(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Canuck Central Friday, it's Dan Reacho, Satyar Shah here in the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five star Google reviews. Or feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec Central is for Enzine Pacific, Vancouver's premier Chrysler, Dodge Ram, and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Canby and Maine, or at EnzinePacificChrysler.ca. Sat, how you doing? I know you just came off like a 24 hour shift doing the Kintec Central Post game show. - Yeah, I'm great, I'm great. I mean, we'll peel back the curtain. I am working from home today, so I am a little bit tired, but I'm good, man, I'm hyped, I'm excited. You know what it is? One of those things, Reverend, like kind of like a zombie all day, but as soon as we start getting to the showtime, you get ready to go on air, you get hyped again. And here we go. - Well, why wouldn't you get hyped when the Canucks have just opened up a three, two series lead on the Edmonton Oilers, and have put Connor McDavid and Leon Dreyseidel on the brink of elimination. It's a pretty wild scenario we find ourselves in right now. Get in on the action, get in with a comment or question, $6.50, $6.50 on the Dunbar Lumber text message inbox. Let's get to the open. - Welcome to the open. - Oh, that's your home! Are you too good for your home? Answer me! - I don't want to be the one to sit here and pat ourselves on the back too much there, Sat. Could be hurtful, great Green Day song, one said. You pat yourself on the back too much, you might break your spine, but I'm going to pat myself on the back anyways. And really this show, because we've talked about JT and how good defensively he can be. And I think it's showing out more than ever in these playoff, as many have pointed out, Connor McDavid had one of his worst playoff performances ever. Last night, at least by underlying metrics, has four games of one point or less in this series and has the one four point game, which was in game two for the Oilers. But other than that, I mean, the world's greatest player has been kept in JT Miller's pocket for much of this series. - He has, I mean, he has four points, even strength through five games, so it's not bad, right? He's got a couple points on the power play as well. - That's less than a point of game. That's a win against McDavid. - You'll take that, right? He has six points in five games. And by McDavid standards, that's good. Are you kept at a point per game? - He's a dash one, whereas JT Miller is a plus four. And I know plus minus isn't the end all be all and it can be a flawed stat. But I think in a series where it's been very difficult to score five on five, the defenses have been playing super tight, collapsing from their net, not giving up a ton of scoring chances, not giving up a ton of quality looks. I think that kind of tells you how good JT Miller has been against McDavid, and it's not just been him, right? We'll talk to Yannick a bit later as well. And there are a lot of people that are helping out in terms of slowing McDavid down. But JT is the guy who's getting the biggest load out of any of the other four. It's facing Conor McDavid. And so far, through five games, JT's won that matchup. - You know, I think part of this is, and I'm Italian. So, you know, I know a little bit about this. It's maybe in our blood, the dark arts of defending. - Oh, yes. - And I know that'll probably cheese some Oilers fans. And it has cheese some Oilers fans. You know, you clip a little spot where, you know, off of a face off, JT gives Conor a little extra cross check or he holds him up just long enough to slow McDavid down, but not long enough for the referees to call the penalty on it. You know, he's really well versed in the dark arts of defending during the Stanley Cup playoffs. But, you know, that's kind of what you have to do against Conor McDavid. He is the best player in the world. You've got to be able to find your edges somewhere if you are the defending player. And I think that is something JT has done brilliantly in this matchup. - He has. I mean, he's battling him so hard. There was that one battle along the boards. I think it was in the second period. Actually, the third period, it was him and McDavid going head to head, McDavid threw a big hit. JT's, you know, pushing against the boards. He's giving him a bit of an elbow, giving him a bit of a shot. Like, it hasn't been easy for McDavid. Now, the thing I'll say is it's five games, right? And as much as the Canucks have a one game lead here in the series and can win it in game six, it's far from over. And all it takes is McDavid to have his two best games late in the series. And we're having a completely different discussion about, okay, how did this matchup truly go? But all you can really do is put yourself in a position to be a win away now from going into the conference final. And with the way they've gone at McDavid, you saw Tim Peel, the disgraced former official, I would say. - Yeah. - And I mean, and people have opinions about him too, and how he behaves on social media. However, he