller and are at this stage of the playoffs is pretty remarkable. Right. But that's why we keep saying have they played their A game yet, right? We're 10 games into this game. One of this series was maybe their most complete game of, of the postseason. Yeah. And they were close to it. Had to come from behind. Right. We haven't seen a, a plus like, wow, like what a dominant performance that the grinding out one goal wins and full credit to them. But as you just said there, they're not getting goals from Patterson and Miller. Yeah. Miller only has two goals on the playoffs. They've combined three goals. Yeah. Patterson and Miller, your top two centers, the guys that are supposed to be the biggest drivers of your four group. And then I mean, Besser scored enough for the rest of the 100 percent. But yes, but to your point, they need those guys to score goals. If we're talking about like, hey, finally, the clock's had an A game. Yeah. And if they play their A game, they'll win games. But it's the reason that you get an A game is because your stars show up too. Well, it's not about the, the last reason the Oman's of the world having a big game. It's those guys got to score goals. I'm taking the, I've been taking the optimistic outlook here because we've maintained even through the national series and this series that as much as it connects, I've played some good games. We haven't seen their A game. And at some point, we will see their A game. What we don't want is a playoffs to end. Yeah. And us sit here and say, we never saw their best. Yeah. Right. And that's what you don't want to have. Because that creates a what ifs. It's like, what if you did have your best? But if you go into the lineup, right? Exactly. You, you overturn every stone. Yeah. And finally, Rick, we're, we're, we're talking to that this point where it's all right. We, we, he keeps using the baseball swing analogy. It's, you got to try something. And we'll see if this activates the opportunity for those guys to score. And they need to find more volume. And I think that's big part of the lineup changes tonight. Maybe try to find some more volume and be able to tilt the ice a little bit more. I still think, you know, the, the, the quality they've been able to generate when they're going is still quite good, obviously, with the amount of goals they've scored with the relative few amount of shots. And that even goes back to the Nashville series. But Calvin Picker is starting to get tonight. That's the thing. Like, forget the volume for yourself. Yeah. Do it for the sake that you're playing against that guy. And also, he's going to be in hostile and like, yeah. Okay. It's one thing to win a game at home eyes. It's another thing to be in hostile territory. So like put pressure on the kid. With all of his ways where you were mostly in control. Yeah. With all due respect to Calvin Picker, right? And like, he did the job, but I was, I was talking with us on the, uh, people show, if you had to sort the things of like, why Calvin Picker won the game? Was it his talent, the defense of before us by the Oilers, or the Canucks unwillingness to shoot? And their overall chance is creation. Yeah. It's clearly Canucks defense performance and Picker's performance. Yeah. And the other, the other thing that Picker and I think did well and Noblock even mentioned this, and I was thinking back to it over the course of the first four games, but he handled the puck a little bit better than Skinner does. And I think that helped the Oilers get out of their own zone a little cleaner than they had, because like when Nurse and Cece are on the ice, like their retrievals are very poor. And we've seen the Canucks consistently put the puck into Cece's corner, go in and win it. Yeah. And that's, it's been a key to the series and the kind of the games, the Canucks have won, but they just, they weren't able through the first two periods, they weren't able to generate enough pressure, they weren't able to generate enough shots. And like Picker gave them a lot more than they were able to get. Like there was rebounds, there was some change there for them to potentially pick up, but they just weren't able to get to the net and got boxed out. You know, it was just a game where for the first 40 minutes the Canucks got outworked for the most part. Well, and that's the thing, the outwork part, and that's something that we didn't say much about the Canucks this season, and that's why I expect that effort to be there. Well, their identity has to be that they outworked their opponents. Yeah, and listen, five on five, the Canucks have, I think, done a really good job overall. It's hard to generate much five on five in the postseason anyways, like the expectation isn't for you to generate the same way you generate in the regular season, five on five. It's not, it's completely different, but you're not going to win five on five or generate much of anything if you're now winning battles. And we talked about the fourth checking game forward was terrible. Wherever you wherever you want to highlight, you have to get in there a lot more aggressively. Like I want to see them head into those board battles as if their life depends on that. That's how you have to play. And that's not how they played along the boards. That's something that we know they have in them. We had too many passengers alluding to Mikayev and Lafferty. And it wasn't just them. Like there was moments where we were talking about how urgent Edmonton was and their PK earned it, but and how stale the power play looked. Like some of it was like CC was reacting to stuff faster than Besser when Besser had inside positioning on him. Yeah, and you would just win the battle. Yeah, well, you know where you know where you need to be to support your guy. Why does the the D-man know where your where the puck is going to go before you? It's stuff like that that they lost a bunch of. I mentioned one play with Besser, but like Patterson lost one, Lindholm lost one. Miller threw some bizarre passes on the power play when he was uncontested. It's just it's all stuff like that that you do that. You're going to make the series way tougher on Edmonton. And if you lose, you got to make a tough one of them at the very least. Well, again, you know, the Oilers power play is you're chocking them up for one at night at the very least. You're chocking them up. They've scored one power play goal in every single playoff game so far this year. So you're chocking them up for one goal. That means your power plays probably got to at least match that to give yourself a chance to win the game at five on five. Bick, always great having you on for the round table since we are a round table, guys. Oh, I can do the drop. Oh, wow. I had to communicate with. They want us. They're upset at us because we're not breaking on time. Long shifts in the playoffs. Long shifts. We're competing. We're out there for two and a half minutes. Like, you know, we'll do what JT did. Well, we'll send the producers an apology text. Yeah, sorry. Bick, appreciate it. We'll hear on post game and intermissions. Thanks, boys. There he is. Picnazzar co-hosts of Canucks Central Post Game Show and, of course, host of the People Show, which you can find available on your favorite pod catcher. It's Dan Reicho, Satsy, R Shaw. We'll come back with the Canucks Central Roundup and some thoughts on some other parts of the Canucks line up that need to get picked up. That's coming up next on sports at 650. Hey, it's Bick, Nazzar. Have your say and join me on the People Show with big takes and even bigger bets, weekdays, three to four on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcast.
