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Jannik Hansen on Elias Pettersson and the New-Look Lines

Dan and Sat are joined by Jannik Hansen to talk about Elias Pettersson's game 5, the new-look lines, and more about the series as game 6 goes Saturday in Edmonton.

Duration:
21m
Broadcast on:
18 May 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

Dan and Sat are joined by Jannik Hansen to talk about Elias Pettersson's game 5, the new-look lines, and more about the series as game 6 goes Saturday in Edmonton.

This podcast was produced by Josh Elliott-Wolfe.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

[Music] We're back on Kidock Central. We are for Enzyme Pacific, Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Canby and Maine. Or at EnzymePacificCrysler.ca. We're going to get to the mailbag coming up after 5 o'clock. But we want to bring in our next guest. This analyst brought to you by the Magneson Auto Group, Metro Ford Port, Coquitlam and Magneson Ford in Abbotsford on both sides of the Fraser to serve you. It's Yannick Hanson. Thanks for this Yannick. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. A little better now after that game the other night. I mean it puts a little more faith in it. I mean now you have two balls here to see if you can get it done and it's a lot better than having to go into it and then pull out a win. Yeah, well now it might take two McDavid, herculean efforts to knock out the Canucks in a row here. And you know what? He looks fatigued, which we'll get to, but I want to start because we talked about it on the pregame. Did we think the Canucks had this kind of performance in them? And they showed it a little bit in Game 1 and then from the second period on last night, it just kind of felt like there was only one team on the ice and that was the team in blue. Yeah, that was the game we were looking for. The game where they learned it, deserved it, proved it, did everything we've been looking for and got the result as well. So that's where the confidence comes from because when you can do that, you're hoping that they can do that one more time. And then they don't need spectacular stuff from a goaltender or an individual player, then you just need your team to go out and perform like that and it should take care of itself. Well, as far as, you know, we talked so much about Elias Patterson, of course, right? And he's been a big topic of conversation. The coach mentioned he was proud of his performance last night. What did you think of the way Patterson played, especially with Lindholm and Hoaglander last night? Yeah, it seemed like he had twice in on a shot in the last game as he did in the previous five. So it was obviously good. He was involved. Physical as well. I'm sure we'll touch on that penalty at some point, but but again, he was, he was there. A little bit more engaged, looking like he was the puck was following him instead of a magnet where it keeps pushing away from him. So it was good to see that it kind of followed him around a little bit more than it had. It still leaves a lot to be wanted from him. There are still things in his game there. You're like, Oh, that's not what he would normally do. But again, it was a small step in the right direction. No question about that. Okay. You mentioned the penalty for charging. I asked a couple of guys last night. If they'd ever seen anything like it, they all said no. So have you ever seen a charging penalty like that? No. And again, I don't, I don't know the rules. And apparently there are some rules that if you jump, it's a charge. Whether that counts for your standing still. Apparently it does. But no, it's a reverse hit. I've never seen it out. Guy in his head. But I mean, it was, it was all back. And it didn't look like Fogle was expecting it. So it was again odd to say the least. I've never seen anything like it either. And again, it was too bad when it was him because again, it's one of the things he does when he does things well. He draws guys in and he puts them on their back like that. Again, we haven't seen him quite a jump like that. He was a significant jump. So don't get me wrong. But it is part of his game. So, so again, it was good to see. Thankfully, no goal was scored on that power play. That would have probably been heartbreaking. But again, it was, it means he's engaged. He's not shying away from contact. You know, and that's the thing. I think we all wanted to see him be more engaged. And one of the things that connects, I've done such a good job of in this series is be physical. They've significantly out hit the Edmonton Oilers. We know they spend a lot of time where they've leaned heavily on guys like Connor McDavid and Leon Drey said already this series. It seemed like that stuff is paying off in a bad way, Fred. Are you kind of starting to see that, you know, the wear and tear on Edmonton a little bit? The fatigue on their top guys. You're heading to game six now. Was that a bit more evident late in the game last night? I don't know. I don't think so to be honest. I think we touched on this. I've heard rumors of his stamina, whatever you say, his ability to come out and bounce back shift after shift, even though you're double shifting him. I don't think you will win because he's fatigued. I think you will win because you will beat the other part of the lineup. You will win when your death takes over. And again, JT, that goal they scored at the end there with Dreyseidel and McDavid on the ice. That's just cream on top. But again, you have to find a way to use your death last night was the first time where you saw the Vancouver roll