did drop a bit of a nugget today on Twitter, saying that Conor McDavid is pretty banged up. He's pretty hurt. He expects the play, but he's got to deal with some injuries here. And I know people talk about how conditioning-wise, it's not a problem for McDavid playing 25, 26, maybe even 30 minutes, some games. The issue to me is not the cardiovascular work that you need to do to me. It's like you're spending 25 to 30 minutes a game every single day out there. And every single shift somebody's giving you a shot. And at some point, does that break you down a little bit? - Of course, you can't convince me that part of last night's lackluster performance as the Oilers have put it, and I listened to Leon Drysight a little bit today, called their O4-5 Power Play last night, a lack of sharpness. What can be a big factor in a lack of sharpness, Sat? A lot of times it can be fatigue. And so there's no way of knowing if fatigue is, like for sure, if fatigue is playing a part. But I 100% do believe that taxing McDavid in the way that he did early in the series, now blocked it, is playing a part now. And the way the Canucks have played both McDavid and Drysight is playing a part. But more than anything else, what played a part last night in them showing that fatigue and maybe not having the juice to play on the offensive end as they did in prior games, was that the Canucks played a more complete game. They spent more time in the offensive zone. Drysight was on the ice for three goals against last night. He had to defend quite a bit. And when you're having to do that, it can be just as taxing as playing 28 minutes with the majority of it cycling through the offensive zone and playing fun hockey, like they did in probably games two, three, and even four to a certain extent. Absolutely, right? And it's a lot of pressure hockey too. They went from a first round series where there was really no close games. And we talked about this too, heading into round two. It's like, hey, the Canucks essentially played one goal games. I know games where it decided but more than a goal against Nashville a couple of times. But it all came down to an empty net goal being scored, right? It came down to the last minute and there was a push until the very end, even overtime. And that's something that Edmonton hasn't really been dealing with. And now you're dealing with this huge intensity through five games. And every single game has been decided by a single goal, right? And no point in this game outside of when Edmonton had the 4-1 lead early in game one, that it seemed like any team could breathe for even five minutes. And when that's the way the game goes on, that means every single inch of ice, I know we talked about this in the playoffs a lot, but hey, every single shift, every single second, every single inch of ice is being contested, it's a battle to get through it. I think that's been truer in this series than any other series has seen in the playoffs so far 'cause every single game has had almost every single moment be up for grabs. - And that's essentially what Rick Tockett-Hocky has embodied for the Vancouver Canucks. And I think J.T. Miller sort of leads that charge for Vancouver in the way that they play. And it was funny, my iCloud storage is running out and I was running through some old videos today to try and like clear up some storage space. Don't worry, there's a point to this. I'll get to it in a second. So I'm looking through like what the heck is on my iCloud storage and there's like all these videos I've saved for later, like keeping receipts kind of thing. And I found the Steve Dangle video where he calls J.T. Miller the worst offensive player in the national hockey league. - Yeah, you should be honest, you should quote to beat that and drag him, do it. - And I was just like, man, these are things that really happened 12 months ago or a little bit more than 12 months ago, maybe it's closer to 18 months ago now, but whatever time is fluid, I still can't believe that those were things that were happening. And sure, it's kind of the highlight world that we live in sat where you see a snippet of a player making a mistake and J.T. was piling on, bad highlight after bad highlight for a certain amount of time in the ladder stages of the Boudreau era, I guess we could say. But if you watch the entirety of those Canucks games, you still see J.T. Miller trying to play the right way. But when you're trying to play the right way in such a chaotic environment, it's not going to work out. And that's what the Canucks had at that time. But molding Rick Tockett's structured hockey with J.T. Miller's matured want to play a more sustainable style of hockey, the right way of playing, playing on both sides of the puck. Like that's why we're seeing J.T. find his ceiling as a player, not just at the offensive end, but we're seeing him flourish at the defensive end as well. - And I think in the playoffs, like so I think when you watch J.T. in the regular season, he has done a good job defending overall. I don't know if you look at the metrics and the shot numbers and the scoring chance, the financials, they