[MUSIC PLAYING] We're back on Canucks Central. It's Stanricho Satyarsha. We're here at the KidTech Studio. And of course, Canucks Central is for Enzyme Pacific, Vancouver's Premier Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, and Jeep Superstore on 2nd Avenue between Cambi and Maine, or at EnzymePacificChrysler.ca. We heard from Patrick Allvene. Take some of your texts and comments. 650, 650 on the Dunbar Lumber text message inbox. But it's time for our take on the day's events. It's the Open. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the Open. [MUSIC PLAYING] That's your home. Are you too good for your home? Answer me. The Canucks did lock a room clean out day today, and that's where the focus is and continues to be. So there was a couple of takeaways for me, Sat. I mentioned there, after our exclusive interview with Patrick Allvene, how it looks like they're trying to push Elias Pedersen to get to another level. But it's not specifically just about Pedersen. I mean, Patrick Allvene's sitting there, and he's like, yeah, we finished 2nd round, game 7. That's still not good enough. Practice habits have to be better. Standards still have to get better. It's pretty clear. He's like, for all those fans that are like, man, they still lost. This is a disappointing season, no matter how you look at it. It's like, Patrick Allvene, not that he thinks of that. But he's like, yeah, this was fun, but we still got a ways to go. Well, it's one of those things. You can be proud about the steps the team took the season they had, where they find themselves now. And also be disappointed about how things ended at the end of the season. Again, all these things can be true at the same time, right? And I think he kind of expressed all those emotions. Like, they're happy about how things have gone. They're happy with what things are. But when you're pursuing excellence, you don't stop until you get to excellence. And sometimes that pursuit of excellence continues forever because it's fleeting. You may be not even be able to attain it anyway, right? So you're always trying to be perfect and you can never be perfect, right? So that's that continual pursuit of the perfection and excellence that they have. And that's the right mindset to have. Until you win the Stanley Cup, what else can you do to be better? - Yeah. - And you should never, you know, rest on, hey, we had a pretty good year. Maybe next year they go better for us. Like, that's not a good plan. You know, you should always be real about where you are and be realistic about what you have to do to get better. - It was funny when I talked to Patrick earlier, one of the first things he said is like, I'm okay. I'd rather be in Dallas right now though. (laughing) 100%. I mean, honestly, when they were, how disappointing do you think they are, disappointed they are, that they had a chance to win in, they were up three, two in the series. Like they're up three, two in the series. Like, I think that the feeling would be different if the Canucks lost us in seven. And let's say that they were down three, one, they battled back or-- - Game six was such a dud. A lot of game seven was a dud. - Yeah, or like if Edmonton went up three, two, Canucks made it three, three, then lost. Like, maybe that would take the sting away a little bit. Like, hey, you went back and forth, but the fact that you had two chances and you didn't close it out, like that's disappointing. Like the players themselves, I'm sure are gonna be beating themselves up a lot over the course of the offseason about how they had two chances to beat Edmonton and they did it. - What did you make of the practice habits comment from Patrick Colvin? - You know, first thing it made me think about was something that Rick himself mentioned about the team of practice habits whereas the end of the season about, hey, there's more we can do. And when talking about Pedersen two, he's like, hey, sometimes it feels like PD over the course of a long season is taking it easy in practice, not because he's being lazy, but just because he's using that as like, as maintaining his energy levels, right? Don't push too hard and practice, save it for the games. And he's like, you can't have that mentality. And I think that's something that the coach is alluding to. And I'm not saying about Pedersen, but I think the coach himself brought up a couple examples about players using practice time to get better and not conserving energy. And then when you get into conserving energy mode in practice, that's when you get into some trouble, right? And it's easy to do later in the season 'cause you're more tired, right? Like it makes sense why you do it. And he even said like it makes sense in your head why you would think that way, but it's not productive. - Yeah. - 'Cause then your habits aren't great. Again, like if you go, I remember in any sport that you play, but I remember one of my coaches in basketball would get mad at us after we stayed and started shooting around for too long after practice. And 'cause your form gets a little bit off when you get tired, right? And it's like, why feed into bad habits? Why feed into bad technique? 