[Music] We're back on Connect Central Danricho Satyarsha in the Kintek Studio. [Music] A lot to keep getting into, our goalie guru, Kevin Woodley, is going to join us. [Music] See some of your texts coming in at the Dunbar Lumber text message inbox. There was a wonder about New Jersey's cap picture. And if Dawson Mercer could shake loose. And there's a couple of teams, Washington, even Edmonton, playing over the cap right now and probably have some things in the coffers that are going to shake out over the course of the summer. We'll dive into more of those. Plus, overrated underrated still to come later on in the program. But let's bring in our next guest in goal magazine, NHL.com. He is our goalie guru every Wednesday here on Connect Central. And he is a presentation of White Rock Hyundai. It's Kevin Woodley, back from Hawaii. I am. I was basically the last WestJet flight before they canceled it. And then about what, a day and a half later, they started up again. So I am knocking on wood counting all my blessings as much as people like to give me a hard time and say that it would have been not a bad place to get stuck. Nobody wants to be stuck. And it's also not a cheap place to spend extra days. So happy to be back in the lower mainland. You'll notice there's no more rain since I returned home. So you guys can thank me for that later. Yeah, I mean, first world problems. I have been stuck for an extra day in Hawaii and like it's not as glamorous as it seems to be. You probably like, you got to figure out a hotel situation that you're just kind of waiting to get on a plane the next day anyway. So I wanted to say that you're right. It's stressful and then like, you know, like I kept out on this vacation, you know, like it wasn't on the team from the start. So adding a couple extra nights, not ideal. Right. Well, I mean, honestly, like the way these air, not to do this airline thing. And I'm not even making a comment on the labor dispute. It's more about how these airlines operate. And honestly, the way they treat people is appalling. Like the stories we've heard about the past few days and people getting stranded for days and not getting answers, not having money to even get a hotel. Like it's really, really the fact to get away with this is like, I just can't believe it. Yeah, and like I said, so I am like on top of being blessed to have been there in the first place and for the record, because I think we teased this before. I did end up doing the cage dive with the sharks. That was fun. So in addition to being really blessed to having to being lucky enough to be there and spend some time there and what a beautiful place and surf and do all that stuff, I am very definitely counting my blessings too. I've gotten home one time for sure because it's, you know, I know a lot of people, you know, like there's professional goalie that I know it was in Mexico and I've been following his trip home after his flight with cancel. I believe it was 42 hours at last count and four different flights after his original flight was canceled out of Mexico. So it's not easy for those that didn't get weren't as lucky as I was. He is Kevin Woodley is our goalie guru. So let's get into what the Canucks did in goal in free agency with Yuri Patera. And there seems to be a lot of buzz around this player and how good he can be. That there is some potential 25 years old was with the Vegas Golden Knights and has played eight NHL games was with the silver Knights last year. What do you know of Yuri Patera and why the Canucks honed in on this player? Well, I mean, statistically he finished those eight games above expected. I know the raw numbers that sort of counting in HL dot com stats may not be as flattering, but he was about plus 0.3% above expected. So relative to the quality he faced in those starts and there were some tough ones in there where he was throwing in. He did just fine. You know, those are numbers that you would take at the NHL level. Those are those are better adjusted numbers in case he finished last year with. But it is only eight games. And so I think you've got a combination of there's a taste. There's an idea and an understanding of what it takes to play at that level. There's an upside that the organization sees a couple of small details. They think they can hone in on to get more out of that upside. But at the end of the day, it makes no mistake. Like this is a guy who is penciled in for the American League. The concept, the idea here is that it's stature and it's our terrors and that if you need somebody, whether it's through injuries, obviously you've seen a lot of that in the past couple of years. This is a guy who can come up and give you some minutes, but in the American League level, he's not going to be demanding all the minutes to manage his game to continue to improve. They're still going to be a place for Nikita Tolopilo and the upside they see in his game. And that's always the risk. You need three guys that can play in the NHL. I don't think Tolopilo is there yet. And that's not a slight in any way, shape or form. What he did in his first year