were not as kind to him. But one thing that was kind to him was he was taking a lot of the tough minutes, he had a lot of tough minutes all season, and he was a plus player. And I know again, like plus minus, it can be a flawed stat, we push back against it quite a bit, and it is with how your team overall plays. But I think once you get to a point where you're going head to head against the other team's top lines consistently throughout the entire season, and you're sitting here when the season is over being plus 32 in the regular season, I think that tells you quite a bit about how you fared going head to head. And I think when you look at it from the traditional numbers, I think this team in general, and we've seen it at times in the playoffs too, they're very comfortable letting you have volume from the outside. What they're not going to give you is certain things across the middle and give you the East-West passes. So at times you'll watch 80 during the season and you can look at the numbers and say, "Well, you know, he was on the ice for four scoring chances, but six against." In his course, he was 45%, like, "How is he a good defensive player?" But you stack those games and you realize other teams weren't scoring when he was on the ice. So what's your job when you're playing the other team's top lines? Well, of course, you want to tilt the ice in your favor, but the main thing you're trying to do is prevent that team from scoring. And it's not like JT hasn't produced even strength this season, right? Like we're talking about one of the most prolific players five on five this year. He had 61 of his points playing even strength, 25 goals, even strength. So what does that tell you about how impactful he still was going as a two-way player? So I think his overall defensive game has been underrated. Now I know somebody's text again and saying, "JT is the greatest defender in hockey. "They need the greatest defender to go head-to-head "against the best player and he means best defensive forward." I'm not there with JT. I don't think that's how good he is, but I do think his overall game has been underrated defensively. You're seeing that value in the playoffs, especially considering how much he has to battle every single inch of ice against Conor McDavid. It's been, and it's just fun to watch. It's especially fun to watch live to see how they've shadowed McDavid. Not just JT, a lot of it is JT, but whomever's had to do it, shadowing McDavid and making life incredibly difficult for him. And I think it does play a factor into the extra fatigue of the series. And one part of last night, not just against McDavid, it was also against Dreycidal. And really through the lineup, the Canucks were able to roll all four lines. And I don't know if we've really seen that outside of maybe game one in this series where Rick Tockett has really been able to dictate the way the game is going. And last night, because you got a lot out of your fourth line, baby legs, Phil DeJazep is scoring a goal. And then having a lot of energy shifts through the course of the game. The Garland line, maybe it didn't always have a ton of success, but they really grew as the game went on. And Garland was continuing to just be an absolute pest on the forecheck whenever possible. And of course, Lynn Holman and Patterson together. Finally really started to, it started to bear fruit. We saw maybe Patterson's one of his best games of the postseason. Holglonder almost scores a goal. Like there was so much about last night where it felt as though the Canucks found their ideal lineup. Maybe at least their ideal lineup to go up against this Euler's team. I think with the way Patterson hasn't been playing, he hasn't played all that effectively up until last night. I think against Edmonton, this probably is your ideal forward group, because of how much better he looked and how well he played with Lynn Holman. I know Holglonder had a couple moments, and I can't believe that chance he missed and hit the post. And perhaps Pickard got a bit of a skate on it too, right? But nonetheless, that's a huge-- You got a little piece. Enough. Dining piece. I know we had somebody text in yesterday being very upset about how we make some soccer references. I have another one for you. You don't want to go, he makes a finger save, and the ball just hits the post and goes off. And the soccer, that's a great save, because he did enough to get that ball to hit the post. And you can say the same credit there to Pickard, but nonetheless, great chance, Holglonder didn't finish it or whatever. But against Edmonton, and especially with how that fourth line looked last night, I think this is the best way to go, because you saw the best version of Patterson. Maybe it's going to be different in a different series, but right now against Edmonton, that was her best game, 5 on 5 by 4 last night by the Canucks. Josh, I know you were clamoring for a lineup of-- or similar to this, if not exactly like this. Maybe not with Podkolz and Omon on the fourth line, but you were advocating for Patterson to get moved up to Lynn Holmes line. The