'Cause now you're doing things when you're tired. So instead of doing that, like have a concise amount of time, say 15, 20 minutes, and go hard and then get off the ice. You know what I mean? That's when the coach talked about it. It's like sometimes it's not about being out there for two hours, it's about having 20, 30 minutes of real intense work, good work, and then getting off. And I think that's a level this team can mature into doing in the second half of the season. - Well, and I think a lot of it even starts again in the off season, it's so cliche. But this team had a long way to go from where they were before this management group and coaching staff took over. And I think what's obvious today is there's a feeling that they can still get to another level. - 100%. And somebody's texting in, he's like, well, if he's not satisfied, Alvin, you should have landed a top six winger at the deadline. Well, he took responsibility for that too. And now with you and your conversation with him, but the media availability, he mentioned about Ilya Mikayev, that Ilya Mikayev was playing alongside Patterson because he didn't do enough to find somebody else better than him to play ahead of him. And he mentioned that he wishes he would have been able to add a top six winger at the trade deadline. Like he took responsibility too and saying, hey, it's my fault why a player is playing out of position and Ilya Mikayev and the expectation was for him to score and he wasn't able to do so. - He said, if we had access to more assets in cap space, we would have looked to add another scorer. - And he did. - Yeah, and they've also spent assets in cap space to get to that point, right? But it's true, it's not like this organization had a ton of those assets coming in to the new regime's tenure. - They would have been willing to spend more assets. It was more about the cap space when it came to the March 8th deadline. - Yeah, and they traded away a lot of picks. And ever since they came to Vancouver, they traded picks. Now they brought some in as well, right? But they've traded draft picks. And there's only so many you can trade. We got to the point where we were going through it. We're like, well, if you trade next year's first, now you're looking at not having a first round pick in three out of four years, not having a second round pick in four out of five years, and that starts adding up. You can't just-- - That's an issue the previous regime got themselves into. - Right, well, the Connect spends quite a bit already, and they just couldn't do any more. - And weren't willing to pass up on their top, top prospects for a rental. So you were really, you know, you didn't have anywhere close to what Pittsburgh was looking for for Jake Genssel, and you didn't have the cap space to get Tyler to Foley. - Yeah, for those wondering. So Dan spoke with Patrick Alveen. You played that interview at four o'clock already. If you missed it, you can go back to podcasts and listen to it a bit later on. But for those wondering, you know, 'cause they thought Alveen's on right now, no. He was on already. Dan did a pre-tape interview with them earlier today, and we played it in the last segment. - Mia Culpa, there was a little bit of a communication breakdown between us and production staff as the tweet went out, so I know a lot of people might be listening in now because the tweet went out with 4.30 as Patrick Alveen's slated time. We ended up playing it right off the top of the show and deciding not to hold on to Patrick Alveen's comments in our earlier pre-tape from today. But yeah, so it'll be available on podcasts, so don't worry. You can always take a look back at it, Canucks Central on the podcast feed, that way you never miss any edition of the show, any of our exclusive interviews, or any post-game shows during the course of the season. - Yeah, 100%. And getting back to that point though, and we were talking about what Alveen was saying about habits to having to get better. It's like, it's one thing you have to make the team better, but in terms of what you can control, yeah, what can you do better there? 'Cause there's only so much you can do in terms of player acquisition sometime in injuries, like those things happen, but things that are within your control, how do you get better? And the Canucks took a lot of steps in the right direction this season, especially with their habits, but he mentioned practice, that still has to get better. And the coach mentioned some focus at the end of the season. He said, when he met with the media earlier today too, said, in the second half of the season, he's not sure the players understood what it would take to win down the stretch. - Yeah. - You know, that it's something that they're still learning. And we saw it obviously go fairly well in the playoffs in the first round they won, and it took Edmonton to seven, but understanding that that's a sense he got, that, hey, we had great focus, but I'm not sure the players quite understood when we got into the second half of the season, how difficult and challenging it was going to be. - The first half was easy. - I mean, it wasn't-- - Relatively speaking. - Relatively easy. - Like it went so well for them, right? - It did. Everything went right, you know, there was hardly any adversity for them early in the season. Power play was scoring like crazy. They scored a ton of goals off the rush, even with the limited chances they were creating. Everybody was getting their points. And then January, that continued after the all-star break. The schedule got tougher, and it really, really started to show up in the results, and that's where things started to change a little bit for this team. Now, they were still good enough to close out the division, so they did that. But, and I mentioned this to Patrick, you think about Quinn Hughes, you think about Alias Patterson, and a lot of this core group that, yes, limited playoff experience simply just in the bubble playoffs in Edmonton in 2020. They didn't have to close out that season. They were even reeling then a little bit when the pause came in during that 2020 year, right? They looked like they were going to be a playoff team, but the ship was taking on water towards the end of the season, and then bang, the COVID pause hits. So they never had to go through the stretch when there's teams fighting for playoff spots, fighting for playoff positioning, and all those types of things. And also, of course, they had more of a target on their back when it came to the second half of the season than they did maybe early on in the season. So those are some of the learning experiences. And I think from, did I get to hear what I wanted to hear from management? Like I was surprised Patrick was as open about wanting to see the standards increase from the group. But then there was Rick Talkett saying, you know, I think last year we spent a lot of