in North America is remarkable. If you consider that curve, that arc that he's on, like it's very promising, but counting on him to step into the NHL next year would be probably asking too much of any goalie with that much experience that's that new to the game in North America. So this gives you some assurance of the NHL level, a guy who can play in the American Hockey League level, but he's not going to get in the way of Tolopilo's development. That's how I think they see this shaping out. Now, I mean performance matters. There's still a job to be one or I would say in see love's case, assuming he gets signed and gets that in order, a job to be lost through training camp and preseason. If you were to show up not ready or not, you know, prepared to play at his best or struggle mightily early on, that could change. But I think the idea here is clearly that, you know, Yuri Patera comes in. Templeton is the number three golden. And in terms of reasonable expectations for Arthur, she loves and say you're a patera in training camp. Like is it reasonable to even look at Patera as somebody that could battle him in training camp? Do you really learn anything in training camp or preseason in terms of which one of these goalies would actually be better in the regular season anyways? Well, you learn much because in the reality is most of your training camp starts for the guys in the two and three hole are in sort of the early games, right? Like where you don't really have NHL rosters in front of you or against you and it'll be interesting to see how they pick those games and how that sort of shapes up because at the end of the day, your starter usually wants two, two and a half and then the half game, it's at least a start, so it doesn't leave much, right? Like, and you typically want your number one guy to have the games towards the end. The home game has got more of a, you know, more of a NHL like roster in front of them that he can read off of. So, I mean, I don't know, I think I put it this way, kind of why I said there's a job to lose in camp and in pre-season, I don't know that you can win one unless you're just like, no way can beat you in scrimmages, nobody can beat you in the pre-season like you take a step and you force a team into a decision, but that would like, that would require an exceptional performance. I think more likely if anything changes, it'll be because somebody wasn't ready, somebody doesn't look sharp, somebody can't find their game early on and that becomes obvious to the goalie coaching department versus somebody just, you know, because if somebody posts a shout out in the first pre-season game and they've got an NHL roster in front of them and they're facing American League shooters, does that really teach you anything probably not? So, with that in mind, like, it feels, well, like some of the speculation has been that the Canucks could still be in the market for a veteran backup. There aren't really a ton left in the free agent market. There's Martin Jones, anti-Ranta, Kevin Langkonen, could you see the Canucks still being and playing in this market to have somebody with a longer track record than Arthur Schillov's to be Thatcher Demko's backup next season? Well, okay, so like anti-Ranta, I believe, approached them at some point through the free agency period about seeing if there was a fit and I don't think they saw that as a fit and I'm not surprised by that. Not from a Kenny player, not perspective, it's more from a Kenny State healthy perspective and when that's already a question mark in the organization, you know, just given the last couple of years for your number one guy, you're not looking to add that, you know, to the death's chart. So, I don't think they see Ranta as that option. Interestingly enough, like, I'm shocked and it's got to be the ask because it's not like he was on a small ticket last year at 2 million. It wasn't, you know, I mean, it's not a ton, but it's not, you know, it's not as small as some of the backups having it. Like, to me, Kevin Langkonen was one of the best options amongst the backups in the NHL. You know, his adjusted numbers, maybe not quite up there with Brassois and Stoller's. The Stoller's had some of the best adjusted, say, percentage numbers in the entire league. Brassois wasn't far behind and had similar per shot numbers to his playing partner, Connor Hellebach. So, those guys were the top of the list, but Langkonen wasn't far behind and he's done it for a couple of years. Maybe it's a size thing. Maybe it's the price that he asked him, but like, I see him as a really legitimate option for the NHL. Do I see him as an option here? No, not unless something changes with what we heard from Patrick Alvin and what I've heard is that for all the talk and speculation and it's out there and questions about Patrick Damsko, he'll be ready for training camp. Like, that's about as much as I've been able to discern and it matches what Patrick Alvin said at his press around July 1st. There do seem to be some questions about where he's at now and whether different things might have to happen between now