and for the show. We're in the Kintech 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 CA. Kintech Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five star Google reviews. Soar feet. What are you waiting for? I don't think the weather could have been a more perfect metaphor. Metaphor for how many Vancouverites are feeling today. Yeah, it was kind of melancholy and it fit in perfectly. You know, I woke up this morning, opened up the blinds and it was like 930. I woke up late because I got home really late. It was still very dark out. It was like, wow, it's like, it's only nine. I thought it was like, you know, like five or something. I was like, all right, all right. And it fit perfect. You know what? I guess the sun's just not shining today now that my Canucks are done. I actually enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed it. It let me wallow a misery for the couch for a fit in the morning. I get it. I get it. And it was heartbreaking loss. The Canucks with a valiant effort to close the game. Of course, full post game show available on podcasts as it always is the final post game show of the season. Oh, that hurts dagger to the heart to say that. But you know what? I know we'll get to it a bit later on, too. But I know you rewatch the game, too. And it's always interesting when you rewatch it with a sober eye, isn't it? Yes. It really is. It's kind of like, it's funny when you rewatch something, even like Anchorman. I remember not liking the movie Anchorman the first time I watched it. And people kept talking about it. And it was like, oh, man, you got to watch it again. You'll find it funny. Trust me on this. I was like, okay, I was bellowing laughter for the entire movie the second time I watched it. That's funny how that works. Even Napoleon Dynamite. This is the stupidest movie I've ever seen. And now I quote it on a daily basis. And you watch it again. I'm looking at Napoleon Dynamite because it was all the rage, right? Watch it the first time. I'm like, this is the most ridiculous movie ever. And then I happen to watch it again with a buddy who had it on. And I just couldn't stop laughing. And I was like, wow, all right, all right, now it makes sense. Tina, you fat lard. Come get some dinner. All right, it's time for the open. Welcome to the open. That's your home. Are you too good for your home? Answer me. The Canucks lost in seven games, heartbreaking fashion, three, two of the admitted Oilers last night in game seven on home ice. Couldn't close out the series after having a three, two series lead. And we'll talk about the game and spurts over the course of the show. It will definitely come up. We're going to have our fun guitar and we're going to have Randy Janda. But as for the open, it is about the latest on the Vancouver Canucks and what is to come. As you know, you listen to Canucks Central for inside info and much more. So what is it now, Sat? We know the Canucks will speak on Thursday, but where do they go from here? You know, this is probably not going to be something people like to hear. I don't want to say this as if there is comparison player for player on each roster. Personally, I do think the Canucks are better than this team I'm going to comp them to in just a moment. But from a results standpoint, where you sit today is really not too different from where the Seattle Kraken found themselves last year. In terms of taking a big leap and then having a number of free agents and a team that was going to be assuredly different the next season. Taking a big leap. Now, the Canucks were favored it in their first round series, unlike Seattle was last year. But, you know, you go up against a tough team in the second round and come up just short, valiant effort, but you come up short. And now you've got to look at yourself and it's not just about how do we maintain because we punched above our weight this year. But how do we get better from here? And that ultimately has to be the question that you use to guide your decisions as the Vancouver Canucks over the course of this offseason. Because, yeah, we had a lot of good players. We had a lot of acquisitions we made this year that have helped us get to this point. But it's clear there's still another level we've got to get to to be a realistic Stanley Cup contender. Absolutely. And I think this year obviously was a big success and we talked about how successful the season was given to, given what the expectation was going into the year and what they ended up accomplishing, right? And the most important thing, honestly, is gaining playoff experience, especially two rounds of playoff experience, getting 13 games in this type of atmosphere and a couple of things. I think the value of the players understanding what hockey means to this market truly in the playoffs was eye-opening, something to a man they spoke about. You could feel the emotion in the room last night. Yeah, you were there. Whether it was Miller who caught himself a little bit when talking about it, but even Garland. You could tell and you could see the emotion on the players. Not just hear it in their voices, but you could see it and feel it coming from them. They realize now what it's like to be in a real Canadian market that loves hockey and breeds hockey, right? And that's a huge, I think a huge benefit because now they understand and I think they appreciate being here even more and I think it's been eye-opening for a lot of people across the National Hockey League in that regard. But for the players themselves to understand what it takes and what else they have to do to get above where they've been. And this year, so that's been a huge success, but this year was also a unique opportunity. The Canucks saw it with the cap space they were able to open up with the Elver Ekma Larson buyout, which meant if you're doing