time on structure and already looking ahead to training camp, maybe this is where we start to develop our offensive game a little bit. As that was clearly part of the issue that popped up in the second half of the year, and certainly in the playoffs how limited the offense was, how maybe that's where they need to find another level in their systems to be able to have more success. It's not, of course, a lot of it comes down to player personnel, but there's things that the coaching staff feels they can do better as well. - Of course, and I think that's, you can't expect accountability if you're not accountable yourself. - Yeah. - And we were having the discussion yesterday about what can the Canucks do better? And we spoke about creating more off the rush. And we mentioned how much of it comes down to systems play, how much of it comes down to personnel. That's something that they're themselves have to kind of figure out. But within their system, there's still opportunities for them to do more off the rush. But to his point, you can't just say, well, no, we know what we're doing, we're fine. You have to be, you know, you have to be honest enough and that's a come to hubris to think that you have everything figured out and go through everything and really take the deep dive he mentioned to understand what worked, what didn't, and can we make certain tweaks? Is it tweaks or is it personnel related? And how do we generate some more of that stuff, right? But I think it's obvious, like you want to be a bit more prolific in your chance generation and your ability to get shots through, right? And that's something they struggled with throughout the second half of the season, especially the shots. But in the playoffs, we all know how difficult it was for them to generate. - It's very easy to just say, we need to go out and get a top six winger. You know, what if Jake Genssel wants to sign somewhere else? - Yeah, it's not as simple as like, "Hey, we need to go get a top six winger." Like, yes, you've got to do that. But also, like you have to understand that some of this has to come internally as well. - For sure. And he mentioned they want to leave some space for a couple of guys to come up from the minors. But that's really on the forward front, like on defense. Like, yeah, I'm not expecting them to sign too many depth D-men types. Maybe another Matt Erwin type that can fight first spot or whatever, but most likely going to the A-H-L. But yeah, to see like, you expect Julesin to be here next year, whether it's the sixth defenseman or the seventh defenseman. So would Breezewa be your eighth, probably? - Yep. - That's what you would look at it. Or if Julesin's playing six, maybe Breezewa. - I have one left, he won, righty, yeah. - Maybe Breezewa's your seventh or something, right? But on the forward group, that's why when we talked about this yesterday, I'm only expecting them to truly sign two fours that would be everyday players, as long as they don't trade anybody off the roster. 'Cause you still want to leave spots for our steep pains. Vasily put Colson, right? All two raw two potentially. Liena's Carlson can one of these guys emerge next season. But, so those are gonna be the guys that come up from underneath. The free agent markets, it's going to be interesting because you're right, like if Genssel and Reinhardt and Stan Host don't get there, right? Or go elsewhere, don't want to play here. Do you look at a veteran type, right? Like a David Perron, you know, the job of Elsie is a free agent, might be a little bit long in the tooth, but Marsha so had a big year, and he's in his mid-thirties now. Shorter to Foley. Now I don't know if Tofoli wants to play in Canada or not. - Yeah. - Toilet with Terevainan is another player, right? There are guys, even Matt Duchain who had a resurgent season. Like there are guys, right? Even on the lower levels like Zukar and Debrask, like there are a bunch of free agents available. It just depends on which avenue you want to go down. And that wouldn't be shocked but if they don't get the Genssel types, they still want to add a winger, that they look at one of those veterans. - Yeah. - Go a shorter term with one of those veteran players. And I don't think that's a bad idea necessarily. It buys you some time for Lakerra-Mackie potentially to become a player down the road. - Well, and you want to be able to do kind of what they did this year. It's like, well, we don't have to do it all right now. Like let's make sure we're good enough. We get some of our work done, but also like in season we can make some moves too. - Yeah, and that's what-- - And we can pounce on moves too. - And that's why I love the Cole and Blooger signings. I mean, they cost five million combined, almost 4.9 to be exact, but it's one year. - Yeah. - And they filled spots. Now, no Cole struggled towards the end, but Blooger had a good year. Cole provided on the totality of things, very solid top five defenseman value for most of the season. First round against Nashville was good, obviously struggled against Edmonton, right? But yeah, you're getting credible players to help you but you're not committed to them long term. And that's something, there's so many different ways to go about this off season. And I think that's why they're pretty confident. They will be able to address it. The question for me is, will you be able to address your winger issue long term or just short term? But it's being addressed. - Yeah, it's clearly a priority. On defense, you know, there's a lot of work to do there, but we'll see how it plays out. You have Tyler Myers, you have Zadorov. I don't know if you're gonna be able to bring everybody back. You're probably not gonna be able to bring everybody back, but Myers mentioned, you know, he's in love with playing in Vancouver. We know that even from reporting away from, from what Myers is himself talked about publicly. I think one of the bigger questions is Dakota Joshua here. And, you know, it wasn't a direct question about Dakota Joshua, but