lines. Like, you saw the fourth line. You saw Pot Colson. You saw it all. Amen. And those guys as well. Of course, you saw the other guy. But it was noticeable that they had shift. They had offensive zone shift. They had Pot Colson finishing checks. They had offense from Garland. They had offense from Lindholm. So it came from all sorts last night, which in previous games, you've been relying on a little bit too few or too few guys. So that's where it comes in that Vancouver's depth kind of took over a little bit maybe. And that's probably what tilted the ice. In terms of the top line there, McDavid and Dreyseidel, I think you still have to be worried about them here. Come game six to see what they're going to put on and then see if you can match it. Yeah. And, you know, McDavid still had a pretty clear chance late in the third there. And it was statistically one of his toughest games in his playoff career. But I think it shows up more Yannick in when they have to defend. Like Dreyseidel was on the ice for all three Canucks goals last night. And I'm not saying they're his fault. But, you know, I think there's something to that where, you know, you got to work hard to defend. And when you're chasing a little bit as the Oilers were more last night, that's maybe where the fatigue showed up more than anything else. Yeah, there's no great target to defend. Defending is hard. Like it's tough minutes. It's sour minutes, so to speak, because you're not getting rewarded from it. Where when you're cycling in the offensive zone, it's easier to take another shift, another cycle, a couple of extra 20 seconds here. But when you're chasing and you're blocking and you're boxing and you're fighting, those are tough minutes. And then they will wear on you. So again, maybe more so. The fact that Vancouver made them play 200 feet, the high 29 minutes that they played last night where the first couple of games they played, it was a little easier for them because, like I said, they're almost half ice when their Edmonton was that much on the offense. And so the minutes became a little easier for them versus last night where they were back and forth defending, blocking shots, getting scored on. But it's hard. It's hard going into and there's no question about that. Well, you know, and JT Miller was a hero last night and, you know, he's been absolutely dynamite this entire playoffs for the team. But defensively, he's been all over McDavid this entire series. And of course, McDavid still gets his looks. But is he doing as good a job as you can possibly do on Conor McDavid? I think so. I think the fact that you have managed to almost eliminate him in two of the games speaks to the quality of Vancouver House. And again, you mentioned in JT that this isn't a one man job. It's whenever he's on the ice, five guys have to be aware of this. They have to be, you play different. You play different when a guy like that is on the ice. You make sure that you always have higher guys. You're not cheating. You sit back with your third forward. So he has to come through a forward first and then the D so you're not exposing your D's because when that has happened, whether it's by mistake or by fluke, he's blown by creative chances or scored goals. So again, it's again, center on center is a key part of it. But I think the D pairings who've been matched up against him and the wingers awareness of, hey, our shift right now is against McDavid. We're maybe defending more than we go on offense this shift. Throughout our hits with you as an analyst, you know, we've talked quite a bit about Tyler Myers and maybe more not in a positive context. But, you know, he has been unbelievable in these playoffs last night. He's on the ice for all three goals. He led the Canucks and five on five ice time. I know Nikita Zadorov is getting a lot of love and he's deserved it. But I think Myers has played his shut down role almost perfectly to this point. Yeah, because you're not expecting him to go out and score and produce like he did when he was called a trophy. You're expecting to go out and be physical. Good first pass. Clear in front of the net and he's doing that to a tee. And he's not, he's not trying to do too much, which in the regular season, sometimes players can get penalized a little bit on that because, hey, if the regular, I got to, I got to produce a little bit right now, where right now his role is clear cut like they're getting a lot of minutes him and and Susie or whoever it is against against McDavid and you're not supposed to score. They did the other night, but you contain them and we win the game. And they've been doing that really well. So it's great to see. It's great to see guys that have been a little bit under the thumb from the Vancouver faithful throughout the years playing really well and getting recognized forward. And again, it turns into team success. So it's great to see. Well, and you know, it's been the overall team effort with how this connects team is played and last night was an overall strong team game now going into game six in Edmonton. It's not going to be easy, obviously, especially with Edmonton fighting elimination. What's the mindset have to be when you're trying to put a team like Edmonton away, especially when they're on home ice tomorrow. Keep it close. Keep it close. That's all you can really ask for. Those two games in Edmonton, those almost textbook. You come right down to the wire. One shot makes goal kind of thing when the game. That's really all you can ask for. Because at that point, luck comes in. Chance comes in and all these things. And when you have an extra match point, you