that, you should be aggressive this season because now you have some space. And the other thing that the reason you should be aggressive was it was a pretty wide open year. Going into the season, you looked at some teams and you said, you know, they're not 32 teams in the National Hockey League. There isn't a lot of depth on the best teams. Like, there are some good teams, of course, but you start going through every roster of two by man by man, player by player, you realize, all right, they may have a good, you know, top six, but they kind of fall off after. Maybe they have a good top here on their back end, then it falls off, right? And you ended up realizing it's pretty wide open year. So I think they took advantage of a wide open year this year and made some short term moves to try to do as well as they could. And they did, right? They got to the second round. So I think that was a great way of looking at it. I think you have to look at this off season as you have all this cap space now, you have improved assets as now you have to build something that's sustainable for a four to five year window. And in that vision, you have to be very careful with how much money you spend on players who were here this past year. You got surplus value on a number of contracts this year. Massive surplus value. If you start paying those players market value, you're not getting that. You're not, which means you got to start finding a lot of cheap young players to give you that extra value, which means the team's going to kind of level out ceiling wise. And I think that means don't expect a lot of these guys to come back. And I think organizationally from what I can gather talking to people is they're going to be pretty ruthless with how they approach things this off season. Ruthless is in, hey, Dakota Joshua, we love you, but we're not sure you're worth that kind of a number that you might get in free agency. Same goes for Nikita Zadorov. Even, you know, Tyler Myers as good as he's been and sure as an elder player, maybe he is willing to take a little bit less. But, you know, for a right shot defense, when it's been as good as he has and the playoffs still has the size and mobility that was showcased in the postseason and a meanness that he can bring. Like, I'm sure there's a lot of teams that could be interested in Tyler Myers. So, like, it's, it's not as though the guys you want to keep are going to come cheap. Even the guys that might be at the higher part of your priority list, like, those guys might be the ones that can also get a bigger number in free agency, so they're, they're going to be more difficult to keep. I think what the Canucks would, I believe, would be willing to do is, if you're looking to pay a bigger price, it's for a higher end player. So, if you're looking to, you're either going big or you're going home. Well, the only high end player among them, for me, is Elias Linholm. Right, and now with him, I think that they are keen on bringing him back. It's just how realistic is it? And I think that's dependent on what his market looks like. I think the Canucks are interested in bringing him back, but if you can get eight or more million somewhere else long term, there's, like, there's some decent players in free agency this summer. Not a ton of centers. Right. And so, Linholm is going to have a pretty good market to play with this summer. Yeah, and I think the Canucks are also on the lookout to add a real quality winger. Mm-hmm. We know the guy they try to trade for at the deadline, Jake Genssel. Free agent this summer. If he gets to the market, the Canucks are going to be interested. That makes sense, right? Is he getting to market? We'll find out. I think for those types of players, they'll be interested in, like, they'll be there and trying to convince the player to come over, and that means you've got to fork over a lot of money and be, and be willing to do that. I don't know if they're willing to do that on a lot of the guys who are free agents internally, right? Like, they love Zadorov. They love everything he's brought. I think they love to have him back in the room again. But I don't think there's going to be a sense of mentality of, like, you know what, let's just give him whatever he wants because we've seen how it works. But I think there's a fear of, if you start paying him 6 million per year or more, if he's looking for a Myers-type of contract, 6 times 5 or 6 times 6, is that wise to do? And I can't see this front office doing something like that. Well, there's already speculation of Nashville being interested in Nikita Zadorov. They traded away. Ryan McDonough today are going to look to add back onto their defense, and obviously they got a good look at Nikita Zadorov in the first round playoff series. But the way I see this is like, yeah, you as a fan, you probably fell in love with a lot of these guys. I mean, who didn't love what Nikita Zadorov brought outside of the shot block, the perfect shot block on JT Miller in the dying seconds of Game 7? Dakota Joshua has been brilliant. It was kind of like Mr. Game 1 for the Vancouver Canucks scored a bunch of points in Game 1s. Did not love his game in Game 7 last night, but that's the way she goes. Still had a great season. It looks like a player just finding himself, even in the latter stages of his career and has a speed size profile that is very unique around the league. Those are the two besides Lindholm that are probably the biggest question marks because, yes, in a perfect world, you'd love to keep them. But did their success for your team during this run put them in a tax bracket that's probably just too rich for the Vancouver Canucks to be in? I think it probably will be at the end of the day. Unless those players are willing to take it a little bit less to be here, I can't see it happening. And this is completely something that I'm basing off of speculation around Joshua, given his season with the Vancouver Canucks and how he performed mostly in the playoffs. But I'm watching him last night, and the thing I kept saying to myself is like, "You can't pay this guy $4.9." If that's going to be the price, that's a number that's just too rich for me for Dakota Joshua. And it may not get there, but that's what some people believe he might be able to command on the open market. Yeah, and I don't know if the Canucks are going to go to that type of range, right? And I think for him, this is going to be his one chance to get a big time contract. 