fruits of my labor right here. Rick Tock had saw that tweet. He was like, you know what, this is a smart kid. That's cooking. He's cooking. And it worked out very well. Honestly, I think a lot of it was just to do with, like, Patterson kind of just needed a change, too, because he'd just seem more confident from the get-go. And I don't think that's just because he was like playing on the wing or whatever, because he had new line mates. I think there was kind of a reset with him and Tockett, and that helped. You know, it's funny, I was looking up a couple of different things today, aside from clearing out my iCloud storage. I was looking up a couple of statistics, line statistics. And of lines that have played more than 50 minutes together in the postseason, Suder Miller-Besser is third best with a 68 expected goals for percentage. Holglonder-Peterson-McKayev is actually fifth. And I think this might be a reason to remind everybody that sometimes expected goals are not real goals. So you should always take even the underlying statistics with a grain of salt, especially from the public data. But for as much as, you know, maybe they were getting some chances, they were falling on the Kayev stick. Last night, it felt like chances are falling on to Peterson stick more often, playing in a more offensive position. Playing with Linholm and being able to be more of a shoot-first mentality than a facilitate mentality. It worked out for Peterson. And it looks more like a player that, hey, he didn't score last night, but, you know, if this continues, if this continues to trend this way, we'll probably see some production there in the not-so-distant future from Elias Peterson. I didn't love his game entirely, but it's a step in the right direction for Elias Peterson. And, you know, this lineup with the way Linholm is playing with how smart he is defensively. It just-- it felt like you're getting more out of that line. And the dry side of the line, because he's playing with a couple of wingers that, you know, either a young guy or a van der Kain when he's not getting bumped around, because he's been mostly ineffective in these playoffs. You know, that-- even that line with dry side, like, there's a lot of heavy lifting he has to do if he's going to go up against a line with the type of talent that Linholm and Peterson can bring. Well, it makes it a lot more challenging, right? Especially when Peterson was a non-factor for the most part, and none of his line mates were finishing chances anyways, there was no worries. Like, they didn't need to worry. Peterson found himself out against DeHarnay and Kool-Ai quite a bit, and I think Edmonton didn't care about that, like, whatever, fine. Like, we're not worried about this. Now you have to worry about it. And as much as, yes, Linholm was with him, and I think that's one of the reasons why Peterson was better, but going back and watching a lot of that game last night, from the first shift Peterson played, he looked far more engaged. Just look at the way he's skating, right? And look at him on the power play, the first opportunity the Canucks had. I mean, he's going with speed, attacking fast, and one time the puck had knocked off of him, he did the same thing the next time. I don't want to see him lose that vigor that he played with last night. Like, he played like his hair was on fire. Every single shift, he was skating as hard as he could, right? And he was making plays, like the one he made a play at the blue line where he made a nice stick handle play, put the puck between his legs, gave himself a beat, fired across the ice pass, to create a bit of a half rush opportunity, he was driving towards the blue line, he was pressuring guys, he was creating scoring chances, he was getting shot on goal, like he was the most engaged we've seen in this playoffs by far. I know we've talked about, he's had some games before and been like, "Oh, is this maybe Peterson's best game? Does it look like he's close?" That was a performance you can look at and say, "Okay, that's a player that we know can be a stop and superstar guy who's going every single shift playing like his life matters." And that's something we saw last night from Peterson. And I'm sure his line may have played a big part into it, but the way he was skating last night, maybe it's just a boost, maybe it's the fact that he felt embarrassed about how things have gone, but that's the Peterson we've been waiting to watch. And I hope he can repeat that performance tomorrow. - We'd like to think that the Let's Go PD chance had a factor in it too. And both he and Rick Talkett mentioned how nice it was to have that going to pick him up. But on the power play, he got off a one timer early in one of the Canucks' first power plays of the game. I think they're first power play of the game. And I was like, I don't think I've seen Peterson get off a one timer as cleanly as that one in this entire play, like even the goal he scored on, he kind of whiffed on it, you know? So it was good to see that from Alia's Peterson as well. We'll keep that going. Yannick Hanson is going to join us as well. Quickly on the Canucks Central Roundup. Oilers won't commit to a starter in game six. Now, Pickard made a ton of saves last night. And I think he made a lot of good saves. But I know there's a lot of people out there that are like, well, yeah, he made a lot of big saves, but his positioning wasn't always the best. You know, he got beat clean by Susie on the glove hand. And I, given that, I don't think it's surprising that the Oilers didn't commit to a game six starter. Yeah, and I would imagine they go back to Skinner, but I'd love to see them go back to Pickard again. 