Patrick did say, you know, like, yeah, we've got us and our scouting staff. We gotta kind of have the job of finding the next Dakota Joshua. And he was just using him as an example, right? Because he was a great find for the team. But I think we all understand, like, this is a player that is going to be sought after. And it's also a player, like, for my personal opinion, you gotta be careful about paying too much to. - Of course. I mean, Dakota Joshua's great at less than a million dollars. Is he great at four million bucks a year? Like some are speculating. I think the speculation has gotten out of control to be quite honest with you. - It has, but I mean, yeah, how much of that is true or how much of it is admitted to media making it up if you ask the door off. - Yeah. Well, that too. But it's almost like when the Canucks signed Myers and everybody's like, this is gonna be a $42 million contract. It's like, what? When it ended up being 30 million? - Yeah, I mean, it's still a lot of money, but it wasn't quite as bad. It's like, remember JT Miller's like, the Canucks are gonna sign JT Miller nine times eight. There's no way he's taking less than nine. Then he takes eight and seven. People are still like, oh, it's a lot of money. Well, not the 70 million we thought it was gonna be, right? - Yeah, so it can be a little bit different. I do think some of the Dakota Joshua speculation has maybe gotten a little bit out of control, but-- - And I think generally for most, like even the Zadora thing where you mentioned if somebody offers six times six, like is it really gonna be six times six or is it more like five times five? - Yeah. - It's still a lot of money. They'll get me wrong. - Nobody thought Eric could branch and was gonna get four by four from Columbus when he did. - No. - Right? So there's always room for somebody to get a little bit funky in free agency. And you gotta account for that. But chances are, the projections that analytics companies put out about these players tend to be pretty close as to where they end up getting paid at. And I think Joshua, while he is a priority, is somebody you gotta be careful about spending too much money on. And that's where you've gotta trust in your scouting staff and what you do as a front office to be able to replace those players when they go. Because that's the delicate balance of the salary cap replacing your secondary core players when they get priced out of what you're doing in your current market. - Yeah. And honestly, like if they could get Dakota Joshua signed for like three million, like that's fine. - Yeah. - Now I wasn't sure I wanted to do that before this season. When we talked about to Joshua, I was like, hey, if you get him a two and a half or something, that'd be cool. I'm not sure I wanna go three. But the way he played, I can see three million. But like he's gonna be a player that's gonna frustrate you if he's gonna score at the same level he did this year. And now he was close to 40 points, right? Like he had a good year. But let's say at half a point per game and let's say 18 goals, like you're gonna be frustrated if he's gonna paid over four million. Now look at Mikayev, now Mikayev had a really tough year, but he still had like 13 goals. His point totals weren't terribly far off from where Dakota Joshua was. Now Joshua played fewer games because of injuries, but you see the grief Mikayev is getting. So unless Dakota Joshua is producing 20 goals and 45, 50 points every year, making four million plus, there's gonna be a lot of frustration about him. And I think that's where the team finds itself. The question is, it's easy to say, find the next Dakota Joshua, but the reason it's so hard to do is 'cause it's hard to find the next Dakota Joshua. Like teams always talk about these things, but it's hard to do, right? - Oh, the size speed profile is very, very, very few and far between, right? And I've been looking at trying to find some players that fit that profile. And it's hard to find. - Yeah. - You know, like it's, you find guys are six foot one maybe? Like six, three, six, four and above? Like it's hard to find the combination. Like the closest thing I've found, there's a guy who's 25 years old. It's six, five, 227 pounds. It's gonna be a free agent this year at the age of 25 because you will be a group six free agent from the Buffalo Saber system, Brett Murray. But he's like, can I have below average and speed and doesn't get there quick enough, right? So it's like, find a guy that can skate the way Dakota Joshua can and score like he can, despite not having a lot of experience is hard to do. 'Cause the ones you find are usually lacking significantly, either with the hands area or the speed area. - It is Dan Richo, Satyarsha. This is Canucks Central. I did want to, for a second mention this because it is breaking news related to the Vancouver market. Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Sergio Busquets did not travel with Inter Miami to Vancouver for Saturday's match at BC Place. They are not injured, they are out for rest purposes. Inter Miami has two games next week before Messi joins Argentina for Copa América. And that's where things stand. From JJ Adams, its official team is giving 50% off in stadium food and a kids meal voucher to all U18 ticket holders for those that spent a pretty penny to be within and amongst a record-breaking crowd to see Lionel Messi play at BC Place. - I enjoy going to white caps games and look forward to going to them. The reason I need buy tickets for this game is this exact reason. - Yeah. - And I really wanted to go, but I'm like, is he really gonna play? I don't think he is and I can't, I just don't want to get my hopes up. - He's nursing a knock. All Messi cares about right now is Copa América and playing for Argentina and winning another trophy. So tough. If you purchase those tickets, I feel bad for you right now. But that is the risk you take when hoping to see Lionel Messi play on the Astro Turf at BC Place. Dan Riccio, Satyarsha, sports at 650.