and then, but the consensus seems to be through all of it that he'll be ready for training camp. If that holds true, then I really don't think they see the need to be in the market. I think it's, you know, and this is kind of how I saw this from the end of the season. You know, our tears earned, looked like a guy who's ready to be a backup goaltender in the NHL, especially when you have, you know, the coaching staff, they do here to keep him sharp playing games. And if you ever get into a stretch where you feel like it's been too long, you can put him in the American Hockey League for a weekend and get him a couple starts. Like, I think they're well set up for him to be the backup here and short of something changing with Themco's health, I don't see them in the market for another goaltender between now and the start of the season. And if they were to be, Lincoln is a great option. And if they aren't, there are a lot of other guys in that sort of mold who have signed contracts that appear to have them destined for number three status themselves, who would be available on the waiver wire ahead of the start of the regular season, you think of the critter creatures of the world, you know, you look at even like a capo cackenin who's going to be in a battle with air commerce to the backup job and Winnipeg, like one of those two guys has to clear. So, but as of right now, I think there's a reason they went the way they did, which was the way I expect them them to go, which was a number three. And unless something changes between now and the start of the season, I don't envision them getting into that market. So should the Canucks feel pretty good about what they have in their organization for next year in terms of depth then? So you have Demko, Sheila, Spatera and Talop below, like having those four guys, does that put you in a pretty good spot then for next year? I mean, I've always said to your ideal depth chart is, you know, a legit number one, like high-end starter, they have that. And then a guy behind new who can give you really good start, he used to say every two weeks, it's probably more like every 10 days now, because we've just seen the workload shift around the league. And then your number three is a guy who, you know, if the situation changes and you don't need that start every two weeks, you need a starter for two weeks or two straight months because of injuries, you got a guy behind the number two in the American League, a younger up-and-comer who has a higher ceiling. I think exactly what they had last year. And it's kind of exactly how it played out when we got to the playoffs. And you can't keep that forever, even when she loves not needing waivers. And so once he's ready to graduate, you know, it's hard to maintain that. So is it as good as what they had last year in terms of what I would consider an ideal packing order? No, because she loves this moved up, and sole appeal isn't quite ready to be that guy in the minor leagues yet who's ready for the NHL. So you have to, I don't want to say settle, but you have to go find somebody who's willing to start in the American League that you see NHL upside in. And they've got a pretty good track record of finding those guys. Like it may not have ended well for Spencer Martin here in Vancouver, but think of the quality minutes he gave him in that first year where he was signed in that role. And so when I talk about Patera and the numbers he's had, he's 25. There's still, there's already a maturity at highly, she's also entertaining as all can be. So I'd highly recommend people check out the Ingol Radio podcast we did with him shameless plug. But there's also like, there's, there's an athleticism and there's a power there that I think that if they feel they can rein it in just a little bit in terms of some of the excess movement in his game, you know, there's even more upside there as well. So is it as good as what you had last year in terms of that perfect packing order? Maybe not quite, but you still have a similar talent pool top to bottom. You've just got two guys slot it in differently and a little less experience in the backup. Well significantly less experience in the backup job, but you know, like she loves has been at his best when he, when he's here longer, right? Like that's been the track record first start two years ago. He as, as he, as he started a few more games, he got better. And I think you could say the same of this year as well, the longer he was up here, the better he got the, I guess the, the constant goal is a conversation around Vancouver with, you know, some of what the, the insiders have reported, Dolly wall and others. I mean, I guess it leaves a wonder about their, their, the team's confidence level and, and Demko, not just being ready for, for training camp, but, but maybe how well he's able to handle, you know, playing 55 60 games again next season. Don't play him 60 games again next season. Yeah, don't, don't play him after the all star break on a pace that, that, you know, it's close to a 65 plus rate, right? Like, I mean, that was the base from the all star break