28 coming off a great season. Hasn't earned any real NHL money yet. Like he's had, like he's making 850K. There's a lot of money for most people in the world, right? But by NHL standards, he hasn't had his 10, 15, $20 million contract, but he hasn't received anything close to that yet. Got a lot of screen time being on a Canadian team during a playoff run. Yeah, he's not getting any younger, right? So it's like this is his one chance. So the temptation to test free agency is a two grand, and if it is, it puts the Canucks in a tough spot, right? Because I don't see the Canucks matching the highest offer, for instance. It's going to have to be something that they would have to work towards. Same thing with Zadorov. Like you mentioned Nashville. Yeah, Darren McFarland, who works out of Nashville. And this guy's tapped in. He knows what he's talking about. If he's bringing up Zadorov, I don't think he's just bringing that up. You know what I mean? So I think it's an indication of he's certainly a player on their radar. They played against them in the first round. They know what he's all about. Like he's pretty dominant against Nashville, right? And I can see how they're enamored by it. That's a team that needs lefty defense. They have a lot of righties, believe it or not, right? Like they've, you know, especially if they hold on to all their guys and bring Carrier back, for instance. It's just one of those things that if somebody's looking to pay him six million plus, if he can get that somewhere else. Yeah. Overterm. Again, I don't know if the Canucks match that. And that's where it gets tough, right? And I think that's where they're going to be ruthless. Like I don't think they're going to match the highest offers for these players out of sentimentality or out of the idea. We have to keep this team together. I think they have a big belief in the structure that they've built and the program they're building in Vancouver now. They look at talk at how the team is playing. They believe that if everybody adheres to the structure and the staples, that they're going to be in games no matter what. And they have an idea of what type of players will fit in. And they're not going to overspend unless it's quality players for guys that can fit in and play roles for them. I think that's how they view team building. So guys like Dakota Joshua and Nikita Zodorov, they're great players. But if you view them, if you don't view them as super high-end guys, they're not going to outbid teams. So they're going to have to work with the Canucks in terms of agreeing to contracts perhaps below market value for it to be able to work. You have just to go off of the core that was mentioned when they started the season when Quinn was named captain. The core four is Quinn Hughes, Elias Pedersen, JT Miller, Thatcher Demko. That's the core four of the Vancouver Canucks. And not to say that they don't value other players on the roster very highly. But basically those are your untouchables and everything else is movable around them. And I think that's a way, as you mentioned, a lot of teams operate around the league. You still have Quinn Hughes at a very good number for the next three seasons at under $8 million. You've got Demko at $5 million for the next two years with She loves coming as impressive as he was during the course of this run. So you've got those as your foundational pieces. Everything else is not necessarily plug and play. You need some other staples, some other core pieces, secondary core pieces like Brock Besser and others. But that's essentially who you're building a team around. They went into last summer. It's like Teddy Blooger, Sam Lafferty, Dakota Joshua. All those guys, well, not Dakota, but Ian Cole. A lot of guys they brought in on these one year deals, even Casey DeSmith, hit well for this team. You've got to go out and do that again. And that's partially why I made the Seattle Kraken comparison. Because, like, yes, your foundation is what gets you places. It's what can make you a perennial playoff team. But how well you move the pieces around them each season can determine what your ceiling is as a team. And having flexibility. And that's why going for some shorter term deals, some gambles along the way isn't a bad way to go. And we looked at the series, for instance, against Edmonton. The difference was the high end players for Edmonton were better than the Canucks high end players. But the Canucks need maybe one or two more higher end guys. That was kind of the thing that she's made about last night. It's like you didn't lose to McDavid and Drycidal in Game 7. No. That's like, there was like Evan Bouchard was their best player in Game 7. Yeah, Cody C-C. Sorry, I got off track. But I was just like, I was thinking about that for a second. And it was just like, man, I thought if the Edmonton Oilers were going to win Game 7 was like, okay, McDavid and Drycidal just go supernova. But that was not the case last night. And they still ended up losing. I got caught off track. Still bitter. I hear you. But I think it's going to be a really interesting off season because they want to bring back as many of these guys as possible, obviously. But if they're