don't mind taking your chances like that. So, so you want to you want to keep it close. You want to hang in there. You don't want Edmonton to get an easy game and say, OK, yeah, we're we're on the brink and it's an elimination game, but we're up by three or four in the first period. So we weren't really stressed or worried about it after those first couple goals. Make them make them squeeze the stick. Make them worried about making that next mistake that might cost them their season. That's sometimes your best bet as to to squeeze out these elimination games because we have seen in the playoffs here that it has been hard. I think the teams on the brink are five and one. If I'm if I'm not mistaken here, the first one here was was Rangers who finally did it. Otherwise, they found a way to to hang in there, win these games because teams are desperate. And when you're desperate, you tend to try a little harder, work a little harder in order to get the job done. And sometimes it's like we got a matching and saying all the things, but it's easier said than done. And we saw, you know, the Canucks fail in their first try to knock out Nashville in the first round. And look, I mean, McDavid and Dryside are going to give you their best punch here in this game six. It's they're going to throw the kitchen sink at you and you know it's coming. It's just it's really hard to match that level of desperation, isn't it? Yeah, and that's the thing you survive. You survived the beginning, the start of the game first five, ten minutes. Then you get into it and again, keep it close, keep it tight. Of course, if you start scoring, that's great. But in all likelihood, you keep it you keep it as close as you can. Don't get the don't get blown out. Don't make this easy going back to 11. Those games games for five. I think I don't think it was until game six against Chicago. We played a close game against them that overtime when they had. And it was one of those things. If we keep those games close, you might you might close it out. Instead, Chicago felt good about themselves, got up and got some easy games in on them and they got those wins before it really started turning into some tight checking again. You know, you mentioned one goal games. I think outside of one game against Nashville, the loss, one of the losses they had against Nashville, every single game has been a one goal game for the Canucks in these playoffs. And they've had a lot of success doing it, but just how stressful is it to have to play in those tight games as often as the Canucks have? You know, you get used to it and get comfortable doing it too. Because right now you have that belief, the trust that our goalie will make that safe unless it's a fluke play. And then our offense will will come through eventually. So again, it is like it's nice to blow out teams in the playoffs. It just doesn't happen very often. And again, a win is a win, but more than often you're seeing these tight checking games and getting them in under your belt, having success in them means that you're approaching them a little bit different. Or you're not scared about playing an overtime or or late in the third because well, this is how we've been playing all the time anyway. So it's again, it speaks also credit to Vancouver because it's one of the big holes and big floss they've had in the past that they couldn't win one goal game. They couldn't win these tight games where now they're thriving in them. So it's a lot of plus, again, the coaching staff and the way the team has just come around. And listen, none of us know exactly what's going to happen. Still, you still have to win one more game. But one of the things I keep standing out to me and I just want to get your thoughts as a former player too. You're right, the Canucks, obviously, they're comfortable playing these close games. They won these close games and they're also finding ways to win games. You know, like, whether it's tonight, the last night they scored the game winning goal in the last few seconds, they came down from three goals down, obviously, in the first game of the series. Remember, some of the comebacks they had and how the games went against Nashville too in the first round. When things kind of go that way, do you start feeling like, hey, like, things are really going on? We're not to say you feel like you're a team of destiny, but you start getting this feeling of like, you know what, like, things are going on our way. We're working hard. We're playing well and we're getting the bounces. Yeah, sometimes that can turn into that feeling like you feel like you're unbeatable and you always talk about it when these teams are on these streaks. And you hear it from the players in their interviews that it doesn't feel like you can lose, no matter what, because you found a way to overcome so many different things. And that's the confidence. And again, confidence is a funny thing. You can measure it. You can figure out where it is, where it's going to go, but when you have it, you're a better player. When you don't, a lot of tough nights. So it's, again, it's one way to kind of fill that bucket because we're going to go out and play a game tomorrow against Edmonton and we don't know what it has in store for us. Are they going to come out flying? We're going to be down three. Is it going to be zero, zero going into the third? We don't know, but it doesn't matter because we've played all of these games. We found a way to win all of these games. So whatever they throw at us, wherever the game turns out to be, we're comfortable in our own skin, so to speak. What does it say that Rick talk