until he got hurt. Yeah, right? Like, so like you can have your, you can have 60 games, but it's not just 60 games at the end of the year. You don't want, you know, month and a half stretches where it's a 65 game pace. And so, you know, that's going to be have to have to be something that, you know, that they avoid. I think, you know, we've seen at this point that playing him too much comes with risks. And listen, like I've talked before about sort of the nature of some of the injuries, how I think some of them are directly related from one year to another. And I think there were some culpability in terms of the previous people in charge of looking after, you know, the health of the number one goaltender that, you know, you, you can ask some questions about how that was handled. But I, but at the end of the day, as much as I believe in the work he's doing, and I know how much better he feels about his body or felt about his body as this season went on, you can't ignore these injuries and you can't ignore the fact that until you've done it, you haven't done it and he hasn't gotten through a season as a number one goaltender unscathed yet. And so that is a fair concern. I know there was all the talk about them shopping in more, in the more experienced sort of end of the pool and that that meant there were concerns about Demko. I don't know if there's a there or there, honestly guys, like I just don't, nobody's telling me other than he'll be ready for the start of the season, he'll be ready to go when it matters. It's a different knee than the one he had surgically repaired a couple of years ago. And yes, the fact that that will now be both sides, the fact that it's been both sides on the hips, like those are, those are a concern. But I, like I said, I, I kind of, I lean to more towards trusting it. And yet I'm not saying that the consternation is totally misplugged. I'm not dismissing it as I guess what I should say. Like, there's a reason so many people are asking this question and I understand that. Yeah, no, it's a fair question to ask. I think we're all kind of waiting. But the action so far have been of he's going to be fine. We'll see if that changes between now and training camp. As far as the rest of the National Hockey League, a lot of movement you did mention about a couple of goalies, Brosoir and Stolars who had good underlying numbers who got new deals. So let's go through who you thought were some of the best and worst signings in terms of goalies. Let's start with the best. Well, I can't, I still can't believe Lincoln then doesn't have a deal. So it's like, like I legitimately think, and this isn't just me like deep diving his game. This is purely using the number and they typically tell a story. And I had him as sort of like when Charlie Lindgren signed that 1.3 times three deal in Washington, you know, a couple of summers ago, I said we would look back on that as the best deal of that off season from a goaltending perspective. And two years later, they've gotten rid of Kemper and he's the number one. I could, I pointed at the same metrics when I said Connor Ingram was ready for a much bigger role. And that if I was a team like Arizona, I would pick him off of waivers ahead of anyone else and look what he's done there. I see Lincoln in the same mold like statistically what he's done the last two seasons. He's a guy who's ready for a bigger role. So I'm a little shocked. He doesn't have a deal. And like I said, I don't know what the ask is. Maybe it's too high. But he is a guy that I would add right behind Stollers and Burswah. I like to fit for Stollers in, in Toronto, assuming with Keith moving on as a coach, they continue to have maybe a better defensive profile than most people think. I think when you add a TANF that sort of leaves both versus the chances of that being true, but you always wonder when there's a coaching change. Burswah, I would like except I don't love the fit. You know, like it's going to be he is going to have to stick with his structure behind a team that plays considerably less structure. Like Peter Marazak had some pretty good results there in consistency, but he has the ability to sort of fly all over the place and make spectacular saves. And I think at times you need that in Chicago because of what they give up. So again, so much changed in the roster in Chicago as well. Is that enough for Richardson to get better defensive results? And that would suit Burswah maybe. But if they play the way they played last year and give up what they gave up last year, as good as I think Burswah is, like he's not in that acrobat mold. He's a very structured goaltender. And that can become difficult when the structure in front of you erodes. And I would expect it to erode a lot more often than in Chicago than it did in Winnipeg last season. So that one, I have a little concern there. The one that let me scratch in my head a little bit was Cam Talbot. As much as I called him almost a breakout candidate last season, going from sort of damage goods and is this guy done, you know, the season before to landing in LA, which is sort