in a certain type of tax bracket like you mentioned, it's just not going to happen. The difference with Seattle is they don't have enough high end talent. The Canucks have more high end talent. But again, would you rather spend $6 million on Zadorov, $4 million on, or let's say $5 million on Zadorov, most of our arguments take us, I'm going to be that high. And spend $4 million on Dakota Joshua, right? And say $8 million on Philip Hironic. Or would you rather say, bring sign of Jake Genssel and a couple other guys instead? Yeah. You know what I mean? That's a type of player you can look at. And I think the Canucks will see what happens and whether they think they can get a high end player like that. But I think that would be more intriguing to me, at least, as opposed to overspending and bringing everybody back here this year. The Hironic one is going to be super interesting. He is a restricted free agent, so the Canucks do still own his rights. But, you know, as we've talked about, that number is going to be a very tricky one for the Canucks to figure out. He had a great first half of the season, scored last night in game seven. But otherwise, you know, had a pretty underwhelming playoff playing through something for sure. But fairly underwhelming playoff, fairly underwhelming finish to the season. Yeah, and I know Dolly Wall mentioned today that his camp is still looking at $8 million as being the number. It's not, I don't think that's happening in Vancouver. Now, we'll see who softens their stance, right? Right now, everything I've heard is there's no way the Canucks do that. And like I said, about the whole ruthless thing, I don't think that's fake. Like, I think the Bo Horvat situation is a perfect example. They had a number and arranged for Bo that they wanted to keep him at. They tried. Didn't work out. They moved on. And I think it's the same way they're going to be approaching things here, right? They have certain guys that they want to sign. Let's say Lindholm is the top priority. It's not going to work. They're going to move on. Now, do they get to a position where they may move some of these guys for comp pick, for a draft pick? Like, I saw Megan not mention NHL needs a comp pick formula for the NFL. Like the NFL has. You can't do that. But if you can trade some guys ahead of free agency, if you know you're not going to sign them, you can get a fourth, a fifth, maybe a third, even. Like, Seaberson went for a third last year. Yeah. Now, Hironic's different because he has value still, right? Yes. I think if you're moving Hironic, you may not get a first and a second, but you're getting a first and something. Yes. Right? So even, you can even view it as if you get a first and a fourth or a first and a third, that's the cost of renting him for a year and a bit. Yeah. And you'll take that for the season the Canucks had this past year, right? You still have an asset that has value. I can't see the Canucks paying him eight million. Like, I don't think they want to trade him. We had Patrick Alving in our show saying they made him an offer they thought was fair. Yeah. They want to keep him. It's just, again, it's a range. And if they're not going to fit that range, they're going to move on. Like, I don't think this is going to be a front office that's going to bend over and give teams what they want, players what they want, unless it's a guy they believe they have to keep no matter what. And I don't know if they view Hironic like that. Yeah. I would say Hironic is hard to replace as a right shot defenseman in his age group with the level that he can play at. But who are we kidding? This isn't an eight million dollar defenseman for as good as Philip Roanick is. I'm not sure I view him as that kind of a player. But even, you know, Sam Lafferty, I think that one's kind of an easy decision with the way that he finished the season and a little less said the better there. Teddy Blueger, I think was a very interesting player, solid for the Canucks for a lot of the season, helped the PK immensely. But end of the day scored two goals in his final 47 games. And his best spot ended up being on the fourth line. Yes. So he was a guy that filled the third line role and he was marvelous alongside Garland and Joshua. Yeah. And him in and of himself isn't going to elevate anybody, right? Like he's a fourth liner that can play on your third line. We prefer to have him on the fourth line. Yeah. Right. And with a player like that, for instance, what's the range? If you can get him back at the number you paid him this year, okay, sure. That makes sense. Because I mean, you can have him on the third line, but at the end of the day, you can still have him as a valuable player as part of your long-term future. But is his market going to be two and a half million or more per year? Like, I don't know. Is this not happening in Vancouver? If the David Kampf contract is out there for him or something like it, at least the number, the average annual value, then that might be something that's, I mean, it doesn't seem like a lot. It's like, what, 600,000 more than he made this year, but still, every penny is going to count when you're trying to maximize the salary cap for next season as the Vancouver Canucks. We'll get to your texts. Erfan Gafar is going to join us. We'll keep this conversation rolling. And what is next for the Vancouver Canucks? He's probably got some intel as well on some of the injuries players were carrying through the course of the postseason. Jan Prote, the leaders in commercial cleaning and janitorial, if your workplace demands a clean environment, contact Jan Prote for a free, no obligation quote. Visit janprote.ca. You are listening to 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 week days three to four on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING]