'Cause I think he's one of those guys that, not that I'm saying he's going to lose his confidence or whatever, but I think the Canucks will be able to get to him a bit more as a series goes on. And I think there are certain flaws to his game that we'll get exposed. So I'm kind of hoping for the Canucks to win it in game six that they have Pickard playing, but I would have to imagine they go to Skinner, don't they? I don't know. I think they're that out on him already. I feel like they're definitely going Pickard tomorrow, to be honest. For as much as Pickard maybe like positionally didn't look all that strong at times, and yeah, you're right, Seth. Like if you give the Canucks enough looks at this guy, they're probably going to find more holes on him, but I think they lost a lot of confidence in Skinner. Well, if they're not playing Skinner, I mean, this is an Edmonton Oilers show, but if you're not playing Skinner tomorrow, what's the point of having it as a goalie next year? It's a great question. Now you've got Skinner and Campbell. Figure it out, new guy, and take it over for Ken Holland. - Godspeed. Well, and that's the thing, right? I mean, we'll see if he's even going to be there, Holland, right? There's some buzz that he might end up with the Columbus Blue Jackets. You know, we've seen that kind of floating around on the past couple of days or whatever it is. But again, like, hey, nobody here, that's not an Orler fan cares what the Orlers do this off season. But to me, if you're not going to Skinner, that thing that creates bigger problems long-term, not that long-term matters, you're trying to win a hockey game. But man. - Well, if the Canucks close out this series with the 3.2 lead that they currently have, you better believe they're going to have, they're going to provide the Orlers with a lot of questions about the current era that they currently have and this current group that they have given some of their playoff shortcomings in years past. I do want to get into this before Yannick. We'll talk to this with Yannick as well. But Tyler Myers led the Canucks in five on five ice time last night and in those minutes, the Canucks outscored Edmonton 3-0 set. I know we've talked a lot about Zadoraov, but just because Myers isn't scoring big goals in these playoff, doesn't mean he can't be one of the Canucks' most valuable players to this point of the postseason. For me, that's what he's been. I mean, he's just been an absolute horse back there for Rick Talking. - Well, and one of the things that we were talking about, hey, should they start loading up the Quinn Hughes a bit more, right? And I think last night was kind of the game of like, okay, you see how Edmonton's been leaning on their top guys, you see the fatigue, my blue shard makes an uncharacteristic mistake behind the net right now. Hey, it's a great pressure by Omon, but that's not a play that you see a defenseman like him usually make, right? Coughs it up and then PDG scores. - They all kind of stopped playing when the, they thought it was offside, you know? - Yeah, well that and also there were a lot of times in that third period where they had a hard time getting out of their own zone. They looked like the Canucks in Edmonton where the flipping pucks out, they have plays to make, but they're too fatigued or too much under pressure to make the right play, right? And so to me, like the fatigue factor seemed to be a problem there last night and now you can understand why the talk it was so adamant on like, our advantages are depth. So why overplay any of our guys, right? And the other part of it is, if you are going to play Quinn Hughes so much more, is it worth taking Myers off the ice for that long when he's been that good and effective? And I can't believe we're saying this, but you kind of don't want to do that. You kind of don't want to overplay certain guys because the way Myers is played in front of his neck, especially him and Susie, like those guys have been stellar for this team defensively in these playoffs. - Darnell Nurse, 72 minutes time on ice at five on five and the series has been on for eight goals against. The Canucks have 11 goals total at five on five. It's a pretty remarkable stat, but it goes to show which areas of the Oilers roster the Canucks have taken advantage of and one of them is very much their nine and a quarter million dollar defensemen. Yannick Hanson is going to join us. We'll get into the game and preparations for game six with the former Canucks, Yannick Hanson. That's coming up next on Canucks Central.