of a goalie paradise. And he ends up being an all star and he ends up posting good numbers. When you look at the underlying, so much of that was, you know, like I would make the case it's similar to Jack Campbell when he got the contract out of Toronto. Like a lot of it was the structure in front of him that was very goalie friendly. Nobody had a higher expected state percentage in the NHL last season than Cam Talbot at 908. And 908 for as much as he played is almost unheard of. So again, unless Detroit improves significantly defensively, I was a little surprised to see him get two years when his results are so closely tied to team structure that just doesn't appear to be coming anytime soon with his new team. And so, you know, if he performs at the same level and he did in LA, like he can still perform at that level, but the raw numbers are going to be significantly worse, like 20 points worse, just based on the difference in environment. And so I don't know if paying, going two years and paying five million for what could end up being a sub 900, say percentage, even if he plays as well as he did last year, still be sub 900. To me, that that feels like that was the one deal that had me scratching my head a little bit, to be honest. And that's not a criticism of Cam. It's just, is this a place that's going to suit his game? Yeah, we've all got questions about the eyes are planned in Detroit lately. Trust me, what do they got for four guys now? Sebastian Coza making steps in the minors. And I have no idea where he plays next year. That said, I do know they've been trying to move Billy who so because I've had other people around the league reach out and ask me about him. Final one, John Gibson. I mean, his name has been around trade rumors. It seems like forever. Is he ever going to get moved out of Anaheim into a, into a contending spot? Well, if there was ever going to be a time, it was, I thought it might be this off season. Yeah, because I think for the first time for sure, it's no longer just them looking to make the move. I think he'd like it. Like, I think that's a move that he would not only welcome, but maybe has perhaps even requested. So I thought maybe, but it's a tough year, right? Like tough, tough to do it when, when it's all Mark, you know, your remove from a Vesna trophy is also on the market when Jacob Markstrom, who up until the all, or up until the trade deadline was a Vesna candidate would have been my Vesna favorite up until this year's trade deadline. That's how good he was in Calgary. He's on the market. And they're both making less per year and they've got less term. Like, you know, Markstrom for two years, more years at six, and Calgary retained. All Mark, one year more year at five. Yeah, or John Gibson, three more years at six point four. And from what I understand, Anaheim, not being eager to retain, like that just makes it a tough deal to move. There is, I still believe in the talent there. I know there are teams like, I know one team, I believe they're analytics department gong that I know one team, I believe the goalie coach gong did as a potential candidate. And I just, I still think there's a goalie there. I think there's a lot of questions about the consistency caused by sort of the looseness and how he plays. And yet I believe that some of that, you know, it's less structured the way John plays, it's a little more feel, a little more rhythm, a little more timing. There's been improvements in the technical game, but it's not the strength of it. And so there's always going to be a little more ups and downs with him. But the upside is still there and you can still see it for long stretches too. So I, I'd love to see him behind a good team. I have a hunch. He'd shut a lot of people up. But I'm not sure we're even going to get a chance to see that because the contract, I mean, it's, it's long less not that he has a long go ask pedigree at this point or resume, but it's contract sucks. At least in terms of his chances of getting moved anytime soon, unless the ducks are willing to eat. Woodley, we appreciate all of your commentary through the course of the year with us and shining a light on the goalie stuff that we do not know. And Canucks Central listeners are very appreciative of it as well. Canucks Central is going on hiatus after this week for the summer. So we appreciate all you've done for us this season. I hope you guys get to go somewhere warm and sunny too. Yeah, Vancouver. Yeah. I came back and brought the fun to you. It's lovely. No work guys. Woodley, you're the best. Thanks for this. Thanks guys. Have a have a great summer. We'll talk to you soon. Yeah. There is Kevin Woodley on sports at 650 brought to you by White Rock Hyundai visit the showroom on King George in White Rock or White Rock Hyundai.com. He is Kevin Woodley, our goalie guru coming up next. Overrated underrated on Canucks Central. It's sports net 650. Hey, it's Vickner Zar. Have your say and join me on the people's show with big takes and even bigger bets weekdays three to four on sports net 650 or wherever you get your podcast. (dramatic music)