at any time he's been critical in the media or called out his team a little bit seems to get the desired response immediately thereafter? Yeah, I'm sure he's doing that behind cold story. He doesn't strike me as one, but use the media as a way to get to the players. Again, they respond. They respond very, very well to him. Everything he's done from game three and Philly, where he called them out for being, I think it was soft, which is probably the worst thing you can say. And we were talking about all these boys in this button already, but he's got a finger on the pulse. He knows exactly where to push them, what to do, when they aren't doing what he likes, and then he keeps chasing point what we got last night out of them. So again, that's a coach that knows his team and hasn't worn on them yet either. We've seen this in the past too, like coaches after a while, that message stops going through, but it seems like obviously they have a good coaching staff, but sometimes you have a staff that seems like they have different guys that can relate to different players. And it seems like they've had those bases covered. What was the best staff that you were a part of as a coaching staff that you felt like, okay, here are guys that we can get along with, but also guys who respect and they know what they're doing. Obviously, when you have success, that makes it a lot easier. But again, when I came up and we had AV, Newell Brown, Bones, and those guys there, they were touching a lot of different buttons and a lot of different roles. So, Newell was always joking around with you and making sure you felt good about yourself and chit chad and again, Bones was a different way to communicate it. And obviously, more in tune with the D's. So, you were getting a lot of different messages. So, it wasn't always the same guy who was barking at you or kind of patting you on the shoulders. So, it seemed like it lasted so long and I don't think that the message got stale at any point. Obviously, us getting swept by San Jose probably played into why they got let go, but it was a really, really great coaching staff we had back then. Because there were so many different voices, respected and knowledgeable and all these things. And you could give and take from both of them. So, all of them, if you will. So, it wasn't like there was always the boogeyman and always the good cop kind of thing. And that made it that it, like I said, you never, all this guy's coming in and doing this again at us. No, you were, oh, okay, what's coming at us today kind of thing. Before we let you go, I think, Phil DiGisepa with his goal last night confirmed the baby legs are real. Yeah, it must have been, you needed to. It's great to see it again. I didn't know that either, but I guess it just makes the story that much better. Again, such a big goal. And again, from a player, you don't expect it. And then the story behind it, that's what legends are made of. Yannick, we always appreciate it. We'll see if there's more legends to be made with the rest of the series. Thanks for this. Yeah, sounds good. Take care, guys. There is Yannick Hanson joining us here on, on Canucks Central. You know, you know why McDavid didn't look quite as fast last night? It's because DiGisepa had the baby legs and he was just easily the fastest player on the ice. Bro, I mean, there are so many shifts. Like, I turn around, I'm like, who's the hat? Like, he's, it's so fast. I don't know if we'll ever see him skating any faster than he did yesterday, right? Like, we were, like, we were only half kidding about the baby bump thing, but we're like, no, it's a real thing. Like, it seems like every time a player has a kid, the next day, like, they have extra jump. They have extra juice. And boy, did he have the extra juice last night. Yeah, it was, uh, it was special. And that fourth line really gave the Canucks something. I mean, you know, you wondered if, if McDavid and Lafferty might get a look back in the lineup. I know McDavid may be dealing with an injuries. Murph reported yesterday, but, um, with the way that they played last night, it's hard to imagine Rick Talkett makes any changes going into tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, I, I probably wouldn't make any changes. Like, what change, like, on the back end, you're probably not doing anything, right? Up front. The only one would be Ian Cole that I know a lot of our listeners are probably wondering about it. Yeah. Maybe even asking about in the mailbag. Yeah. I'm sure his name will come up, but I don't. I, so the first Edmonton goal, he doesn't get the puck out, right? The first time the PDG gets the puck out against the red line. They change the forwards. The deep air stays out. He gets obvious. He's a bit tired. So you can blame it a little bit on him, right? He'll, he, he kind of loses track of the guys a bit. You can tell his legs are heavy. He was on the PK before it been on for like over three minutes. The first four or five minutes of that, of that first period. So clearly like he wasn't as sharp as he needed to be. But outside of that, I thought he was fine. I just don't know if he's done enough for the coach to take him out of the line. Whether fans or media want it, it's a different conversation. I just don't know if I saw enough for the coach to be like, we have to make that switch on the back end. Still played a big role on the PK last night, which was obviously very successful as well. Dan Reicho, Satyar Shah, the mailbag is coming up next on Canucks Central. Miss any part of Halford and Bruff in the morning? 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